[
    {
        "id": 208485,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 209,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n193 \n\nBut in recent months the mud-skis have been used by illegal immigrants, first to help them float across the bay and then to negotiate the mud flats and swamps of the Mai Po marshes. \n\nYesterday Sgt-Major Wilson demonstrated how they were used. \"They can move faster over the mud than a man can run over firm ground,\" said Sergeant Major Chris Wilson yesterday. \n\n\"If it's thick mud the illegals stand on the skis and push with their feet and they can shoot across mud and water at a tremendous speed,\" he said. \n\n\"If they cross thin mud or water they lay down and put out one leg and make a swimming motion and they can travel very fast.” \n\nThe Army Air Corps has adapted one of its Scout helicopters to play a very special role in rescuing refugees from the deep mud and treacherous swamps in the marshes. \n\nThe small helicopters are now equipped with nets and the crews hover over the swamps and drop out the nets to pluck illegal immigrants trapped in the mud to safety.” \n\nReprinted, in part only, from the South China Morning Post, 18 June, 1979 \n\nThis item was brought to my notice by our printer and Honorary Life Member Mr. Y. F. Lam (Hon. Ed.) \n\nTHE SAINTLY GUO (Sheng Gong) \n\nProfessor G. E. Guldin doubtless will be delighted to learn that the cult of Sheng Gong is alive and well and thriving in SE Asia. In his interesting article on Little Fujian in the 1977 Journal (JHKBRAS17(1977); 112-129) he surmised that Hong Kong may have the only Sheng Gong temple left functioning in the world. He will be surprised to hear that although there is only the one temple dedicated to Sheng Gong in Hong Kong, there were at least twelve in Singapore, six in Malaysia (1970) and twenty-seven in Taiwan (1969), all dedicated to this deity. This, of course, does not include the hundreds of images of the Saintly Guo seen in secondary positions in temples throughout SE Asia and Taiwan. More than half of the temples dedicated to Sheng Gong in Taiwan (16 out of 27) are within a thirty-mile radius which includes Tainan, and Kaohsiung South-West Taiwan. Only four are in towns and the remainder",
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    {
        "id": 208749,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 206,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN\n\n179\n\n2. The Participants\n\n(a) Confucianism\n\nWhether it ever was a religion or not, is no longer relevant and depends largely on the assumption that Confucianism can be identified with the state cult, the imperial cult of ancient and imperial China. Today it is no longer a religion in that sense although the old system of ethics is still adhered to and has been partially absorbed by the folk-religion.\n\nThere has been, however, an increase in the construction of temples: in the cities of Taichung and Kaohsiung large new temples have been built in the middle seventies. The old temples in Tainan and Changhua have been completely restored (1977-78), and since these enterprises are financed by the municipal governments, this movement of renewed attention for the great sage is sometimes interpreted as a reaction against the recent campaign of denigration of Confucius in China.\n\nActivities in the Confucian temples are, however, still minimal: they are rather memorial halls than centers of worship. Only once a year, on the birthday of the sage (since the republican period fixed on Sept. 28), a great sacrifice takes place in the temple premises. It is a grandiose event, based on ancient rites, but performed by government officials in the early hours of the morning.4\n\nOutside this yearly event, the temples are visited by tourists (especially in Taipei and Tainan), although other cultural activities are organized by the local temple committees: for instance, in Taichung a series of lectures was given on the interpretation of the I Ching.\n\n(b) Buddhism\n\nAlthough Buddhism has infiltrated folk religion in several ways, it is easier to define Buddhism as a distinct religious tradition. The revival of Buddhism, already started in China some decades ago, continues in Taiwan, but it seems to happen along traditional patterns rather than as break-away new religions.5\n\nAccording to a pamphlet about Taiwan published in May 1978 by the Chunghua Information Service, \"Followers of the Buddha are estimated at 8 million. More than 2,500 temples are attended",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208750,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 207,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "180\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nby nearly 7,500 monks and nuns.” (A study published in 1971 says that between 40 and 46 percent of Taiwan's population affiliated themselves with Buddhism.)6\n\nAs usually these statistics have to be handled with care and as the word \"Taoist\" has become a \"source of perplexity\", so are the words \"Buddhism\" and “Buddhists” often used in a very unorthodox manner. Buddhism is most easily to be recognized as such in the monastic institutions: Buddhist temples, monasteries and pagodas (sometimes built as storage places for urns or so-called \"bone-temples\") are clearly distinct from all other temples and shrines with some exceptions. Monks and nuns are living a celibate life; most of them are engaged in making a living by performing rituals for the dead, either at private homes (funeral rites) or at their own temple. Apparently very few are practicing ch'an-meditation. Some informants told me that there is no exclusive ch'an-center in the whole of Taiwan.\n\nAn important distinction seems to be necessary when discussing Buddhism in Taiwan: clerical vs. lay Buddhism. The former is related to the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China and is well organized. Visually it is very flourishing with many recent constructions of new temples. But, according to serious lay Buddhists, this whole movement is rather external: it emphasizes superficial rituals and often caters to the needs of the folk religion. An example is the performance of p'u-tu rituals (rites of ‘universal salvation') now almost identified with folk religion and equally performed by Taoist priests.\n\nLay Buddhism, on the other hand, is a smaller movement but makes great efforts to deepen the understanding of the orthodox principles of Buddhism; instead of being devotional, it tends to be more philosophical. It attracts a great number of university students: each campus in Taiwan has a local Buddhist association with regular study and discussion sessions.\n\nSome important centers of clerical Buddhism are: Kaohsiung, Fo-kuang shan, and Yang-ming-shan; Institute of Buddhist Studies (established in 1965 by the Institute of Chinese Culture). A very active center of lay-Buddhism is located in Tai-chung directed by a 90-year-old lay-Buddhist, Li Ping-nan.\n\nThese two types of Buddhism try in different degrees to dissociate themselves from the folk-religion and should therefore be seen as a distinct religious system.