[ { "id": 204481, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "102\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nthere are sometimes several. As a general rule they are small buildings, but the major clans have constructed large high spacious buildings with several courtyards and side rooms. Among the largest in the New Territories are the ancestral temples of branches of the TANG clan at Ping Shan and Ha Tsuen near Yuen Long. These are fine and impressive buildings but are not, unfortunately, kept in good repair. Much of the opposition to the British troops in 1898 was planned in the ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen. Beside the Ping Shan hall there is a school/library building, now used as a private residence.\n\n53 The reason is always said to be lack of funds though I suspect a lack of leadership is also a prime factor. The clan usually waits until something is seriously wrong, by which time it is often too late; a storm completes the ruination. There seems to be some truth in this as I have found newly built ancestral halls in several villages, e.g. the CHEUNG ancestral hall at Lo Wai, Pui O which was rebuilt in 1960 on a new site, the old one having been in ruins for twenty years.\n\n54 Clan worship at the graves still goes on, but is much more informal than in 1898. Mr. TANG Kiu-fong of Fui Sha Wai, a retired schoolmaster, previously quoted, who was born in 1894, tells me that when he was a boy the ceremony was taken very seriously. Everyone wore the long robe, elders were carried to the graves in sedan chairs, and male members of the clan were drawn up in ranks by generations and worshipped in strict seniority, under the direction of a master of ceremonies.\n\n55 These ancestral obligations often imposed considerable inconvenience and up to several days' travel for the whole family. Mr. CHEUNG Yau of Tai Ping village, North Lamma, (b. 1883) tells me that his grandfather settled on Lamma Island from his native village of Wai Tau in the Lam Tsuen valley in the present Tai Po district. Ever since he can remember, and until old age interfered with visits a few years ago, he has gone back to his ancestral village at least three times a year, as dictated by custom. For the first twenty-five years there was no railway and his family used to go by junk to Kowloon and walk the rest of the way, children included. Others went further afield. Mr. LAM Shue Chun, Chairman of the Peng Chau Rural Committee, told me that his family went regularly to their ancestral village of Nam Leng Wai in Po On, north of the border, and were interrupted in their journeys first by the Japanese and latterly by the Communists. He has been twice since 1942 and an uncle has been visiting fairly regularly up to last year. The family travelled to Kowloon by junk, then used the railway and had a long walk from Sham Chon Market. Sometimes there was no need to go from home as contact had been lost with the ancestral village which was too far away.\n\n56 They were full at any time. There is an interesting count of travel on the Colony's border roads and the Shum Chun ferries taken 11th and 12th December 1905 in Enclosure E to Despatch No. 59 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway already quoted. The first was a market day, when the count of persons, with and without goods, roughly doubled the figures for the second, or ordinary day. On the two main ferries, for instance, the count on December 11 was with goods 1126, without goods 1379 and on the Shum Chun-Sha Tau Kok road 521 and 1302. On the day following the figures were 468 and 1124, and 158 and 550 respectively. At New Year and the two grave festivals the number must have been very much increased.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207008, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "CRAFT OF GOD CARVING IN SINGAPORE\n\n73\n\n15). This is sand-papered to produce a finish but not to eliminate all the cut marks of the blades which will be obliterated by the next process.\n\nA bowl of rich golden yellow paste is prepared from a small quantity of powder from a crumbling block bought many years ago from China which the carvers call \"yellow mud\" (huang ni) and an oily substance which presumably is casein based. One coat of this mud bonded with tiny strips of rice paper is brushed over the image patch by patch, the small two-inch squares of rice paper being placed over the bare wood to fill in gaps and cover knots (Plate 16), and allowed to dry overnight before being rubbed down again with sandpaper (Plate 17). This primer of \"yellow mud\" and rice paper dries hard and unglossy, and even fifty to a hundred years later, images accidentally chipped will reveal the hard dull yellow without revealing the bare wood.