[ { "id": 205147, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "98\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\n43 Reichelt quotes a warning by the late Ming monk, Hsi-ming, against \"being deceived into joining the Catholic church or some other outside sect,” and states that it was often reprinted (Truth and Tradition in Chinese Buddhism, Shanghai, 1927, pp. 157-158).\n\n44 It was in 1920 that Reichelt first proposed an \"institute for special work among the Buddhists.\" He wanted to make contact with monks whose hearts were filled with bitterness towards Christianity because some Christians were \"so fatally lacking in a sympathetic and gentle attitude towards others.\" It was to be \"a half-way house\" with many of the features of a Buddhist monastery, including a wandering monks' hall, a meditation hall, a bell tower, a crematorium, and a hall for the aged. See K. L. Reichelt, \"Special Work among Chinese Buddhists\" Chinese Recorder 51.7 (July 1920), 491-497. When it finally went into operation, under the name of the \"Christian Mission to the Buddhists,\" in the autumn of 1922, it had only a \"very small, semi-foreign house.\" After a year and a half, it moved to somewhat larger quarters which included a dining room, where vegetarian meals were served, and the all-important \"pilgrims hall\" where monks were allowed to put up for three days (as they would be at a Buddhist temple) and stay longer if they were interested in serious study. The layout was \"just as in monasteries with two long platforms where they can spread their bedding, and, above them, shelves where they can place their things. Between the two platforms, there is an altar with an incense burner and two candlesticks and above all an impressive crucifix.\" Even more significant was the arrangement of the chapel, to which they were summoned for worship twice a day (as they would be in a monastery) by \"a Chinese bell with deep tones.\" The altar was of red lacquer \"in a true Chinese style,\" adorned with gilt designs that included the following: \"the lotus lily symbolizing the purity, the fire, and the water of the cleansing spirit” (but also, of course, symbolizing the Buddha Amitabha and his Pure Land), \"the swastika of peace and cosmic union\" (but also one of the Buddha's sacred marks and a general symbol for Buddhism), and the cross over a lotus, which was the Mission's emblem.\n\nJust as in a Chinese temple, plaques with parallel inscriptions were hung on the walls. One bore a quotation from the Gospel according to St. John: \"The true light that enlightens every man has come into the world.\" The other legend was more Buddhist in flavour than Christian: \"[Join in] the great vow compassionately to help people across to the other shore\" (ta-yüan tz'u-hang).\n\nThese efforts to make Buddhist monks feel at home attracted a large number of them as visitors (about a thousand annually) but in the first four and a half years of operation, only seventeen male Chinese were converted and baptized. See Notto Normann Thelle \"The Christian Mission to the Buddhists,\" Chinese Recorder (September 1927), 571-575. A photograph of four of the Buddhist and Taoist novices, whom Thelle says were enrolled in the boys' school opened by the Mission, appears in the Chinese Recorder 54.11 (November 1923), facing p. 671. When the permanent headquarters of the Mission were constructed at Tao-fung Shan in the New Territories of Hong Kong during the 1930s, the approximation of a Buddhist monastery became almost as close as Dr. Reichelt had originally envisaged it. Some missionaries were afraid that he was being too broad-minded in his use of Buddhist motifs and even that he might be fostering a kind of Buddho-Christian syncretism. He and his colleagues maintained, however, that their only purpose was to \"lead these people into a living faith in Jesus Christ.\" (Thelle, p. 571).\n\n45 Maha Bodhi, 41.3.4 (March-April 1933), 133,\n\n46 Most of the information on Chao-k'ung up to this point is taken from David Lampe and Laszlo Szenasi, The Self-made Villain, London, 1961.\n\n47 Victor Purcell, The Chinese in Southeast Asia, London, 1951, p. 47.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205759, "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-1969", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n59\n\npart of further studies of militia, both within Kwangtung Province and elsewhere in China. It is possible that the approach to militia used in this article could be applied to other, more significant, military organizations as they existed in nineteenth century China. For example, recent studies of the regional armies of Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang indicate that they were, initially, amalgamations of local militia forces.78 A more detailed analysis of these militia could contribute to a greater understanding of the particularistic relationships which appear to have been important in maintaining regional armies as viable organizations over relatively long periods of time.