[ { "id": 204847, "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-1964", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "LUN HENG\n\n125\n\nThe republication, unchanged and in an excellent edition, of Alfred Forke's Lun Heng, by the Paragon Book Gallery in 1962, is clearly a most significant event. Just how valuable is Forke's work?\n\nWhen first published in 1907 and 1911, Forke's translation of the Lun Heng was rightly lauded by Pelliot (Journal Asiatique 20, 1912, pp. 156-171), and later by Karlgren (Bulletin, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 23, 1951, pp. 107-135). Forke's translation, done without the use of a Chinese commentary, was not only one of the greatest Western sinological works, but was also the first serious study of the Lun Heng in any language. We now have several studies and commentaries in Chinese, and also partial translations and summaries in English. Does Forke's work still stand up today?\n\nAs a translation, Forke's great work still stands alone. There is no other complete translation, not even in Japanese. Translations into Polish and into Mandarin have been announced but, so far as I know, not completed. Thirteen chapters (out of the 84 extant) have been translated into Mandarin in the Chung-kuo che-hsüeh-shih tzu-liao hsüan-chi, Liang Han chih pu, 1960, Peking, pp. 215-421.\n\nAs for the quality of the translation, I have already pointed out in my \"Contribution to a New Translation of the Lun Heng\", T'oung Pao 44, 1956, pp. 100-149, that many rough edges and minor inaccuracies need to be eliminated. Nevertheless Forke's understanding of the text is excellent. Comparison with the minute portions translated by E. R. Hughes (Chinese Philosophy in Classical Times, 1942, pp. 317-336), D. Bodde (Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. II, 1953, pp. 150-167), Burton Watson (in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 1960, pp. 250-155), and Chan Wing-tsit (A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 1963 pp. 292-304) shows that these scholars, with all the modern aids unavailable to Forke, can still only make slight improvements to his translation.\n\nUntil the welcome publication of this second edition, copies of Forke's translation were almost unobtainable (£30 was a quoted figure). I suggested in my \"Contribution\" that a new translation was required to fill the gap. If such a translation is to be done now that Forke's is again available, it would need to be fully\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205184, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "134\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n11 See, for instance, Rev. R. Lechler's article \"The Hakka Chinese\" in the Chinese Recorder for September-October 1878 in which he writes (p. 355), \"Three thousands (sic) of them came to Hong Kong in 1863, having been taken on board by some foreign vessels, which happened to do business with rice etc., in Tai-foo-san. They were kindly taken care of by the English government and the merchants who collected money, and had mat sheds built for the fugitives until they were able to provide for themselves. I was then intrusted with the funds collected and used to buy rice for daily distribution to these wretched people.\"\n\nIt is recorded that 189 families — it is not stated how many were Hakkas and how many Cantonese — came to settle in Hong Kong in 1867. (See the Registrar General's Report in the Government Gazette 14 March 1868). Kowloon seems to have attracted Hakka newcomers from Hong Kong. In his Education Report for 1865 Mr. F. Stewart noted with reference to the Tang Lung Chau district of Hong Kong that \"nearly all the Hakka families that used to live here have removed to the Kowloon side of the harbour\". (See Hong Kong Government Gazette for 24th March 1866).\n\n12 S. Wells Williams The Middle Kingdom, revised edition, London; W. H. Allen & Co., 1883, Vol. 1, p. 486.\n\n13 See D. Maciver in p.v. of the Introduction to his Hakka Dictionary, Shanghai; American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1905.\n\n14 Report of the Proceedings of the Morrison Education Society March 1863 - March 1864, Hong Kong; London Missionary Society Press, 1864, p. 11. I suspect that the 10,000 is an under-estimate of the number of Hakkas living in the San On District at this time.\n\n15 The names may be translated as \"Vantage Point\" and \"Fields of the Ho and Man families\". Ho Man Tin was removed to make way for the Kowloon-Canton railway in 1906 (see Sessional Papers 1907, p. 687) and Mong Kok was submerged by urban Kowloon in the 1920s (see Chapter 5 of The Development of Hong Kong and Kowloon as Told in Maps by T. R. Tregear and L. Berry, Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong Press, 1959).\n\n16 I am indebted to the following persons for information: Mr. NG Kau (b. 1888); Mr. TANG Yuen-li (b. 1897) and Madam SOLI Lin (b. 1888).\n\n17 In 1897 the population of Ho Man Tin was 297 (180 males and 117 females) and of Mong Kok 218 persons (102 males, 116 females). See Hong Kong Government's Sessional Papers for 1897, p. 485.\n\n18 Rev. James Johnston, China & Formosa, The Story of the Mission of the Presbyterian Church of England, London; Hazel, Watson and Viney, 1897, p. 266.\n\n19 In this connection it should be noted that until the census returns of 1897 (see Sessional Papers 1897, p. 485), the population of British Kowloon was given as a whole and not split into individual village populations as was always done for the Hong Kong villages.\n\n20 See Orme, p. 44.\n\n21 \"Live stock paid but badly\" in 1867. See the Registrar-General's report in Hong Kong Government Gazette, 14 March 1868.\n\n22 Then, as twenty years ago, the same. See The Hong Kong Annual Report 1947, Hong Kong, Ye Olde Printerie Ltd., March 1948, p. 50.\n\n23 S. Wells Williams, Vol. I, p. 172. Twenty years later one of the illustrations in Sir Henry Blake and Mortimer Menpes' China, London; A and C Black, 1909, pp. 119-120 shows the vegetable boats arriving from the Kowloon side.