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208751,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 208,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN\n\n(c) Taoism\n\n181\n\nTaoism, as a religion nowadays, is hard to define; it is much more than Buddhism caught up in popular religion and very often identified or confused with it, not only by students of Chinese religions but by believers as well. Examples are lists of temples in Taiwan, where temples are identified either as Taoist or Buddhist, with the rare exceptions of Confucian temples and ancestral halls. If we see the folk-religion as a separate category, then Taoism as such should be stripped of all the folk-religious elements and seen in its purity. In that case, only a few temples can be identified as Taoist, and the Taoist religion has thus basically to be identified with the various sects of Taoist priests. The matter has become more complicated since the institution of a Taoist Association in 1950. This is organized and run by Taoist laymen but has requested and obtained membership among many temples of the folk religion (in many temples, one can see the metal membership plates on the wall).\n\nThe Taoist priesthood is divided into 3 (or 4) sects: the ling-pao, cheng-yi, or t'ien-shih and san-nai sects. The cheng-yi sect, or the sect of the Heavenly Master, has been trying for a long time to control the Taoist priesthood of all sects to unify them (and collect their dues). The 64th successor to Chang Tao-ling, living in Taipei, confers ordinations and promotions all over the island. However, as over the centuries, candidates to the priesthood (often hereditary) are not well trained in Taoist philosophy: they start their instruction as apprentices of a particular master, but throughout their training, they usually do not go beyond learning to recite the sacred texts and performing the various rituals. There are, happily, exceptions to the rule, and a fascinating example is Master Chuang of Hsinchu city, who is not only a master of rituals but performs the esoteric meditations of inner alchemy as well.\n\nIn Taiwan, there are no Taoist monasteries where priests live as celibate monks, although there seems to be a movement of return to the ancient model: in one temple in Kaohsiung, the Tao-Te-Yuan, a group of young women have been ordained as Taoist priests and have made the vow of celibacy. The same temple also organizes study sessions for laymen to foster a deeper understanding of Taoist philosophy. As in Buddhism, the laymen again are promoters of a more serious involvement in Taoism.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208761,
        "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": 218,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN\n\n191\n\n10 See M. Saso, The Teachings of Master Chuang. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978.\n\n11 Journal of Buddhist Culture, Fo-Chiao wen-hua hsüeh-pao,*** published by the Institute for the Study of Buddhist Culture since 1972. Articles are in Chinese or English.\n\n12 Journal of Taoist Culture, Tao-chiao wen-hua,Maxit published by the Taoist Culture Journal Association since 1976. Articles are in Chinese.\n\n13 Examples are: Fo-kuang hsüeh-pao,1*£* published by the Buddhist monastery on Fo-kuang mountain near Kaohsiung, since 1975 or 1976; Boahedrum, Pw-ti-shu,### Taichung: Hui-châ, & Torch Wisdom, Taipei; Hal Ming-tao, published in Tounan (Yünlin district).\n\nof\n\n14 See E. Ahern, The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973.\n\n15 See L. G. Thompson, \"Notes on Religious Trends in Taiwan\", Mon. Ser., vol. 23 (1964), 319-350.\n\n16 See A. P. Cohen, \"Fiscal Remarks on some Folk Religion Temples in Taiwan\", Mon. Ser., vol. 32 (1976), 85-158.\n\n17 See Liu Chih-wan, Taipei-shih Sung-shan ch'i-an chien-chiao chi-tien (Great Propitiatory Rites of Petition for Bene-ficence at Sungshan, Taipei, Taiwan), Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of Ethnology, (monographs no. 14), 1967, Liu Chih-wan, Chung-kuo min-chien hsin-yang lun-chi (Essays on Chinese Folk Belief and Folk Cults), Taipei: Academia Sinica, Institute of Ethnology (monographs no. 22), 1974.\n\nM. Saso, Taoism or the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, Washington State University Press, 1972.\n\n18 See St. Harrell, \"Modes of Belief in Chinese Folk Religion\", in JSSR, vol. 16 (1977), 55-65.\n\n19 See D. Jordan, Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors. Folk Religion in a Taiwanese Village, University of California Press, 1972, G. Seaman, Temple Organization in a Chinese Village (Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs, vol. 101), Taipei: Chinese Association for Folklore, 1978,\n\n20 See D. Overmyer, \"The Saying of Master Lu\", Unpublished paper, given at the joint panel of the CASA and the CSSR on Chinese Religion at the Conference of the Learned Societies in Saskatoon, May, 1979.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209179,
        "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-1981",
        "page_number": 82,
        "title": "RAS-1981",
        "content_text": "68\n\n1968).\n\n \n\nHUBERT SEIWART\n\nCf. Holmes Welch, The Buddhist Revival in China. (Cambridge, Mass.\n\nCf. Y. Raguin, \"Buddhismus auf Taiwan\", in Buddhismus der Gegenwart, ed. by H. Dumoulin (Freiburg 1970) pp 113 – 116.\n\na \"Taoism' (by A. K. Seidel), in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, p 1042.\n\nFor example, the Taoist Association of the Republic of China is run mostly by laymen who try to get rid of many of the more \"vulgar\" practices of religious Taoism and to restore the intellectual tradition of former times. These efforts seem not to be supported by many of the Taoist priests, possibly since they make their living by performing these practices.\n\n10\n\n \n\nSee for example G. G. H. Dunstheimer, “Religion et magie dans le mouvement des Boxeurs”, in T’oung Pao, 47 (1959) pp 323 - 367; G. Miles, \"Vegetarian Sects\", in The Chinese Recorder, 33 (1902) pp 110; D. H. Porter, \"Secret Sects in Shantung\", in The Chinese Recorder, 17 (1886) pp 1 – 10, 64 – 73; M. Topley, \"Chinese Religion and Rural Cohesion in the Nineteenth Century\", in JHKBRAS 8 (1968), pp 9 - 43.\n\n11\n\nCf. Wing-tsit Chan, Religioses Leben im heutigen China, (München, 1955) pp 109-156.\n\nT'ai-pei-shih\n\n12 Such a healing-cult is treated by Wang Chih-ming Chi-lung-lu ti i-ko min-su i-sheng he t'a-ti hsin-t'u-men (unpublished B.A. thesis, National Taiwan University, Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1971)\n\n13 An example of this is the Sheng-hsien-t’ang community in Taichung. The publications of the revelations of the mediums of this temple are distributed and read everywhere in Taiwan.\n\n14\n\nSome sects (e.g. Li-chiao), however, are copying Buddhist or Taoist ceremonies and dress so that it is difficult to decide whether the performers are priests or laymen.\n\n16 Some of the \"new religions” are treated in Hsiao Ching-fen, “The current situation of new religions in Taiwan\", Theology and the Church, 10:2 – 3 (Tainan, 1971) pp 1 -- 28;\n\n10 I-kuan is actually derived from a passage in the Confucian Analects (IV, 15).\n\n17\n\nThe popular name is Ya-tan chiao. Other names are Tien Tao chiao, K'ung-tzu chiao, Ta Tao chiao, Lao-mu chiao\n\n4. Cf. Tung Fang-yüan, Tai-wan min-chien tsung-chiao hsin-yang (Taipei 1976) p 123.\n\n18 Tung, op. cit., p 123f. According to Su Ming-tung, T'ien-tao kai-lun (Kaohsiung, 1979) p 197, there are more than 300,000 followers of I-kuan Tao in Taiwan today.\n\nLi Shih-yü, Hsien-tsai Hua-pei mi-mi-tsung-chiao (Chengtu, 1948, repr. Taipei, 1975) p 32.\n\n20 It seems certain, however, that the I-kuan Tao has followers outside Taiwan, esp. in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. In contrast to Taiwan, in these places the sect is not forbidden by the government and can operate openly (cf. Su Ming-tung, op. cit., p 198f). For the propaganda of the Communist government",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209180,