\n\nNOTES\n\nThis article is based upon research in Hong Kong between 1963 and 1965. I am grateful for the financial support provided by the London-Cornell Project for East and South-East Asian Studies. A number of colleagues have commented upon the subject matter of the article during its various stages of preparation. I would particularly like to thank the following for their advice: Dr. Christopher Turner, Dr. George C. Bond, Mr. James Hayes, Professor Maurice Freedman, and Professor Göran Aijmer. A draft of the paper was read to the Sociology Seminar, School of Social Studies, University of East Anglia. I am grateful to my colleagues in this context for their comments. Place names will be rendered according to A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories, Hong Kong Government Printer, Hong Kong, n.d., but published 1960.\n\n2 Brine, Lindesay. The Taeping Rebellion in China: A Narrative of its Rise and Progress. London, 1862, pp. 11-12.\n\n3 Krone, [R]. “A Notice of the Sanon District\", Article V, Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, pt. VI, Hong Kong, 1859, p. 71.\n\n4 Freedman, Maurice. Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London, 1966, p. 115.\n\n5 The Governor of Hong Kong, commenting upon robbery and piracy during the year 1903, said: \"they are the most common offences in the Southern provinces ... the Provincial Authorities do not attempt to deal with such cases until some village is reported as being specially notorious as harbouring robbers, when, if the authorities do not consider them too strong, a force is sent out and as many as possible arrested or the village destroyed.\" Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1903, Hong Kong, 1904, pp. 348 ff.\n\nFreedman, op. cit., p. 112, quotes an account of such an expedition which took place in \"about 1870\" and resulted in the beheading of more than a thousand people.\n\n6 Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960, p. 503.\n\n7 For a detailed account of these events, see: Wakeman, Jr., Frederic, Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209892, "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-1983", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "129\n\nBefore its first removal to permit further development of the area, the shrine is said to have been very popular with local villagers, shopkeepers and quarrymen. The whole village of Tsin Shui Ma Tau, to which my informants belonged, went down to the shrine on the god's birthday, and the customary dinner was held in the open near the pier. After its removal to another site, it was less popular with local people who apparently did not like the new location. This site was cleared in its turn in the mid 1960s, and the incense burner and other property were moved for safe-keeping to one of the Shau Kei Wan temples. Eventually, the committee gathered funds for a proper temple and for the first time in its history the god was housed in a permanent building and not, as previously, in the open or in a wooden hut. A brief account with excellent photographs appeared in The Star newspaper for 27 January, 1970.*\n\nIn the post-war period this shrine has been linked with the Nam On Fong Yue Lan (M) Festival Committee but before the war, and up to the time of its first removal, there was no such Yue Lan committee. Moreover, the annual celebration was not, as now, held during the Yue Lan festival in the 7th lunar month but took place on the earth god's birthday on the 2nd day of the 2nd month. The religious service was, at that date, always accompanied by a puppet show. The arrangements were in the hands of a group of village elders, later joined by local shopkeepers as the population grew. The local people visited it on the first and fifteenth days of each month, and offered a pig's head on the birth of a son and a chicken on the birth of a daughter. The change in the date of the main celebration came after the war, and the reason for it is said to have been the large number of deaths in the district during the Japanese Occupation, and the advisability of worshipping the unquiet spirits of the deceased lest they harm the living.\n\nIn the pre-war period the managers of this shrine, styled chik lei, came together through a combination of mutual acquaintance, accepted reliability, ability, willingness to donate a minimum level of funds towards the expenses of the festival costs,\n\n* These photographs are reproduced at plates 6-8.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210177, "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-1984", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "127\n\npractices dating back to the complainants childhood and before suggests that the Tanka were using the Tai Tam Tuk anchorage from at least the very beginning of the nineteenth century.