[ { "id": 204848, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "126\n\nD. LESLIE\n\nannotated. The Lun Heng is over six times the size of Mencius and thirteen times that of the Analects (of which Waley's translation takes up 150 pages with 100 pages of comment). The task is clearly enormous. Until such time as a modern scholar can devote many years to this work alone, Forke's translation will remain indispensable.\n\nForke's \"Introduction\" (pp. 4-44) is still amongst the finest summaries of Wang Ch'ung's thought. It goes deeper than the wider-ranging general surveys of Chinese philosophy mentioned earlier, and consequently gives a more rounded picture of his contribution. The only comparable western summary is given by Li Shi Yi in his \"Wang Ch'ung\" T'ien Hsia Monthly 5, 1937, pp. 162-184, 290-307. After reading Forke, one may turn to the more specialised studies by Joseph Needham in his Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. II, 1956, pp. 368-386; and by myself on \"Technical Vocabulary\" (in my \"Contribution\" pp. 134-149); on Wang Ch'ung's biological ideas in \"Early Chinese Ideas on Heredity\" Asiatische Studien: Etudes Asiatiques 1/2, 1953, pp. 26-46; and on \"Les Théories de Wang Tch'ong sur la Causalité\" (to appear in 1964 in the Mélanges).\n\nSince Forke's work appeared, several annotated commentaries to the Lun Heng have been published. The best is undoubtedly the 1938 Lun-heng Chiao-shih by Huang Hui. Unfortunately this is almost unobtainable. A second-best is the 1957 Lun-heng Chi-chieh by Liu P'an-sui, based on work up to 1932. Both include the comments by earlier scholars such as Yü Yüch and Sun Yi-jang; and both give, in extensive appendices, passages from the Chinese works throughout the centuries which mention Wang Ch'ung. However, Huang Hui not only gives a fully punctuated text, but also the pre-Han and Han parallels, rarely given in Liu P'an-sui's edition, but many of which had been found independently by Forke, who also gives a valuable list of Wang Ch'ung's quotations from earlier sources. Huang Hui also includes the brilliant essay on Wang Ch'ung's reasoning by Hu Shih.\n\nThere is no need to go into details about the many recent books and articles in Chinese on Wang Ch'ung, since Timoteus Pokora has dealt with them in his excellent, mainly bibliographical essay \"The Necessity of a more thorough Study of philosopher", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205109, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "60\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\ntheir functions in the Yuan-shih. On the Chinese side, the leading astronomer was Kuo Shou-ching (1231-1316). To him fell the difficult task of reconciling the Arab astronomical system with traditional Chinese astronomy which had entirely different mathematical and geometrical foundations. As I am not a specialist in the history of science, I have to refer to Needham's detailed study of this problem.7\n\nAnother field where Western Asians reached some prominence in China was medicine. It seems as if the skill of Westerners in surgery greatly impressed the Chinese, because physicians from the Near East who performed all sorts of difficult operations are frequently mentioned. Some of them were not Muslim but Nestorian Christians, like Ai-hsieh (1227-1308) whose Chinese name is a rendering of Syriac Isa, Yehoshua, or Jesus. He was not only a famous physician but also for some time served as a Court Astronomer under Kublai Khan prior to the arrival of Jamal ad-Din. Ai-hsieh reached high offices at Kublai's court and was even honored posthumously by having his biography included in the Yüan dynastic history. His activities in China, however, and the presence of many other doctors from the Western Regions, failed to leave a permanent impact on Chinese medicine. The theoretical framework of traditional Chinese medicine continued to be the basis for medical literature and there is not much trace of Western contacts to be noticed in such medical and pharmacological Chinese works as the Pen-ts'ao kang-mu by Li Shih-chen (sixteenth century). On the other hand Chinese medicine was made known rather widely in Islamic countries, as we shall see later. It seems, in any case, that individual skills and techniques were appreciated in Yüan China rather than new theoretical issues and ideas that were entirely foreign to the Chinese. This is certainly the case in both astronomy and medicine; both remained faithful to the inherited theories in spite of occasional borrowings from the West.\n\nTechnology was another field where Westerners were active in China. We have mentioned artillery already. The catapults used by the Mongol and Northern Chinese armies against the fortified town of Hsiang-yang on the Han River were built by Mohammedan engineers. Hsiang-yang has, during a long period in Chinese history, been a town of great strategic importance. Whoever commanded Hsiang-yang could block the access to the fertile Middle", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205121, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "72\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nNOTES\n\n1 On Europe and Europeans as mentioned in Chinese sources, see H. Franke in Saeculum, Vol. II (1951), pp. 65-75.\n\n2 W. Fuchs, The Mongol Atlas of China by Chu Ssu-pen, Peiping, 1946, Monumenta Serica Monographs, No. 8; J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol III, pp. 555-556.\n\n3 H. Franke in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 112 (1962), pp. 228-232 (review of Leonardo Olschki, Marco Polo's Asia).\n\n4 Francis A. Rouleau, \"The Yangchow Latin Tombstone as a Landmark of Medieval Christianity in China\", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 17 (1954) pp. 346-365.\n\n5 John Foster, \"Crosses from the Walls of Zaitun\", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1954, pp. 1-25. (pl. XII).\n\n6 Saeculum, Vol. II (1951), p. 74-75.\n\n7 J. Needham, op. cit., Vol. III, pp. 167-382.\n\n8 See for example, H. Franke, Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte Chinas unter der Mongolenherrschaft, Wiesbaden 1956, p. 34 (Nestorian surgeon).\n\n9 J. Needham, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 381, note (c).\n\n10 A. C. Moule, \"The Siege of Saianfu and the Murder of Achmach Bailo\", Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 58 (1927), pp. 1-28; Vol. 59 (1928), pp. 256-257.\n\n11 J. Needham, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 141.\n\n12 Yüan-shih ed. K'ai-ming, ch. 190, p. 6565, II/III. For the Ho-fang t'ung-i see Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng, Vol. 1486.\n\n13 A. C. Moule, op. cit.\n\n14 R. Loewenthal, \"The Nomenclature of Jews in China\", Monumenta Serica, Vol. XII (1947), p. 113.\n\n15 H. G. Farmer, \"Reciprocal Influences in Music 'twixt the Far and Middle East\", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1934, pp. 327-342.\n\n16 Ch'ing-lou chi, ed. Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng, Vol. 2734, p. 9.\n\n17 H. Franke, \"Der kluge Richter\", in Asiatische Studien, 1950, pp. 55-59.\n\n18 Renate Noethen, Das Sha-kou ch'üan-fu, München, 1961 (Diss.).\n\n19 L. C. Goodrich, \"Westerners and Central Asians in Yuan China\", Oriente Poliano, Rome, 1957, pp. 1-21; \"Western Regions Writers of Chinese Lyrics during the Yuan\", International Conference of Orientalists in Japan, No. VII (1962) pp. 17-21.\n\n20 L. C. Goodrich, Oriente Poliano, p. 15.\n\n21 O. Sirén, Chinese Painting, Vol. IV, New York/London, 1958, pp. 54-59, plates Vol. VI, Nos. 57-60.\n\n22 W. Fuchs, \"Analecta zur mongolischen Übersetzungsliteratur der Yüan-Zeit\", Monumenta Serica, Vol. XI (1946), pp. 34-39; W. Fuchs und A. Mostaert, \"Ein Ming-Druck einer chinesisch-mongolischen Ausgabe des Hsiao-ching\", ibid., Vol. IV (1939/40), pp. 325-329.\n\n23 E. Haenisch, Mongolica der Berliner Turfan-Sammlung, II, Berlin 1959.\n\n24 A. Mostaert and F. W. Cleaves, Les lettres de 1289 et 1305 des ilkhan Argun et Öljeitü à Philippe le Bel, Cambridge, Mass. 1962.\n\n25 M. S. Ipsiroğlu, Saray-Alben, Wiesbaden, 1964, pl. XLIV, No. 64.\n\n26 J. Needham, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 217-219.