\n\nThe next stage is the administration of the raised decoration. The most delicate part of the god-making operation is the decoration, the fine definition of armour, the head-dress, the shoulder epaulettes, and the badges of rank worn across the chest by the civil and military mandarins. A mixture of a strong-smelling viscous black-blue wax (tang shan chi), incense ash, and ground charcoal is prepared by rubbing and rolling until it is sufficiently malleable. The god carvers said that the wax was obtained from the sap of an unnamed tree in Fukien and in its raw state will burn the flesh on contact. The mixture is placed, squeezed, or pressed onto the image very carefully and gently. Long threads of rolled wax (Plate 18) are guided into position by the deft fingers of one craftsman who holds a spatula in his left hand; where the threads cross, they are carefully pressed into each other to avoid bumps. Other fine lines are squeezed from a bag, like icing (Plate 19), and pellets of wax are precisely placed in their correct positions (Plates 20, 21, and 22) to depict buttons or parts of the decoration. The wax sticks to the mud-covered image without further adhesive. Once the wax is thoroughly dry, usually after forty-eight hours, it is painted with a white primer.\n\nThe colouring stage is now ready to begin. An entirely different team is employed here, usually the females of the family. The colouring nowadays consists either of modern commercially produced paints or the application of gold leaf. The paints are applied with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207798, "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-1976", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA \n\n171 \n\nwhich was brought out in sections and assembled in Shanghai. The Chinese, however, refused to allow the Kuling above Ichang, and after a year of wrangling, Little sold her to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, reputedly at twice she had cost him, and she was put on the Hankow--Ichang service. \n\nLittle was not disheartened, however, and set himself up in business in Chungking, among other activities specialising in insuring cargoes on the Upper Yangtze. At last in 1898, three years after the Treaty of Shimonoseki, he had the satisfaction of taking his wooden twin-screw launch Leechuan through the gorges to Chungking, acting as his own captain and chief engineer. The Leechuan was too small to carry any cargo, and needed trackers to pull her up the rapids; but this success enabled Little to enlist support from friends and form the Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Company. The new company built a much larger steamer in Britain, the Pioneer, at Dennys of Dumbarton. This was a paddle steamer 180 feet long, sixty feet across the paddle boxes, drawing six feet when carrying a full cargo of 150 tons deadweight, and several hundred deck passengers. \n\nThe Pioneer made her first voyage between Ichang and Chungking in 1900, a few months after two British river gunboats, Woodcock and Woodlark had also made the passage; but these only drew two to two and a half feet of water. These gunboats, later, sometimes went a further 130 miles above Chungking to Suifu, at the junction of the Yangtze and Min Rivers. A similar type of French river gunboat also made the passage between Ichang and Chungking in 1901, the Orly, under the pilotage of Captain Plant who had commanded the Pioneer on her successful voyage. In later years these, and similar gunboats, made regular patrols along the open stretch of the Upper Yangtze above the rapids and gorges, between Wanhsien and Suifu. \n\nIn December 1900 the first of many serious casualties occurred on the Upper Yangtze, when the German steamer Suichsiang was wrecked at the Tungling Rapid thirty-six miles above Ichang on her maiden voyage. This and the Boxer and other political troubles delayed further attempts to establish a regular steamer service on the Upper Yangtze for many years. When this eventually came about in 1908 it was through the initiative of Captain Plant of Pioneer fame. The Pioneer was requisitioned by the Royal Navy during the Boxer troubles, and used to evacuate British subjects down the Yangtze, and rechristened H.M.S. Kinsha. Afterwards", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209582, "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": 239, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "CARL T. SMITH\n\nTHE HONG KONG AMATEUR DRAMATIC CLUB AND ITS PREDECESSORS\n\nTHE PROLOGUE\n\nTo set the mood for an article on Amateur Dramatics in Hong Kong, I quote a prologue to the performance of \"the screaming farce\", 'I've Written to Brown' presented on 21 April 1871 by the Hong Kong Amateurs.\n\nLadies and Gentlemen, the pleasing task\n\nIs mine tonight your kindly smiles to ask,\n\nFor those who now behind the curtain wait,\n\nWith biding, anxious hearts to learn their fate.\n\nSo let your verdict generous be, the while\n\nWe strive a pleasant hour to beguile.\n\nBut who can now a pleasant hour boast,\n\nWith thirteen steamers daily up the coast\n\nSharebrokers pressing one to sell or buy\n\nWith telegrams cach minute from Shanghai\n\nWith stern Welsh witnesses, who'd rather brook\n\nA Judge's ire than kiss a dirty book,\n\nAnd, by their word prepared to stand or fall\n\nSay they'll be if they will swear at all!\n\nWith piece goods market all to pieces gone,\n\nThrough sales of damaged shirtings ex the Don,\n\nAnd, piling agony, beyond endurance\n\nWith Oily Phantom's new Chinese Insurance;†\n\nWhere, of our interests most august protectors,\n\nThey've such a crushing army of Directors!