[ { "id": 204460, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES \n\n81\n\nweddings and funerals, repairs to the ancestral temple, and so on. In \n\nAnother and less formal method of securing these aims is the setting aside of joss and oil fields, sometimes known by the obscure title of ching sheung 1, whose proceeds, again, are used for the proper observance of ancestral rites and other family needs.1 One need hardly emphasise the integrating effect of these land measures,\n\nTo understand the people and their outlook and background it is necessary to see to what sort of government they were accustomed.1 The government of the San On district was essentially Confucian, like that of every other administrative division; by which I mean that Confucian principles were ostensibly followed. This was sealed by the state worship of the sage. In every district city there was a temple to Confucius styled a man miu in which the District Magistrate, his senior staff and the local gentry paid the customary respects to the sage and his seventy-two disciples on his birthday (twenty-seventh day of the eighth moon) and at the spring worship or chun chai 1 in the second moon. The same thing happened at the prefectural and provincial capitals. At the head of the San On district was the District Magistrate whose superior was the prefect of the Kwang Chau prefecture which embraced at least five large districts. He was subordinate to the provincial governor and he in turn to the Viceroy of the two Kwang Provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. The nature and duties of the provincial officers had been established since the T'ang dynasty and for well over a millennium the pattern of government had been cast in an identical mould. The District Magistrate was usually a scholar who had taken one of the metropolitan examinations at Peking and he was always a native of another province than his native one, this being a long standing rule. He spent three or six years in one post and was then moved elsewhere, and was promoted in due course to be prefect or to higher office through merit, connections or good fortune. Some persons began and ended their official careers as District Magistrates.\n\n1\n\nThe District Magistrate's duties were many and his competence was most extensive. He was, in truth, the father-mother official1 of the people so called by them and also so styled in official documents because of his authority over all their affairs, criminal or civil. He certainly regarded himself as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205005, "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-1965", "page_number": 113, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "104\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nand mineral deposits in Hong Kong, Southern China and South-East Asia. After a lapse of three years, the proceedings have been published, making a very substantial contribution to the study of the geography of Hong Kong.\n\nThe book is divided into three parts:\n\nPart I deals with land use and contains eighteen short articles. Of the nineteen authors, eight are graduates of the Department of Geography, University of Hong Kong. With Professor Davis as editor, the book leaves us with a vivid impression akin to a painting which portrays a mother hen directing a group of her young in search of food. The eighteen articles occupy 152 pages or sixty-two per cent of the book's length. According to their nature, the articles are again divided into three sections: industrial planning (five papers), agricultural planning (two) and land use in South-East Asia (eleven). Of the eighteen articles, \"Land for Industry and Factors Influencing Location in Hong Kong\", \"Changes in Agricultural Land Use in Hong Kong\", and \"The Port of Hong Kong\" constitute the core of Part I, providing a basic explanation of the economic development of Hong Kong in recent years and the influence exercised thereon by the geographical setting.\n\nIn Part I, only two articles are unrelated to Hong Kong. They are \"Mixed Farming and Multiple Cropping in Malaya\" by R. Ho, and “The Development and Spread of Agricultural Terracing in China\" by J. E. Spencer. The former gave me an opportunity to re-examine the facts about land use in Malaya. In 1962, accepting an invitation from the University of Malaya, I had gone to Kuala Lumpur to participate in the Regional Conference of the International Geographical Union. We had lengthy discussions about land use in Malaya and Professor Ho had kindly accompanied us throughout the post-conference excursion and explained to us the problems concerned. The second article is of absorbing interest to me too, because, over the years I have been groping in a similar field. However, research of this kind entails much reading of the Chinese classics, and I feel that the more I have read, the more difficult it is to jump to conclusions.\n\nOne defect that is usually inevitable in any collection of articles is that they generally fail to reflect a uniform standard. As an article is a piece of writing done on request, the people invited to write often show different degrees of seriousness in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205609, "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-1968", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "146\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe halls are all substantial buildings, somewhat simpler in style than the usual run of Chinese temples and they do not declare themselves obviously as religious institutions. Once inside, however, their religious nature is obvious from the images one sees immediately in the main downstairs shrine room where one enters.