\n\n27 H. Franke, \"Some Sinological Remarks on Rashid ad-Din's History of China\", Oriens, Vol. 4, (1951), pp. 21-26.\n\n28 W. Franke, \"Zur Frage der Mongolen in China nach dem Sturz der Yüan-Dynastie\", Oriens Extremus, Vol. 9 (1962), pp. 57-68.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205192, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "142\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nIn matters of mutual understanding, as in every real dialogue, mutual respect is essential. In the search for self-understanding, whether for Europeans or Asians, a certain self-respect is primary also. That requires a degree of self-acceptance, the acceptance of one's own past history and present limitations. This would, it seems, qualify the demand for \"parity of esteem.\" (Cf. Joseph Levenson's bold thesis on modern Chinese response to the West and evaluation of Chinese tradition.) Although it is clear, as one gathers from this book, the time of Western arrogance and Asian \"colonial or semi-colonial mentality\" is past, it is not clear that the time of Western dominance is in fact over, at least for the immediate future. An Asian can certainly agree with Joseph Needham in his essay on \"The Dialogue between Asia and Europe\" when he warns the man of the West that \"before it is too late, let him take one at least of the essential steps towards self-knowledge, that is to say, knowledge of others. Let him study the words of their saints and sages as well as those of his own. Let him experience his own humanity in the image of theirs\" (p.289). This is, however, a moral demand. To be fair, it should be made equally of the man of the East. Comparatively little is suggested in this direction by this book, outside of Robert L. Slater's essay on \"Living Religions and World Community.\"\n\n\"Western science and technology, Eastern religion and ethics\" — this idea has been developed in the response to Western predominance and self-esteem on the part of many Asians. This is expressed in the 'i-yung formula of the Chinese: Chinese learning for substance, Western for function. It in fact constitutes a dominant pattern in the Glass Curtain itself. And one finds this pattern present also in the book, in a variety of ways. The Englishman who, in presenting his view on the uniqueness of Asia, idealizes the East and deprecates the West partly for its science and technology represents a curious inversion of the more typical Western arrogance. One wonders whether anyone who seems to be so lacking in sympathy for his own tradition is really capable of appreciating others'. Then, in another essay, the uniqueness of Europe is identified by a Malaysian Chinese to be science — the spirit of science, to be sure, but quite distinct from religion meaning the spirit of dogmatism. The highly autobiographical nature of this essay (the shortest of the twenty con-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205193, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n143\n\ntributed) makes it the most interesting of all and appealing to this reader.\n\nMax Scheler's statement is quoted more than once, with approval, about the coming of \"the hour that harbours in its breast the future of humanity, the hour when Asia and Europe will enter upon a discussion of the principles of their religious and metaphysical life\" (p.313). The book does not present directly such a discussion except in a few spots, notably the essay on the uniqueness of Europe by a Frenchman. Is it because religious and metaphysical principles are the things that ultimately divide as well as unite? Slater's essay should provide a step toward Scheler's prophesy. This should be coupled with Needham's proposition that it is the common knowledge (and use) of nature, which is what he means by science, that is the real basis of dialogue, if not indeed of the unity of mankind. What is the place of normative values in the study of science and in intercultural confrontations? Should we, as the important footnote on pp.317-318 suggests, confine ourselves to \"thoughtful and accurate description\" (such as provided by the historical essays in the book) for the time being, avoiding value judgments and therefore the temptation of \"cultural egotism?\" This is the kind of significant question the book raises but does not answer.\n\nThe essays collected in this symposium are generally short (about 15 pages) and readable. Some are better documented than others. The material in the upper half of p.318, for example, is too important not to be acknowledged as to its source. The long Bibliography at the end of the book would be more useful if classified or annotated. It should be otherwise more selective. Karl Wittfogel's work, Oriental Despotism, apparently important because it is mentioned twice in the book, is strangely left out of the Bibliography. Wang Gungwu's family name is Wang, not Gungwu, as arranged in the \"Notes on Contributors\" on p.355 and stated on p.316—a minor case of East-West misunderstanding! It may be noteworthy that eight out of the twenty contributors (most of them historians) were at one time or another associated with St. Anthony's College, Oxford, making the book to this extent a joint product of that scholarly community. The book, finally, includes as its most important appendix \"A Dialogue on the Glass Curtain between Arnold Toynbee and Raghavan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207241, "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-1975", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1975 (Covering the period March 25, 1974-April 7, 1975)\n\nI am pleased to report to you this evening on this very active past year of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society. Increases in activity bring with it increases in preparations and paperwork, and so we might be forgiven for being slightly behind time with this Annual General Meeting.\n\nTHE PROGRAMME\n\nLet me start with a review of our regular programme. When the Society was resuscitated in 1959 the details are laid out in the brochure we send to new members—our only major activity besides publishing a journal were occasional lectures. Our lectures have steadily increased in number over the years and have been gradually augmented with other activities: firstly symposia—the first was in 1964 then excursions to places of historical or cultural interest within Hong Kong and later also abroad, and most recently with film shows.\n\nIn the programme period running from our last A.G.M., March 25, 1974 to March 28 this year, we have independently organised eight lectures, jointly organised a further lecture with the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, and have been invited to two others. Thus there have been eleven lectures in all. We also organised, were invited to, or jointly organised five film shows and arranged nine local excursions and one overseas.\n\nOur talks covered the regions of Japan, China, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and included a wide range of topics. Starting with April 1974, we had a talk from Dr. K. K. Whitaker, Reader in Chinese at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, on Japanese temples and shrines. One of our highlights of the year followed, also in April: a lecture from Professor Joseph Needham, well-known for his monumental series of published works on Chinese Science and Civilization. This was organised jointly with the Archaeological Society. Professor Needham, who has been Master of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge since 1966, spoke on the Chinese theory of Immortality and the Origins of Alchemy. He drew a large audience and dealt skilfully with the many questions", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208959, "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-1980", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI: ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T.