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205977, "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-1970", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "52 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\n12 Malcolm Struan Tonnochy (1840-1882). Educated at Blackheath Proprietary School and Trinity College, Cambridge. Hong Kong Civil Service 1862; died in office while Superintendent of Victoria Gaol. Obituaries of Tonnochy are to be found in the Hong Kong Telegraph, December 14 and 15, 1882, and China Mail, December 15, 1882. The Telegraph tells us \"that yesterday the deceased was in good spirits and played tennis in the afternoon, dined out with a friend, and was in the Club until shortly after midnight\", A Chinese barber found Tonnochy dead in bed when he came to shave him in the morning. He was a bachelor. \n\n13 Walter Meredith Deane (1840-1906). Educated St. Paul's School and Trinity College, Cambridge. Hong Kong Civil Service 1862; Captain Superintendent of the Police, 1866-1891. Deane was severely wounded on duty in 1878 and resigned in 1891 on account of ill-health. \n\n14 Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (1840-1916). Educated at St. Paul's School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Hong Kong Civil Service 1862; promoted from Colonial Treasurer, Hong Kong, to Colonial Secretary, Straits Settlements, 1878. Administered Government 1884-85; appointed Lieutenant-Governor and Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1886; Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Straits Settlements, 1887; H. M. High Commissioner and Consul-General for Borneo and Sarawak, 1889. \n\n15 Alfred Lister (1843-1890). Educated at University of London. Hong Kong Civil Service 1865; prepared detailed index to the Ordinances of Hong Kong in 1870; Colonial Treasurer 1883-90. Died on board ship near Yokohama while on sick leave, Lister held the office of Treasurer as an adjunct appointment only, and with an almost nominal salary, in conjunction with his substantive appointment of Postmaster-General, Lister left a wife and four children in England. See Hong Kong Telegraph, 15 June, 1890. Governor Des Voeux referred to Lister as an \"excellent officer\". \n\n**\n\n16 Sir James Russell (1843-1893). Educated at Queen's University, Belfast. Hong Kong Civil Service 1865; private secretary to Governor Sir Richard MacDonnell 1868; Police Magistrate 1870; Chief Justice of Hong Kong 1888. The Hong Kong Telegraph, 4 September, 1893, in an editorial entitled \"Sir Judas' Russell: His History\" declares \"You could not have been much of an expert in the Chinese language two short years after your appointment to a cadet-ship, yet in 1867, you were Government ‘Interpreter'\". The editorial referred to Russell as \"the Gargantua of Hong Kong social life\" and \"the Jeffries of the Hong Kong Bench\". The writer of the editorial was the atrabilious Robert Fraser-Smith, who founded the Hong Kong Telegraph in 1881. Since Fraser-Smith had been jailed several times for libel, he had reason to dislike the Chief Justice. (See Frank H. H. King and Prescott Clarke A Research Guide to China-Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911, Cambridge, Mass., 1965). Russell, a bachelor like Lister, died at Strathpeffer, Scotland, shortly after resigning from Government. \n\n17 Henry Ernest Wodehouse (1845-1929). Educated at Repton School. Hong Kong Civil Service 1867; retired on pension as Police Magistrate in 1898. One son, Peveril, was the first baby born on the Peak and brother of P. G. Wodehouse, the novelist. Wodehouse was the last of the batch of officials originally appointed to the Colony in the capacity of student interpreter. \n\n18 Sir James Haldane Stewart Lockhart (1858-1937). Educated at King William's College, Isle of Man, Watson's Academy, Edinburgh (gold medallist), and Edinburgh University (Greek medallist), Hong Kong Civil Service 1878; attached to the Colonial Office for one year; Registrar General 1887; Colonial Secretary 1895-1902; Special Commissioner to Inspect and Report on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1898; representative of Great Britain to delimit the boundaries of the extension of Hong Kong; first civil Commissioner of Weihaiwei, 1902; retired 1921.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206513, "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-1972", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART: COLONIAL CIVIL SERVANT AND SCHOLAR\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE*\n\nTHE HONG KONG CADET\n\n'I had some amusement,' wrote Sir William des Voeux, 'in watching the other guests. Mr. Lockhart (the official protector of Chinese), who sat opposite to me, attacked all the dishes like a man, and would alone have redeemed the credit of our party with the Chinese for gastronomic taste. Possibly having been for some years in China, he has become accustomed to what European new-comers are apt to regard as repulsive. Otherwise his control of the facial muscles was almost superhuman.' Sir William des Voeux, Governor of Hong Kong from 1887 to 1891, was attending a dinner given by the prominent Chinese of Hong Kong and the Lockhart he mentions was James Haldane Stewart Lockhart, who later became known as a distinguished colonial civil servant and one of the best Chinese scholars among the foreigners of his time in China. All in all, he was probably one of the most intelligent, efficient, and scholarly colonial secretaries that Hong Kong has had. This article is designed to give a brief account of his life, work and writings.\n\nLockhart was born at Ardsheal, Argyllshire, Scotland on 26 May, 1858, the fourth son of Miles Lockhart of Lanhams, Essex, and grandson of James Lockhart, Lord of the Manor of Marston and Oving, Buckinghamshire. On his mother's side she was born Anna R.C. Stewart, daughter of Major Stewart, 91st Regiment. He inherited Stewart blood, for she was the niece of Charles Stewart, eighth of Ardsheal, male representative of the Stewarts of Lorne, Appin and Ardsheal. Appin was the country of Lockhart's mother's branch of the royal Stewarts, and the scene of much of Stevenson's Kidnapped. Lockhart was educated at King William's College, Isle of Man, George Watson's College, Edinburgh, where he achieved distinction as a Greek medallist, and at Edinburgh University, where he was awarded the gold medal for Greek.