        "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-1981",
        "page_number": 83,
        "title": "RAS-1981",
        "content_text": "RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO MODERNIZATION IN TAIWAN THE CASE OF 1-KUAN TAO 69\n\nagainst I-kuan Tao see L. Deliusin, “The I-kuan Tao Society\", in Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China 1840 – 1950, ed. by J. Chesneaux, (Stanford, 1971) pp 225-233.\n\n21 In orthodox Buddhism San Pao stands for Triratna, i.e. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (W. E. Soothill and L. Hodous: A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, Reprint Taipei 1970, p 63)\n\n22 Cf. for example Ching-fen Hsiao, loc.cit., p 17.\n\n23 Cf. Shih Wen-tu *, \"Wo tsen-yang t'uo-li I-kuan Tao” #, in Chuch Shih #(Kao-hsiung, Sept. 1977) pp 20 -- 32.\n\n24 Since these accusations can neither be proved nor refuted by the observer it is very difficult to give a fair description of the sect.\n\n25 Cf. Chao Wei-pang, \"The Origin and Growth of the Fu-chi\", in Folklore Studies, 1 (1942) pp 9 — 27; Hai Ti-shan #, Fu-chi mi-hsin ti yen-chiu *****(Taipei 1966).\n\n26 Cf. G. Seaman, Temple Organization in a Chinese Village, (Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs, No. 101 Taipei 1978) pp 20 – 35.\n\n27 Cf. Halao, loc. cit., pp 12 – 16. For a case-study ref. Seaman, op. cit.\n\nThe members trace the origin of the sect back to Fu Hsi and have an elaborated list of the transmission of the Tao through the centuries. The historical evidence for the existence of I-kuan Tao as a separate tradition does not reach beyond the last century, however.\n\n29 The ordinary fu-luan cults have sessions much more often, in general eight or twelve times every lunar month.\n\n30\n\nObviously many teachings of the fu-luan cults have their origin in the popular \"Buddhist” tradition which is also a main source of the I-kuan Tao teachings. It is difficult, however, to assess to which degree there is a direct influence of I-kuan Tao on these cults in Taiwan today. Probably there is a mutual influence since many followers of I-kuan Tao participate also in ordinary fu-luan cults. Actually, some fu-luan cults seem to be reservoirs of potential I-kuan Tao proselytes.\n\n31 Tian-jan *, 2 (Hsinchu Febr. 1980) pp 2 - 3.\n\n32 Cf. K. Ch'en: \"Anti-Buddhist Propaganda During the Nan-Ch'ao\", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 15 (1952) pp 166 - 192.\n\n33\n\nFor examples see J. Chesneaux ed. Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China 1840-1950, (Stanford 1972).\n\n34 Of course, Mohammed is not regarded as a god in Islam. The knowledge of Islam in China, however, is rather poor and Mohammed is thought to be a divine person much like the Chinese \"historical\" gods or for that matter – Jesus.\n\n36\n\nThe medium belonged to the Sheng-hsien t'ang in Taichung.\n\n36 W. Grootaers, \"Une société secrète moderne, I Kuan Tao: Bibliographie annotée\", in Folklore Studies 5 (1946) p 332f.\n\n37 Tian Tao Kai Lun (1979 2nd printing), p 61.\n\n38 ibid., pp 61 – 62.\n\nby Su Ming-tung (Kaohsiung, 1978)",
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    {
        "id": 210069,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1984",
        "page_number": 40,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "19\n\ncome. From a religious viewpoint, Taichung is a rather average and conservative town; there are no very old and large temples of provincial reputation, attracting large crowds of tourists or pilgrims. In that respect, Tainan and Taipei are more famous, and of course so are other old places like Peikang and Lukang, once very flourishing fishermen's settlements but unable to keep up with modernization. Still, their temples keep attracting steady flows of pilgrims from afar.\n\nIn recent years the provincial and municipal governments have taken a more active interest in the religious life of the people. This can be seen as a continuation of the old imperial system, when religion was strongly supervised and even controlled by the officials, but the present day practice includes quite a few innovations. One innovation is the requirement that all temples should be legally registered. In municipalities this can be done at the city hall. The administration of the cities includes a department of population (min-tsu pu), which in turn has a sub-department of religious affairs. In 1976 the Taichung city hall printed a list of all the temples duly registered; upon request I obtained a copy. Later on I was allowed to borrow and photocopy a similar list in Tainan, whereas in Kaohsiung no such list had been printed yet: I was permitted to look through the register containing all the filled out registration papers sent in to the city hall by the temples.\n\nI expect that all the major cities in Taiwan (Taipei, Keelung, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Yangmingshan) will have such a list by now, and each county or hsien government has started to register all the temples within their own jurisdiction. Copies of all these registers have to be sent to the provincial government. This will hopefully make future temple research much easier: to me and others it has often been a time-consuming and frustrating experience not to find up-to-date temple lists providing the most basic information, especially in a rapidly changing urban environment, where temples are continuously being broken down and rebuilt elsewhere.\n\nThe city of Taichung was one of the first to complete a list of the city temples. (Tainan was earlier: my copy dates from 1974.) When I visited the \"religious officials\" again in the autumn of",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210070,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1984",
        "page_number": 41,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "20\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\n1980, I received photocopies of the new additions to the register. The 1976 register lists 107 temples: they are numbered according to their location within the city. By the end of 1980, the number had gone up to 154. The main reason for such a drastic increase was the inclusion of churches. As a matter of fact, the new list with handwritten additions so far contains 21 Christian churches (2 Roman Catholic, 19 Protestant), 1 mosque, one Ta-t'ung and one Tenrikyo shrine (two new religions).\n\nThe Taichung city hall list provides for each temple the following details: district, name of the temple, the main deity worshipped, the religious affiliation, the correct postal address, the person in charge (Kuan-li jen) and the number given by the city. I presume that much more data is contained in the city's files, for I looked at the local file in Kaohsiung and found that many more details regarding temple properties, income, and regular activities are contained in the full register. But the Taichung city hall list is a useful, practical document, making it possible to go and visit the temples for interviews. I visited roughly half of the listed temples myself, while the other half were taken care of by assistants and college students as a field work project. One of the purposes of the visit was to collect samples of their oracles. Each different type of oracle has been given a number, preceded by B: this is the numbering found in W. Banck's text edition, which I adopt here (see Footnote 15). He allotted numbers according to the frequency of the oracles he found: in most cases this frequency coincides with my field work experience, but there are occasional discrepancies.\n\nThe categorization of temples as \"Taoist\" or \"Buddhist” is found in the listings of Taichung City Hall. I have reservations about the category of “Taoist” temples, as the official lists simplify the affiliation of temples: whatever is not a Confucian or Buddhist temple, is said to be a Taoist temple. That is stretching the concept too far; most of these temples are community temples and belong more properly to the folk religion.\n\nThe table shows that at least 85 out of 115 temples make use of temple oracles, which is almost 74%. There are certainly more temples using them, for the group \"not available\" contains a number of temples where we could not obtain samples, because",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210075,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1984",
