[ { "id": 205545, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "82\n\nFAN LAU AND ITS FORT: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE\n\nARMANDO M. DA SILVA*\n\nSite and Situation\n\nFan Lau is located at the extreme southwestern tip of Tai Yu Shan or Lantau Island. It is almost equal in distance from Hong-kong and Macau and it is situated about twenty-five miles due east of the latter. Fan Lau can be reached by sampan or fishing boat either from the market towns of Cheung Chau or Tai O, or by walking along the water catchment from Shek Pik reservoir to a point above and beyond Kau Ling Chung, and then by descending a steep stony path towards the settlement. Another route is to strike out from Tai O, taking the coastal footpath through Yi O, and thence to Fan Lau. There is no motor road to Fan Lau.\n\nThe area of Fan Lau includes a headland known as Kai Yik Kok (†) meaning \"chicken wing point\" where an old fort is located (see map 1).† The high point of the Kai Yik Kok promontory rises to about 380 feet above sea level. In the north of this headland lies the cultivated waist of Fan Lau where a small settlement is located. Looming above the settlement is Kai Yik Shan1 from which two streams supply irrigation water to the padi fields. Two fine beaches, Tung Wan and Sai Wan, flank the waist of the peninsula. Tung Wan, though exposed to prevailing easterly winds and a long fetch from the village, can accommodate deep-draught junks.\n\nThe actual territory associated with the village extends beyond the physical boundaries of the settlement. Fan Lau villagers, for example, cultivate fields located in Tsin Yue Wan (see map 1) and records show that, at least in 1904, padi fields in Kau Ling Chung (since abandoned) were also cultivated.\n\nSituated at the entrance of the Chu Kong or Pearl River estuary, Fan Lau enjoyed a strategic location in the past. This position was reflected in the construction of numerous forts and guard stations\n\n* Mr. da Silva has a Master's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and is at present with the Department of Geography, University of Hawaii.\n\n† Maps 1-4 are located at pp. 92-95.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205686, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "Plate 7. The walls and inside of the Kai Yik Kok fort.\n\nPlate 8. The stone platform upon which the fort was built.\n\n(Plates 8-13 by courtesy of Mr. Armando Da Silva)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205824, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "124\n\nSOME NOTES ON ETHNO-BOTANY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONGKONG\n\nARMANDO DA SILVA*\n\nThere is an old Cantonese proverb that goes \"Kau shan yak shan, kau shui yak shui, (*****). When translated it means \"When in the hills, live off the hills, when on water, live off the water\". In many of the smaller villages of the New Territories, and especially among the more isolated coastal ones, this maxim is still practised to some extent in everyday life. Most of the older villagers possess an intimate knowledge of various qualities of common plants. Many plants that thrive in the neighbourhood of settlements owe their survival because they have some useful or medicinal qualities to offer, which distinguish them from mere brushwood destined for the kitchen stove.\n\nA source of income for coastal settlements derives from economic activities related to the use of beaches by Tanka and Hoklo fishermen for careening their boats. These fishermen also use the beaches to dry and mend their nets. As these tasks must be done frequently to prevent rot and tear, many villagers often find it profitable to provide services for the fishermen. Large vats are installed so that salt can be boiled out of the nets. Other vats are used for dyeing and for applying net preservatives. Most nets are made from imported ramie or coconut coir fibers. However, a plant common to many coastal villages is often used to make fibers for fishing nets. This is the Agave, called by Tanka and Hoklo fishermen poh lo ma (\"pineapple hemp\"). It is also known by its other Chinese name of lung sit lan (⃧ \"dragon tongue orchid\") because of its high flowering stamen. The Agave thrives on drier sandy soils near beaches and does not seem to be affected by salt water spray. After the spines are removed from the plant, fiber is extracted by pounding and retting. The juice is often used as an insecticide and the saponin content as a form of soap for washing clothes.\n\n* Mr. da Silva has a Master's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and is presently with the Department of Geography, University of Hawaii. His article \"Fan Lau and its Fort: an Historical Perspective\" appeared at pp. 82-95 of last year's Journal. Mr. da Silva states that the present article refers, in particular, to some coastal settlements in Lantau and the Saikung Peninsula where he spent much time visiting and observing people and things from October 1962 to September 1963, and again in the summer of 1964.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205910, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "Plate 10. Hoklo fisherman drying the silk tassels from the flowers of Hylocereus undatus used in Chinese village medicine, Lantau Island, Hong Kong.\n\n(By courtesy of Mr. Armando da Silva)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206891, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "162\n\nRattans\n\nRice\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n6 SUWONADA 29, 30, 31, 33, 34\n\n8, 20\n\nRouth (F.R. & D.)\n\n35\n\nTacoran, Nanjie\n\nRussell & Co.\n\n16, 29, 33\n\nTaria, J.M. de\n\nTaylor, P.\n\nSACRAMENTO\n\n22\n\nTea\n\n14, 30\n\nSafflower*\n\n33\n\nThomas (Charles) & Co.