\n\n* Mr. Lethbridge is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. He is well known as a contributor to Hong Kong studies. His article on Hong Kong Cadets 1862-1941 [Journal, Vol. 10 (1970)] is relevant to the present study.\n\nPlates 1-7 illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206533, "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-1972", "page_number": 81, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n75\n\nout the nineteenth century, a fashionable pursuit for the dilettante and the serious amateur scholar; even Elizabeth I, Queen of Rumania, acquired a European reputation, under the pen-name of Carmen Sylva, for her writings on the legends and fairy tales of her country of adoption. Lockhart, like N.B. Dennys and R.F. Johnston, became an addict of the new cult and study of folklore.\n\nThe term 'folklore' was coined as late as 1846 by the antiquarian W.J. Thoms; but the foundations of the study can be traced back to the influence of Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published in 1765, and above all to the German brothers Grimm, whose Kinder und Hausmärchen appeared in 1812 and Deutsche Mythologie in 1835. They, in particular, laid the foundations for a study of folktales and popular superstitions upon a more scientific, comparative basis and examined problems from a wider point of view than that of the local antiquarian or literary romantic. The first folklore society in Britain was founded in 1878 and in that year appeared the first journal dedicated entirely to the study. This was the Folk-lore Record, the name of which was changed to the Folk-lore Journal and finally to plain Folk-lore.\n\nIn 1885 Lockhart was appointed to act as local Secretary of the Folk-lore Society of Great Britain and soon after he published an advertisement in the China Review asking readers to submit specimens of Chinese customs, superstitions and beliefs. He appealed to both European and Chinese readers and stated he would be pleased to translate communications in Chinese. He urged Europeans and Americans resident in China to co-operate for 'there can be little doubt that, either by their position or influence, they could materially contribute towards a thorough investigation of a subject which is daily becoming of great interest, and which is gradually assuming a place of no small importance among other branches of science.' It is not clear what sort of response Lockhart got from the readers of the China Review: but he did publish an article in 1890 in the British Folk-lore Journal, which was mainly a translation of material that had appeared originally in the Hong Kong Chinese newspaper, the Chung Ngoi San Po (Chung-wai Hsin-pao)† †† #報1\n\nLockhart's private papers are now lodged with his old school, George Watson's College, Edinburgh, and contain much material on Chinese folklore.62 What Lockhart intended to do with his treasure", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206733, "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-1973", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "or the government, to acquire or build our own premises. Dr. J. R. Jones during his presidency canvassed this subject regularly. Like many cultural societies in this modern world of space shortages and high rents, our hopes of ever obtaining such premises have dwindled and died. It might be worth noting here, that associated with the parent Society's 150th celebration is a special fund appeal to conserve its own library of 85,000 volumes, kept at present for safety at the British Museum in the absence of room for them at its own premises, and an appeal also to re-equip the 200-year-old building now serving as its head office. The parent Society hopes to raise £75,000 through its appeal and I am sure I speak for you all when I wish it well with this venture.\n\nFor ourselves however, your Council has had to consider very seriously what to do about the future. We have been extremely fortunate in having the support of the British Council in Hong Kong right from our 1959 beginnings. The Council has lent us space to hold our meetings, helped us with day-to-day business, housed part of our library—the University of Hong Kong has kindly housed the other part—provided us some of the time with a postal address, and occasionally with the use of a room for our lectures. More and more, lecture rooms in Hong Kong become booked up months ahead. It is now very seldom indeed that we can obtain a booking at the City Hall.\n\nThis threat to the cultural life of Hong Kong has largely prompted a group of concerned individuals to promote the Hong Kong Arts Centre, under the vigorous direction of Mr. Bill Bailey. It seemed to us that the Arts Centre might well meet our needs for a coordinated centre for our activities, and a place to house our full library which is presently restricted in expansion through lack of space. It might also provide space, although this is not yet certain, for our archives, files, and stock of publications. At present, the latter are housed in Watson's Estate, where they were transferred in February 1972 from the University, which itself has great problems of space. I am glad to report that our materials were not affected by the recent fire at the Estate.\n\nThirty-six members attended the Extraordinary Meeting, and Mr. Bailey himself came along to explain the details of the Centre proposals. A majority of twenty-eight members voted in favour of the motion to join, and there were no abstentions. On January 30,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208371, "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-1978", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n79\n\nand a new transplantation followed in the fourth moon. In Baling we find that grave worship was conducted in the first moon, at Qingming, and on the 3rd day of the third moon. I think it possible to correlate this unusual dispersion with the existence of two periods of sowing.