        "page_number": 46,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "25\n\nA more carefully planned survey would make sure that all areas of Taiwan are included. In my survey, some are totally omitted, although I do have representatives from most administrative units throughout Taiwan (and 2 samples from Hong Kong).\n\nCities:\n\nTaipei: 19\n\nKeelung: \n\nTainan: 17\n\nKaohsiung: 23\n\nTaichung: 115+37 Yangmingshan:\n\nCounties: Taipei: 4\n\nYunlin: 6\n\nIlan: \n\nChiayi: 11\n\nTaoyuan: 9\n\nTainan: 4\n\nHsinchu: 16\n\nKaohsiung: \n\nMiaoli: 8\n\nPingtung: 5\n\nTaichung: 31\n\nTaitung: 5\n\nChanghua: \n\nNantou: 23\n\nHualien: 18\n\nPenghu: \n\nFinal Considerations\n\nThe practice of divination appears to be a universal phenomenon in the history of religion: universal both in time and in space. The modalities display an immense variety, and to come up with a complete list of types would require another essay. The Chinese temple oracles seem to belong to a category of numerological divination types in which the probability of certain results can be calculated according to mathematical laws. The other type of Chinese folk divination, using two \"moon blocks\", follows similar probability patterns, and is often used in combination with the temple oracles.21\n\nOne can wonder about the reasons why this type of divination remains so popular among Chinese temple goers. There may not be a simple answer to the question and it very likely touches on the borderline between conscious and unconscious motivation. Consultation of the oracles, moreover, is not dissimilar to gambling, with the important difference that the oracle consultant believes implicitly in the divine guidance and control of the oracle result. Although aware that probability patterns are involved, the ordinary believer is still convinced that the outcome of his consultation...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210093,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1984",
        "page_number": 64,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "43\n\nB-2\n\nB-2 Pai-shou ling-ch'ien, Ku-shih chu-chieh ti by Cheng Chin-ling $436. Tsoying, Kaohsiung, 1976.\n\nM. Published\n\nKuan-sheng Ti-chun ying-yan t'ao-yian ming-sheng ching E KNMVTÆ. Published by the Fu-ch'uan Fo-t'ang in Kang-shan, Kaohsiung. QUI÷HES, 1971. (The oracles are in the Appendix).\n\nB-6 Kuan Yin ling-ch'ien chu-chieh, erh-shih-szu shou Pi. Taichung: Jui-ch'eng Bookstore, 1975.\n\nB-34 Ch'ien-shu chu-chieh, Tien-shang Sheng-mu, lished by the Nan-yao Temple in Changhua M, R, LTE. Pub Mä, 1977.\n\nB-54 Huang Ta-hsien (Wong Tai Sin) ling-ch'ien, ku-pen chu-chieh A¶ LASER. Published by the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon, HK, n.d. (purchased in 1980).\n\nB-55 Po-chi hsien-fang 1981;. Taiwan (no exact place indicated but stamped by the Tz'u-yu Temple in Taipei, BMK), 1951.\n\nB-55 Lu Ti ling-ch'ien hsien-fang, PPARI), Hsinchu: Chu-lin Book-store 新竹市竹林書局,1977.\n\nB-55 Fu-yu Ti-chün chüeh-shih ching, Lü-tsu ling-ch'ien chi hsien-fang Fili MEIM.NG MAUZERO/2A07), Hong Kong, N.T., SEDILE. 8-0 1976.\n\n+ Wu-nien ch'ien-sui ling-ch'ien chu-chieh 1F, Published the Chen-an Temple (2000) of Ma-ming-Shan in the county of Yiin lin, Taiwan, 1963.\n\n(ii) Taiwan Oracles: Temple Samples\n\nWerner Banck, Das Chinesische Tempelorakel PPE (part 1: Sources), Taipei: Ku-t'ing Bookstore, fillaliliPVM, 1976.\n\n(iii) Canton Temple Oracles, collected by the Library of the Center of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong (not included in Banck's source edition)\n\n1. Kuan-shih-yin ling-ch'ien, #, published by Wu-kui t'ang 4, in Canton, n.d. (circa 1940?) block print reproduction; contains 100 oracles).\n\n2. Hung-sheng-wang ch'ien 1, published by I-wen tang in Canton, n.d. (blockprint reproduction; contains 64 oracles).\n\n3. K'ang-kung ling-ch'ien 12, published by T'ien-pao Printing Co.: Ch'an-shan, Canton, dated 1855 (nice wood block print edition)\n\n+ 4. Fu-shen T-u-ti ch'ien (@J:22, published by Wen-tang Bookstore, **W in Yue-tung ch'an shan 40, dated 1859. (woodblock print; 30 oracles).\n\n5. Shang-ti ling-ch'ien (zar, published by Wen-t'ang Bookstore, Z, n.d. (wood block print; 50 oracles).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211648,
        "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": 63,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "38\n\none of the temple staff thought that Chih (b) bore the personal name Meng-piao (E).\n\nA very few deities, on the face of it Pestilence deities, in practice turn out to be protective Wang Yeh. One such example highlights the probability that local devotees in southern China some considerable time ago, perceiving that their local protective deity bore the title Wang Yeh, assumed that he must be a Pestilence Wang Yeh and treated him as such. This was in a temple in Tungkang, south of Kaohsiung, said in a guide book to have an impressive display of 80 to 90 images of Wang Yeh. It turned out to have but one major Wang Yeh, a protective hero, Wen Hung. Wen Hung, also known as Wen Wang Yeh, a title said to have been awarded him by a T'ang dynasty emperor for his services, lived during the seventh century AD. A dozen or so portable images of him also stood on the altar table before the main altar. A handbook presented by the temple committee not only provided Wen Hung's biography but also contained charts shewing the routes his images had been carried around the parish for five successive years during the annual 'pestilence festivals'. This suggests that two cults have been combined, the cult of the T'ang hero Wen Hung, known as Prince Wen (Wen Wang Yeh) and, almost certainly due to a misunderstanding, the cult of the Pestilence Wang Yeh. Wen Hung's image is taken out during the Pestilence festival during the fifth month but unlike Pestilence Wang Yeh, he also has his own and more important festival celebrated on his birthday during the eleventh lunar month. His original legend, over the years, has had added to it elements of the Pestilence Wang Yeh legend, and to add to the confusion he now has his own Pestilence Wang Yeh boat. Such cases of apparent Pestilence Wang Yeh having a specific and individual personality are not at all common though they have been noted in several other cults in Taiwan.\n\nAlthough there are four temples in Yunlin and one in Taipei county dedicated to ten specific Pestilence Wang Yeh, known always as the Five-Year Excellencies (†) or (EFE), the maximum number of images of Wang Yeh with different surnames seen by the author on any one altar is seven, the Ch'i Fu Ch'ien Sui (LT) in Tainan. In each of the temples dedicated to the Five-Year Excellencies images had been borrowed by devotees for private worship at home. The collective group of the Five-Year Excellencies each has an individual birthday though it was decided in 1662 that they would be feted on one day in a collective feast on the 29th of the tenth lunar month, with one",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