\n\nSalmon\n\n38\n\nTongues\n\nSan Francisco\n\n15, 22, 24\n\nTrautmann & Co.\n\n25, 38\n\nTurpentine\n\nSelzer water\n\n34\n\nShanghai\n\nSHERBURNE\n\nSilva, J. A. da\n\nSilver bars\n\nSemechand, Caramichand [?] 4\n\n29, 30, 31, 33, 34\n\nUpton, W.F.\n\nVALETTA\n\n1\n\nVENUS\n\n4, 12\n\nVermicelli\n\n22\n\nSingapore Roads\n\nSmith (W.H.) & Son\n\nSorabjee & Simjee\n\n7, 9\n\nWHEELER, W.E.\n\n23\n\nWhiskey\n\nAnagrada 2, 28\n\n10\n\n5\n\n7\n\n38\n\n31\n\n21\n\n18\n\n24\n\n37\n\n24\n\n15\n\n38\n\n2 White, G.\n\n1\n\nSteel, A.\n\n7\n\nWild (Aaron D.) & Sons\n\n16\n\nStephen, S.\n\n38 Williams, Blanchard & Co.\n\n38\n\nStone, Bombay\n\n37 With, M.C.G.\n\n28\n\n*See notes below.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe following notes relate to the more obscure items in the foregoing index.\n\nAnfião de Malva-Opium from Malwa, an area in W. Central India, which together with Benares and Patna were the main opium growing areas. I am indebted to Mr. J. M. Braga for this identification, which defeated students of Portuguese in Hong Kong.\n\nCumsingmoon-Kap Shui Mun, the straits between the N.E. point of Lantao Island and Tsing I Island.\n\nCutch=The commercial name of the catechu obtained from Acacia catechu, used in tanning (O.E.D.)\n\nNankeens-Either a kind of yellow cotton cloth, originally made in Nanking, or trousers made of this material.\n\nSafflower=Dried petals of Carthamus tinctorius, a thistle-like plant cultivated in the Mediterranean region, India and China for the red dye obtained from the flowers, also used in the making of rouge.\n\nHong Kong June, 1973.\n\nH. A. RYDINGS", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206912, "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": 189, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n183\n\nIn making the attempt to study the area, Mr. da Silva has performed a most valuable service. He has brought to the task special talents not often found in combination; local birth, knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, a geographer's training, interest in ethnography, and a sympathetic and discerning eye.\n\nThe book has five chapters, entitled: Chapter I-General Background; Chapter II--Historical Background; Chapter III-Ecological Adaptation and Livelihood; Chapter IV-The Ecology of Padi Cultivation; and Chapter V-Traditional Land Tenure. Of these the three dealing with ecology are the most valuable. Chapter III, in particular, gives a fully integrated account of the traditional means of livelihood in a coastal village area that is not available in any other work, to which he adds a description of the various influences at work on local minds, emphasising how they combine to form a unified cosmological whole (pp. 63-64). This unity of conception is the predominant feature of the local rural scene, and one that imposes itself very strongly on the consciousness of the long-term observer. Chapter IV, which deals with the farming and fishing calendars and describes the sequence and ecological importance of rice cultivation is another valuable contribution to knowledge of the local scene, of a kind and to a degree that, so far as I am aware, has not yet been supplied. In short, these chapters help to repair a deficiency noted by Reischauer and Fairbank, the reconstruction 'with verisimilitude' of 'the daily life of the average Chinese villager in the pre-modern centuries.' (p. 383, Vol. 1 of East Asia, The Great Tradition, Harvard, 1958).\n\nThe third section of the Chapter on Traditional Land Tenure contains some new and interesting information on land measurement and land classification but the rest is rather sketchy and inadequate on what is a notoriously complicated and difficult subject. The historical chapter is too broad to be effective and Mr. da Silva's knowledge of the island from this viewpoint does not match the superior quality of the other sections. He is misleading on family connections, e.g. pp. 28 and 32, whilst the maps and charts before p. 20 and at p. 35 are not as comprehensive as they could be made to be. The unevenness of the information acquired, and the lack of balance between the ethno-botanical treatment and the historical aspects, mar an otherwise very interesting, stimulating, and informative book.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206913, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "184\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nHowever, Mr. da Silva has much to offer us, and I hope will go on to develop his earlier work, taking further, among other good things, his interesting study of the terms used in agriculture and land use, extending them into the other dialects of the area in which some at least may have originated, and developing their connection with the cosmology of the peasant universe. I hope, too, that he will return to Hong Kong to trace for us the continued process of erosion of the traditional coastal pattern of life in a South Chinese island.*\n\nHong Kong. March 1974.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n* Interested readers may wish to know that Mr. da Silva wrote on the Fan Lau fort (on Lantau) in the 1968 Journal, and some notes on Ethno-botany in the 1969 issue.\n\nVILLAGE AND BUREAUCRACY IN SOUTHERN SUNG CHINA. Brian E. McKnight, University of Chicago Press, 1971, pp. xi, 219.\n\nAs its title indicates, this book is concerned with local administration in Sung China. Using the Sung Hui Yao Chi Kao, an official repository of imperial documents, and the collected papers of Sung officials, annalistic histories, local gazetteers and other miscellaneous works, Dr. McKnight describes the structure and staffing of village administration in this period. These sources enable him to recreate an otherwise little known aspect of Sung times; government at the village and sub-prefectural (hsien) level.