\n\nA few words are in order here on the deities worshipped by members of the sect and particularly in the vegetarian halls, for one of these deities effects the lay-out of the hall itself.\n\nWomen inmates may worship any god or goddess popular with them in a private capacity, and some have pictures and small images of such deities in their own sleeping quarters. Hsien-t'ien religion has itself incorporated, however, a number of gods and goddesses and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas into its worship. Kuan-yin is commonly found in halls of the sect and was in fact found in the halls in Ngau Chi Wan. Popular Chinese triads such as: Sakyamuni, Lao Tzu and Confucius (Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism) are also common and appeared in the lower shrine room of the WING LOK TUNG. The sects relate various gods and Buddhas to each other by the theory of reincarnation: one god is the reincarnation of another, or of a Buddha in a different age. They are also related to each other by their cooperation in the work for Truth in a particular \"Truth\" epoch.\n\nA goddess peculiar to the sects of the religion exists, however. In this sect she is known as \"Golden Mother of the Yao Pool\" (Yao-ch'ih Chin-mu). In other sects she is known by different names: several simply call her \"Venerable Mother\" (Lao-mu), while Kuei-ken Men \"The Sect of Reverting to the Root [of Things]\" calls her \"Unbegotten Venerable Mother\" (Wu-shêng Lao-mu). Some sectarian leaders have told Marjorie Topley that they can tell when a particular sect split off from others in the religion by the term of address they use for \"Mother\". Mother is supposed to change her name every few years or so in order to prevent the unorthodox off-shoots from obtaining access to her. Any message sent to her under the incorrect name will fail to arrive. More sophisticated members say, however, that this goddess is in fact a symbolic representation of the Void: out of which the cosmos, and with it, Absolute Truth, emerged. But to most ordinary members, particularly female members, she is a goddess of great compassion and power and they sometimes identify her with Kuan-yin.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206683, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n225\n\nrank in a number of groups) and even the White Lotus itself — all listed by the author (I am here using his translations and romanizations) — had a systematically worked-out theology, exegeses existing independently of any other Chinese religion, a mother goddess unknown in any other Chinese pantheon, and they looked for the coming of an incarnate buddha, Maitreya, who is to preside over a millennial age. They had elaborate ranks with elaborate religious qualifications, and indeed in many cases it would appear by examination of such ranks, as well as theology and lines of patriarchal succession that they are offshoots of each other. This is certainly claimed to be the case by leaders of some of these messianic organizations living overseas in contemporary times (Topley 1963). Such groups attracted the frustrated intellectual as well as the poorer member of society who might find a home in one of their residential, commonly vegetarian, halls. They had a dialectical approach to the social and ideological contradictions they saw in their society and culture: in some ways more Confucian than the Confucians who urged self-cultivation as a requirement for good government by the official, they made a necessity of a virtue and demanded this qualification for an administrative position in their own organizational hierarchy. And here is an important point. They offered a social and ideological system which was a complete challenge, not just to existing leadership but the form of society itself. Social organization would be unnecessary when the millennium came, because people would act from intuitive knowledge of the right way to behave. Virtue would be the only qualification for the decision-maker and its own reward. There would be no poverty and no contradictions. Such notions are not of course without parallel in secular China today. Is it really true, as the author suggests that they 'contributed to the survival of outdated ideas and beliefs'? Or might they have not paved the way for certain contemporary Chinese ways of thinking? All this requires much more serious thought, as does also, the particular nature of their militant involvements: what role in military activities and strategy-planning would a leader of this kind of organization have a man whose position appears to depend on religious rather than social achievements; on intellect rather than physical prowess (Topley 1968: 35, 38)?