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        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211651,
        "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": 66,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "41\n\nto cure a member of the family before being returned to the temple altar with an offering. This service is available in Wang Yeh temples where the main deity is a Pestilence Wang Yeh and the row of small portable images of Pestilence Wang Yeh on the altar table before the main altar is available for devotees. The individual images can be any one of those available from the altar itself or from the altar table. Which image should be taken is determined by the Pestilence Wang Yeh who reveals his decision through his spirit block response. In a temple on a Singapore housing estate, all five images had been borrowed and the altar was bare apart from the outlines of the bases of the Wang Yeh images in the dust. In a very few homes, an image of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is maintained permanently on the family shrine, having been carved specially for the family at their request.\n\nImages of the Pestilence Wang Yeh's consort have been seen on altars in several temples in Taiwan. In Lukang, in the Shun Yi temple, the main deity, Shun Fu Wang Yeh (**E**) is accompanied by five others, T'ien, Ting, Chu, Ma, and Chin (BT✯54), and his consort Shun Fu Wang Yeh Fujen (KƒÆÂ). All six Wang Yeh are regarded by the temple keeper as Pestilence Wang Yeh, and although the main deity's consort is offered incense by devotees, she is not approached for benefits. Sometimes the consort is simply a small image of a matron and merely known as Fu Jen Ma (AA) without a surname.\n\nIn a number of South-East Asian Chinese rural temples, both corrugated iron structures and shophouses, one or three (and never two unless one has been borrowed by a devotee) Pestilence Wang Yeh images have been noted interspersed between other unconnected deities, often in addition to the main deity, whoever that might be, in no particular order and in no way connected. This again is private enterprise on the part of the temple keeper, often a poor peasant who has taken advantage of a gap in the local requirement for protective deities and who started up his own small temple from which he obtains sufficient petty cash to keep the wolf from the door.\n\nGenerally speaking, the deployment of Wang Yeh temples has followed the progress of the spread of Fukien people within Taiwan and South-East Asia. The most densely deployed areas in Taiwan are the Pescadores and Tainan, and to a lesser extent in the Chia I, Yunlin, and Kaohsiung coastal areas. The origins of these temples are related to the traditional practice of 'Fang Wang Chuan', the setting forth of the Wang Yeh Spirit",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211664,
        "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": 79,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "54\n\n(Wu Ling Kung). The helpful keeper of a Wu Fu Ta Ti temple in Tsoying, sited almost opposite the Kaohsiung Temple of Confucius, named the Five Great Emperors of Fortune, Liu, Chin, Chang, Shih and Chao. He was also able to provide the personal names of each and identified them as five scholars who had died in an attempt to save Fuchou from pestilence demons. Four of the Wu Fu Ta Ti images have standard human faces though with nothing unique to identify them individually; the fifth, however, has a bird's beak on his demonic face and in some temples his skin is blue. No temple keeper has been able to offer a reason for this.\n\nLegends about the Pestilence Wang Yeh highlight that all the spirits which became such deities had died an unnatural death, the most popular being the deprivation of the lives of scholars before their due dates of death at the whim of the emperor.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh were in the main scholars; in some legends ones who had been unsuccessful in the civil service examinations and in others ones who had been successful, who died before their due date either violently or by suicide. This made them spirits to be feared, potentially vengeful and dangerous ghosts who could inflict disease, though through happy circumstances they had all been deified and therefore to an extent placated, and their dangerous potential somewhat nullified.\n\nWhilst this article is primarily about Pestilence Wang Yeh now let us turn to local protective deities which also bear the title of Wang Yeh but are not Pestilence deities. The origins of each individual Wang Yeh as related in its cult centre or local village shrine provides a pattern which can best be discerned from the following examples. Legends describe how named individuals, frequently a local who died an unnatural death either fending off bandits, providing for the weak or performing some other public spirited act, were deified. As referred to earlier, the best example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Koxinga, the son of a pirate and a defender of the native Ming dynasty which was crumbling before the invading Manchus, foreigners who later established the final imperial dynasty in China, the Ch'ing. Koxinga drove the Dutch out of their base in Taiwan and for this act, eliminating foreign rule, he became the patron deity of the island.\n\nA typical title, which at first would appear to be far from straight forward, is that of the rural temple near Tainan dedicated to the San Lao Yeh (=). The three, Wei (), Chu (✯) and Ts'ao (W)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212035,
        "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": 450,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "Plate 1. A main altar on the first floor of the San Feng Kung in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, containing a tablet to the Jade Emperor, but no image.\n\nPage 450\nPage 451",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212044,
        "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": 459,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "Plate 10. The Wang Yeh Spirit Boats can be semi-permanent fixtures in Wang Yeh temples, taken out for annual city processions. This one, in Kaohsiung, has a captain \n\non his bridge aft, and a crew of approximately 25",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212045,
        "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": 460,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "Plate II. Members of the crew on a Wang Yeh spirit boat in a Kaohsiung temple (see Plate 10).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212163,