\n\nThis short sketch indicates how much more we must know in order to make anthropological sense out of the Chinese calendar system. I leave the argument at this juncture. When we know more about the autumn rituals and the New Year celebrations we may, in this new knowledge, find clues to a better understanding of the distribution of ceremonies over the calendric span of time. Again, when we know more about the local conditions and variations to be found in this limited area of Central China, we may find some co-variation in ritual events, which would be helpful in our attempts at establishing the overall system.\n\nNOTES\n\n*This paper was written when in 1975 I was privileged by All Souls College, Oxford, with a Visiting Fellowship. I remain most thankful to the Warden and Fellows of All Souls. I owe a further debt of gratitude to the two Swedish Research Councils for the Social Sciences, and for the Humanities. Part of the material which concerns this essay was found in the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University, in 1970. I am indebted to that Institute for their hospitality, and also to University of Stockholm and the Nathhorst Foundation for generous support. The argument of this paper was presented at a seminar in the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. I am grateful for this occasion. For comments and discussion I remain thankful to Hwang Tsu-yu, Wang Gung-wu, James Watson, Arthur Wolf and the late Maurice Freedman.\n\n1 See, for instance, the papers by Maurice Freedman, ‘A Chinese Phase of Social Anthropology,' British Journal of Sociology 14, 1-19, 1963, and 'Why China', (Presidential Address 1969) Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 1969, 5-13.\n\n2 Gujin Tushu Jicheng. The Complete Collection of Books of All Times, Eds. Chen Menglei & Jiang Tingxi, 1885-1888 reprint of 1726 edition. (Hereafter GJTSJC). References to this work are given according to the system of Lionel Giles, An Alphabetical Index to the Chinese Encyclopaedia. London: British Museum, 1911.\n\n3 Taoyuan Xianzhi. Records of Taoyuan County. Auths. Fang Kun and Pi Zhen. n.d. juan 3:12a.\n\n4 Yiyang Xianzhi. Records of Yiyang County, Auth. Zhao Zhepei 1807-1819. juan 2:66.\n\n5 GJTSJC, VI:1259 lb, 1193 # 3a, 1120 # 4b.\n\n6 GJTSJC VI:1130 # 2a.\n\n7 Baling Xianzhi. Records of Baling County Auth. 1872 juan 11:7b, quoting that is an earlier sub-prefectural gazetteer.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210801, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "135\n\nsystem\". Originally introduced as a reform in the method of labour management, its evolution has led to fundamental innovations in the operation of production teams which have, in many cases, resulted in the virtual disappearance of all but the skeletal features of the collective economy (O'Leary and Watson, 1982). This has been accompanied by dramatic changes in the physical appearance of the cropping landscape of Hainan as the collective fields have been subdivided into parcels of various sizes for farming on a contract basis by work groups or individual households. Under this system, some households are earning more than US$5,000 per year. It is important to note, however, that while households or individuals have the right to use the land, the ownership of the land remains with the State (China Daily, Nov. 4, 1981).\n\nIn general, peasant farmers have responded to the \"responsibility\" policy with an enthusiasm that has doubled rural living standards and produced bumper harvests. For some, however, the dramatic change from the egalitarian policy of \"eating from the one big pot\" to quasi-capitalism is difficult to accept. In 1983, for example, it was reported that thousands of retired servicemen at military farms in Ya Xian, Hainan's most southern county, staged sit-down strikes, attacked party commissars in charge of the farms, smashed property, forced their way onto naval ships at Yulin Harbour, and virtually put the county government under siege (South China Morning Post, Mar. 11, 1983). The reason for the riot centred on the new party policy to make the military farms self-supporting by adopting the responsibility system. The disturbance so shocked the Beijing regime that Premier Zhao detoured to Hainan immediately upon his return from his month-long visit to Africa before returning to Beijing.\n\nWhile the responsibility system has been most effective in increasing output of grain and household livestock (pigs and poultry), new policies have been formulated to expand ruminant production on the nation's 300 million hectares of grasslands. This new direction in agricultural policy was summed up by Premier Zhao Ziyang at the Fifth National People's Congress in 1981:\n\n\"In the past, our vision in agricultural production was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211761, "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-1989", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "坏洋陳雲蔚陳云生\n\n坪淞萬其貴萬兆倫\n\n李蕾餘李鈴蘭李新明\n\n151\n\nI\n\n主施主等有權逐斥出寺兹當佈意伏冀同心當簽名公認惝日後有犯寺例不守清規我山爭權奪利者可比住持該寺堪稱其職同人等荒廢兹聞月坤女尼乃持齋念佛修行頗好非隅之嘆然寺中不可無人住持梵堂不可一寺中凡許願酹恩者不得其門而入不禁有向禪師圓寂後屢遭鼠竊致承其乏者不敢夜宿爲遴選住持安事神明事竊我長山寺自滌源民國二十年春季各施主公認吉立\n\n人列後\n\n蘭乪桂\n\n料\n\n群糖\n\n鬨倪\n\n鼻作作羅\n\n新瓊\n\n光\n\nNOTES\n\nSee Keith G. Stevens, “Chinese Monasteries. Temples, Shrines and Altars in Hong Kong and Macau”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 20, 1980, pp. 1-34.\n\n2\n\nThis plan is that standard since antiquity for major Buddhist monasteries in China. See J. Prip-Møller, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: Their Plan and its Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life, Copenhagen and Oxford Univ. Press, 1937, reprinted Hong Kong Univ. Press, 1967; and E. Boerschmann, Die Baukunst and Religiöse Kultur der Chinesen: Einzeldarstellungen auf Grund eigener Aufnahmen Während dreijähriger Reisen in China, Berlin, 1911, Vol. 1, P'u T'o Shan: Der Heilige Insel der Kuan Yin, der Göttin der Barmherzigkeit.\n\n3\n\nThis paper will deal only with the mainland New Territories, and leaves out all discussion of those pre-British monasteries and nunneries founded on Lantau.\n\n4\n\n* See Sung Hok-p'ang, “Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Ts'ing Shaan (青山) or Castle Peak'' in The Hong Kong Naturalist, July, 1935, reprinted in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 28, 1988, pp. 76-85. See also the document of 1089 on the history of this monastery in ch'uan 23 of the Hsin An County Gazetteer, at pages 187-188 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979.