\n\nJ\n\nThere was then another kind of grouping which was different. It used religious concepts and symbols but had no separate theology or exegeses. No religious qualifications were necessary for leader-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207101, "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-1974", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "166\n\nSUNG HOK-PANG\n\nyear a certain woman of Shui Mei Ts'uen (A#) had gone to play cards with a cousin in a neighbouring house. In the middle of the afternoon they heard a sound like that of a house falling down. The woman ran outside, as all the other villagers did, and saw that the roof of her house was broken and a stream of silver coins was flying out through the hole. The cloud of coins moved away into the distance and eventually disappeared into the sea. When the woman entered her house she found the hole in the roof was directly above a well in her kitchen and the tiles were all scattered round the well, while the stones inside the well were all loosened and some were floating in the water. This story seems incredible but there are many people in Kam T'in to-day who declare they witnessed this occurrence. The writer has even gone to the trouble of questioning four villagers from different houses and at different times but each adhered to the same story and were emphatic in their having been present at the incident.\n\nTang Hei Sui (##), who was born in the 54th year of K'ien Lung A.D. 1788, of Ts'ing Dynasty, is still spoken of in Kam T'in to-day with appreciation and respect of his charitable nature. He was a farmer and lived in Wing Lung Wai ✯ but when twenty-eight years of age he became very rich and employed more than a hundred labourers to work for him in his fields. In the 21st year of Ka Hing, A.D. 1816, of Ts'ing Dynasty he received the official title of Kung Sheng (†) and from that time onwards he did a lot of charitable work in Kam T'in. He had a very peaceable disposition, and disliked seeing or hearing people quarrel, which meant that he was very much imposed on by the loafers and idlers of the village. Two of them would pretend to have a fight outside his house and on hearing it going on Hei Sui would come out and ask the cause of the quarrel. One would declare that the other owed him a certain sum of money, the other would deny it, and in distress, Hei Sui would cry, \"Cousins, do not quarrel over money,” and he would bring out his purse, and generously pay off the imaginary debt, which the two rascals divided between them. Hei Sui was much laughed at behind his back for this, and eventually some of his near relatives told him the truth and begged him not to let himself be taken in again. His answer was, “I was poor at first. Now I am rich, and because my cousins are poor I should help them. When I have used up all my money and become poor again they will stop all this nonsense and won't bother me any more.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207106, "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-1974", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n171\n\nTang Leung Sz passed Kung Shaang degree in the 38th year of Maan Lik♬ of Ming dynasty, A.D. 1610, and held the office of Fan-to.\n\nTang Yue Cheung took his Sau-t'soi✯✯ degree in the 2nd year of Yung Ching of Ts'ing dynasty A.D. 1724 and in the following year became a Lam Shang. In the first year of Kin-lung✯✯ A.D. 1736 he passed Kui Yan, second in the list of successful candidates, but just failed to pass the Wui Shi examination the following year. However, his name was put on the Ming T'ung Pong list and he was appointed as Hok-ching of Tak Hing Chau in Kwangtung province.\n\nTang Yue Cheung's name in the San On Record book is among the “Heung Yin\" or \"village worthies,\" and it is said there that:— Tang Yue Cheung was a scholar of a very kind and honest nature. He was very \"taan-chik”✯✯ (\"to wear the heart upon the sleeve for daws to peck at\") and his knowledge of learning was very wide. In all his dealings with his friends he was sincere and faithful, and as a Hok-ching he was very diligent. Once some of his students fell out with the authorities, and found themselves faced with a false accusation, but were too afraid to defend themselves. Tang, however, at once entered into the dispute, and through his clear-headedness kept his students out of trouble. In the 17th year of K'in Lung A.D. 1752 Tang was called to the capital to attend an examination, but he died there, and Fung Shing Sau (a Hon Lam graduate) wrote the epitaph \"for his name lives for ever,” to be carved on his grave.\n\nTang Man Wai was the only Tsun-sz come from the New Territories, and his name is recorded in the San On book under the column devoted to hang yee \"men of high repute.\" He was left fatherless at an early age, and had to work with the fishermen and wood-cutters in great poverty, to earn money to support himself and his mother. But all the while he was a scholar at heart and in his spare time he read his books and people said that he could be heard continually humming his lessons on the road, as he carried wood or worked with the fishermen. His uncle Tang Chan Ng, a Lam Shang, helped him, and his success in later years was greatly due to the old man's teaching. In the 14th year of Shun Chi A.D. 1657, Ts'ing dynasty, he passed his Kui Yan degree, but later failed for Tsun Sz and so returned to Kam T'in where he passed twenty years or more, living as a hermit.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208184, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 223, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n207\n\n16. The fourth generation of Sham Tin Tangs after Chi witness the events of the two brothers Hung-chih (*) and Hung-yi (*). The Hung Yi Kung tale is, of course, highlighted by the marriage between Hung Yi and an adopted daughter of the rich businessman Chan. One of the most interesting finds of the project was the ascendancy of this tale to a position of dominance, at least at the oral level.