\n\nI turn now to the important question of how far back was Hong Kong occupied? This is practically an impossible question to answer for lack of sufficient information. As in many other places, like Tsuen Wan and north-west Kowloon, the present old, local, formerly tenant families appear mainly to have come into the area after the Great Evacuation of the Coast ordered by the Kanghsi emperor, 1662-69, and many of them not until the eighteenth century or even after. Yet it is an interesting fact that the maps in a later 16th century geographical work on Kwangtung, the Yueh ta-chi(A) contain names that are familiar to us today, on Hong Kong island as well as on the other islands and mainland of the Hong Kong region. Thus we find Chek Chu (Stanley), Tai Tam, Wong Nei Chung, Tit Hang, Chun Hoi and Shau Kei Wan, as well as Hong Kong itself, implying surely, that these places were settled at that time or were at least resorted to periodically. Also, the Tang correspondence from the 1840s quoted above specifically refers to recultivation of their land in various places in the late seventeenth century — though not necessarily by the former tenant farmers after revocation of the edict of 1662 referred to above. We also learn that the Tang land on Hong Kong island was entered in the Tung Kwun district land registry, suggesting that the registration might well be earlier than 1573, at which date the San On district was carved out of Tung Kwun and established as a separate county.\n\n71\n\nThe island was certainly well-established in settled communities long before 1841. The temples alone give proof of that. To this day, two existing temples at Stanley, and two at Aberdeen (one at the former village and one on an islet now joined by reclamation to Ap Lei Chau) and the Tin Hau Temple at Tin Hau Temple Road, Causeway Bay (formerly called Hung Heung Lo or \"Crimson Incense Burner\") contain items that go back to the eighteenth or very early nineteenth century. There were others now demolished or resited that probably predated 1841. Details are given in the Table below.\n\n72", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210683, "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-1986", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "17\n\nJOHN JOSEPH FRANCIS, CITIZEN OF HONG KONG, A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\nWALTER GREENWOOD\n\nV.H.G. Jarret writing about Francis in the South China Morning Post in the 1930s commented \"It seems strange that so well known a man should not be commemorated in any way”. When one considers the number of streets and roads in Hong Kong named after less prominent Government officials and businessmen the force of that comment will, it is hoped, be appreciated by the end of this essay.\n\nFrancis was born in Dublin in 1839, the eldest son of William Francis Aylward, an Inspector of Irish National Schools, and\n\nMr. Walter Greenwood J.P., M.A. (Cantab.), Barrister of Gray's Inn and the North Eastern Circuit, a Permanent Magistrate in Hong Kong\n\nAUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:\n\nThis essay was hurriedly researched and written in snatched hours and does not claim to be comprehensive, much less to do justice to Francis. I hope it may lead to interest in his life and career and I should be grateful if anyone who finds new information about him would send it to me at 26, Great Bounds Drive, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN4OTR. It is based mainly on skimming through newspapers and dipping into the standard histories of Hong Kong. I have also received generous help from many quarters. First I should like to acknowledge my gratitude to the staff of the Hong Kong Public Records Office for their ever friendly and willing help; my thanks go also to the staff of the Supreme Court Registry and University Library, the Secretaries of the Bar Association, the Law Society, the Jockey Club and the Volunteers, Mrs. Lisa Chee, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Po Leung Kuk, Fathers Naylor, Pagani and Pittavino (for searching church records), Mr. Michael Clancy (for information about “Stonyhurst”), Mr. Carl Smith (for information about Francis' marriages) and Mr. Colin West (for arranging the cleaning of Francis' tombstone) in Hong Kong; the Parish Priest of All Saints Church, Borella, Colombo; Father Turner of Stonyhurst College; the staff of the Public Records Office, Genealogical Office and Public Registry in Dublin; Mr. Julian Walton of Dublin and Waterford (for supplying me with material about the Aylward family which he also presented to Dr. Ken Smith of South Africa for use in his biography of Alfred Aylward); the Editor of the Irish Ancestor, the staff of the Public Record Office, Royal Artillery Institution, University and Crown Agents in London; Mrs. Theresa Thom, Librarian of Gray's Inn; Mr. Leo D'Almada Q.C. in Portugal; Dr. Walter Mautsch in Germany; Mr. Nigel Osner in London; Pamela and Eric Russ in Bournemouth; my wife (for her patience whilst I practised my drafts on her); and Mrs. Mary Whitticase for her great kindness in typing my manuscript.\n\nCopyright Walter Greenwood 1986.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211204, "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-1987", "page_number": 265, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "240\n\nQueen had to be abandoned.\n\nInability to proceed with the agreed plan resulted in the two subsequent meetings. These were chaired by the Honourable Phineas Ryrie. Many of the difficulties which resulted can be attributed to the manner in which he conducted the meetings.\n\nIt is not a simple matter to keep a meeting in order and progress towards its goals when the atmosphere is charged with tension created by strongly held opinions and personal ambitions. The meetings chaired by Mr. Ryrie were like this.