\n\nSince last we met, though some enlivening rays\n\nOf social light have cheered our nights and days,\n\nA quiet Picnic to Victoria Peak\n\nPhotos in High Life, taken once a week\n\n†The American firm of Olyphant and Company organized in 1871 at Hong Kong the Chinese Insurance Company. It was the first insurance company on the China coast to cater especially to Chinese shippers and merchants. Its Board was composed of both Chinese and foreigners.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210009, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "246\n\nplough back as possible. The first rice crop was harvested as close to the soil as possible as the ploughed back straw was of less value; it was the straw of this harvest that was kept as cattle feed and for other similar purposes.\n\nFallowing of fields and crop rotation to permit natural regeneration of fertility was not regularly used, and seems to have been extremely rare in valley padi or even moderately good hillslope padi. Dry ground and poor hillslope padi was, however, fallowed intermittently, but with little regularity or customary detail.\n\nThe practices noted here represent the major, but by no means the only fertilisers in regular use in New Territories villages before modernisation. Other organic wastes were used as and when opportunity arose. They represent the practice of the New Territories area, but not necessarily that even of other parts of Kwangtung. In Swatow and parts of Waichow, for instance, feces and urine were, it would seem, stored up together and used as liquid fertiliser when they had broken down and matured into a black oily liquid; in these areas ashes are collected separately and form the only dry manure used. J. Dyer Ball, in his article quoted, speaks of slow burning of vegetable wastes in clamp fires under turf to form a charcoal-like rich ash used particularly to prepare seedbeds; this seems to be a practice of the Canton area and would seem to be unknown in the New Territories area.\n\nThese practices, which alone accounted for the continuing high fertility of rice fields even in the face of relentless year-in-year-out cropping, while unsavoury, are obviously important and warrant further study: this Note aims only at indicating the types of information to be found.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1982, (reprint of 5th Edition, 1925, Kelly and Walsh, Shanghai), pages 22-23, \"Agriculture\", partly quoted from other writers.\n\nVillagers from Sha Tin, North Sai Kung, and Sai Kung were questioned, with about 6 villagers assisting. The Note does not attempt to identify particular points with particular contacts: the points made represent the general consensus view. Most points were confirmed by several contacts.\n\n8\n\nPersonal observation of the author in 1982.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211882, "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": 297, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "272\n\nbeautifully marked by black bars on a white ground.\n\nOn Thursday there were several albatrosses. The first mate says the wings of the largest would have measured quite 12 feet if spread out. They look almost as big as a dog of fair size, and fly round close to the stern of the ship. The bird I skinned was cased with fat, and very oily indeed. Directly they are caught and placed on deck they begin to vomit oil, and can never rise to fly from the deck.\n\nThis cold weather is very agreeable after such a roasting as we had in the tropics. Soon however we shall experience the second edition which will be hotter. The captain has behaved uncommonly well lately, and has almost forgotten to swear. Moreover he is getting quite kind and obliging. Capt Moate and I keep together, and he finds that two to one is rather too many, so he had to knock under a little.\n\nOur provisions have lasted far better than I anticipated; we have still quite a respectable stock of fowls and vegetable. My mouth, however, quite waters for the pine-apples, mangosteins, bananas, yams, etc. which we shall get at Java when we get there. Our yesterday's dinner will give you a fair idea of what we have. Roast fowl, cold pork, preserved mutton pie, green peas preserved, potatoes, plum pudding (bottled plums), cheese, etc. etc. There is nothing to complain of as regards food. Yet I do not get fat upon it someway or other. I believe it is for want of exercise. They tell me I ought to drink wine, but as long as I can I shall be a tee-totaller.\n\nThe captain's wife has been very unwell for some days. The sea evidently does not agree with her. A breeze is just now beginning to spring up, although it is hardly a favorable one. The sunset is very fine indeed. There is a ship just in sight, and the captain has just gone on the deck with his glass. I shall often be thinking of home, and all my friends and relations tomorrow. I can picture you all out now at home. Mother and Siss busy in the shop, and having a long chat with some old woman or other on Saturday night.