\n\n5\n\nIt seems to have been founded as part of the process by which the Tang (鄧) family of Ha Tsuen came to dominate the area in the early Ming, see James L. Watson, \"Waking the Dragon: Visions of the Chinese Imperial State in Local Myth”, in An Old State in New Settings: Studies in the Social Anthropology of China in Memory of Maurice Freedman. ed. Hugh Baker, S. Feuchtwang, (1991) pp. 162-178. The outside date for the foundation of Ling To would be, as Watson suggests, the early Ching. Local tradition from at least the seventeenth century (it is implied in a note on the monastery at Tuen Mun in ch'uan 21 of the Hsin An County Gazetteer of 1819 - at pages 173-174 of the Chung Lap Pao Edition, 1979 – this note was, however, taken over from the 1688 Gazetteer) would make if co-eval with the Ching Shan monastery (5th century), and, like the monastery at Tuen Mun...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212320, "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": 262, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "239\n\nBoswell (1815 to 1860), a graduate of Edinburgh University, who set up in private practice (previously owned by Doctor Anderson) in Macau in 1845. He was a physician and his wife, Elizabeth (née Stedman), joined him the following year. Watson was also an amateur artist and a friendship with the famous George Chinnery lasted from 1845 to Chinnery's death in 1852.\n\nWatson wrote to his sister in Scotland, in 1848, about Macau:\n\n“Counting ourselves, there are just four families and one or two Americans and French. There are Portuguese of course, but I do not class them as foreigners as it is a Portuguese settlement.”\n\nLife out East for Watson meant 14 years of hard work, ill health, and a constant struggle to make enough money for him and his family to go home. Nevertheless, in Macau he was surrounded by a happy family; he lived (as he phrased it) in a “sweet abode the prettiest spot on earth with a spacious open terrace and a wonderful view.”\n\nWatson sold his practice to a Doctor B. Kane (it took time to dispose of it as Macau was on the decline), and he moved to Hong Kong in 1856 where he became part owner of the Hong Kong Dispensary. His rent for a house on Queen's Road then was $1,200 a year. Watson was also involved with the Victoria Dispensary but this closed in 1857 because of lack of business. It appears there were too many British doctors competing for custom. Watson was said to operate the most successful practice in the Colony.\n\nIn 1857, he was closely involved when patriots of China attempted to poison Europeans by putting arsenic in the bread at the Ah Lum Bakery. He managed to rush home to warn his family before they had eaten breakfast. Fortunately, because the amount of arsenic was excessive, it induced vomiting and nobody died. To the intense annoyance of the European community Ah Lum was acquitted for lack of evidence.\n\nWatson sent his family back to Britain in 1857, and he himself returned to Scotland by the overland route (by ship to Port Suez,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212329, "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": 271, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "248\n\nwere still in darkness. Kowloon had to wait another 28 years before gas lights were turned on. The inhabitants there continued to depend upon candles and oil lamps.\n\nThe board of directors set up their office in London, and from there they engaged staff and ran the company. The first manager in Hong Kong was R.C. Whitty. It was he who erected the plant, which came from Britain, on the waterfront at West Point (near Whitty Street). It was the first gas utility in the Far East. Jardine's office, the Hong Kong Dispensary (A.S. Watson and Company), and the Hong Kong Hotel were the first buildings to be lighted by gas. Gas cookers and water heaters were still unheard of.\n\nThe first plant could manufacture 120,000 cubic feet of gas a day, and for 80 years coal was used as fuel. The Ma Tau Kok gasworks used to ring a brass bell at hourly intervals, like ships of old using the marine system of two, four, six, and eight bells over a four-hour period, for timing the charging and discharging of furnaces. This bell was a familiar sound to Ma Tau Kok residents.\n\nFor 90 years the company was managed directly from Britain. Then, in 1954, majority control was purchased by George Marden of Wheelock Marden. In 1982, the transfer of the company's corporate registration from England to Hong Kong made it a local firm. These moves brought about more effective management control.\n\nFor 100 years there were gas lights in Hong Kong. Today only four remain. These are situated at the head and foot of the broad granite steps, built between 1875 and 1889, which lead from Ice House Street into Duddell Street in Central. The lamps were installed at the turn of the century when they were lit manually. These steps and the four street lights have been gazetted as historical monuments. Once there were over 2,000 street gas lamps. But in spite of the loss of business, the Gas Company learned to adapt and emerged stronger than ever. In the late 1980s, it had over half a million consumers. After 1981, Towngas has been produced entirely from eight naphtha plants.\n\nHong Kong Electric\n\nThe first power station in Hong Kong was in Star Street, Wanchai,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212407, "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": 349, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "326 \n\nas the author makes clear. All of the families discussed had absolutely no males who were not either old, sick and ill, or frauds, scoundrels, and crooks, or weak and ineffective. This is too thin a foundation to build a major edifice on, and the statistics and other documents lightly touched on in the remaining third of the book do not justify any assumption that the families described in depth were typical of families with Mui-tsai. The author has thrown a strong ray of light on what life was like for some Mui-tsai, for those at the blacker, although not the blackest end, of the continuum of possibilities. It would be unwise to assume that all girls known as Mui-tsai had lives and hardships of this sort.