        "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": 105,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "a cure. He was born in Anhui province during the latter part of the seventeenth century and was a kind and upright junior official. He was regarded as a local sage and much respected. Particularly skilled at medicine, he saved countless lives, and one year he successfully mediated between two fighting factions. He died in his bed and proved so popular that within a few years an image of him was carved and placed on a local altar. In 1714 a devotee from Hsing-an prefecture in Fukien province emigrated to Taiwan and brought the cult with him, building a shrine in his honour in Taiwan. Much later, a scholar from Taipei, visiting Tainan, the local capital, to sit his first examination, passed the shrine and knelt before the deity promising that if he were successful in his examination he would set up a similar altar in Taipei. He was successful and did as he had promised. Much later, when the cult had grown much larger, a temple was built in Taipei where the image of Hsin Ting now stands.\n\nThe third case of deification of a charismatic worthy is Ch'en Chang, born in Yunlin in central Taiwan during the reign of the Ch'ien Lung emperor. He was a noted philanthropist in the town of Tsao-t'un in Nantou county where he moved later in life. He did numerous good deeds and was greatly respected. His good works, however, annoyed a local petty tyrant who had Ch'en convicted on a trumped-up charge and imprisoned. Ch'en died in gaol. The locals mourned his death and built a shrine in his honour in which they first placed his tablet (later to be replaced by a standard image with no special identifying characteristics). His title then became General Ch'en despite the fact that he had never served in the army nor had he ever fought in any battle. He became the local protective deity with an annual festival on the 15th of the first lunar month.\n\nCults of the Deified Spirits of Insignificant People\n\nThe following are examples of legends and cults connected with ordinary people. Cults of twelve deceased very ordinary people have been chosen at random from the hundreds of such stories available. They highlight how their cults, some preserved by oral tradition and others with their histories now long forgotten, evolved.\n\nA young man in his early twenties was killed in a now forgotten accident near Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. He was buried on the spot and, because he had been a brave settler, his family, the Ts'ais,\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212167,
        "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": 109,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "86\n\nA local Ch'ao-chou cult image seen on a secondary altar in a tiny makeshift rural temple in Ulu Sembawang in Singapore is said to represent the spirit of a nine-year-old boy who died in the late 1960s. He is the medium spirit who speaks through his aunt, providing advice for local devotees. His aunt raised the image after she found that the spirit of the boy returned to her in a dream offering to help people. The boy is known by the title of 'the Prince of the East of the Sea', Hai-tung Tai-tzu.\n\nA Cantonese Kuomintang soldier, Huang Chin-ch'uang, crossed to Taiwan in 1949 with the retreating KMT forces. He was posted to Pingtung near Kaohsiung and served with a unit near the main village on the island of Little Liuchiu where some time later he became ill and died. The people of the village, remembering his kindness and goodwill and knowing that he had no family of his own, buried him in an auspicious spot on the hillside. He became the spirit guarding the hills above the village and also gained renown for his ability to protect fishermen in danger. A shrine, a privately run temple, was built in his honour and an image of him placed on the altar where he is now known as Marshal Huang despite having been a mere private soldier.\n\nWang was a sailor left behind in Java by the great Ming explorer Cheng Ho at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His image is to be seen on a side altar in the Earth God temple at Ancol, not all that far from Jakarta, whilst tablets dedicated to him are to be seen in Chinese temples in Semarang and near Sourabaya, all on the island of Java. Local Chinese belief is divided as to whether he was pure Chinese or Javanese, and whether he was a shipwright, navigator, or senior member of Cheng Ho's crew, or merely a Javanese interpreter. They are at one, however, that Wang was a Moslem and that he married a Javanese wife and lived out his days, dying peacefully in Semarang.\n\nOf these ten male and two female spirits, all but two are represented by stylised images on altars, and they are taken from each of the main ethnic groups along the south China coast, the Cantonese, Fukienese, Hakka, Ch'ao-chou, and Hainanese.\n\nFive originated during the past fifty years, three some time during the past century, whilst four definitely developed during the Ch'ing dynasty.\n\nOnly six of the spirits still have their full names remembered, and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214628,
        "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": 43,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "Hang, Nga Tsin Long, Shek Kwu Lung and elsewhere in the area. Branches of the village clans moved out of the area to Siu Lek Yuen, Tseung Kwan O, and Lamma Island, during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.\n\nWritten records, however, give a different, more complex, and doubtless more accurate account. The Ng clan has three surviving Tsuk Po, an old hand-written one from Nga Tsin Wai itself (several slightly different copies of this survive), and a recent printed revision and updating of it, and yet another hand-written version from the branch of the clan that moved to Siu Lek Yuen in Sha Tin in the late seventeenth century14. The Chan clan has a Tsuk Po from the branch of the clan that moved to Tseung Kwan O in the early eighteenth century. No written records are known to survive from the Li clan, however. The foundation records of Tai Wai, in Sha Tin, also have some information to offer.\n\nThe Chan clan Tsuk Po gives as the First Ancestor of the clan the second of the clan to settle in Kwangtung. Chan Tsun-hing (陳遵興), the father of the First Ancestor, came from Kiangsi, and was posted to Nam Hung (Nanhsiung, 南雄) in Kwangtung after achieving great success in the Imperial Examinations in 1138. His son, the First Ancestor, Chan Hing-yuen (陳興遠), also achieved official rank, and moved from Nam Hung after he had married and had two sons (i.e., probably in the middle twelfth century, or a little after that period), to Nga Pin Heung (衙前鄉, “Beside the Yamen”). Later in the Tsuk Po it states that this place was \"at Kowloon\", and that the place was so named because it stood to one side of the yamen of the Pak Kap Sze (伯嘉祠), who was presumably a military official.\n\nThe Chan clan Tsuk Po gives five further generations of the clan who died in the Sung (i.e., before 1279), and a further three who died in the Yuan (i.e., between 1280 and 1367). If it is assumed that Chan Hing-yuen was born about 1125, and assuming a 25-year generation gap, the last Sung ancestor would have been born about 1245, and the last Yuan ancestor about 1320, and this seems to fit the dates given well, and can be taken as probably close to the truth.\n\nThe Chan clan Tsuk Po then proceeds to give six ancestors who died in the Ming. This cannot be correct. The Ming (1367-1644)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215021,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 117,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "73\n\nmiles south of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. It was assumed that the twinning was linked in some way with the CLC cemetery but why a small town of Hokkien-speaking Chinese, ethnic Min Nan from Fujian province who during the era of the CLC were under Japanese colonial rule, would have any links with the deceased northern Chinese of the CLC, is hard to see. Perhaps the fishermen of Tungkang fled Shandong province ahead of the Communist advance in 1948 and settled there and have family memories of the labourers. Possibly some members of the CLC returned to China and they, or their off-spring, emigrated to Taiwan. Another possibility could be that they wished to remember and commemorate their fellow countrymen, now resting in a foreign country\n\nit is a subject for further investigation. Two characters are carved into the side of the plinth of one, Yidou which simply\n\n益都 means of Benefit to All.