\n\nA good chairman is not only fair and impartial but also firm and decisive. He gives room for free expression of opinion but does not permit the meeting to digress into irrelevant matters or get muddled in improper procedure. To do this he must adhere to accepted parliamentary rules.\n\nMr. Ryrie was a public spirited man who had long — perhaps too long — been prominent in public affairs. He was the senior unofficial member of the Legislative Council and therefore a natural choice for chairman. His handling of the meetings, however, suggests he may have been tottering into old age. He was a man of decided opinion and also irascible, a dangerous combination.\n\nAs senior partner of the firm of Turner and Company, he belonged to the small interlocking circle who sat on the boards of the leading companies and institutions in Hongkong. As such, he had presided over many meetings. These, however, were usually quite routine and required a minimum of parliamentary skill.\n\nIt was a different matter to chair a meeting in which there were strong differences of opinion accompanied by a feeling of frustration over the mess in which the community was increasingly getting itself involved.\n\nThe main business of the meeting was to decide on another memorial now that the idea of a park in the Wongneichong Valley was no longer feasible. Before the meeting people who wished to have a scheme considered were asked to submit them in writing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212335, "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": 277, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "254\n\nsons, John, Lancelot and Wilkinson, were running the firm from Canton and Macau, in the 1820s, it was very successful, and, later, it was Jardine's main rival.\n\nThe company continued to do well for a number of years but it failed in 1867 at the time of an economic recession. Some believe that Swire's, with their ruthless trading tactics, helped to destroy Dent's although it is not known how much truth there is in this. Another firm that failed about the same time was the Agra and Masterman Bank.\n\nThere are many other once successful organisations that fell by the wayside. Names like Burd; Holliday and Wise; Humphreys; Lyall and Still; Murrow; and Turner; are no longer with us. Bard, in his 1988 report, lists 37 enterprises with English sounding names (some could have been American) of which, although listed in directories between 1845 and 1900, little is known.\n\nBOOKS AND JOURNALS\n\nSOURCES\n\nUnless stated otherwise the following books, journals, brochures, leaflets, magazines, reports, newspapers, supplements, periodicals and letters were published or drafted in Hong Kong,\n\nAdventures and Perils, The First Hundred and Fifty Years of Union Insurance Society of Canton Ltd\n\nBard, Solomon, In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (1988)\n\nBoulnois, L., The Silk Road (London, 1966)\n\nBraga, J.M., Hong Kong Business Symposium (1957)\n\nBriggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City (1977)\n\nBriggs, Tom and Colin Crisswell, Hong Kong: the Vanishing City, Vol. II (1978)\n\nBurgoyne, J., Far Eastern Commercial and Industrial Activities (1924)\n\nCameron, Nigel, Power (1982)\n\nCameron, Nigel, The Milky Way: The History of Dairy Farm (1986)\n\nChambers, Gillian, Super Traders, The Story of Trade Development in Hong Kong (1989)\n\nCoates, Austin, A Mountain of Light (1977)\n\nCoates, Austin, Quick Tidings of Hong Kong (1990)\n\nCoates, Austin, Whampoa: Ships on the Shore (1980)\n\nCollis, Maurice, Wayfoong (London, 1965)\n\nCrisswell, Colin N., The Taipans, Hong Kong's Merchant Princes (1981).\n\nEndacott, G.B., A History of Hong Kong (1958)\n\nGillingham, Paul. At the Peak, Hong Kong between the Wars (1983)\n\nGraham, John, The Lowe Bingham Story (1920-1977)\n\nHistorical and Statistical Abstracts of Hong Kong 1841-1940\n\nHong Kong Going and Gone, Western Victoria (Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch) (1980)\n\nHong Kong (Government year books, various)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212476, "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-1991", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "in a period when Chinese were only allowed to invest in European insurance companies. But at the same time, he still had large interests in traditional business.\n\nCantonese compradors in Hong Kong, of course, should not be considered as only a few persons; they could probably be identified from archives of the firms they worked for. However, we are limited by sources, which make it quite difficult, but not impossible, to assess compradors' wealth which they had accumulated when they were in office. Furthermore, most of the wealthy Chinese in Hong Kong, including compradors at that time, had investments or property in China. From their business activities, a Canton-Macau-Hong Kong linkage is shown in their wills deposited in the Hong Kong Public Records Office.