\n\n16. a. Several \"native\" reasons are given for this ascendancy. The head nun of the Ling Wan Tsz (†††) maintains that the Wong woman was really Hung-yi's mother, and that it was she who established the temple from which countless blessings have been distributed [this corresponds well with the current \"official\" Kam Tin history at para 20 below]. All scholastic achievements of the Tangs have been attributed to the virtues of the Wong woman.\n\n16. b. Mr. Tang Ying-kai, one of the prominent younger men, attributes the popularity of this tale to the fact that it establishes an \"intimate\" relationship between the first and fourth fongs. [For it was the first son of Hung-yi who offered a son to Wong to raise, initiating the fourth fong.]\n\n16. c. The key to the mystery of why this tale is dominant is somehow related to the evermore blurred Hakka/Punti distinction. The surrounding settlements are predominantly Hakka, and all Hakka villages in Stewart Lockhart's original 'census' are in the Un Long (=Yuen Long) Division and in the vicinity of Kam Tin. [The 1966 census for San Tin, Kam Tin and Pat Heung gives the Punti (Cantonese) population as 10,600 and the Hakka population as 13,000. This is a surprisingly large figure.] The oral tradition of these Hakka communities, in particular their “tales of origin” show striking structural similarities to the Hung-yi tale.\n\n17. The Hung-yi tale contains two references to a local marriage custom known as \"yap nao\" (x), adoption of a male into a family for the purposes of marriage or perpetuation of the line. There are specific Tang prohibitions against this custom mentioned in the genealogy, as it is considered ‘demeaning\"—a custom practised by \"sai chuk” or “sai man”—so it is all the more surprising to find arrangements of this nature in the tale. The Ngs and Wongs of Sha Po Tsuen claim a similar relationship to each other.\n\n* Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong in Eastern No. 66, Colonial Office, London, 1900.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208487, "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n195 \n\nGuo's cult centre was at Phoenix Mountain Monastery (4 +) near Nan An, a county capital some 15 miles inland from Chuan Zhou, the prefectural capital on the coast of Fujian province opposite Taiwan. Though Chuan Zhou lies only forty miles up the coast as the crow flies from Amoy, before the advent of buses travel between those two cities took several days. Immigrants to South-east Asia took the Saintly Guo with them, and wherever his temple is to be found you can be certain that the local populace includes a fair percentage of Nan An, Chuan Zhou and Amoy settlers. \n\nHe is usually seen on altars, as he is on the Hong Kong altar, sitting beside his consort and with his parents behind him and two unnamed male servants before him. \n\nHis festivals are celebrated on his birthday the 22nd of the second lunar month, and on the 22nd of the eighth lunar month, the day he was whisked away to Heaven and achieved Tao. \n\nGuo has two or three legends describing his origins and life. Some readers will have heard all or parts of these differing legends connected with various deities. The main one relates how Guo was born in Nan An district during the Sung Dynasty where he grew up with his poverty-stricken widowed mother. She worked as a maid for a rich but unpopular man who, as did all very rich heads of families, also employed his own feng shui specialist (a form of fortune adviser) who provided advice and plans for each day. The feng shui specialist foretold that the child Guo who worked as a goatherd, would have a great future, and would inherit everything from the rich man, as Guo's family had been pious, honest and good for three generations. The question posed by the rich man after he had heard this prognostication from the feng shui specialist was \"would Guo prefer to be a great man for one generation\", or \"ashes and incense forever?\" (In another version it was Emperor for one generation and Duke or King for many generations). The feng shui specialist secretly explained to Guo which was the best plot in the rich man's acres, the plot with the most auspicious characteristics. Here he was to bury the remains of his dead father. To obtain the plot Guo indentured himself to the rich man for a fixed period without the rich man realizing the auspicious nature of the site. After years of hard work Guo was able to bury his father in the plot, earning the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208731, "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-1979", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n161\n\npresent day Taiwan, I may point out the cult of the Golden Mother of the Jade Pool and the cult of Kuan Ti focussing on divinatory writing and the publication of morality books.