\n\nMonday, June 3rd\n\nSince my last entry upwards of a fortnight has passed away, during which I have passed through no end of difficulties and misfortunes, that I am almost disheartened, and have not had the courage to attempt the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211898, "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": 313, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "288\n\nI had a good long yarn with Madame Baines on the verandah. When I told her what I was, she became very religious all at once; but I could see it was only hypocrisy, although she had an oily tongue. The Bishop of Victoria was there in 1856. The people were highly pleased with his visit, and all who I heard speak of him seemed to do so with respect. She was acquainted with a Mr King of the Scottish Free Church, who had returned from Scotland only three months ago; and promised to introduce me to him and drive me there in her carriage.\n\nAt eleven o'clock I went to bed. My room was very fine and airy. All the beds in Java have to be curtained all round to keep out the mosquitoes, which would prevent sleep, and sting finely into the bargain.\n\nThe captain and wife came from the ship to the hotel the next day. They made themselves such fools by wanting to appear grand that everybody laughed at them behind their backs. No sooner had the captain left the table, and the rest began to talk, when Mr Phillips began: “Well of all the disagreeable obstinate men I ever saw, I never saw anybody to beat him. I can see it in his looks although I have never spoken to him nor know who he is\". When I told him it was our captain he wanted to know if he had not guessed right. I told him I must be excused from answering that question. Madam was finely laughed at, and reckoned up in just the terms she deserved. Since our return to the ship these parties have been equally run down by the captain and wife,\n\nA\n\nTwo days I took a walk into the town in the middle of the day. I was afterwards told that no European would ever be able to do it, for it was enough to kill the strongest man on account of the sun's intense power. However it had not the least effect upon me. In fact I felt all the better for it.\n\nOn the first day I started to go into town but took a wrong turning, and went out through one of the Chinese quarters into the country, where I had a few miles' walk. The scenery was very fine indeed. The palm and betel nut trees, and trees of which I have no idea formed a delightful shade. Even the country is intersected by canals. But whether in town or country, you always find the shore of the canal crowded with washermen. The clothes are never washed, but merely beaten. They get a smooth stone, and after soaking the clothes in the water, they keep dashing them on the stone, swinging them for that purpose round their head.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216024, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 323, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "257\n\nand pleasure-grounds, all of which showed evident signs of great neglect. The suburbs were one dense mass of habitations of two stories in height; the lower portions of which were devoted to the handicraftsmen, who employed themselves in them, or to store rooms, in which merchandise was deposited. There were numerous public buildings, most of them appearing to be of a religious character, either dedicated to Buddha or Confucius.\n\nMainly for safety reasons ships passing up and down the Yangzi tended to use the main channel which ran along the north bank of the Great River opposite Zhenjiang. Down the years spits have formed close to Zhenjiang, mainly off Ganlu Si [Consular Bluff] and Xiang Shan Bluff, whilst the Zhengrenzhou spit steadily advanced downstream from the west blocking off the approaches to the harbour. The flat sandy bottom, so the Admiralty Guide tells us, does not provide good holding ground, especially during autumn gales.\n\nThe channel of the Great River at Zhenjiang is some two miles in breadth and had long been a ferry crossing point over the Yangzi, linking Zhenjiang with the major city of Yangzhou, a short distance upstream of the northern section of the Grand Canal. The long-mooted bridge over the River has still to be built. In the early days of the opening up of China by the West the city was believed to be the furthest point upstream on the Yangzi which seagoing vessels of the heaviest burden could reach with comparative ease. When Hankou, over five hundred miles further upstream, was opened to foreign trade it soon became apparent that trade at Zhenjiang consisted of little more than being an agency for steamers using the port as a stopping point, and for the Customs House for Chinese merchants. So it was that when vessels had access to the fountainhead of trade at Hankou, together with the fact that the harbour at Zhenjiang having silted up, the importance of the port became in great measure superseded. Sadly, the dolphins which not too long ago frolicked in the Great River and were commonly seen off Zhenjiang have been fished into extinction with today's oily pollution preventing any return, though a very occasional porpoise may still be seen.\n\nA Victorian writer described the climate and temperature of Zhenjiang as 'little different from that in Shanghai, whereas the varied scenery and hilly surroundings of Zhenjiang were an advantage which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]