\n\nThe publishers of the book are a specialist publishing house dealing in Women's Studies, and using the sign for \"female\" as their corporate logo. The study, perhaps not unexpectedly in these circumstances, treats Mui-tsai as just one type of female exploitation, specifically the exploitation of poor females by wealthy men and their women-folk. It was, but it was other things as well, and it would be desirable for these other aspects of the institution to be given more space. Charity to the poor on the part of wealthy families was not always merely a cover for getting domestic help on the cheap, neither was the rule that Mui-tsai ought to be decently married when they reached the appropriate age quite so uniformly broken as suggested. By no means all Mui-tsai ended as prostitutes or concubines.\n\nFurther work on Mui-tsai is desirable, so that a broadly based and detailed view of the whole spectrum of Mui-tsai and their lives can be had. This book is a far better than merely worthy first step towards this end. It is indeed, as Prof. James Watson calls it, “an important addition to the ethnographical literature on South China”. No-one who has any interest in the society of the area can afford to ignore it. But it is not the whole picture.\n\nP.H. HASE\n\nPhillip Bruce, Second to None: The Story of the Hong Kong Volunteers, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. 317 pp illus. Abbreviations, Sources Index.\n\nIn the early 1800's the expansionist power of the British and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212702, "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-1992", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "'Fire Dragon' Mid-Autumn Festival -\n\nTai Hang\n\nParty for Dr. James Hayes\n\nGeoff Roper\n\nMichael Kirkbride\n\nProf. Tong Kin Woon\n\n—\n\nChinese Music\n\nElizabeth Sinn\n\nVisit to the New Territories\n\n―\n\nKam Tin\n\nPatrick Hase\n\nVisit to Devil's Peak\n\nVisit to Royal Observatory\n\nVisit to Mai Po marshes\n\nVisit to the Exhibition of Painting\n\nby Nancy Wu\n\nJohn Wilson\n\nElizabeth Sinn\n\n& Rosemary Lee\n\nDan Waters\n\n& Rosemary Lee\n\nMichael Lau\n\nThere was, as you see, another expedition to Chek Lap Kok! This really will be the last one until the new airport is completed, after which you will undoubtedly be able to visit it as much as you can afford to.\n\nI would like to thank all those who took the time and effort to organise these visits and expeditions.\n\nThe programme committee is also responsible for organising our lecture programme and those of us who have been able to attend them will, I think, agree that the standard has been well maintained. Without detracting from the other lectures, I would like to highlight the two lectures at the beginning of January 1993, where we were fortunate to have two prominent academics in the form of Professor Hugh Baker, Professor of Chinese at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, and Professor James Watson from Columbia University. The full list of lectures and speakers are as follows:\n\nLecture\n\nSpeaker\n\nAmerican Chinese Film Making\n\nShirley Sum\n\nCentral Highlanders of Vietnam\n\nGrant Evans\n\nCambodia: Is Peace Possible\n\n!\n\nix\n\nPeter Leeds", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212703, "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-1992", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Chinese Painting & Caligraphy\n\nArmoured Cars in the Battle of Hong Kong\n\nTC Lại\n\nArren Leung\n\nInheritance and the Chinese Lineage\n\nHugh Baker\n\nFrom the Common Por\n\nJames Watson\n\nNo Environmental Myopia at Mai Po\n\nDick Irving &\n\nDavid Melville\n\nFeng Shut\n\nDavid Shru\n\nThe Woman as a Symbol in Judaeo-Christian\n\n& Hindu Buddhist Traditions\n\nCaroline Muar &\n\nRajeshwari Ghose\n\nGood lectures however can rarely be carried out unless there is a reasonable venue and the technical aspects are in place. Fortunately, as members will know we have an excellent relationship with the Urban Council which not only sponsors our talks, but provides us with a very well fitted out room, and I would like to record our sincere thanks for the council's unstinting co-operation.\n\nI would now like to turn to the second of our area of activities; the Journal and the Library. To produce an annual journal as we do is a very time-consuming business and throughout the history of the Society we have been particularly fortunate to have had a line of very distinguished editors, Professor Crammer-Byng, Professor James Lui, Dr. James Hayes, our immediate past president, Dr. David Faure, and one who has done it since 1982, Dr. Patrick Hase. We do owe a great deal to Patrick who assures me that the 1990 Journal will be out very shortly, (we are waiting for the final version of the 30th anniversary lecture given by Dr. Wang Gungwu) and the 1991 Journal will, it is hoped be out by the end of the year.\n\nLast year I reported to you that I hoped to be able to report more encouragingly on the move of the Library from its present location in the rather inaccessible Kowloon Central Library, to a special collection room in the reorganised City Hall Central Library. I am pleased to say that this is now likely to happen in the foreseeable future probably by the end of the year. This is something we have been working on for sometime and it is particularly gratifying that it is now becoming a reality: our thanks go to Mrs. Barbara Luk, Assistant Director Museums and\n\nX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213608, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "176\n\n14 1966, at the age of 62. His name is remembered in Hong Kong not only in the MacIntosh Cathedrals, but also in the MacIntosh tartan kilts of the Force Band. In the Force Museum in Coombe Road a special display case is dedicated to Commissioner MacIntosh and is full of memorabilia including a brass model of a MacIntosh Cathedral which was presented to him on his retirement by his Chief Inspectors and donated to the museum by his widow.