\n\nHaving discussed the great variety of temples according to the first criterium: religious affiliation, the other two criteria mentioned (nature of deities enshrined, and ownership) do not need much attention, since they have already been co-discussed. However, the second criterium needs some elaboration: distinction of temples according to the nature of the deities enshrined. In a few cases there can be no mistaken identity although this criterion by itself is insufficient to determine the temple type. The clearest cases are when the Buddhist Holy Ones are the main objects of worship; Buddhas Sakyamuni, Amitabha or Amita, the Buddha of Healing (rather than 'Medical Buddha' as Baity calls him on p. 126), bodhisattvas Kuan-yin (Avalokitesvara), P'u-hsien (Samantabhadra), Maitreya, Wen-shu (Manjusri), to name the principal ones. In most instances these temples are essentially Buddhist. However, one has to be very careful: the mutual absorption of cult objects by various religions has often blurred the origins; in many Matsu temples (community temples of the folk religion) there is a secondary shrine behind the central hall, in which Kuan-yin is enthroned on the central altar. However, the iconography has been changed: this Kuan-yin does not have the appearance of traditional Buddhist sculpture but appears as another deity of the folk religion. Therefore such temples are still essentially folk religious temples, and the dissonant appearance of Kuan-yin should not deceive the observer.\n\nThe same principal applies to the cult of Ti-tsang (Ksitigarbha). Although originally a bodhisattva, his cult has become so popular that he has been absorbed into the folk religion: his image can be found in many community temples throughout Taiwan, mostly on a secondary altar in the central hall. But once again he has lost the typically Buddhist iconographic appearance.\n\nWhat is the difference between Taoist and popular deities? The most distinctively Taoist Holy Ones are those one does not often see in the temples: their images, painted on scrolls, are in the possession of Taoist priests and brought to the temples or temporary roadside shrines by them for special occasions: such as rituals for the dead or the great chiao festival. Besides those there", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210513, "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-1985", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "101\n\nreferring to this same threat. Neither she nor anyone in Kau Sai volunteered the still more generalised argument in terms of the classical Chinese cosmological dualism between 'Yin' and 'Yang' that might be expected from a literate informant though they probably all could have done so. Dualism was an unquestioned assumption with which every Kau Sai person I talked with was familiar, but which was very seldom invoked. For most of them most of the time the polluting nature of menstruation was a self-evident and sufficient reason for the taboos.\n\nIt is perhaps worth noting that Kau Sai men never raised these matters with me, and when I enquired about the sexual divisions of labour always ascribed them entirely to differences in physical strength and health and (with reference to cooking and the care of young children on the one hand, and marketing fish and building junks on the other) in know-how. Women, who were voluble and endlessly inquisitive about all matters connected with female physiology, stressed much more than the ritual prohibitions the personal discomfort, inconvenience, and above all sheer embarrassment of having to cope with the menstrual flow in the confined space of a small boat where \"everyone must know about it\". One of the great advantages of moving ashore was felt to be that this particular problem was much easier to deal with there.**\n\nTwo further physical and ritual peculiarities associated with women and their participation in work in the fishing boats must be mentioned before leaving this digression. Pregnant women were under no special prohibitions that I could discover, but after either birth or miscarriage a woman was unclean, for a full month or until after the performance of the ritual known as \"changing the gods” (woon shan). A birth, indeed, put not only the mother but also the boat and all its company into the ritual quarantine I have already mentioned, like a death; it did not put an end to fishing operations however, and though the woman herself was theoretically not supposed to do so, I was told that in fact she often did help with the drawing in of nets etc., once she was strong enough, provided that she observed the usual (menstrual) taboos.\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211462, "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-1988", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "154\n\nAh Wun, Ah Hoy, and Ah Seu, the latter two being our daily playmates. A cluster of Chinese homes bordered a large empty area behind our duplex and there Mother became acquainted with the Leong Chew's, the Chun Loy's and the Goo Dow's. For Mother, preparation to go to a friend's or to a party or to a Chinese opera meant getting gifts ready for the friend, dressing herself and us children in fine clothes, and hiring a hack to drive us there. An air of anticipation and excitement would prevail. Although we did not live far from the Red Light District in Iwilei, we had to commute by hack to visit a friend there.\n\nMother knew instinctively how to take care of us when we became ill. I was not a robust child. I do not recall ever being seen by a doctor when I was growing up. Father would describe our symptoms to a herbalist, who would then select certain herbs to be brewed as a drink for our ailments. I always resisted these concoctions, a conglomerate of twigs, leaves, seeds and, at times, even earthworms and cockroaches. In spite of much coaxing and scolding, I would continue to resist until someone would finally hold my nose while another would pour the brew into my mouth, thus forcing me to swallow. This often resulted in some vomiting, much to the annoyance of Mother, who, nevertheless, would reward me with one or two black dates that accompanied each dose of medicine. Before her conversion to Christianity, she also had superstitious practices as part of the cure. She would start a charcoal fire in a brazier, sprinkle some alum over it, and then swing me back and forth over the smoldering heat, pulling my ears one at a time and chanting over and over, \"Me Big not afraid! Little Pig afraid\"\n\nShe believed that this chant would send the evil spirit causing my illness to a pig. It worked!