[ { "id": 204460, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES \n\n81\n\nweddings and funerals, repairs to the ancestral temple, and so on. In \n\nAnother and less formal method of securing these aims is the setting aside of joss and oil fields, sometimes known by the obscure title of ching sheung 1, whose proceeds, again, are used for the proper observance of ancestral rites and other family needs.1 One need hardly emphasise the integrating effect of these land measures,\n\nTo understand the people and their outlook and background it is necessary to see to what sort of government they were accustomed.1 The government of the San On district was essentially Confucian, like that of every other administrative division; by which I mean that Confucian principles were ostensibly followed. This was sealed by the state worship of the sage. In every district city there was a temple to Confucius styled a man miu in which the District Magistrate, his senior staff and the local gentry paid the customary respects to the sage and his seventy-two disciples on his birthday (twenty-seventh day of the eighth moon) and at the spring worship or chun chai 1 in the second moon. The same thing happened at the prefectural and provincial capitals. At the head of the San On district was the District Magistrate whose superior was the prefect of the Kwang Chau prefecture which embraced at least five large districts. He was subordinate to the provincial governor and he in turn to the Viceroy of the two Kwang Provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. The nature and duties of the provincial officers had been established since the T'ang dynasty and for well over a millennium the pattern of government had been cast in an identical mould. The District Magistrate was usually a scholar who had taken one of the metropolitan examinations at Peking and he was always a native of another province than his native one, this being a long standing rule. He spent three or six years in one post and was then moved elsewhere, and was promoted in due course to be prefect or to higher office through merit, connections or good fortune. Some persons began and ended their official careers as District Magistrates.\n\n1\n\nThe District Magistrate's duties were many and his competence was most extensive. He was, in truth, the father-mother official1 of the people so called by them and also so styled in official documents because of his authority over all their affairs, criminal or civil. He certainly regarded himself as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205490, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 32, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\nSectarian Religion and the Rural Area\n\n27\n\nSome of the organizations referred to as sects in the literature were in fact religions in their own right. Their ideas were taken from both Buddhism and Taoism certainly, and they also used cosmological notions accepted by the State and the more scholarly members of society; but they often combined such elements in a way forming a distinct ideology of their own. Many were strongly messianic, looked forward to a millenium, and sometimes had secular, even political aims, connected with their ultimate religious goals.\n\nThe literature on such organizations suggests they had a regional distribution, although the evidence is not entirely clear because various names were used by one and the same body at different times or in different places, and some of them themselves ramified into sects.\n\nSpeaking generally, they appear to have been most active in the poorer parts of the rural area especially in regions with large dislocated populations. Szechuan was birth-place to several and was not only an area of scattered settlement but the land of much of the province was poor (perhaps a factor contributing to absence of nucleated settlement). They also operated a great deal in Anhwei, and on the borders of Honan, Shantung and Hopei. Exile appears sometimes to have been a factor in their extension to new areas. Some groups I studied in Singapore in the 1950's were brought down to village areas in Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Fukien leaders exiled from Honan in the mid-nineteenth century.\n\nBut when trying to visualize their operations at the rural level one realizes how thin information in the literature is on their activities in relation to communities of different type and size. Where were their lodges, what did they look like? Were their bases in villages, towns or the open country-side? If one of the more militant, the Nien, said to be an off-shoot of the White Lotus is any example, it appears they might change their base. At one phase in its development it operated from nests in the mountains and at another based itself on earthwall communities in Anhwei for strategic reasons.34 The Nien, however, might in fact have been a secret society type organization and not a religious sect. I will return to the question of secret societies presently.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206684, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 232, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "226\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nship or admission. It seldom attracted the intellectual, and although as the author points out, for their members 'their rites, secrets, oaths of initiation . . . made a powerful contribution towards the consolidation of (an autonomous) order', the ultimate goal was the establishment of new political leadership rather than a new political order. Many of these groups, notably the Triad, were also involved in the offensive as well as defensive art of 'boxing' and would appear to be perhaps more suited to militant and military pursuits. These groups had no millennial dreams, their ultimate objective was the overthrow of the Ch'ing in later traditional times, and Sun Yat-sen used them for just this purpose.