\n\n89\n\nfor defensive purpose, it is my firm belief that careful planning was previously done in order to make possible the coherent relationship that I have mentioned. If original planning was not enhanced, then what had prompted the builders 200 years later to know where and how to trim off excess settlements in order to build the orthogonal wais? Above all, compared to the Hakka walled village in Sheung Shui, the enclosing wall which was also built during the same period and also for the same protective reasons as Kat Hing Wai, is of much more irregular shape. This further reinforces my assumption.\n\nNone of the four wais coincides in size and proportion. This variation is partly due to the size of the extended family, but most importantly, such adjustments are essential to achieve the subtle relationships after each hamlet's position and orientation have been determined. Thus, a square is not a perfect square, but an idealised (or symbolised) square. The dependency of geometrical configuration and proportion in physical forms in China is not so rigid as that of the Western counterpart of the Renaissance period (incidentally concurrent with Ming Peking and Kat Hing Wai): As Joseph Needham points out in his work Science and Civilisation in China, \"the Chinese did not feel the need for [geometrical] forms of explanation — the component organism in the universal organism followed their Tao [way] each according to its own nature.”21 Compared to the T'ang Dynasty capital Ch'angan, one that has been designed most closely with the canonical prescription, Kat Hing Wai is the epitome of the cosmic archetype, the most fundamental stratum of agricultural China. The organic expression of wall and moat architecture is symbolic of Heaven and Earth. The palace in the north in the capital can be seen to parallel the shrine of the Earth God in Kat Hing Wai in which both are protective powers guarding their respective territories. The orientation to the four quadrants, the representational north-south axis, and the division of the compound into smaller living units are all too profound for the sinologist and missionary Arthur H. Smith to grasp the intricacy. In Village Life in China, he writes:\n\nIt is customary in Western lands to speak of ‘laying out' a city or a town. As applied to a Chinese village, such an expression would be most inappropriate, for it would imply that there have been some traces of design in the arrangement of the parts, whereas the reverse is the truth. A Chinese village, like Topsy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208962, "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-1980", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "92\n\nDAVID LUNG\n\n21 Joseph Needham et al., Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), III, p. 458.\n\n22 Arthur Smith, Village Life in China (New York: Fleming Revell, 1899), pp. 15-29.\n\n23 Wong Chung-hong, \"Walled and Moated...\" in Arts of Asia, July-Aug. 1971, p. 25.\n\nL\n\n24 The term \"astrobiological” (defined by Rene Berthelot), is explained by Paul Wheatley as the \"parallelism between the mathematically expressible regimes of the heavens and the biologically determined rhythms of life on earth.\" Wheatley, p. 414. Quotation is taken from p. 450.\n\n17", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209083, "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-1980", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "GEOMANTIC TERMS\n\nEginxing which is synonymous with su,\n\n213\n\n+qizheng which refers to four groups of seven mansions, each group having been assigned to one of the four quarters.\n\nAll the features mentioned so far, whether topographical or stellar, are able to interact with each other by the simple process of assigning one of the Five Elements (wood, fire, water, metal and earth) to each of them. According to the Theory of the Five Elements (see J. Needham, Science and Civilization, Vol. II, 1956, pp. 243 sq.), elements can produce or destroy each other and whatever is associated with them shares their fate. If, for instance, the square shape of a mountain is associated with fire and the star which exerts an influence on it is linked to water, the star's influence will predominate since water extinguishes fire. But the Five Elements also \"live\" a twelve-stage life of their own called shi'er gong + which is only another way of saying that their strength waxes and wanes. To go back to our previous example, if, when measurements are taken, fire is in an ascending phase and water in a descending one, the two will neutralise each other instead of one annihilating the other.\n\nThe relative strength of the Five Elements is particularly important when it comes to cyclical characters which are also correlated with them. One of the methods used to correlate the two is called nayin whereby the sixty stem-branch compounds normally used by the Chinese to identify years in the sixty-year cycle are broken down into five groups of twelve compounds, each group then being assigned one of the Five Elements in the usual manner. (See Chao Wei-pang, \"The Chinese Science of Fate-calculation,” in Folklore Studies, Vol. V, 1946, pp. 292–293.)\n\nGeomancers use the nayin to determine whether a particular site is the right one for a given person, a procedure referred to as fenjin ✩✩. It involves calculating whether the deceased's xianming or kege, that is the year, month, day and date of his birth expressed in cyclical characters, and the zhukuei, or date of birth of the eldest living son, are strong enough to dominate the combined strength of the site's xiang and zuo. If the former is stronger than the latter, the site is deemed suitable; if not, it is rejected.\n\nObviously, such a short paper cannot do justice to the rich terminology of fengshui, but it is hoped that the few terms listed herein will stimulate interest in the vast body of geomantic literature to which scant attention has so far been paid.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209112, "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": 15, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1981\n\n1\n\nI am pleased to report, tonight, on your Society's activities over the last year: on our lectures, expeditions, publications and other projects, and on membership. I start with the lecture programme.\n\nLectures to the Society\n\nLectures during the year covered topics concerned with Chinese natural science, law, culture and society, and history, most of the material presented being based on original, sometime on-going, research, and the emphasis this time being on Hong Kong itself. We opened, however, with a film and short talk from Mrs. Peggy Craig on the culture and people of Rajasthan. This was in connexion with tours Mrs. Craig was arranging to Rajasthan later in the year. In May, a talk was given by Professor Ho Peng Yoke, who was a physicist at one time working with Joseph Needham on his Science and Civilization in China, and who had recently taken up the Chair in Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. He spoke on science and technology in ancient China.\n\nIn June Professor Allyn Rickett spoke on Chinese law and thought. Professor Rickett is in charge of Chinese Studies in the University of Pennsylvania and in the \"fifties had the dubious participant-observation experience of being caught up in the penal system of China when, while engaged in research, he was arrested and imprisoned for four years. Miss Barbara Ward, an old friend of the Society, spoke in November on the \"real\" boat people, the Tanka fisherfolk, whose way of life — literally on their boats as a floating population — is rapidly disappearing as they are becoming housed ashore. Also in November we welcomed Miss Betty Wei Peh T'i, whom many of you will know from her column \"Sweet and Sour\" in the South China Morning Post. Miss Wei, who had just completed her dissertation on Juan Yuan, Governor-General at Canton (1817-1826), spoke on her researches into his work.\n\nIn January Dr. Mary Turnbull, who has lectured to us several times, spoke on Clementi, one-time Governor of Hong Kong, and his relation to the Chinese revolution. Dr. Turnbull is with the History Department of Hong Kong University. In February Dr. John Young of the Extramural Department of Hong Kong University (Hong Kong U was well represented this year) gave us a second lecture. His topic was Sun Yat-sen.