\n\nWhen I was about four, I became very ill with diarrhea, discharging so much blood that I was unable to walk from weakness. Mother asked Father to consult a doctor whose only advice was to let nature take its course. In desperation, Father went to an herbalist who prescribed a powder for diarrhea and a diet of rice and dried persimmons. This proved effective. It must have been near the Chinese New Year for I still recall the taste of preserved duck and salted duck eggs imported from China at that time of the year, which Mother served me with rice. When next I was hurting with a swollen gland in my right groin, Mother summoned a Chinese \"doctor\", who poured kerosene over it as it broke and drained.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211490, "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-1988", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "182\n\na year at Tulane University, came for a visit with his family, as did my mother from home. From New England came Effie Huchmore and Beverly King.\n\nA word about Effie. I had met her while we were both staying at the Franklin Square House near the Boston City Hospital when I was studying at Simmons College and she, at Boston University. We became fast friends. She had me as her guest in her home in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, where she lived with her parents and maternal grandmother, and showed me the beautiful scenic spots of the White Mountains. This visit gave me an insight into the activities and character of a typical New England town and the enjoyment of the simple unpretentious hospitality of an old Yankee family. A rare experience indeed!\n\nBefore I left New York the summer of 1948, I was a bridesmaid to Betty Lee upon her marriage to Paul Gee on June 7, 1948. She was formerly a teacher of religion at True Light and its principal during the Second World War. I had also promised to return to marry John Shue Fong Lew, a widower with two younger daughters in Canton. I had met him casually in Boston in 1947 through a mutual friend, Grace Chin, and had become better acquainted with him when he came to see me in New York, often accompanied by his good friend, Lew Orne. We were both mature and ready to settle down by this time, and fortunately felt drawn to each other. On the way back to Honolulu, I stopped over in Chicago where Mother had taken Edmund to join his mother and where she was waiting for me to accompany her home. As soon as I had fulfilled my commitment, I left Honolulu in October 1950 for Chicago, where John and I were married from Helen's home on 4 November 1950, in a simple ceremony at a local church rectory.\n\nAfter living in an apartment near Harvard Square for a few months, we bought a duplex on 12 Littell Road, Brookline, in order to be near John's business, \"The Ming Restaurant”, at 1022 Beacon Street. By 1952, the business had deteriorated so much that it was not feasible to continue it and we turned it over to S. Y. Lew, one of the partners who wanted it. In the meantime we sent for our daughters, Gar Shuey and Gar Ling, and they arrived in Boston in August 1951 by way of Europe. Both attended Lawrence School and Brookline High School, working as waitresses during the summer in our seasonal restaurant in Bar Harbor,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212125, "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": 67, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "THE 'SYRIAN BRILLIANT TEACHING’\n\nDAVID WILMSHURST\n\nIntroduction\n\nFew Christians nowadays outside the Middle East are familiar with the name, let alone the history, of the Nestorian church of Persia, yet between the ninth and fourteenth centuries it was in some respects perhaps the largest Christian church in the world, with bishoprics stretching from the Mediterranean right across Asia to China. The church took its name from Nestorius, who became archbishop of Constantinople in 428 and was deposed not long afterwards for holding heretical views on the nature of Christ. Nestorius placed great stress on the human nature of Jesus, and tried to discourage the use in the churches under his jurisdiction of the title Theotokos, 'mother of God', a term which had long been applied to the Virgin Mary. To his enemies, he appeared to be denying the divinity of Christ, and regarding him as a mere man who had been adopted by God as his son, though it is now clear that his views were considerably closer to the orthodox position than he was given credit for at the time. A heated controversy ensued, and both sides in the dispute supported their arguments with bribery and intimidation. The opposition to Nestorius was led by Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, who was motivated partly by a genuine distaste for his opponent's theology and partly by jealousy of his ecclesiastical status. Cyril finally procured the deposition and banishment of Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus in 431.