\n\nAll this is important if we are also to understand differences today between different kinds of secret or semi-secret organizations found in places like Hong Kong. And what the author fails to mention is that the messianic groups may still be studied, and their investigation is relatively more easy than that of the non-messianic groups which are generally illegal. The messianic groups still attract intellectuals, and still retain their long-ranged goals: the millennium. They do not accept the new 'millennium' of present-day China although some leaders are conscious of similarities with their own independent goals. All this again could do with closer investigation. They still take in the aged and poor and in terms of Hong Kong and other overseas societies often perform useful services. For here is a paradox: in dealing with 'contradictions' at certain times and in certain conditions, the messianic organizations have done much to absorb the discontented and provide alternative satisfactions. And a point connected with this: messianic groups were not always concerned with radical change, even in traditional times, and were not always living in a state of emergency. To some extent this latter point also applies to the non-messianic groups too. The Triad for example appears to have provided mutual aid of an economic and social kind to its members, and we still await more precise information on the particular circumstances as well as processes by which the militant banner was raised by both kinds of group. Groups like the Triad however, have at any rate gradually lost their religious motivations and rituals in contemporary society. With the achievement of their grander political aim they have lost their common purpose and deteriorated into protection rackets, albeit still occasionally with mutual aid facilities for members. But they have only immediate ends in view. It is true and important as the author", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207127, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "192\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nwas about 0.1 acre and it has been estimated that the area of land occupied per capita was 0.45 acre. By that time intensive farming techniques had been developed on cultivation of vegetables, but only on a small scale.\n\nAn attempt has been made to trace the influence of farming techniques of the ancient tribes on the present agriculture. The discovery of prehistoric stone implements, prehistoric village sites and disused rice fields indicates early inhabitancy of farming people. It was found that at least half of the implements were made of stone which could not be found locally in the New Territories. Probably the makers of these tools came from other parts and brought the materials with them.2 Finn suggests that the Hong Kong finds belong to the middle of the Second Millennium B.C.3\n\nAccording to the Chinese history, this region was occupied by the tribes of the Nam Viet group in 2,000 B.C. Their farming practice was known as \"knife cultivation and fire weeding” (刀耕火種), that is to clear the natural vegetation with knife and to burn the weeds with fire. Some villagers still believe that burning the vegetation on the hill will help increase the fertility of their fields. Continuation over centuries of clearing vegetation on the hills has resulted in disappearance of primary forests in this territory.\n\nThe early Chinese settlers paid much attention to the control of soil erosion. Most of the fields left by them on slopes are terraced and nearly all the fields are surrounded by bunds for the purpose of conserving soil, water and plant nutrients. It was estimated that not less than 75% of these fields were well irrigated for planting rice and the rest for dryland field crops, vegetables and fruit trees.\n\nOwing to allocation of the major portion of the cultivated land to rice growing, the early settlers built a large number of weirs and irrigation channels to divert water from streams through channels into the fields. Fields situated on an upper course usually have the first priority on use of the water. The water seeping from the fields is re-diverted by the second weir and so on. Thus, the water can be used again and again, i.e. the longer the stream, the fuller the use of water.\n\nVegetables grown on well-drained land were irrigated by the manual method. The grower carried the water in wooden buckets fitted with a tube and a rose head to sprinkle water on vegetables.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211263, "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": 324, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "299\n\ncount given in the book-length study. Personally, being interested in military matters, I would have liked to have had more information on the recruitment, organization and officering of the “Ever Triumphant Army”. If not in this account, where else? It is too shadowy a body for my liking. Nor is there enough about Giquel in the Introduction, and unlike me, many readers may not have the other book to hand for reference. This handicap sometimes applies in reverse, since there are no maps in Transferring Technology, and the useful section in the Diary giving biographical vignettes only appears in that work. Finally, in neither work are we told anything about Giquel's wife and children, and the Giquel family, although the 1864 diary and other papers came from his grand-daughter's home.\n\nNotwithstanding these observations, readers will find much of interest in these fascinating works which relate to a man who clearly had much to offer, did his best, and assuredly deserves to be better known and appreciated, especially in China itself.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nFrank Ching, Ancestors, 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family. London, Harrap, 1988, pp. 528.\n\nFrank Ching is a journalist. He has the journalist's eye for the dramatic and unusual. He knows a good story when he sees one, and how to put it across. These gifts have served him well in his first book, an account of his own family over nearly a millennium.