\n\nMy wife and I hope to return, to explore the area more fully as we have enjoyed our brief visits.\n\nMemorial\n\nIt is very surprising that after all the assistance the Chinese, together with their British officers and NCOs, rendered to the Allies, especially the British, there is still no specific memorial to them, whether they survived or died, other than the various cemeteries, mainly in Belgium and France, in which they lie buried. It is never too late to consider erecting a memorial at one of their major base camps, such as Noyelles-sur-Mer, but I suppose the Governments of the main countries concerned would not be interested in such a project.\n\nOn my\n\nvisits to World War I battlefields in Belgium and France, and if the opportunity arises for me to visit a cemetery in which members of the CLC, whether officers, NCOs or Labourers are interred, then I pay my respects, considering that, even though there may be few graves or many, I am honouring all who gave up their lives.\n\nFinale\n\nVarious articles, books and unpublished reminiscences have been used in the preparation of this article. It is not my intention, and never has been, for me to view the various files held at the Public Records",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215023,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 119,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "75\n\nhad been handed over the Chinese departed and nothing further had been heard from them. A member of the Mayor's office in Noyelles asked whether we knew where Tungkang was as they had searched the map of China to locate it without success. They seemed quite surprised when they were informed that it is a small fishing town south of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. The French and Chinese inscriptions on the socles of the two Lions gave the date as 1984 and not 1994.\n\nOur next move was to telephone the Tungkang Town Council Offices only to find that everyone, though very helpful, had no idea what we were talking about. The Mayor of Tungkang of the time, 1984, had long gone and was, they thought, dead. The more we thought about it the more puzzling it became with the only ideas we could come up with being the short semi-official drive in the 1980s by the Taipei government to widen their contacts with the western world and to remind foreigners of Taiwan's existence.\n\nSome months later, the Mayor's Office in Noyelles came up with two documents. One was an undated invoice to the then Maire de Noyelles, M. Claude de Valicourt, covering the shipment of two ‘marble of ramp as they were called, 'Gift of No Commercial Value' being shipped from the port city of Kaohsiung to Noyelles via Le Havre. It was signed Tungkang Town, Town Office. The Bill of Lading, however, was dated 1st June 1985.\n\nThe other was a typed certificate in Chinese signed by both the Tungkang Mayor and the 'Nuo-ye-le' Mayor, with the French translation. Neither signature is legible, though the date clearly is 20th January 1984 [the 73rd year of the Republic and not 1994]. It is headed Dijie Jiemei Zhen Mengshu which literally means 'Wedded Sister Towns Alliance' and is addressed to the Noyelles's Mayor [Nuo-ye-le Shizhang]. The flowery language used, typical of such pronouncements, declared everlasting friendship between the people of Noyelles and people of the Republic of China [Taiwan] and good wishes for future co-operation for mutual understanding. The significant line, however, thanks the people of Noyelles for their respect for the graves of the Chinese labourers in the Chinese cemetery.\n\nThe French version of the Chinese produced 'Pledge,' freely translated, also mentions the Chinese cemetery. The date in 1984 is",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215107,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 203,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "160\n\nThe Emperor\n\nTang Ming Huang was the third son of the fifth emperor of the Tang. His personal name was Li Longji [AD 685-761], though popularly known as the Third Son, San Lang. He is now the patron of actors and professional musicians, worshipped backstage by Fukienese devotees in Taiwan and several places in South-east Asia. Prior to 1949 he was also revered throughout northern China as the patron of actors, actresses and musicians, with incense burnt before his altar prior to every performance [Photograph 1].\n\nHe succeeded his father who abdicated in his favour in 713, and ruled the country fairly. The first part of his reign approximated that of his great-grandfather, Tai Zong, in prosperity and glory. He began by economising and by 740 the country was reasonably prosperous. Being a man of the arts he surrounded himself by a brilliant court, welcoming such men as the poet Li Bo. It quickly became the most glorious period of Tang culture. He loved song and dance and he had built within his palace an area known as the Pear Orchard, Liyuan, to bring together the best actors and actresses, dancers and singers in all China. The title, Liyuan, later became a common designation for anyone who sang, acted or danced professionally.\n\nMany myths are particularly centred on Tang Ming Huang - and stories about him abound describing him as a very sociable man, fond of music and drama, with men and maidservants being trained as actors and musicians for whom he composed tunes. He also founded a school of dramatic art.\n\nThere are at least six temples in Taiwan dedicated to this deity, in Taipei, Taichung, Changhua and Kaohsiung where his festival is celebrated on or about the 24th of the sixth lunar month.\n\nAs a deity he is known by a number of titles, including Ming Huang Dadi 明皇大帝; Lao Lang Ming Huang 老郎明皇; Lao Lang 老郎; and in Beijing Xi Shen, the God of Happiness. In Sichuan, however, his images were simply referred to as the Bodhisattva Prince, Taizi Pusa and, as elsewhere, were worshipped backstage, principally to prevent actors and actresses from bursting out into uncontrolled laughter or forgetting their lines. He is the patron in",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215130,
        "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-2000",