\n\nIn the next century and a half the Nestorian heresy was stamped out within the territories of the Roman empire, and its adherents fled to neighbouring Persia. Although the state religion of Sassanian Persia was Zoroastrianism, Christianity had firmly established itself in the western provinces of the Persian empire, particularly among the mainly Syrian population of northern Mesopotamia and in Khuzistan and Fars, and Persia's Christian minority by and large sympathised with the theological position which Nestorius had taken. The influx of Christian refugees from the Roman empire strengthened the native Persian church, and after the Persian empire was conquered by the Moslem Arabs in the seventh century the Nestorian church enjoyed a period of rapid expansion. Syrian and Persian Christians were tolerated by their Moslem rulers and organised into a melet, or official minority", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212830, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "124\n\nsupport refugees from Hongkong until positions could be found for them. I had obtained them through the recommendation of that organisation, as also the two wireless operators. Although they had volunteered for active service, in the interests of security, I had been unable to explain to them the exact nature of our work and they were already beginning to show symptoms of uneasiness the nearer we approached to the front. Rogue, whose real name was a long Portuguese word ending in Rogue, too difficult to spell or pronounce, had also escaped from Hongkong. He was originally a Portuguese subject from Timor, half Chinese and half Portuguese by blood. At one period of his life he had served in the Chinese Army, and at another he had commanded a small Portuguese vessel sailing out of Macao. He was very tough, always cheerful, always ready to do what was asked of him, and brave as a lion. Wherever he is I hope the British government will look after him for the excellent service he gave while with our party. Lao Teng was the cook-boy who had joined me in eastern China and who continued to look after me, until I left China. He was not only an excellent cook, well able to accommodate himself to all the food and fuel crises to which troops are exposed, but he was a personal friend, usually singing and laughing, and always ready to turn to and prepare a meal after a day's march, however long. He looked after me like a mother; I hope we may meet again one day.\n\nOwing to the limitation imposed by the numerous demands on the single R.A.F. 'plane received each week at Kun-ming, our clothing and equipment was peculiar and modest. We hoped to have further supplies dropped to us in due course, but in the meantime the party was dressed in a mixture of uniforms which would have given occasion for comment had they appeared on the square at Wellington Barracks; as Stan said, watching the men jump out of our lorry on arrival at Paoshan, he wondered what the heck was going to jump out next. What our American friends thought of us Heaven only knows; they were too polite to tell us.\n\nAs far as Paoshan we had moved by lorry; we were now to take to our feet, with pack animals to carry the baggage. The Chinese would not allow us to proceed directly to Kokang, but insisted that we should go via Shunning; it meant covering two sides of a triangle. The instruction was not unreasonable because it was at Shunning that the headquarters of the army, covering the portion of the front which included Kokang, lay.\n\nThe Chinese system of providing coolies, in areas where coolies carried the baggage, or pack animals, where such were available, was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213261, "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-1994", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "63\n\nIn another case a post-graduate Chinese student told the author:\n\n'Before, I thought it was all superstition. But now I realise it makes sense to proceed in harmony with nature. In life, one of the most important things is to maintain harmony. Although Mother is a Catholic she also believes in fung sha.\n\nThe author, years ago, personally knew young Hong Kong Chinese teenagers who did not believe in, or were not convinced about the efficaciousness of fung shui. But now, after becoming middle-aged or elderly, they have become firm followers. 'A woman who did not believe nearly died,' the author was informed. 'After recovering, she became convinced.'\n\nAs Hong Kong has become more developed and affluent, people have had more money to spend on 'luxuries', such as fung shui. Certainly, modern education alone seems not to deal the final blow (Freedman, 1976:235). Yet it is more likely that a New Territories' villager, who lives close to nature and is a member of a tightly knit group, is more likely to believe in fung shui than his urban cousin. Urban society is divorced from close, everyday contact with mother earth and her cycles. For the urban dweller the modes of thought which underly the practise of fung shui have to be consciously cultivated in order to comprehend them. There are, of course, some New Territories' villagers who do not believe in fung shui in spite of the close web of relationships in rural life.\n\nEugene Ho (who one assumes is Chinese although he could be Eurasian) wrote in the South China Morning Post letters to the editor columns, on 25 May 1987- 'I find the whole theory of fung shui wholly devoid of cognitive content.' He went on to say that many of the casual 'laws' of fung shui, (if they are really \"laws\" at all) are no more than half a probability.