\n\nThe book comprises a series of studies of eminent persons of the Ching lineage from whom he is directly descended. In such studies, motivated by the desire to get at one's roots, there is always the danger that we shall get hagiography rather than history, but there are few signs of this. The author has set himself high standards. Starting, as he tells us in the prologue, from scratch in as complex and difficult a field as Chinese historiography, it is remarkable that he has achieved such a tour de force. The book is of great and absorbing human interest, perhaps heightened for readers by the fact that there is a direct connection with a living person. It has been assiduously researched, in person and using the best authorities, and is well organized and beautifully written.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212030, "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": 445, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "420\n\nappreciated, especially in China itself.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nFrank Ching, Ancestors, 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family. London, Harrap, 1988, pp. 528.\n\nFrank Ching is a journalist. He has the journalist's eye for the dramatic and unusual. He knows a good story when he sees one, and how to put it across. These gifts have served him well in his first book, an account of his own family over nearly a millennium.\n\nThe book comprises a series of studies of eminent persons of the Ching lineage from whom he is directly descended. In such studies, motivated by the desire to get at one's roots, there is always the danger that we shall get hagiography rather than history, but there are few signs of this. The author has set himself high standards. Starting, as he tells us in the prologue, from scratch in as complex and difficult a field as Chinese historiography, it is remarkable that he has achieved such a tour de force. The book is of great and absorbing human interest, perhaps heightened for readers by the fact that there is a direct connection with a living person. It has been assiduously researched, in person and using the best authorities, and is well organized and beautifully written.\n\nOnce one has read the prologue, and absorbed the author's background and motivation, derived from having been an exile (in Hong Kong) from his native place at intervals during the early part of his life, it does not really matter whether one reads the book from start to finish or (as I did) takes up those chapters that appeal most. All are of equal interest. If I have to make a selection, I liked the account of his father (1888-1959), a bitter-sweet and, it seemed to me, quintessentially Chinese individual who lived in trying times; a brilliant man who perhaps deserved to have had a more favourable arena for his talents, certainly after he left Shanghai to rejoin his family in Hong Kong in 1949. There were so many years of enforced idleness in both places. Personal accounts like this tell us more than the historical record, and illuminate the times more effectively.\n\nI liked the author's notes to the chapters: over 40 pages between pp. 471-511. They are not only a guarantee that he has done a good job: they also help interested readers to look into books and sources of which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213302, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "104\n\nChristians believe in, rather than by fung shur? Indeed for most religions and persuasions when faith is involved, there is usually no rational way to measure faith. Although, so often, the more rational the person's view the greater the degree of rationalisation. This does not of course imply fung shur is completely illusionary. A person must believe in the cure. So much, after all, is psychological. Many things in life are.\n\nThose who are afraid of contracting some illness become disease conscious, which helps to attract what they fear, just as those who think always in terms of health are helping to attract health. It is a case of attunement. A natural force, seemingly, turns on the switch. An aggressive attitude towards fighting disease can help prolong life. If you change your outlook you change your vibrations.\n\nOne Englishwoman told the author:\n\n\"There are electrical fields. Why can't there be other fields too, like those emanating from crystal? Again, there are things like 'thought transference'. There must also be other dimensions of which we are not really aware. Things that give out an aura.\"\n\nCertainly most Chinese and many Westerners do believe in the 'breath of the dragon'. As one Irish friend explained to the author:\n\n'Fung shui? Yes, it works so well. I'm an advocate. Believe and it will happen. Get fung shui working for you. When my Chinese wife and I last went on leave to Dublin we bought a house, largely because of fung shui, on the spur of the moment. With a street number of 80 it also has a good setting.'\n\nTo some extent fung shui is commonsense dressed up in the language of fairy tales and folklore. As people enter the next millennium (western reckoning) it is opportune to question, as mankind stands at the crossroads, whether the world should continue down a path that leads to an even greater alienation from nature and contrary to the laws of creation.\n\nAs new energies surge into the earth's fields, if man, in the home, on the job, or in the grave, as a result of the fung shui master creating a better environment, is more content, then fung shui will have achieved an important aim. If man is more content he will feel more comfortable. He will accomplish more and enjoy life more.