\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209135, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "24\n\nSTEPHEN MORRIS\n\nto face the very real perils of their lives. Moreover, the facts of daily life, as they understood and used them, did not contradict the more important elements of that organised system of knowledge. It is a pity, they said, that so many people do die in spite of all that men can do to cure them of illness; but that, after all, is the way things are; and in the end all men do have to die.\n\nNOTES\n\n1See Morris, H. S. \"The Coastal Melanau” in Essays on Borneo Societies, ed. V. T. King (O.U.P. 1978).\n\n2See Morris, H. S. \"Shamanism among the Oya Melanau” in Social Organisation: Essays Presented to Raymond Firth, ed. Maurice Needham (London 1967).\n\n3See Morris, H.S. \"The Decline of an Aristocracy” in Politics in Leadership, eds. W. A. Shack and P. S. Cohen (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979), Morris, H. S. “Slaves, Aristocrats and Export of Sago in Sarawak” in Asian and African Systems of Slavery, ed. J. L. Watson. (Blackwell, Oxford, 1980),", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209721, "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": 378, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "356\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nconfusing intermixing of columns is an unfortunate example of false economy.\n\nMy last few negative comments are directed against purely mechanical aspects of Sagart's monograph. In sum I consider them minor by comparison with the strong plus values I put on the work as a whole. He has made a genuine contribution to our growing body of data on Chinese dialects and this is much more important than the negative suggestions I have made concerning format. No one should do further work in Hakka without touching base with Sagart's study.\n\nJOHN MCCOY\n\nScience in Traditional China: A Comparative Perspective. Joseph Needham, Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1981, x+131pp., appendix 2pp.\n\nIn this volume Dr. Needham extensively compares the various scientific approaches of China, India, Persia, Arabia, Israel and the West. In the \"Introduction\", he observes that the Chinese mind was too algebraic (rather than geometrical) to accept Indian Vaiseshika theories about atoms. In this I think he is correct, but I would like to comment on his remark that the philosophy of China has always been an organic materialism. China Mainland scholars always exaggerate the status of dialectical materialism in Chinese thought, while Taiwan professors overstress the significance of subjective idealism in the Chinese history of ideas at the cost of neglecting creative materialists like Wang T'ing-hsiang# of the Ming dynasty. Fortunately, I received my education in Hong Kong and the U.S. and so have avoided having political prejudices projected onto\n\nonto philosophy. Needham, however, seems to be overwhelmed by the Mainland bias.\n\nWestern scholars tend to liken the Chinese organicism of the Book of Changes (B), Hua-yen Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism to the organicism of Leibniz and Whitehead. However, organicism may be combined with both idealism and materialism, which in fact run in parallel throughout Chinese history.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209722, "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": 379, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n357\n\nOfficially dominant Chinese philosophy was organistically idealistic before 1949, while, at the same time, philosophies concerning science and technology are almost by definition materialistic. Thus, Needham's remark would seem to be nothing more than superfluous tautology. On this question of comparative philosophy, Steve Odin, Process Metaphysics and Hua-yen Buddhism, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982 can be read with profit.\n\nRegarding the discussion of the Hua-yen (華嚴) (changer or magician) on p. 72, Needham ignores Prof. Chi Hsien-lin's \"Lieh Tzu and Buddhist Classics\" (revised in his Essays in the History of Sino-Indian Cultural Relations, Peking: San Lien, 1982).\n\nOn the Yin-yang problem, it would have been preferable had Needham compared Chinese medicine with the Pythagorean Croton School. (See Edwin L. Minar, Jr., Early Pythagorean Politics in Practice and Theory, New York: Arno Press, 1979.)\n\nThe medical classic Lei Ching (類經) said, “The heart and the pulse are not themselves either ch'i or blood” 氣血. Needham fails to indicate this text as the probable origin of Lao Tzu's simile \"bellows\".\n\nIn 1982 three books have been published which should be used to supplement Needham's works: 1. Liu Ch'ang-lin Philosophy of Lei Ching and Methodology of Chinese Medicine, Peking: Science Press; 2. Collected Papers on History of Science and Technology, Series No. 9, Shanghai: Science and Technology Press, esp. p. 34 on \"bellows\", and the last paper: Shen Kang-shen, \"Comparisons and Influences between Archaic Chinese and Foreign Bridges\"; 3. Draft for History of Chinese Science and Technology, Peking: Science Press. However, Ho Ping-yu and Ho Kwan-piao's Outline of History of Chinese Science and Technology (Hong Kong: Chung Hua, 1981) is too brief to be supplemental.\n\n1|1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209988, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 247, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "225\n\nHayes, James, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, Hamden, Conn., 1977.\n\nHerrman, Albert, An Historical Atlas of China, Edinburgh, 1966.\n\nHook, Brian (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, Cambridge, 1982.\n\nHsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1961.\n\nLethbridge, H. J., Hong Kong: Stability and Change, Hong Kong, 1978.\n\nNeedham, J., Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge, (series still in progress). 1953-\n\n+\n\nNg, Peter Y. L., New Peace County: a Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region, Hong Kong, 1983.\n\nWatt, John R., The District Magistrate in Late Imperial China, New York, 1972.\n\nWu Ching-tzu, The Scholars, Peking, 1957.\n\nOf all the books I have quoted from, three stand out as my clear favourites. J. J. M. De Groot's Religious System of China is such a mine of information and so well supported with Chinese quotations that it could, I think, have supplied almost everything I wanted on the religious side. J. Dyer Ball's Things Chinese, with its idiosyncratic treatment of Chinese culture under such headings as 'Topsyturvydom', 'Forfeits', 'Mendicants' and 'Lighthouses', betrays a sound knowledge and excellent if cynical understanding. And the Rev. Justus Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese, based mainly on observations in Fukien province, gives a broad coverage of Chinese society in a systematic and very readable way. Happily, all three of these books have recently been reprinted, two of them in Taiwan, and Ball in Hong Kong. Between them they have delighted readers for over 270 years and there seems no reason to suppose that they will not continue to do so for centuries to come. I dare to hope that all the titles listed in this note will serve to spread that delight even further, by encouraging the reader to wander further into the mysteries of Chineseness.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210065, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "15\n\nThe Present-day Temple Oracles\n\nThe temple oracles, described in modern historical writings and still found in contemporary practice in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. can be traced back as far as the Sung dynasty. Yet such a long interval between the milfoil-I Ching oracles of early Chou and the Sung practice does not necessarily mean a historical continuity. But although today the literary links are missing, some scholars have assumed a continuous line of development. J. Needham is very definite when he states that \"The milfoil, ... has descended continuously to the Taoist temples of the present day, where simple folk choose a stick from a box ...