\n\nNonetheless, when the British took over the New Territories on a 99-year lease in 1898, they promised to respect the then existing (Qing Dynasty) religious rites, ceremonies and social customs. The Hong Kong Government Gazette of October 7, 1899, published (one year after the New Territories were taken over) as a supplement to the Convention of Peking, said that graves in the leased Territory were never to be removed. Some law lecturers at Hong Kong University feel, however, that, because", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213882, "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": 234, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "208\n\nWhen the Chinese in Hong Kong representing other districts in China saw that the power in Canton was drifting into the hands of the Sye Yup [Siyi] Association, they organized societies of their own, preventing the Sye Yup [Siyi] Association from monopolizing political influence in Canton.\n\nOne consequence was that the number of regional chambers in Hong Kong was increased from two in 1909 to sixteen in 1913, and to twenty-four in 1920. Besides, the Governor also supported the establishment of a large association in the colony as \"an effort to hold all these societies [regional associations] into one society... to break the power of the Sye Yap [Siyi] Association\". This association was but the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce. The Governor specified that it was a gentleman called Liu Zhubo (1), who became the first chairman of this Chamber that he found trustworthy. It is to this Mr. Liu, and the leadership group with which he was affiliated that we now turn.\n\nLiu and his associates were a new generation of western-educated Chinese leaders. To illustrate the nature of this group of social leaders, I cite Liu Zhubo and Ho Tung (He Dong)'s personal histories. Both Liu and Ho were born in the China town of Hong Kong and both had very poor family backgrounds. They were raised by their widowed mothers. Ho Tung, for example, was the eldest of four brothers, who had different fathers. The four brothers shared the same surname only because they adopted their mother's family name. Ho Tung himself was a Eurasian and was always excluded by Chinese circles in the colony. But like Liu, he managed to gain a scholarship to study at the government-supported Queen's College and turned out to be an active member of the Alumni Association. After a brief career serving as instructors of the College, Liu and Ho were employed as compradores of Lapack Co. Ltd. and the Jardine & Matheson Co. Ltd., respectively.\n\nIn business terms, these new leaders were closely connected with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, as well as with the Hong Kong government. I cite one example to illustrate this point. In 1914, Liu Zhubo and Ho Tung established The Da You Bank (The Bank of Great Wealth) with their Eurasian friend, Lo Changzhao. In the same year, the three men were granted an opium monopoly within the Colony. All three partners were graduates of Queen's College and were active", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215805, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "37\n\nforces to the north would tire themselves out trying to link up with the beachhead. Should the Chinese collapse in the face of a Japanese attack, then an Allied campaign to recapture Hong Kong would be jeopardized.\n\nJapan had an incentive to retain Hong Kong. Besides being a part of Japanese-held China, Hong Kong also lay just outside Japan's Inner Zone. This zone included Japan Proper, Korea, Manchuria, North China, Formosa, the Pescadores, the Ryukyus, and the Japanese half of Sakhalin Island. Well before the war, the British had already gained an appreciation that a Hong Kong in Japanese hands would augment the defence of the Inner Zone. Moreover, Hong Kong helped guard Japan's LoC to points west and her oil supplies in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese could still afford to trade space for time by forfeiting many other parts of their Pacific empire to the Allies, but they were certain to defend their Inner Zone and the positions that anchored their LoC to and from it with the utmost vigour. If the Japanese lost Hong Kong, this would provide hope to people living under Japanese rule elsewhere, while it would send a message to the Japanese people that the war was proceeding unfavourably for them.\n\nBy late 1943, the Allies had gained the upper hand over the Japanese in the Pacific. It was the Allies who could dictate where the next move would fall. As China was still in the game, Allied planners began to take a closer look at the feasibility of a Hong Kong campaign. One opponent the Allies couldn't overcome, however, was Mother Nature, so heed was paid to Hong Kong's weather and how it could affect an Allied campaign there.\n\nA timeless enemy\n\nNature at its cruellest is a phenomenon that humanity's best efforts still cannot match. Even during a high-technology conflict like World War II, the weather proved to be as indomitable a nemesis as it had been throughout the history of war.\n\nWith World War II being fought over a greater expanse of the planet than any other war in history, its participants had to endure extreme variations in the weather, like the freezing cold of the Arctic and the Soviet Union to the sweltering heat of New Guinea, or the oppressive humidity of the South Pacific to the barren aridity of North", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]