\n\nNames of the Cantonese compradors in Hong Kong were probably Cheang Hoong of Philips Moore & Co., Wong Kong and Kwong A Hang of Smith, Archer & Co.; Ng A Cheong of Douglas Lapraik & Co., Law Pak Sheung of Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Wai A Kwong of Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London & China, Law Sai Nam of McBain & Co., Lau Cheong of Gilman & Co. (Fuzhou), Au Yeung Shing of Russell & Co., Sung Chin Tseung of Messrs. Turner & Co., Tong Mow Chee (Tang Maozhi) of Jardine, Matheson & Co. (Tianjin), and Choa Chee Bee of China Sugar Refining Co., Ltd. They all left wills in which some indicated business connections with Canton, Macau, and Hong Kong. For example, the will of Wai A Kwong written in 1866 reads:\n\nI am a native of Tsin Shan in the District of Heung Shan, Empire of China, at present residing in Victoria, Hong Kong, and holding the office of compradore of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China. At the age of eleven years, I left my native place and proceeded to Macau, where I obtained employment as a domestic servant to a Portuguese; at the age of thirteen, I was sent down to Singapore by the Reverend E. C. Bridgman, missionary to the Chinese, and became the first pupil of the Morrison Education Society. I returned to Hong Kong in the year 1843, and I have ever since lived under the just and equitable rule of the British Government. I married in Hong Kong and have several children, all born in this colony. By industry and thriftiness, I have acquired and am possessed of sundry houses, lands, shares in business, and other property and effects. Knowing\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212477, "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-1991", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "11\n\nthat all men must die and not knowing when I may be called away, I deem it right while still in bodily health and full possession of mental faculties to make my will.\n\nWei A Kwong, the father of Wei Yuk, had a typical story of success. He was a Zhongshan native; he left his hometown and worked in Macau as a teenager. His father was a comprador to two American merchants, Benjamin Chew Wilcocks and Oliver H. Gordon. It was known that Wei was forsaken by his family and had to resort to begging on the streets of Macau. He was later sent to Singapore where he studied under the auspices of the Morrison Education Society in a school of the American Board of Commission for Foreign Missions. This changed his life. He returned to Hong Kong and began his career. He served as comprador in Bowra & Co. and then in the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China until his death. Wei wrote his will in 1866. He prefaced it with a brief account of his life, particularly mentioning that he was the first student of the Morrison Education Society and that he first came to Hong Kong in 1843. He had \"ever since lived under the just and equitable rule of the British Government.\" Though we cannot prove to what extent his exposure to Western culture was related to his Christian education, he succeeded in becoming a leading member of Chinese society in Hong Kong. This contrasts with the will of Sung Chin Tseung, which reads.\n\nSung Chin Tseung, otherwise literary appellation Sung Ching, otherwise Ngok Shan, native of Kat Tai village, of Kong Sheung Division, Heung Shan District. I followed my deceased father, Mr. Shau U, to Hong Kong in 1842 to trade in foreign business as compradore. Further, in 1854, thanks to the kind support of Mr. Ryrie and others of Messrs. Turner and Co., Hongkong, I took over the office of compradore and up to the present thirty odd years.\n\nBoth Wei and Sung were natives of Zhongshan. They came to Hong Kong for business in the early 1840s when Hong Kong was already a British colony. Though they lived in Hong Kong, they maintained connections with their hometown, as Sung's father, Soong Ke, stated in his will written in 1864:\n\nIn the 21st year of Tao Kwong (1841), I came to Hong Kong and employed myself in business all the time with foreigners, always being diligent and making little profit sufficient to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213488, "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-1995", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "52\n\nThe Performance and Life Style of the Opera Actors and Actresses\n\nVolumes can be written on the subject of the life of the actors and actresses of the Opera art. However, to put it in a nutshell, their lot is anything but desirable and happy. Although many successful actors and actresses do later have a higher standard of life in an ordinary Chinese society, I wonder if they would choose such careers again at their own free will. I shall try to give some of the reasons and you can draw your own conclusions.\n\n(1) In most cases, these men and women hail from poverty-stricken families and enroll in a theatrical school at a young age, sometimes from eight to ten years of age. By doing so, they relieve their families of the burden of providing for an extra mouth to feed in the household. They have to undergo a very, very strict monastic life during the seven-year period of training in that school. Each day they have to practice singing and take acrobatic exercises, as the case may be, and suffer bodily punishment if they fall out of line, from blows from a heavy stick which may be very painful. Sometimes, the teacher indulges in smoking from a long wooden pipe with a brass burning receptacle at one end. A sharp knock on the pupil's forehead, from the brass burner of the pipe, can be fatal. Even so, the teacher will not be prosecuted because it is clearly written in the contract of admission that he or she is absolved from blame for any consequences arising from such punishment.