\" This method of using sticks is, in Needham's opinion, different from the use of the I Ching symbols, although he admits that, in the latter, milfoil sticks were also used.\n\n14\n\nMore recently a German anthropologist Werner Banck, has focused his attention on the study of temple oracles. A first volume of his work, a large collection of temple oracle texts, was published in 1976.1 (A second volume is promised in which the author will analyse and evaluate the collected source materials). In his foreword to Banck's work, Wolfram Eberhard clearly expresses the belief that there is continuity between the contemporary oracles and the tradition of the I Ching and the Han alternative version, embodied in the T'ai-hsuan ching. W. Banck himself shares this opinion and plans to examine the literary tradition of China for more exact information.\n\nA possible reason why direct evidence is not easily available consists in the very nature of the contemporary temple oracles: they are used by the people in the temples. Two conditions make such a practice possible: the existence of temples and the availability of printing. This double factor only started to materialize toward the T'ang period and therefore it seems plausible to look for the origin of temple oracles in the middle or later T'ang era. Before that time, people who wanted to consult the oracles in private matters, could visit diviners, who did not need temple oracles since they could read the I Ching and similar texts and cast the oracles for their clients.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210091, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "41\n\netym, (variant); } = cracks; 1= || scapula !) (K. 1192) enquire by divination; auspicious, good, virtuous; firm, solid; and !! diviner's fee?) { Kui (K. 462) tortoise, divination by aid of the cracks in heated tortoise shell to draw lots; a lot [this character is a strange mixture; enclosure or “border prairie” with possibly 2 sets of stalks on top of a tortoise: 2 types of divination mixed together] * (K. 894; M. 5763) to divine by stalks of milfoil; (from K magic and \" bamboo-stalks) * shih (M. 5801) milfoil (“achillée”) [the character suggests a plant, and elder person, and a mouth: oracle of old sage?]\n\nCharacters derived from 4: A hands manipulating divining sticks on a table to perceive name of king, Kao, a diviner to learn to teach (to learn + whipping)\n\nNOTES\n\n1 The Chinese text of this oracle is found in Sheng-ch'ien chu-chieh (see bibliography)\n\n2 While this article was already in press, I obtained new information stating that there is a still older example of Chinese oracles, dating from the 5th century A.D: “The earliest example of a Buddhist oracle-sequence can be dated to the middle of the fifth century, and is found in the printed Buddhist Canon. It forms the tenth book in a work entitled The Book of Consecration (Kuan-ting ching, T. 1331).” Although this text is not necessarily a temple oracle, yet it is so far the earliest book containing 100 oracle stanzas in a style similar to the later temple oracles. (Michel Strickmann, “Chinese Oracles in Buddhist Vestments”, p. 27 of an unpublished paper delivered at the Berkeley Conference on Chinese Divination and Portent-lore, June 20-July 2, 1983).\n\n3 See for example L. Vandermeersch, \"De la Tortue à l'Achillée\", p. 46. Fung Yu-lan, in his History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 1 (1952), pp. 27-28: quotes the Ch'ien Han Shu, which in its turn refers to the Shuching. “The divina-tion plant (shih ) and the tortoise shell (kuei #k) are used by the Sages. The Shu says: \"when you have doubts about any great matter, consult the tortoise shell and divination stalks'. . . .\n\n** See also J. Needham, Science & Civilization in China, vol. 2 (1956), pp. 347-349. On page 348 there is a reproduction of a drawing dating from the late Ch'ing dynasty, which shows the legendary emperor Shun and his ministers consulting the oracles of the tortoise-shell and the milfoil.\n\n7 & Miyazaki Ichisada (1966), p. 161.\n\n8 Miyazaki (1966), p. 162.\n\n9 Webster's New 20th century Dictionary of the English Language (1979), p. 765.\n\n10 Andree Richard (1906).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210092, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "42\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\nWebster's Dictionary (1979), p. 1733.\n\n10 Webster's Dictionary (1979), p. 170.\n\nLenormant (1875), p. 18.\n\n12 Lenormant (1875), p. 19.\n\n13 Lenormant (1875), p. 30.\n\n14 Needham (1956), p. 349.\n\nBanck (1976).\n\n16 CHENG, Chen-tuo, Editor, T'ien-chu ling-ch'ien\n\n(Reproduction of the\n\nEarliest Preserved Set of Temple Oracles) Folklore & Folk Literature Series of National Peking University. (reprint), Taipei: The Orient Cultural Service, 1958.\n\n17\n\n19\n\nI have used the cheng-t'ong or Ming edition, as reprinted in Taipei.\n\nEberhard (1970), p. 193.\n\nHuang-ti shen-kung Ħ☎1⁄2, Banck (1976), #17.\n\n20 Eberhard (1970), p. 191-192.\n\n21 Jordan (1982).\n\n11 W. Eberhard (1970), p. 195. The Chinese text: 1+X8\n\n23\n\n24\n\nThe Chinese text: 高達五十得名\n\nSt. Augustine's Confessions, translated by William Benham (New York: Collies & Son, 1909), pp. 141-142.\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nA. Sources\n\n(i) Taiwan (& Hong Kong) Oracles, published in booklets\n\nB-I\n\nB-I\n\nB-I\n\nB-2\n\nB-2\n\nB-2\n\nSheng-ch'ien chu-chieh E, Kuan Yin Fo-tsu, T'ien-shang Sheng-mu &Ħ, X_L, Taichung, Jui-ch'eng Bookstore AĦĦ , 1972, (1st ed. date, unknown).\n\nK'ai-t'ai Ma-tsu chien-chieh, published by the Feng-t'ien Temple in Hsin-kang, Chia-yi *, ****8. (n.d. circa 1978). The oracle texts are on pp. 1-30.\n\n+\n\nLing-ch'ien chich-shuo, with commentaries by Yeh Shan #ll, Taichung: Ch'uang-shih Publishing House, & FURN 1979.\n\n+\n\nPai-shou ch'ien-chieh, Published by the Hsing-sheng Temple in Taichung 台中市行聖宮,1977.\n\nLing-ch'ien chieh-shuo *, with commentaries by Yeh Shan #. Taichung: Ch'uang-shih Publishing House, ÷ÞOKRE 1975 (1st ed.: 1966)\n\nKuan-sheng Ti-chún ch'ien-shih chich MESE the Shui-hsien Temple in Nan-kang, Chia-yi, \n\n1\n\nPublished by\n\n*, 1964,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210095, "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": 66, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "45\n\n3. GERNET, Jacques, \"Petits Ecarts et Grands Ecarts\", pp. 52-69, in J. P. Vernant, a.o., Divination et Rationalité, Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1974.\n\n4. JORDAN, David K., \"Taiwanese Poe Divination; Statistical Awareness and Religious Belief\", JSSR, 21 (1982), 114-118.\n\n5. KALTENMARK, Max & NGO van XUYET, \"La Divination dans la Chine Ancienne\", pp. 333-356, in vol. 1 of A. Caquot & M. Leibovici, Eds., La Divination, 2 vols., Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968.\n\n6. KARLGREN, Bernhard, Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese. Taipei: Ch'eng-wen reprint, 1973 (original edition: Paris, 1923).\n\n7. LENORMANT, Francois, La Divination et la Science des Présages chez les Chaldéens, (Les Sciences Occultes en Asie). Paris: Maisonneuve, 1875.\n\n8. LOEWE, Michael & BLACKER, Carmen eds., Oracles and Divination, Boulder: Shambhala, 1981 (\"China\" by M. Loewe, pp. 38-62).\n\n9. MATHEWS, R. H., Chinese-English Dictionary. Shanghai, 1931. Revised edition: 1974.\n\n10. MIYAZAKI, Ichisada, \"Le Développement de l'Idee de Divination en Chine\", pp. 161-165, in Mélanges de Sinologie offerts à Monsieur Paul Demiéville (Bibliothèque de l'Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, vol. 20), Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966.\n\n11. NEEDHAM, Joseph, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, 1956.\n\n12. RICHARD, André, \"Scapulimantia\", pp. 143-165, in Boas Anniversary Volume. Anthropological Papers written in honor of Franz Boas. New York: G.E. Stechert & Co., 1906.\n\n13. VANDERMEERSCH, Léon, \"De la Tortue à l'Achillée\", pp. 29-51 in J. P. VERNANT, a.o., Divination et Rationalité, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1974.