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214145, "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-1998", "page_number": 3, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "FROM THE HON. EDITOR\n\nAs regular readers of the Journal will agree, I am not a particularly vocal editor. Neither have I, as yet, published any of my own work in the Journal as I believe that one either writes or edits, but not at the same time. I believe, however, that this millennium edition merits a short message.\n\nCouncil of HKBRAS determined quite some time ago that this volume of the Journal merited something special, hence the dust jacket featuring T'ai Sui, the God of Time. T'ai Sui seemed appropriate to the fundamental purpose of this particular volume. Secondly, you will see that it is appreciably thicker than the average. My instructions from council are generally for a volume of about 200 pages. To celebrate the millennium, however, it seemed warrantable to waive this restriction.\n\nIn this latest volume, I have tried for true variety and have dug deep into my 'box.' I have also put in a generous number of 'Notes and Queries' so as to give exposure to more of those who have taken the trouble to contribute. The prolific and eminently readable Keith Stevens is, as usual, very much in evidence.\n\nAnd now, I will let you get on with reading this new volume and I hope that it gives you much pleasure. I wonder whether council, who asked me to do a special volume for the end of this millennium, is now thinking that it would be a good idea to do one to celebrate the start of the new one?!\n\nii\n\nP.E.H.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214155, "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-1998", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (HONG KONG BRANCH)\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1998-1999 PRESENTED AT THE\n\n39TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD ON FRIDAY 19TH MARCH 1999\n\nCome July 1, 1999, it will be two years since the Handover of the Territory, from Britain to China. As far as the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch (RASHKB) is concerned, little, you will see as you read these pages, has basically changed. However, inevitably, we are moving with the times.\n\nIt has been jokingly said that a careful driver is someone who looks both ways before he or she goes through a red light and certainly, with our evolving role as we enter the new millennium, we need to think things through thoroughly before making drastic changes. We are, as you know, affiliated to the RAS Headquarters in London and, although we do communicate on occasions we are almost entirely left to plough our own furrow. It is, after all, important that our Branch is thoroughly rooted in Hong Kong. Perhaps I should add here, however, that we still, after almost two years, have not found a suitable person to be our local patron. Nevertheless, we seem to be managing quite well without one although we have not shut the door entirely.\n\nI will now report on various aspects of our Branch over the past year which, I am pleased to say, has continued to be strong and active, thanks largely to the work of its Councillors and Activity Committee members.\n\nMembership\n\nAt the end of 1990, the then President reported that our Branch comprised a total of 718 members, although this number dropped to 676 by early 1991. This was partly, we were told in that year's report, because of a 'more thorough weeding out of those who had not paid their subscriptions or had left Hong Kong.'\n\nAs at 16 March, 1999, our Branch's numbers have dropped to around 580. This includes both 486 local and 94 overseas members of\n\nxii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214352, "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-1998", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "175\n\nthe Zhou dynasty and became the emperor of the new dynasty, the Zhou, and is known by his reign title of Wu Wang. The Book of History suggests that his army consisted in part or in the main of a central Asian race, the Western Yi. Zhou Xin is vilified as a moral degenerate under the spell of a wicked concubine, Dan Ji. The Shang were attacked and replaced as the dominant force in northern China by the Zhou just before the first millennium BC, having come from the west. They established their capital near present-day Xi'an.\n\n6\n\nThe victor, Wu Wang [King Wu], passed on the title of Zhou Gong [Duke Zhou] to his brother, Dan, and also conferred the imperial title on his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who had only been dukes when still alive. Zhou Gong was the paragon of literary China for some three thousand years, and it was he rather than his imperial brother who was the author of the Constitution of Zhou. When his brother, the emperor, died leaving a young son, court officials and the vassals assumed that Duke Zhou would usurp the throne and kill his nephew. He did nothing of the sort, and instead, it was the young king who at the age of nineteen stripped his uncle of his powers and forced him to live in exile in Shandong where he died a few years later.\n\nThe deities described in traditional vernacular fiction, and in particular in the immensely popular novel the Fengshen Yanyi, are known to most Chinese, whereas the majority of those left out of the Fengshen Yanyi, apart from the major cult deities, have to all intents and purposes gone into limbo and are only known within small pockets of China or have been lost in the mists of time. Versions of the legend passed on orally often in local dialect, which frequently does not extend further than the extent of the dialect group, have numerous minor and occasionally major variations, whereas the written version was read China-wide in its 'established' state.\n\nSo many heroes and worthies make their appearance at one stage or another that it is impossible to name them all. Some appear momentarily during one of the battles, others are recorded in several chapters, occasionally with different names or titles, such as the Northern Emperor [Bei Di] who is also known by his titles, Xuantian Shang Di, The Supreme Lord of the Dark Heavens, and Zhen Wu, The True Warrior. And in temples today, in all probability, he will be known by only one of these titles, with local devotees vigorously denying that an identical...