\n\n(2) The Peking Opera industry is never a free institution. Singing, walking, and movement of the hand must follow the orthodox rules. The pupils must try to fit into this Procrustean Bed by all means, if they are to succeed. You may ask how can they project themselves as individuals if everybody has to tow the line. Yes, they can. If you are talented enough, you still have enough room to manoeuvre to show your own style and make yourself famous.\n\n(3) When you play the role of a warrior in a fighting scene, to a lesser extent a civilian role, you have to wear those heavy head dresses. To prevent these head wears from falling down in the midst of the acting, the actor first has to tie a piece of moistened, fine black silk tightly around his head before putting the real hat on, again tightly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213791, "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-1996", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "114\n\nlonger given the prestigious position it enjoyed in genealogies and spirit tablets. This change is much like what the later genealogist wanted to see and may have been initiated by men of the same mind about two centuries before him. It is interesting to note that the rite of Fengchao, previously considered part of the ordination which confers so much honor, is now performed mainly for fear of deformity in children of a bridegroom.\n\nIt is for future research to determine if imperial degrees have become a more important factor among the Hakka since the 17th Century, and how the occurrence of ordination names in a family is related to social status in the wider Chinese society. It is interesting that the examples Luo cited in his book to support his claim of the Hakka being \"farmer-scholars\" were in one case, purchase of imperial degree in the later Qing, and the other rather vague evidence of examination degrees. Actually, there are better examples such as the Yaos, who, according to their genealogy, did produce quite a few examination degree holders during the Ming and the early Qing. The family had ordination names up to perhaps early Ming times. But if the Hakka ancestors of the past, some claiming to be imperial degree holders and officials, did not reject ordinations by the sorcerers, the direct cause of decline of such ordination may be something else. I suspect the disappearance of ordination represented a change in the form of ancestral worship.\n\nThe Hakka rituals of Fengchao and Anlong, as mentioned above, include rites specifically dedicated to ancestors. In addition, the ZHJLS describes a ritual called Zhuanhuo, the same term used for moving into a new house, in which incense ashes were moved from the domestic unit to the incense burner of the ancestral hall in order that the incoming ancestors to the ancestral hall would share the worship by their descendants. The ritual is performed by the sung ritual specialist who conducts the rite of Anlong on the same occasion. Equally surprising is that the Hakka ritual expert named all his ordained ancestors in his singing at the Fengchao rite I witnessed in the New Territories.\n\n90\n\nThere is less information on Hakka ancestral halls rituals conducted by lay descendants. Faure refers to the teachings of the Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi and Ming regulations which distinguish", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213801, "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-1996", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "124\n\nI am not sure if any link exists with some belief that descendants of those imitated in Mao Shan magic will have physical imperfection.\n\nThe villagers of Lin Au are of Zheng and Li surnames. According to Mi Li Fu'an, in his mid-60s, the Zhengs had two ancestral hails there. One represents the lineage which moved from Shing Moon, and the other, the one which celebrated the Fengchao, was from Luoding. Li said the latter never had a genealogy, and are not genealogically related to the other Zhengs. According to Li, both the Zhengs and the Lis have lived in Lin Au for nine generations. The only Zheng of the lineage from Luoding now living in the village is a young man who did not know about the practice, and others have emigrated to Germany and other foreign countries. The other Zhengs used to witness the rite and Li said the groom was to carry an incense burner (being in bat) until dawn, probably the end of the rite. Li also learned from the other Zhengs that a groom can have the rite performed only if his father did so, and usually the first and last sons of a man have the rite performed.