\n\n14. NGO van XUYET, Divination, Magie et Politique dans la Chine Ancienne (Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Religieuses, vol. 78). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976.\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210527, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "115\n\ndifferences between liners and seiners can be expressed in the following diagram, which contrasts their basically different patterns of daily movement (blue and red solid lines) and annual (festival) movement (broken lines) with their basically similar territoriality (solid black line).” Unfortunately, the diagram was never prepared.\n\n33 Readers interested in Chinese junks from the marine architect's point of view are recommended to the several beautiful studies by Worcester listed in the Bibliography below. See also Stanley S.S. Yuan Fishing Junks, a paper presented to the Engineering Society of Hong Kong, Vol. IX, No. 2, January 1956, pp. 41-78 (and 78a-y), and Needham (1971) [Possibly G.R.G. Worcester, The Floating Population in China, an Illustrated Record of the Junkmen and Their Boats on Sea and River (Hong Kong reprint, 1970) and Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge, 1954-)].\n\n34 Reference to Needham (and Yuan op. cit., p.53). [See n.33].\n\n35 Yuan: ibid.\n\n36 Ref. Worcester and Needham et al. [See n.33].\n\n37\n\n[A diagram showing the layout of the holds and deck space was to be provided at this point].\n\n38 [Not found in manuscript.]\n\n39 [A note was planned at this point but not written.]\n\n39 [Chapter 6?]\n\n40 [An unfinished paragraph follows: \"In 1970 I asked my friends in Kau Sai to make another count at the time of the festival, and to indicate which members of which boat families were now living ashore. The results, received by post, were as follows:\")\n\n41 [Term marked in manuscript, probably to be replaced in subsequent revision.]\n\n42 [Not included in manuscript.]\n\n43 [Manuscript includes this line in parentheses: \"(etc. see annual report on this and include details).\"]\n\n44 [See p. 112.]\n\n45 [Not included in manuscript.]\n\n46 Particularly in Chapter 9 below. For economic aspects see also Chapter 8. [Unfortunately, neither chapter appears in the manuscript.]\n\n47 Indeed, the boat itself and all the persons aboard were always (and solely) identified by reference to the master's (personal) name. Thus one heard of Wing Toh's boat, Fuk Hei's employee, Fung Shang's wife, Shing Chui's son, etc, etc.\n\n48 Other terms used, usually more formally and in written contexts were shuen cheung (lit: boat exalted, boat leader) and shuen chu (lit: boat lord). Each of these also translates fairly well as \"boat's master\". (Cp. also uk cheung, uk chue (house leader, house lord, i.e. head of household); ghaah cheung (family leader, mandarin: chia chang); tsuen cheung (village leader) etc.\n\n49 [Not found in The Census Report of 1961, K.M.A. Barnett, a long-time member of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, was then Commissioner of Census.]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211053, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "89\n\nNorthern Vietnam) he asked to be relieved of office and left the capital for Guangzhou. In 327 he settled in the Zhuming cave of Mt. Luofu where he busied himself collecting medicinal herbs and refining cinnabar. His extensive writings include several important treatises on Taoism and Chinese medicine. (Source: Zongjiao Cidian [Dictionary of religion], Shanghai, Cishu Chubanshe (Lexiographical publishing company), 1981, pp. 997-998; see also Jin Shu [The Book of Jin], volume 72, Zhonghua Shuju). Needham calls him \"the greatest alchemist in Chinese history\" (Science and Civilization in China, vol. II, Cambridge University Press, 1956, p. 437).\n\n14 The story that Huang Yeren was late for the levitation because he was drunk, we heard from a young official of a local Taoist organization whom we interviewed in Guangzhou on August 27, 1987. Cultural affairs cadres whom we interviewed at the main temple on Mt. Luofu on August 28, 1987 indignantly denied this story. The young official also related the story that Huang Yeren (Huang the wild man) had originally been called Huang \"also [in Cantonese “yah”] man” (in many Luofu folk-tales the Yeren is said to appear in the shape of an animal). Later the character for \"also\" (in Mandarin “ye”) had been substituted by that for \"wild\" (in Mandarin also \"ye\"). We have not found any documentary sources which confirm this information.\n\n19 Michel, Soymié, \"Le Lo-feou chan\", 1954. Bulletin de l'école française d'Extrême-orient, Tome XLVIII (ler semestre), 1954, pp. 1-137, raises another possibility (see pp. 109-110): that the Yeren tradition is based on contacts in ancient times, possibly including periodic trading exchanges, between people of the plains of Guangdong and aborigines living on or near the mountain. In the eyes of the plainsmen, the aborigines would appear strange in many respects, especially in speech and appearance. Stories derived from these contacts might have become the basis for the Yeren legend. Supporting this interpretation, Soymié notes, is the fact that Yeren was thought to be able to appear as a man or a woman, a young person or an old person, and that Yeren is in fact a category of \"strange person apparitions” rather than a single figure. Clearly, once such a flexible figure had become established in the popular imagination, sightings of almost anything on the mountain could feed into the growing folklore about Yeren.\n\n16 Some stories of healings by Yeren are contained in Luofushan Fengwuzhi (Records of Mt. Luofu scenery), Guangdong Lüyou Chubanshe (Tourist affairs publishing co., 1984). This source also records the tradition that the cave of Yeren was guarded by a mute tiger. The chapter in which the healings are recorded is titled, \"The earth-bound fairy riding on a mute tiger.\"\n\n17 Source: Nanhan Shu (The book of Southern Han), Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe, 1981 (reprint), volume 17. This story was also related to Ragvald by scholars of the provincial Wenshi Guan (Research institute of culture and history) whom the first author interviewed in Guangzhou, September, 1987.\n\n18 These details are in notes provided to the first author by the Wenshi Guan scholars (see previous footnote), and were evidently taken by them from an addition to the Nanhan Shu, titled Nanhan Shu Kao Yi (Collating the variants), volume 17.\n\n19 We have not yet been able to verify the exact location of the temple, which apparently is called Huangxianweng miao (The temple of old saint Huang). There may be several other Huang Li temples in this region.\n\n20 According to Nanhan Shu Kao Yi (volume 17) his original name may have been Wang rather than Huang. Evidently he changed his surname to Huang (in Canton...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211518, "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": 235, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "211\n\nwas ill-constructed so that it broke up, or caught fire, in mid-air, or if the night was very windy so that the paper dome tore, or the balloon was driven down by a squall, then fires were quite likely. Hill fires, and, worse, crop fires and fires burning houses, cattle sheds and other buildings as a result of hot air balloons are known to villagers in Sha Tin, Sha Tau Kok and Tuen Mun.\n\nAt present hot air balloons are still made, particularly by villagers in the North District, and the numbers of balloons is still high - the author saw seven in the sky within one hour during the 1986 Mid Autumn Festival and more than ten within one hour during the 1987 Festival.