[ { "id": 204398, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "NESTORIAN CROSSES\n\n21\n\nNestorian community in his letters, and their king George, whom he converted from Nestorianism to the Catholic faith.\n\nThe scattered references to the Nestorians in the accounts of the friars are confirmed by Marco Polo (1271-1295) who with his father and uncle can represent for us the second group of travelling merchants. Everywhere through Central Asia and China Marco found Nestorian Christians, usually in the service of the Court, and probably more often than not of Syrian, Persian or Turkish race, employed as administrative officials by the alien government on account of their high standard of literacy.\n\nMarco Polo also confirms the existence of a Nestorian Christian tribe with their Christian king George (whom he confuses with Prester John as Odoric also does) at the Yellow River bend. It seems likely that the name 'Tenduc' which he gives to the region is the early pronunciation of T'ien-tê which was an old name of the present city of Kuei-hua{ in that region, near which is the important market town of Pao-t'ou in which Mr. P. M. Scott found the first fourteen crosses of our paper. Similarly the Tozan of Odoric may be identified with Tung-sheng, an early name for the same region. The Christian Mongol tribe situated by the Ordos bend of the Yellow River is known from various sources to have been the Onguts (Wang-ku people), to which Marco Polo refers, though confusedly, in calling their king Ung-Khan.\n\nThese facts are confirmed in a remarkable way by a Syriac document describing a pilgrimage of two Eastern Nestorian monks—one an Ongut, the other of Uigur stock—from their monastery near Peking to the seat of the Nestorian Patriarch in Mesopotamia in A.D. 1278. In the course of their journey they visited the Christian Ongut tribe by the Yellow River bend, and from them received a touching farewell.19\n\nIV. NESTORIAN RELICS IN CHINA AND MONGOLIA\n\nWith the expulsion of the Mongols from China at the fall of the Yuan dynasty in A.D. 1368, the Christianity both Nestorian and Franciscan that had been associated with their regime disappeared.\n\n17 Letters of Montecorvino, see Yule, op. cit., and Moule, op. cit., pp. 171 ff.\n\n18 Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, revised by Cordier, London, Murray, 1903.\n\n19 Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, London, R.T.S. 1928.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204399, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "22\n\nF. S. DRAKE\n\nappeared also. But a number of relics have come to light from time to time, such as the crosses which are the subject of this paper, confirming the statements of the travellers.\n\nThe first great discovery of Nestorianism in China is a relic in fact of the T'ang dynasty, long before the Mongol era commenced, the famous Nestorian Stone Tablet of Sianfu, which was erected in A.D. 781 and describes how a group of Nestorian missionaries from Syria or Persia reached the capital of China in A.D. 635; it describes how a monastery was built for them by the Emperor and recounts the fortunes of the Church and its off-shoots until A.D. 781 when the monument was erected. The name given to the foreign religion is Ching-chiao'** (The Bright or Luminous Religion) and the text is composed in classical rhythmic style imbued with Chinese traditional religious thought. The script is an example of the masterly calligraphy of T'ang times. This and other later discoveries show that the T'ang Nestorians endeavoured to express their faith in relation to the intellectual and religious environment in which they found themselves. In addition to the text in Chinese the names of the foreign monks are engraved on the sides in Syriac, and on the head-piece above the title is engraved a Greek Cross similar in shape to the bronze Mongol Crosses we have been considering, with three circles at each end, and circles at the angles between the arms, no doubt indicating flowers—the blossoming Cross. The Cross stands upon a lotus, Buddhist symbol of purity, at each side of which are Taoist symbols, the ling-chih, or fungus of Longevity.\n\nThe Tablet of Sianfu was discovered in A.D. 1623, and through the interest of Chinese scholar-friends of Matthew Ricci, who had died in 1610, it was identified as a Christian relic. Through the same interest attention was called to three other Crosses engraved on stone (probably tomb stones), which had been seen by Chinese Christians in 1638 at Ch'üan-chou (Marco Polo's Zayton) in Fukien. Wood-cuts of these were printed in a publication on the Sianfu Tablet in A.D. 1644.20 A fourth stone cross, similar to the above, was found at Ch'üan-chou and photographed in 1906.21\n\n20 See Moule, op. cit., Figs, 9, 10: Diaz, Inscriptio Si-ngan Fou, 1644. 21 Moule, op. cit., Fig. 11; and Ecke and Demiéville, The Twin Pagodas of Zayton, Harvard Univ. Press, 1935, Pt. 70b.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205110, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n61\n\nYangtse basin. The national Chinese state of Sung therefore tried hard to defend Hsiang-yang against the invading Mongol forces, and the town was besieged for five consecutive years (1268-1273). The engineers who built catapults for the Mongols came from Baghdad and had such unmistakably Muslim names as Ala-ud-din and Ismail. This disproves the story told by Marco Polo, that it was the Polos who distinguished themselves by constructing the artillery used against the fortifications of Hsiang-yang10. Another technological field in which Muslim engineers excelled was hydraulic engineering. In Yunnan, a Chinese province that was incorporated into the Chinese-Mongol empire as late as 1253, the governor was a Muslim from, it seems, Turkistan, by the name of Sayyid Ajall Shams-al-Din. He did much for the irrigation of the K'un-ming basin, works that still survive today.11 The eternal hydraulic problem of China, the Yellow River, came, at some time under the Yüan, equally under the supervision of a foreigner; a Persian or