\n\nIn my recent visit to Cheng Tau, Ha Hang and Shan Tau Kok, I have found little about those villages. Ha Hang, whose villagers are probably all of the Li surname, have two ancestral halls. Shan Tau Kok is a multi-surname village where the Zhengs form a separate cluster of houses which include an ancestral hall.\n\nThe contents of the document is in one of the priest's manuals. I do not have a copy and did not write down anything when he showed it to me because I thought I would be able to make a copy of the manual afterwards. This document may be the \"white [ordination] certificate\" mentioned by Guangdong Xinyu and the gazetteer mentioned above. In my recording of the rite of Fengchao, a series of ordination names were recited during one session. I have to check if those are ordination names of the priest's ancestors or those of the client's.\n\n* The genealogy bears the title of Chenst Yuanlia Zupa, included in the British Library's Baker collection of genealogies of the New Territories, but is referred to in some lists as the Genealogy of the Chens of Ting Kok and Ping Yeung. Ordination names are found first in the 87th generation of the first section, among some brothers and cousins who moved to Fujian and Guangdong provinces. The following helps to date the 87th generation. A son of a brother of the 79th generation ancestor obtained a jiren degree in the year 889. Some brothers of the 84th generation ancestors moved \"during the disorder [caused by the invasion of?] the Yuan\". The 89th generation ancestor is a jinshi of Yuan dynasty. I fail to see how the \"Founding Ancestor of Fujian\" Jingwang in the second section of the genealogy relates to ancestors in the first section. A third section of the genealogy named the same Jingwang (ordination name Nian Yi(1) Lang) as the \"Founding Ancestor of Changle\" county, who was a descendant of a 83rd generation ancestor and a 86th generation ancestor, the latter being a brother of an ancestor in the earlier section. Jingwang's sons also had ordination names. According to a preface dated 1618, Jingwang moved to Changle some 200 years before then, i.e., around 1400. An 8th generation ancestor in the 3rd section moved to Ding'an of Xin'an county, probably Ting Kok in the New Territories. A 4th section of the genealogy started with Gulong as a second generation ancestor of Changle, who, according to a note before the section, was the third son of Jingwang, the Founding Ancestor of Changle, although Guilong's name does not match any of those of the sons of Jingwang in the previous section. Some of Guilong's 9th generation descendants moved to Ping Yeung of the New Territories. No ordination names are found in this 4th section.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215557, "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-2001", "page_number": 334, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "284\n\nsteamships sailing towards Victoria Harbour.\n\nHong Kong's first lighthouse\n\nIn 1875, the Government Gazette announced that 'a light will be exhibited on Cape D'Aguilar' on and after the 16th April next. The illuminating apparatus is fixed Dioptric of the First Order showing a white light. The focal plane of the light is 200 feet above mean sea level, and in clear weather it should be seen at a distance of 23 nautical miles. The tower is round, of stone, 30 feet high, with a total height from its base to the lantern vane of 57 feet.'\n\nThis official announcement was meant for the marine community with a series of technical terms. In laymen's language, 'fixed' means the showing of a continuous or steady light. Most of the lights of the time were of this type. They are brighter and simpler technically speaking. The disadvantage was that fixed lights were sometimes confused with lights of ships or with neighbouring shore lights. Later, improved types could show their distinctive characteristics and were known as \"flashing\" or \"occulting\" depending on the shorter or longer duration of light respectively.\n\nThe Dioptric system adopted by the Cape D'Aguilar Lighthouse aimed at concentrating and intensifying the light. It used lens and prisms to concentrate the light from the burner into beams of parallel rays directed to the horizon, just like an overhead projector which takes a light bulb and forces the light forward in one direction. This kind of lens was first designed by Augustin Fresnel in 1822 and was named after him as the Fresnel lens.\n\nAnother older system, which was first employed in the mid 1700s, is called the catoptric system which involves using a parabolic metallic reflector behind the light, similar to that used in flashlights. A combination of these two systems is also available called the CataDioptric System.\n\nLights of the Dioptric system are classified according to their power which depends on the focal distance from the centre of the burner to the lenses. According to the British system the focal distance in diameter of the first Order is 1,840 mm, the second Order 1,400 mm, the third", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215936, "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-2002", "page_number": 235, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "169\n\nindependently of each other, with little communication. History is written about those who create documents, not by those whose duty was to leave no trail. Nonetheless, it does appear that there were several groups quietly focussing on different aspects of resistance, not all military, should the day come when the Japanese took over.