\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214597, "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": 12, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH\n\n1999/2000 PRESIDENT'S REPORT PRESENTED AT THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY, ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING ON FRIDAY 24TH MARCH 2000\n\nNo man can know a country who only knows what is happening in it today. Anon.\n\nAs you know the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch (RASHKB) took the 1997 Handover of the Territory, from Britain back to China, in its stride. That Hong Kong has rejoined its Motherland makes little difference to the way our Branch operates. More recently, we have taken a further leap into what most people have come to accept as the New Millennium. This year is also, incidentally, the 40th anniversary since our Branch was reconstituted. Our Branch was first established in Hong Kong in 1847. Unfortunately, it survived only 12 years. It then slumbered for a century and was reconstituted in 1960. Now, moving on into the 21st century means in effect that the RASHKB has played an active part in the local community during three centuries. That is from early British colonial times to the present day when Hong Kong forms a part of the People's Republic of China. Our Society is pleased to have been able to contribute to our community in a variety of ways as this report amply illustrates.\n\nAlthough we are a Royal Society with our head office in London we are at the same time, with branches in several parts of the world, international in character. Together, we share a rich history. Nevertheless our local Branch ploughs its own furrow entirely and we receive no financial assistance from Headquarters. Our Branch is very much part of the Hong Kong scene doing its best to serve the local community, foster goodwill and provide close working relationships between locals and expatriates.\n\nLet us examine various aspects of our Branch's activities since the 1999 Annual General Meeting one year ago. I should emphasise that the Branch has continued to be strong and virile as you will see from the following pages.\n\nxi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214600, "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": 15, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "And yet in spite of all the publicity, there are some who still inform us, to their regret, that they lived in Hong Kong for many years before they heard about the RAS. One newly joined member told me that she worked in academia, in the Territory for 10 years before she heard. This puts the onus firmly on all members to spread the word. Please tell others.\n\nIn more recent years new organisations have been established in Hong Kong which provide a certain amount of 'competition' (if that is the correct word). For instance, many young Chinese scholars now prefer to join the South China Research Circle, where most functions are conducted in the medium of Chinese. This is understandable. However, in spite of a number of 'new' societies having sprung up in Hong Kong in recent years, we like to think that our RAS Branch is rather special. We also like to think that we complement (rather than compete with) our sister institutions with which, I hasten to add, we are on splendid terms. Indeed our Branch has invited members from other institutions to its functions as they have invited us to attend their functions. We have also, in the past, conducted joint seminars together with the South China Research Circle. There are many societies with which we have contacts all of which we value. In some cases such organisations are mainly concerned with staging social functions, although, within a local or expatriate environment, quanxi (networking) is accepted as being important. Social functions do have a part to play.\n\nPublications\n\nVolume 38 of our Journal will shortly be published and, as a special Millennium and 40th Anniversary edition, it will be fitting for the occasion. In addition, we extend a vote of thanks to Dr Lauren Pfister and Josephine Wong, as well as the City Hall Library staff, especially Agnes Lee and Joseph Chan, for their hard work in preparing an extended and consolidated index for our annual journals.\n\nAfter a slight delay we were pleased that our new book, In the Heart of the Metropolis: Yaumatei and its People, was launched successfully in December 1999. We owe a big vote of thanks to Dr Patrick Hase, the editor, for a job well done. We also thank the many contributors, photographers, Joint Publishing (HK) Company Ltd, as well as the Chairman, David Ensor, member Ulana Switucha and other\n\nxiv\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214929, "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": 25, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "been a bit of flak. But as Winston Churchill wrote, it is exhilarating to be shot at without success. Many changes have taken place during my period of office, which spanned the Handover from Britain to China, entering the New Millennium and our RAS 40th Anniversary. Through the efforts of many the Branch, which is much more complex now than it was when I took over, is strong and of good heart. May I thank you again for your unfailing support and friendship. I know you will show the same measure of support to our new President.\n\nI conclude by quoting a translation of one of my favourite Chinese poems:\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nPresident\n\nDry vines, old trees, evening crows - Small bridge, flat bank, water flows - Old road, slim horse, west wind blows - And as the sun westward sets, Forlorn love, far away, no one knows!\n\nA GREAT YUAN DRAMATIST\n\nxxiv", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]