        "page_number": 226,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "Lei Wanchun was a minor general who served under General Zhang Xun, and refused to surrender, dying with his men. The gold spots on his cheeks represent where the enemy's arrows struck him. This image portrays him as a pestilence deity [Wangye], with his demonic face, and stands on an altar in a temple on the outskirts of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan.\n\n183",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215644,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 421,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "373\n\nCOINCIDENCE?\n\nJENNIFER WELCH\n\nKeith Stevens sent me the following anecdote from amongst his collection of notes on Chinese religion:\n\nTao Bing Taizi - The Earth Soldier Prince\n\nThe story is that of a young man in his early twenties, with the surname Cai, who was killed by local people near Kaohsiung during a trip he made away from his home village of Hu Tung in Yun Lin county in central Taiwan. He was buried where he fell, but later his family, who regarded him as a heroic youth, came and took some soil from his grave, and built a shrine in his honour back in Hu Tung. As time passed people who prayed at his shrine found that their prayers were answered, and as a result of this success he became a popular local god.\n\nIn the late 1890s, after the occupation of Taiwan by the Japanese, a troop of Japanese cavalry passed through the village of Hu Tung destroying crops as they went. The villagers were angry but too afraid to protest. The cavalry tethered their horses to the shrine, whereupon one of the horses neighed and dropped dead. This was seen as Cai punishing the Japanese both for destroying the crops and for desecrating his shrine by using it as a tethering post. The villagers considered that Cai had meted out retribution to the Japanese in this way so that they could not blame the villagers for the mishap.\n\nA few days after receiving this tale I took some visitors to see Beverley Minster, our local cathedral, founded before 1066, but a wonderful example of medieval architecture. On entering, an official offered to give us a guided tour, which included the 14th century stone canopied tomb of Lady Eleanor Percy, a truly beautiful work of exquisitely carved fruit, leaves, angel figures and symbolic beasts, where the central position is filled with a representation of the Deity raising the soul of a woman from her winding sheet. Our guide informed us that this was a rare surviving example of such medieval art in England, as in other churches similar depictions of Christ had been destroyed, not during the Reformation, but a century later by the Puritan Roundheads. We inquired how this carving had survived, and this is",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 216198,
        "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": 497,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "431\n\nTHE WRESTLING PRINCES\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nDown the years I have visited many, many Chinese temples in my search for images of the deities and their legends. One near the coastal town of Muar in western Malaysia contained a pair of deities well known to me standing on the altar table before and below the main altar. The image consisted of a pair of conjoined deities - the Taibao Sheren, a Fujian local popular religion Daoist cult, involving a pair of youths, princes, so the story goes, who in image form are depicted standing together, legs apart, holding on to each other either with one arm around the other's shoulders or clutching a part of the other's anatomy, such as the knee, as if wrestling. In this instance the Taibao possibly means The Great Guardian, an old dynastic title for one of the most senior of the Chinese imperial advisers rather than the Great Protector which is the literal meaning. Sheren was a quasi-official title for \"independent kinsmen” in other words \"hangers on.”\n\nIndividually the two youths bear the names of Kang and Ruan though they were identified in two temples in southern Malaysia simply, one the Sheren as the Civil Protector, Wenbao and the other, the Taibao as the Military Protector, Wubao. They are worshipped for general good fortune and have only been identified in small Chinese temples within Fujian communities in Singapore, Malaysia, southern Thailand and in two or three temples in Taipei and Kaohsiung counties in Taiwan. In this rural temple near Muar Kesang the main deity on the altar is a seated matron known as Liu Jia Zhenren.\n\nFor Yuan Jian Zhenren, not seen anywhere else and said to be the mother of the two youths. Before and below her image are two sets of the youths, portraying them as wrestlers with leather shin-guards and wrist strengtheners, with one of the pair grasping the other firmly by the leg.\n\nThe two are believed by some to have been Indian princes brought to Fujian more than a thousand years ago and little more, apart from their surnames, would appear to be known at any of the temples in which these images have been seen. However, in one temple in Taiwan they were said to be the sons of a wealthy man. One son had shown great aptitude and had been sent to study in the capital, and was white\n\nJ",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216199,
        "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": 498,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "432\n\nskinned, whilst the other had been put to work supervising the father's labourers in the fields and whose skin had been burned black. The elder was said to be depicted at thirteen years of age whilst the second was two years younger. Ruan, the younger prince, is portrayed with a fierce expression whilst the elder has a gentler look despite not having any eyebrows. Both tend to be depicted with white [pink] or black skin, and are barefoot. Both are dressed simply, in trousers and a small apron. They wear golden bracelets on their forearms and their head-dress consists of a gilded crown from which protrude long peacock's feathers. A tiny matshed seaside shrine at Port Dickson, also on the west coast of Malaysia, contains a small composite image of the youths, most certainly wrestling, one grasping the other by his queue and an arm.\n\nIn a temple in Singapore the keeper was adamant that the two youths only spoke Hindi and that many of the devotees in his temple praying before them were Singaporean Indians who regularly consulted the Hokkien [Fujian] spirit medium in the temple. In every day life the medium only spoke Hokkien and therefore had to work through a spirit interpreter. The Indian devotees, he added, could only understand their mother tongue, Tamil, one of the Dravidian languages of southern India and who seemed to be able to converse with the deities through the medium without any trouble 'as the medium in his trance spoke Tamil'.\n\nIn one temple in Fujian recently a local Chinese explained that they were homosexuals presumably a guess inspired by their pose. However, you can imagine our reaction when in a village temple in Kaohsiung county in southern Taiwan we saw what appeared to be the standard image of the pair, swathed as usual in silken robes donated by devotees, being “undressed\" by the leering temple custodian to reveal that the dark skinned youth was holding the white skinned by the forearm and his queue whilst the white skinned youth had one arm around the shoulder of the black skinned one, but was holding the black skinned youth's penis with the other hand. The custodian fell about when he saw how disconcerted we were. The village elders left their card playing on the temple veranda to join in the general laughter which encouraged village children to rush in to see what was happening. They were chased out but not before several had managed to see the image and were unable to get out fast enough to tell the others what they had seen. The custodian explained that someone had ordered the image to be carved this way some years ago, possibly as a joke, and very few devotees",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216201,
        "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": 500,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "434\n\nTái-pao Sheh-jen, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan, 2002",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]