\n\nIn conclusion although the MacIntosh Cathedrals are perhaps not architecturally significant, they have a certain appeal and are historically important as a key element in the development and improvement of Hong Kong's frontier defences and in the control of illegal immigration in the post-war years.\n\nREFERENCES\n\nPolicing Hong Kong, pamphlet by D W MacIntosh, CMG, OBE, Commissioner of Police, Hong Kong, 1952\n\nObservation Posts, by Sub-Inspector ME Davis, The Hong Kong Police Magazine, Vol 3 #4. Dec 1953\n\nAsia's Finest : An Illustrated Account of the Royal Hong Kong Police, by Kevin Sinclair, Unicorn Books Lid, 1983\n\nForce History: Origins of Border MacIntosh Cathedrals, by Mike Watson, \"Off Beat\", Mar 22, 1989\n\nByways of History : Territory Regroups After the War Years, South China Morning Post, Dec 12, 1989", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214043, "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-1997", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "78\n\n47\n\n#\n\nGovernment Press\n\nThe total land area of Fanling and Sheung Shui was 13,184 acres (20.6 square miles). See Heung Yee Kuk, Xin Jie Xiang Yi Ju Cheng Li Lu Shi Zhou Nian Jin Dian Te Kan (The Special Issue for the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk's 60th Anniversary [published in 1986]), p. 182\n\nA name list of successful applicants was posted on the village notice-board in 1991. A total of 69 ding houses were allowed to be built. But unsuccessful applicants tore down the list and then submitted objections to the District Office. They complained that some successful applicants were found to be living abroad, some came from the same family, and that most village council members of Fanling Wai (cun wei hui cheng yuan) were successful applicants. The result was considered unfair because many of these successful applicants were said to have bribed the Village Representatives for their applications. So the District Officer and Village Representatives had to set up new criteria for reconsidering the applications.\n\n\"The detail of the criterion is as follows (Data collected from the Fanling Wai village notice-board in 1994): (1) Villagers having large families and those whose present living conditions were comparatively less desirable. (1) Villagers who could afford the construction costs of the houses and were unlikely to dispose of the completed houses to outsiders. (11) Villagers who were enthusiastic towards serving fellow villagers and were benevolent towards the affairs of the village. (iv) Villagers who had submitted applications before June 1989. (v) Applicants who were or had been members of either the village committee, or Da Jiao Committee or Village Guard would be considered to have served their fellow villagers and to be benevolent towards the affairs of Fanling Wai. (Da Jiao is a lineage-based religious festival, see footnote 10). (vi) Where two or more applicants having a father and son relationship were successful in this selection exercise, only one application would be selected for allocation of a Small House site.\n\n\"Some villagers anticipated that their building rights would not be realized in their lifetime due to the keen competition or to their lack of money, so they decided to sell their \"right to build\" (ding quan) to land developers to profit. That is, land developers have offered villagers money to make use of their building rights to apply to build houses elsewhere. During my fieldwork, I found a total of seven Pangs who had successfully applied to build ding houses outside Fanling Wai. Six were built in San Wai of Lung Yeuk Tau (the Tang lineage settlement in Fanling), and one in Long Chai, Fanling. In fact, the phenomena of selling ding quan by villagers to make a profit has been a common one. For example, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, ten villagers living abroad who had no intention of returning to Hong Kong made a total profit of $500,000 by selling their ding quan to land developers (1982: 55, quoted in Allen Chun, op. cit., p. 222).\n\n* In 1976, in order to discourage villagers from making profits by selling their ding wu, the government amended the policy to pay the government full market value premium if houses are sold within five years of the end of construction work.\n\n27. The emigrant Mans also built new village houses in San Tin as the ultimate proof of their stake in the community of their birth. See James Watson, op. cit., p. 165", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214709, "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-1999", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "88\n\naltered work for the railway had not been held up, as so often happens with New Territories' projects similar to this. This was in spite of the protracted discussions that had taken place regarding the removal of the graves at Pat Heung. By comparison a dispute between the Government and Ping Shan villagers, in the northeast of the New Territories, about the moving of an agnate's grave, has been going on for several years. This has resulted in the closure of some buildings along the Ping Shan Heritage Trail by the Tang Clan (Cheung; 1999, 570). At the time of writing they are still closed.\n\nAfter bussing the large group back to Sheung Tsuen a further ten-minute ceremony was held by the Taoist priests in the Kwan Yin Ancient Temple, opposite the matshed (see Plate 6). Again there was a repeat of chanting, bowing and the sprinkling of rice wine. This was to pay respects to the gods in the temple and was not really a formal part of the tun fu ceremony.