\n\nLocal administration in the Southern Sung was carried out by employing local residents; at first by obliging members of higher-class families to serve for limited periods and, by the end of the dynasty, by employing persons for long periods. The latter were often professionals paid either by individual families or from the income of endowed estates and chosen from among the clerks in the local government offices.\n\nThe author provides a useful preface that deals with his sources and their limitations, and an introduction that places the governmental and social aspects of the Southern Sung period in the perspective of earlier practice and later developments. Besides any", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209588, "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-1982", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "223\n\nseamen's boarding houses and did not welcome pious competition, Rather than lease it to the Bishop he preferred to turn it into a sail-loft. However, the meeting at the City Hotel to revive interest in drama raised enough money by subscription to lease the building for another season.\n\nThe building was to be used not only as a theatre, but as a venue for Balls, meetings and other public purposes, but further funds were needed for refurbishing the building which had fallen into disrepair through infrequent use and the natural effect of time. The newly formed Theatrical Committee reported that “the interior will require repainting, and considerable alteration in seats. The roof ought to be lined with wood. This would improve appearance and acoustics. The stage should be lengthened by carrying it back some twelve or fourteen feet\". The Committee also reported that they had been successful in securing a group of amateurs who agreed to perform on the condition that tickets be issued gratis, \"so as to secure attendance alone of the respectable portion of the community\". This stipulation suggests that the earlier efforts of amateurs may have failed because rowdies had taken over and driven away audiences.\n\nAlthough the season got off to a good start, there was not sufficient financial support to sustain it. No more performances are reported in the Theatre. The last notice I have found of the building is in 1859 when an auction was advertised at the “Old Theatre next to the Oriental Hotel\".\n\nPORTUGUESE AND GERMANS\n\nThrough the years notices of performances by Portuguese amateurs appear. The first mention is in 1847 for a production at the \"Theatro da Sociedade\" at which music was provided by the visiting Macao Band. In 1852 the \"Theatrino Particular\" on Wellington Street announced a performance of Portuguese amateurs. One of the pieces presented was by young boys aged between eight and fifteen. The next year the boys performed in the Victoria Theatre under the direction of the schoolmaster, Mr. J.J. da Silva e Souza. As an entre-act four young girls performed a Spanish dance, the \"Guarrache”.\n\n!\n\n:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213204, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "As a chartered monopoly the East India Company had the right to exclude British subjects who were not members of the company from residing permanently in China. Their presence was tolerated for only the few months of the trading season. Consuls representing a foreign country could claim exemption from this rule. In 1783, John Reed was commissioned as head of the Austrian Imperial Factory at Canton - the trading establishments were called factories. He had been born in Britain but subsequently became a naturalised subject of the Austrian Emperor. Another Englishman, a subject of Austria, arrived in Canton in 1787, carrying a certificate of naturalisation from Austria. There was, however, a dispute about the national status of Edward Watts and the British East India Company demanded he leave at the end of the trading season, but he stayed on for several more years ignoring the attempt to get rid of him.\n\nDaniel Beale, a British subject who had been in the employ of the East India Company, in 1787 was appointed the Prussian Consul at Canton. This post was held by subsequent partners of the firm of which Beale was a member. The firm eventually became Jardine, Matheson and Co. The present Rua Pedro Nolasco da Silva in Macao is called by Chinese Bak Ma Lo, or in translation White Horse Road. Father Manuel Teixeira, the Macao historian, states that the white horse was on the Prussian flag which flew over what was then No. 1 Rua Hospital, a building occupied by Jardines for some years.\n\nIn the lists of residents on the China coast published in the Chinese Repository and the Anglo-Chinese Commercial Directory, the first name I have identified as German is Edmund Mueller in 1835. He was from Hamburg but arrived at Canton from Manila. He became the editor of the Canton Press, holding this position from 1836 to 1844. In the latter year he went into trade at Macao. He appears to have left China by 1847.\n\nGustav Christian Schwabe is listed as a German residing at Canton in 1837. He had arrived from Calcutta in November 1836 and sailed for Manila in October 1837. The firm of Sykes, Schwabe and Co, which later became Boustead and Co., had its head office at Liverpool with overseas branches at Singapore, Manila and Canton. Mr. Schwabe was manager of the Liverpool office from 1845 to 1853. He then returned to China to head the firm of G.C. Schwabe and Co. at Shanghai. This firm was dissolved by lapse of time in 1859 and was succeeded by Bower, Hanbury and Co, Shanghai.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 } ]