rather Arab called Shams (1278-1351). He is the author of a treatise on river conservancy, the Ho-fang 'ung-i \"Comprehensive Explanation of River Conservancy\", published in 1321. The grandfather of Shams had come to China in the wake of the Mongol conquest of Arabia and settled there. Apart from hydraulic engineering, Shams is described in his biography as having been an expert in astronomy, geography, mathematics, and musical or rather acoustic theory. He had not yet lost the cultural ties with the homelands of his forefathers, as so many other Westerners did once they had come to China, but was still interested in what the Chinese biography called \"books of foreign nations\". In this case, Arab or Persian literature is certainly meant. But, ironically, the biography of Shams has been incorporated in the section reserved for Confucian Learning in the Yüan dynastic history! It is a matter for regret that of all the works he wrote in his lifetime, only the treatise on Yellow River conservancy has survived. The list of the books he wrote is tantalizing to read because their titles reflect a lasting interest in Western (Islamic) scientific thought, and their contents would perhaps have enabled us to see more clearly the interplay of Chinese and Near Eastern science.12\n\nThe largest group of foreigners in Yüan China were, however, not the Arab and Persian or Syrian scientists but merchants from the Near East. Transcontinental trade flourished under the Mon-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208020, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN, 1946\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS*\n\nIntroduction\n\nThe purpose of this paper is to record some experiences of a truck journey in early 1946 from Chungking, the wartime capital of the Republic of China, to Yenan, the Headquarters of the 18th Group Army, the Chinese Communist Party and capital of the Kansu-Ninghsia-Shensi Border Region, and back. This three-truck convoy carrying medical supplies was the first delivery to take place for a period of about four years, and a very brief review of the political background is perhaps required to set the scene.\n\nFollowing the Sian incident of December 1936, there were moves towards a united anti-Japanese front between the Nationalist Government (Kuomintang) under Marshal Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists (Kungchangtang). This was followed on July 7, 1937, by the Marco Polo Bridge fighting and the start of the Japanese invasion of the heartland of China. In this period, there was a nominal united command of Kuomintang and Kungchangtang with Marshal Chiang Kai-shek as Supreme Commander. The New Fourth Army, based in Anhwei, had been formed from the Communist guerilla groups left behind in Central China, but friction developed between this and the Kuomintang forces, and in January 1941, it was attacked in South Anhwei and partly destroyed. This marked the end of the united front, and the Kuomintang re-introduced the blockade of the Liberated Areas under 18th Group Army control. These Liberated Areas were basically the provinces of Kansu, Ninghsia, Shensi, Suiyuan, Honan, Hupeh, Hopeh, Shantung, Anhwei, Kiangsu, and Jehol. Much of these areas were also under Japanese occupation of the cities, railways, and roads, but the countryside was effectively under the control of the Liberated Areas Regional Councils.\n\nThe reintroduction of the blockade meant that a proportion of the Kuomintang troops were engaged in this exercise rather than\n\n* Paper delivered to a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch on 31st May, 1977. Mr. Reynolds is head of the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212322, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 264, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "241\n\nengaged in business in Canton, Macau and Hong Kong well before the middle of the nineteenth century. Crawford, who joined T.A. Lane in partnership, was a humble stores clerk.\n\nAfter the attempt to poison the expatriate population by putting arsenic in the bread, in 1857, Lane and Crawford established a bakery in the 1860s. They also conducted auctions. Later the two men built a wharf, started a towing service with a 35 horsepower launch, and initiated the port's first fresh-water supply. In the early 1880s these water-boats were placed at the service of the Government when there was a serious drought. This branch of the business was later merged with the Union Waterboat Company which continued to operate until after World War II. Lane Crawford's bakery and coal yard went on trading until the early 1960s.\n\nThe company opened its six-storey Des Voeux Road department store, opposite Alexandra House and designed by architects Leigh and Orange, in 1905. (This was demolished and a new building erected in 1926). Departments included ship's chandlery, grocery, outfitting, hardware, furnishing, upholstery, tailoring, millinery and musical instruments. Anything was said to be available from a pin to an anchor. Business prospered and branches were later opened in Shanghai, Yokohama and Kobe. Eventually, these were taken over by independent managements.\n\nIn the last decade of the twentieth century Lane Crawfords in Hong Kong caters for the affluent local community, and the emphasis is still on quality products. The staff are mainly Chinese. This contrasts with a Lane Crawford staff group photograph taken in 1904, of European shop assistants and floor walkers, on a beach. The 33 members mostly wore long, one-piece swimming costumes, and several sported walrus moustaches. They were said to have been accommodated in splendid quarters. (Another European firm of drapers and outfitters that operated in Hong Kong until the 1960s was Whiteaway Laidlaw).\n\nToday, Lane Crawford is a part of the Wheelock Marden Hong Kong Realty, Marco Polo Group. It is a comparatively recent acquisition of Y.K. Pao's Wharf Company although it has a longer history than the parent company and other associates.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 } ]