\n\nWhether it is a wedding, a funeral or celebrating the completion of the refurbishment of an ancestral hall, in Chinese culture food usually plays an important part. Now, after the tun fu ceremony was over, it was time to feast and what and how people eat can reflect complex social messages. The banquet consisted of a basin meal. For some this was in the open and for others under cover, close to the temple. Before the meal there were speeches in Cantonese from both government officials and village representatives. These were followed by Cantonese opera. Only about 20 women (some of whom sit on village committees) were present among the over 1,000 people who sat down for the basin meal which included the crisp, golden-brown roast pigs which had been offered up to, and was food fit for, the gods. After this latter ritual the pork had taken on magical qualities. Later, by eating it, we the living were able to fortify our chi (prank or life-force) (Waters; 1996, 125) (Leung; 1992, 27). As is the custom in the New Territories on such occasions, all ‘ate from the common pot'. This was placed in the centre of each circular, Chinese table (Watson; 1987, 389). Eating together like this is intended to imply that all diners co-operate and depend on and trust one another. A basin meal is a great leveller. But it is not just how you eat. It is also what you eat. Consequently, many of the layers (frequently totalling nine which is a propitious number) of food in the 'common pot', in addition to the pork previously mentioned, were auspicious. For example faat choi, ‘sea moss' (or, as it is commonly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214785, "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-1999", "page_number": 200, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "165\n\nPOST-COLONIAL ANTHROPOLOGY:\n\nLOCAL IDENTITIES AND VIRTUAL NATIONALITY IN THE HONG KONG-CHINA REGION\n\nNICHOLAS TAPP\n\nI’d like to start with a bow in the direction of Barbara Ward, who I’ve always regretted just missing being supervised by.1 Barbara Ward pioneered local anthropological studies of Hong Kong, in the sense that she lived here, she worked here, and she undertook intensive field-work among the fishing and other communities of Hong Kong. Many here were her friends, and many will remember her. But what was the importance of her work, to Hong Kong, and to anthropologists today?\n\nAnthropology used to be thought of as the intensive study of small-scale ‘traditional’ communities. Since the days when Maine (1971) foregrounded the importance of territory by tracing the transition from blood to soil as the basis of social evolution and Morgan (1877) talked of the transition from kinship to territory, anthropologists have specialised in localities, local situations and local identities, and their relations to even more primary kinship groupings. And certainly Barbara Ward’s work contributed to this aspect of traditional anthropology. But at the same time, and really since the beginnings of modern anthropology with Malinowski’s (1945) work on colonialism, anthropologists have also sought to understand the encounters between different cultures; culture-contact, social change and the modernization process.2 So there has been a constant struggle to depict the local communities, whom anthropologists so intensively studied, in terms of wider social, cultural, political or economic frameworks. Here Barbara Ward’s work was critical in the Hong Kong context, for she showed us the fishing people, so often thought of as a community apart, feeling and representing themselves as members of a much wider, ‘Chinese’ society, of which they felt very much a part (Ward 1965).3 The idea of a merely local community, then, somewhere between the family and a society, had to be revised, restructured, to take account of this sense of belonging to a far wider, more dispersed, social category associated with a nation-state.4\n\nAnother great contributor to studies of Hong Kong has been Professor James Watson, and his own work can be seen as having taken", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216162, "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": 461, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "395\n\nso on. I owe this information to our President, Dr. Patrick Hase, who has also referred me to an article on the subject by Professor James L. Watson, \"Eating from the Common Pot: Feasting with Equals in Chinese Society\", published in Anthropos, Vol. 82, 1987, pp. 389-401.\n\nIn the course of enquiries (1970s) into foods made at festival time, I came across some interesting facts about the preparation process. This was often laborious. The \"cakes\" made at the lunar New Year are a case in point. The materials comprised pounded glutinous rice and cane sugar. According to men from two of the former Tsuen Wan villages, sixteen hours were needed to cook the mixture in a very large, deep wok (the Chinese frying pan) in effect for a whole day, from dawn till dusk or later. Cooking in an old-fashioned village stove, fuelled by dried grass or firewood, was essential; since the taste would be different were charcoal or gas to be used. Some of the Sham Tseng elders (also Tsuen Wan District) said that each \"cake\" might require between 30 to 50 catties of glutinous rice, resulting in very large \"cakes\". In one household of my acquaintance (originally from Shek Pik on Lantau Island, resited to Tsuen Wan in 1960), it had been usual for them to make four large \"cakes\" every lunar New Year. These were distributed as goodwill gifts to shops in the market towns of Tai O and Cheung Chau, and the boat people's families in the Shek Pik anchorage - indicative of this household's economic and social ties. People also gave and received portions of such cakes during the customary visiting to mark the arrival of the New Year.\n\nThe Sham Tseng men had also mentioned a rather curious requirement involved in the preparation of the dumplings made for the fifth day of the fifth lunar month festival, commonly known as the Dragon Boat Festival. The dumplings had to be made with a preparation of wood ash, placed between bamboo leaves, and filtered with water. This watery ash, known as kan shui [the character I was given for 'kan' is that for 'root', but though this sits oddly with the context, I have not been able to find anything more suitable in a dictionary search] had to come from \"new\" wood, though not necessarily of any particular kind. It was no use trying to filter ash from anything that came to hand, like old boards or drift-wood.\n\nTurning to other topics, I had earmarked but subsequently overlooked two interesting items in the course of shaping the chapters.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]