\n\nThe current generation of village elders, in their late 70s and early 80s, are unanimous that the current balloon construction and flying practices are identical with those they used in their youth (i.e. in the 1920s), and that the elders in their youth said that the practices when they were young (i.e. in the 1870s) were also the same. The elders specifically said that the rim of the balloon was stiffened with thin wire in their youth. The only changes are the switch from hemp cloth rags or kapok to cotton waste, and from peanut oil to diesel. The paper used for the balloon skin has changed a little as the older, coarser paper is not now available, and a shinier paper is now used. The elders all feel the modern paper is better, as the shine allows the paper to \"slip through the air easier\", but they are dubious about the switch to diesel: while easier to light, it does not give so clear a light, nor does it burn for so long. It would seem likely, however, that at some stage the balloons may well have been smaller, and used green bamboo shavings where the modern balloons use thin wire, but this is only a guess. At all events, the memories of the elders make it clear that balloons of the sort described above have been a widespread tradition in the New Territories for at least the last 100 years.\n\n5\n\nNeedham in his Science and Civilization in China refers to setting off hot air balloons as \"an ancient sport\" and a \"pastime\", and refers to cases in Fukien, Cambodia, and Yunnan. The Yunnan case is particularly interesting as it refers to activities by a certain minority tribe in Yunnan during the slack period between the planting and weeding of the rice and the harvest. The Mid Autumn Festival also falls in this same slack period, although, in the New Territories double harvest...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211519, "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": 236, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "212\n\nagricultural calendar, this falls in September rather than July as in Yunnan. Needham was able to find no references from the north of China to hot air balloons, and this local custom in the New Territories may well be yet one more case of the New Territories villagers sharing with the South Chinese minority tribes a traditional practice not known to the Chinese north of the Kwangtung-Fukien mountains.\n\nP. H. Hase\n\n+\n\nNOTES\n\nJ. Needham Science and Civilization in China Vol. 4 Part 2, 1965, pp. 595-599\n\nI have not been able to spot any references to hot air balloons in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which contains most of what is told about Chuko Liang. The germ of the connection may be the night signal of seven lamps\" which Chuko Liang used at Ch'ishan (Chapter 103, Romance of the Three Kingdoms).\n\nDetail in this Note is taken from interviews with Mr. CHÔI Kam-chuen, retired village representative of Tai Wai, Sha Tin, and other Sha Tin and Tuen Mun villagers, and particularly with Mr. LEE, village representative of Wo Hang, Sha Tau Kok, and other Wo Hang villagers. My particular thanks are due to Mr. LEE Man-yip of Wo Hang.\n\n+ On the importance of those practices, which required the co-operation of village youths, see the author's \"Observations at a Village Funeral\" in From Village to City ed D. Faure, J. Hayes, A. Birch, Hong Kong 1984, pp. 129-163, espec. pp. 129-137, and also D. Faure The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, Hong Kong, p. 96.\n\nNeedham op. cit. The Yunnan hot air balloons are quoted by Needham from J. Goullart, The Forgotten Kingdom 1955, p. 178. The Yunnan balloons were fired by bundles of splintered pine twigs, and were able to fly for only a few minutes. The Yunnan balloons. like those in the New Territories, were made of paper pasted over hoops of split bamboo: presumably the hoop was a rim-hoop.\n\nA SILVER BRACELET WITH\n\nAN ANCIENT GREEK COIN FOUND IN WEWAK, EAST SEPIK PROVINCE,\n\nPAPUA NEW GUINEA\n\nA silver bracelet was found in the sand on a raised beach in Wewak, at a depth of approximately 0.5 m in disturbed ground.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213258, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "60\n\nEnglish mile) long, Great Wall (Needham, 1971:53). General Meng Thien is said to have swallowed poison because of concern about this; undue interference with the given pattern of nature. It was not possible [during the wall's construction] not to cut through the veins of the earth. This is my crime.\n\nNeedham also writes, however, that this tale could have been a 'literary invention'.\n\nFung shui can loosely be described as being partly composed of 'mana', het shai (?), yeung (?) or lucky forces, while, as its antithesis, shaat het (?) (meaning to kill or slay) connotes bad currents, the breath of ill fortune, noxious vapours or harmful 'arrows' or forces. Fung shui, which has been likened to man's 'spiritual compass', guides lives and promotes balance relative to nature throughout the universe among both the living and the dead. Thus the purpose is to avert disharmony wherever it exists; be it in the home, the workplace or the grave. 'If a person's lucky that's fine. But the fung shui master can make his luck even better,' some Chinese will tell you.\n\nWith faith in the divine powers of nature and the beauty of the landscape, a golden thread of spiritual life can be perceived running through every form of existence. This binds together, in harmony, everything that exists in heaven or on earth. A man and his family can be influenced, for good or evil, depending on the siting of an ancestor's grave (Chinese do not like the Vietnamese practice of siting graves in flooded paddy). It is widely believed that the principles of fung shu were first applied to graves by Kuo P'o a scholar who died in 324 AD (Williams, 1931: 144).\n\n'Woe betide anything or anybody who does not conform to the principles of fung shui,' is the common belief.\n\n'It is a great pity that more gweilos (loosely translated as \"foreign devils\"), and Chinese as well, do not believe in fung shui,' wrote Richard Webb of Kowloon, in the South China Morning Post on 10 July 1991. This was in reply to a journalist's (Stuart Wolfendale's) jibe, in a previous letter to the editor. Wolfendale wrote, '... there is nothing more ridiculous than a gweilo who believes in fung shui'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213289, "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "91\n\nThere are, for example, the Nine Stars and the 24 Mountains. The 24 Celestial Mansions, the 24 Fortnightly Climatic Periods, the 24 Characters, and the Five Elements are also represented. The compass, made from timber and coated with lacquer, not only tells direction, namely east, south, west, north and centre (the 'five' cardinal points), but it also shows the position of the sun at different periods of the year. To use the compass the base is placed parallel with the door, wall or other object to be oriented. The rings are then rotated so that things are lined up.\n\nAs a model of the universe, then, the loh poon helps its fung shui master interpret and predict, from the mystic Chinese characters, the client's future. This is done with the 'Eight Trigrams' forming the paat kwa (the eight-sided divining diagram as detailed in the I Ching) which is displayed on the inner section of the compass (Sung, 1934; and Sung, 1935). With the 'Eight Trigrams' two parallel continuous lines represent the 'Great Male Principle', and two parallel broken lines represent the 'Great Female Principle', and so on.\n\nThe ancient book, the I Ching, is regarded as almost sacred in some quarters and dates back to about 2800 BC, although the oldest extant commentaries were probably written closer to 1300 BC (Markert, 1986). The I Ching deals with prognostication, fortune telling and philosophy, with sets of symbols and different ways of combining these symbols so that they form titular statements. Much is written in poetic language which is difficult for the lay Chinese to understand.\n\nThese Trigrams mentioned above, made up of broken and unbroken lines in various relationships, are loathed by evil spirits in the same way that Holy Water, blessed by a Christian Priest, will fight evil.\n\nIn fact in China's Fujian Province, to the North-east of Hong Kong, large circular, communal dwellings have one ring of houses encircling another ring (Huang, 1994, 11). A whole complex, as large as an Olympic stadium, houses hundreds of families. Such structures are said to be earthquake proof and designed to provide natural temperature control. Each complex is shaped similar to the baat kwa, as outlined above.