[
    {
        "id": 205130,
        "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": 86,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\nRelations with Tibet\n\n81\n\nJust as Buddhism was used by the Japanese to serve political ends in China, so it was used by the Chinese to serve political ends in Tibet. After the collapse of the Ch'ing Dynasty the Tibetans considered themselves to be an independent nation. Successive Republican governments therefore endeavoured to persuade them that they were one of the five races of China and that Tibet was Chinese territory. In a rather poor hand Buddhism was one of the better cards. That is, the Chinese could argue that Tibet was bound to China by a common religion. This was not altogether factitious. For example, one of the rites for the dead most commonly performed by Chinese monks, the fang yen-k'ou, was partly of Tibetan origin. Mountains like Omei and Wu-t'ai Shan had long been equally sacred to Chinese and Tibetan pilgrims, and had provided the venue for a Sino-Tibetan syncretism. A visitor to Wu-t'ai Shan in 1911 wrote: \"The most curious feature of Buddhism on the Wutaishan is the amalgamating of Chinese Buddhism and Lamaism... doctrines borrow from one another in habits and arrangements... The structure of the temple is, for the greater part Chinese, but the form of the pagodas is mostly Indo-Tibetan. The interior, too, forms a mixture of Chinese and Tibetan. Chinese and Tibetan idols stand side by side, Tibeto-Mongolian inscriptions are next to Chinese ones, Tibetan butter lamps, praying cylinders, also boards on which the monks throw themselves for prayers, all such things are seen here in Chinese temples. In their services, too, one style blends with another.\"24\n\nBoth\n\nAlthough lama temples enjoying Manchu patronage were to be found in Peking and a few other Chinese cities, the indigenous Chinese Tantric sect had been suppressed in the Ming Dynasty. During the Republican period some Buddhist devotees became interested in reviving it, or rather in reintroducing Tantrism from Tibet and Japan, where it had been preserved intact. To them, as to some Europeans of that time, Tibet was a land of precious secrets, which they resolved to learn. It is difficult to ascertain the relationship between this personal interest and government policy. Which came first? How did each stimulate the other?",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205136,
        "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": 92,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n87\n\ntemples, they were treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness. For example, in 1850 an eminent abbot near Hangchow recommended to a missionary visitor that he use an adjoining piece of land to build a Christian church. He made the recommendation, he said, despite his experience with other missionaries who, as he gently suggested, ought to \"show greater tolerance for the customs of other religions.\"39\n\nAlas! tolerance was not their outstanding trait, nor was it outstanding among the foreign tourists and businessmen, who found it increasingly fashionable to regard all things Chinese as inferior and absurd → particularly the \"bonzes.\" Since they also found that the loveliest spots in China had been utilized by the \"bonzes\" to build their monasteries, which were often the only places to stay on travels or holidays, the result was friction.\n\nThe chances for friction were less if all or part of a monastery at a low ebb had been rented outright, as was common in the Western hills outside Peking, at the foot of Omei Shan in Szechwan, and sometimes on the southeast coast. The few monks involved either vacated the premises entirely or moved to a rear building where, being grateful for tenants, they were ready to put up with whatever they had to.\n\nBut when foreign visitors stayed as guests at a prosperous monastery with a full complement of monks, friction was more likely. In 1924, for example, a doughty Philadelphian, Harry A. Franck, visited Omei Shan. Despite the prohibition on the import of meat, of which he was fully aware, he brought along several cans of it, as well as two live chickens for slaughter on the very top of the sacred mountain. As soon as he arrived, he began to bargain over the price of accommodations, thus degrading the monastery to the status of a hotel. (He should, of course, have waited until he was about to leave and then made an unsolicited gift.) Since he felt that he was being overcharged for the charcoal on which to cook his chickens, he took pleasure in making the abbot “lose face by coming himself late in the evening and pretending to verify the weighing.\"\n\nThe next day Mr. Franck professed surprise at the “half-hostile attitude towards foreigners... [of] the fat, lazy monks.” Elsewhere he calls them \"cynical-looking young loafers.\" Yet he complains that (in spite of their laziness and cynicism) they had",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206293,
        "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-1971",
        "page_number": 110,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "104\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nimposture and contemptible impudence\". He later was part of Chan Lai Tau's ambassadorial staff at Washington, and upon his return to China in 1882, he promoted the organization of the Canton and Hong Kong Telegraph Company.38\n\nAssociated with Ho Shan Chee in the Telegraph Company was a kinsman, Ho Kwan Shan (何崑珊) alias Ho Amei (何阿美),†Œ4 the Secretary of the On Tai Insurance Company in Hong Kong. Ho Kwan Shan had been educated at Dr. Legge's Anglo-Chinese College in Hong Kong, being a schoolmate of the sons of Ho Asun. Upon completing his education, Ho Kwan Shan joined his elder brother, Ho Low Yuk (何陸玉) in Australia in 1858. From Australia in 1865 he went to New Zealand to arrange for the importation of the first Chinese laborers to New Zealand. Returning to Australia, he served for a time as interpreter at Ballarat, Victoria. In 1868 he came back to Hong Kong. Here he became a clerk in the Registrar General's Office. Later he became interested in developing mines on Lan Tau Island as well as at other places in Kwang Tung Province.39\n\nThe most prominent of the Ho clan, however, was the family of Ho Tsun Shin (何遵善) or as he was better known in Christian circles, Ho Fuk Tong (何福堂).† His father had been a block cutter for the press of the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca. Ho Fuk Tong joined him there and became a student at the College. He showed scholastic aptitude and for a time accompanied the son of the senior missionary at the Malacca Station to India for advanced study. Upon the arrival of the Rev. James Legge at the Mission, a close bond was established between the two young men. Ho Fuk Tong was his junior by three years. When Legge removed to Hong Kong in 1843, Ho Fuk Tong accompanied him and was ordained as the Chinese pastor of the London Missionary Society congregation in 1846. He continued as a faithful minister of the congregation (now Hop Yat Church) until his death in 1871. He was conscientious and faithful in his service to the church, but he was also very successful as a financier. After his death there were numerous Court suits over the interpretation of his will and the administration of his estate. Some of the difficulties arose because Ho Fuk Tong held his property under various aliases. In one of the cases a barrister gives his opinion why Ho Fuk Tong followed this procedure:",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]