\n\nUsing his cover as a businessman working for Butterfield and Swire, where his \"manager,\" Mike Turner, also seems to have had SOE connections, Kendall also travelled through China, setting up contacts and listening posts, including those installed by Chauvin and Chinese intelligence. Indeed, because SOE tapped into an existing Chinese network, the intelligence it was able to access was far more sophisticated and accurate. SOE continued to fund another Chinese organisation, the RII (Research and Information Institute) throughout the duration of the war. This was a Chinese operated service using British equipment and a small British staff, working for, not in charge of, the Chinese. Many of its reports still exist, showing just how detailed was the information they gathered: exact ammunition supplies and strengths of Japanese units, area by area, names of officers, postings and movements. When, later in the war, efforts were made to amalgamate various British agencies operating in China, SOE managed to insist that RII was to remain separate and unaffected because it was a Chinese force.\n\nDespite what seems to have been a working relationship between the SOE and various forms of KMT intelligence, it is evident that Kendall also cultivated strong links in the hinterland of Hong Kong where KMT influence was weak. These areas were relatively remote and fiercely resistant to central government influence. The villagers were clannish, and their communities closed, united internally by family and traditional ties. Many of these villagers had emigrated overseas to work in places like South America and Malaya. They also had traditional systems of defence and security, but piracy and banditry were endemic, almost part of the economy. These regions were alien territory to urban Hong Kong people, European or Chinese, who as outsiders would have been treated with suspicion. Political loyalties varied, and before Hong Kong was attacked, people had no automatic regard for the British who were not yet ‘Allies, and whose record in China was not edifying. In many ways, this work was much easier after the occupation when locals and British forces, though humiliated by defeat, shared common ground. Kendall went into these areas, often alone, meeting and talking\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216373, "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-2003", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "81\n\nOn 26 July 1858 \"Sent Achih to Macao today: sent $20 to Ayaou.” On 15 August \"Modest request from Ayaou for $700 or at least $200 - 'no can' - “. Then on 16 September “I went to see Ayaou who came back from Macao the night before last. Demands $200.” Again on 19 September \"Paid Ayaou $125: I understand this closes the connection. \"For Hart, therefore, the best way to terminate the relationship peacefully and permanently must have been to give Ayaou a generous sum of money and this he did.\n\nHart's declarations concerning his separation from Ayaou also detail the arrangements made for their children. In Declaration 2 he states: \"As all the children were born while Ayaou was being kept by me I decided to provide for them respectably and accordingly I made it part of the arrangement for separation that she should surrender her children to my Agent and she did so.\" This indicates that some serious discussion and negotiation must have taken place between Hart and Ayaou concerning the arrangements for their children after the separation. Hart seems to have made it a clear precondition that Ayaou gave up custody of the three children and surrendered them to his London agent. Ayaou complied. For her, life must have become much easier without the burden of bringing up three children alone, even with financial support from Hart. For Hart, on the other hand, it seems to have been the best possible arrangement at the time. It was at considerable expense that he made such arrangements for his three wards. We now know, for the first time, that Hart \"settled a sum of six thousand pounds for their benefit which sum has long since been divided and distributed between them.\" Also in Declaration 1 he claims: “As they were all born while Ayaou was kept by me I decided to provide them respectably, and did so, rather than leave them to their fate in China.\" The details certainly support the commonly accepted viewpoint that \"Hart treated his wards generously\" (Little, 1975: Introduction) and \"By the standards of the day such behaviour was generous in the extreme\", as “many Westerners simply ignored and abandoned such children.” (Smith, Fairbank, Burner 1991: 363)\n\nHowever, these details may also support the suggestion that there must have been some other reason for Hart to make such an expensive arrangement: \"In the eyes of a later day, exiling three children from their native culture, even with the consent of their mother (who later married a Chinese), raises perplexing questions. But it was done with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]