\n\nAs previously stated Chinese culture is woven around the 'Five Elements' in various ways (Needham, 1956, 243). The Five are employed, in fung shui, after consulting both the lunar and solar calendars (which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213311, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "113\n\nMorgan, Carole, ‘A Short Glossary of Geomantic Terms', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol 20, 1980\n\nNeedham, Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China, vol II. Cambridge University Press, 1956\n\n· ditto, vol IV, 3, 1971\n\nNoble, Sara, Feng Shui in Singapore, Graham Brash, Singapore 1994\n\nO'Brien, Joanne with Kwok Man Ho, The Elements of Feng Shui, Element Books. 1991\n\nPennick, Nigel, The Ancient Science of Geomancy: Man in Harmony with the Earth, Thames and Hudson, 1979\n\nPeplow, S H and M Barker, Hong Kong Around and About, Ye Olde Printerie Ltd, 1911\n\nPike, S N, Water Divining, A Book of Practical Instructions, Research Publications, England, 1945\n\nPotter, Jack M. 'Wind, Water, Bones and Souls: the Religious World of the Cantonese Peasant', Journal of Oriental Studies, Hong Kong University, vol. 8, 1970\n\nRossbach, Sarah, Feng Shui: Ancient Wisdom for the Most Beneficial Way to Place and Arrange Furniture, Rooms and Buildings, Hutchinson, 1983\n\nFeng Shui: The Chinese Art of Placement, Dutton, New York, 1983\n\n------ Interior Decoration with Feng Shui, 1981\n\nInterior Design with Feng Shui. How to Apply the Ancient Chinese Art of Placement, Century, 1987.\n\n-Interior Design with Feng Shui, Rider, London, 1987\n\n1\n\nShen, D C, '\"Feng Shui\" Woodlands' Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol 14, 1974\n\nSkinner, Stephen, The Living Earth Manual of Feng-Shui, Chinese Geomancy. Graham Brash. Singapore, 1983", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213398, "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "208\n\nMichie, Alexander, The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, Edinburgh, 1900 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing)\n\nMoges, Marquis de, Recollections of Baron Gros's Embassy to China and Japan in 1857-58, London: R Griffin, 1860\n\nMorrison, G E, An Australian in China, London: Horace Cox, 1895 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press)\n\nMorse, Edward Sylvester, Glimpses of China and Chinese Homes, Boston: Little Brown, 1902\n\nMorse, H B, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, London: Oxford University Press, 1925 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing)\n\n—, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, 1910 (Taipei reprint: Ch'eng-wen Publishing, 1978)\n\nMossman, Samuel (editor of North China Herald), General Gordon's Private Diary of His Exploits in China Amplified, London: Sampson et al., 1885\n\nMote, Frederick Wade, China in the Age of Columbus, in Art in the Age of Exploration edited by Jay A Levenson, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991, 337-350\n\nMoule, A C, Christians in China Before 1550, London and New York, 1930\n\n+\n\nMoule, Arthur Evans, City, Hill and Plain, Stories of Missionary Work in Mid-China 1861-1916, Guilford: printed privately, 1917\n\nMullins, James of St Columban's Missionary Society, Cheerful China, 1925\n\nMurphey, Rhoads, Shanghai, Key to Modern China, Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press, 1953\n\nThe Outsiders: the Western Experience in India and China, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1976\n\nMyrdal, Jan, Report from a Chinese Village, London: Heinemann, 1965\n\nNagel's Encyclopedia-Guide to China, Geneva: Nagel, Third Edition, 1973\n\nNeedham, Joseph, Chinese Astronomy and the Jesuit Mission: An Encounter of Cultures, London: The China Society, 1958\n\n-, Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960+\n\nNeil, Desmond, Elegant Flowers, First Steps in China, London: J Murray, 1956\n\n4", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213952, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "“.......I can think of no other organisation that could have provided such a rich and varied experience' \n\nElsewhere Anita wrote,\n\n'My life has been greatly enriched by my membership of the RAS...' \n\nIn addition Kristy Norman, who was born in Hong Kong and whose family lived here for three generations, said that the RAS had been an important part of her life.\n\nLord Wilson, our latest distinguished Honorary Member, also wrote\n\n'It is good to see from the Newsletter how active the Hong Kong branch is being. How splendid to think that you can arrange visits to the Bocca Tigris and the backstreets of Peking. How we would have loved to be able to do things like that when I first came to Hong Kong as a student in 1960.'\n\nWith the continuing aim of serving all sectors of the community,\n\nyour RAS Branch has much to be proud of. The Territory has always been a transient place with people coming and going. We are always sorry to see loyal supporters and good friends leave. In the room previously occupied by the late sinologist, the eminent Professor Joseph Needham, at Cambridge, his Chinese wife wrote Chinese characters on the wall. Translated, they mean:\n\n'A person may leave but their influence remains'.\n\nLectures\n\nAppendix\n\n1997\n\n18 April\n\n23 May\n\nMr Stephen Selby, The Archery Tradition in China.\n\nMessrs Ko Tim Keung and Jason Wordie, Hong ...\n\nxxi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216511, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 270, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "222\n\nand (from Needham) a “Summary on the Transmission of Mechanical and other techniques from China to the West'. There is an index, and an extensive bibliography. Tucker acknowledges the assistance of experts in many cities along the Silk Road, and also his wife, Antonia Tozer, who accompanied him on several of the journeys that he undertook while writing the book and whose photographs comprise the majority of those included. Other sources of photographs include the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, Tucker's alma mater.\n\nNo book is perfect, and although my background does not qualify me to comment on the content and arguments of this one, I have one major reservation about the way Tucker argues his thesis, and several reservations about the book's presentation.\n\nMy first point relates to Tucker's failure to compare the relative significance of the overland Silk Road with that of the maritime Silk Road. An excellent, though very different and far briefer, companion to Tucker's book is a volume produced in 1996 by the Hong Kong Museum of History, edited by Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong) member Dr. Joseph Ting.2 Contributors to this edited volume make it clear that the cultural exchange between China and countries to the west was just as significant by sea as by land. Admittedly, Tucker notes a contemporary account in around 800 that describes Chinese junks in Baghdad, and several maps indicate the maritime routes, but his single-minded focus on the overland route detracts from a more balanced picture of the relative significance of the two routes. In fact, Patricia Ebrey comments that the trade along the sea routes in the Tang Dynasty was higher in volume than that by land. Tucker's concluding chapter implies that it was European voyages of discovery in the fifteenth century that led to the development of the sea routes between China and the west. His emphasis on Chang'an, which is appropriate as it was a major destination for travellers along the overland Silk Road, might lead readers to overlook the significance of Guangzhou, a city which dominated the maritime Silk Road for centuries, and in which the cultural mix in the Tang dynasty was as great as in Chang'an.\n\nThis leads me to wonder whether the extant art and history of the Chinese influence in the ports used by Chinese vessels on route for India, the Middle East and East Africa have been investigated, and whether this would be a worthy subject for a book. I note a tantalising\n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]