[
    {
        "id": 205642,
        "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": 184,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "The Library\n\n179\n\nof the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society up to 20th May, 1968, is copied from the catalogue. A list of the other contents of the library, including periodicals, scrolls, tape-recordings, and other materials will be compiled and published in due course. It is also intended to issue annual supplements to the list of books and periodicals.\n\nLIST OF BOOKS\n\n'ABD ALLAH IBN 'ABD AL-KADIR, Munshi.\n\nThe voyage of Abdullah; a translation from the Malay, by A. E. Coope, with notes and appendices. Singapore, Malaya Publ. House, 1949.\n\nABEL, Clarke.\n\nNarrative of a journey in the interior of China, and of a voyage to and from that country, in the years 1816 and 1817; containing an account of the most interesting transactions of Lord Amherst's embassy to the court of Pekin... London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1819.\n\nADAMS, Arthur.\n\nTravels of a naturalist in Japan and Manchuria. London, Hurst and Blackett, 1870.\n\nALEXEIEV, Basil M.\n\nThe Chinese gods of wealth: a lecture delivered at the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, on 26th March, 1926. [London] School of Oriental Studies, 1928.\n\nALLEY, Rewi\n\nPeking opera: an introduction through pictures by Eva Siao and text by Rewi Alley. Peking, New World P., 1957.\n\nANDERSON, Æneas.\n\nA narrative of the British embassy to China in the years 1792, 1793 and 1794... London, Debrett, 1795.\n\nARLINGTON, L. C.\n\nChinese women's coiffure. [Shanghai, China Society of Science and Arts, 1929]\n\nReprinted from the China journal, v.11, 1929, pp. 4-10, 69-76 and 119-126. Presentation copy signed by the author.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205937,
        "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-1970",
        "page_number": 17,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "HON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1969\n\nThis year's accounts now before you have been kindly audited by Messrs. Wong, Tan & Co.\n\nThe Income and Expenditure Account shows a surplus of $5,691 compared with $6,970 in the previous year. However, this seemingly satisfactory position should be treated with reserve. Firstly, as in previous years, the annual membership fees ($10,559) do not cover the total expenditure on Journal expenses, purchase of library books, and sundry expenses, the shortfall being covered by bank interest, income from investments, and the sale of publications. Secondly, there is a drop in the annual membership fees for the first time for many years. Thirdly, the surplus would have been considerably less if the Society had to meet the expenses of re-printing Volume I of the Journal as forecasted last year. The drop in the Sale of Publications from $6,118 to $3,728 was forecasted in my report last year since the 1968 figure reflected the sales of two Journals (1967 and 1968).\n\nAt the beginning of the year, the Society re-invested the proceeds of sale of the 125 shares in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (London Register) in 400 Hong Kong Electric and 400 Lane Crawford; these continue to show a gratifying increase in market value, with the former recently issuing a one for one and the latter a rights issue of 50 shares in April 1969.\n\nUnless there is an increase in numbers, thereby producing more annual membership fees, the Society is very unlikely to continue to show a surplus in the current year. Besides the cost of re-printing Volume I ($4,000), now expected by the end of June, the Society will need to meet expenditure on printing this year's Journal and off-prints ($9,000), and the proceedings of the week-end symposium \"The Changing Face of Hong Kong\" ($3,800); in addition, the Society has recently sponsored a lecture and performance of Peking Opera costing $2,400. It is anticipated, therefore, the Society will show a deficit for the current year, and members are urged to encourage their friends to become members in order to increase annual fees and help to offset the deficit.\n\n13 May 1970.\n\nD. A. GILKES",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206138,
        "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-1970",
        "page_number": 218,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n211\n\nto a local princess. Fifteen years later he hears that his mother and several members of his family are guarding the Chinese border very close to where he is. When the play starts, he is longing to see his own people again, and his wife, the princess, makes him admit the reason for his sadness to her and also his identity. She agrees to help him to get out of the barbarian camp on condition that he comes back the next day. The most dramatic moment of the play is the brief encounter between Ssu Lang and his mother and his first Chinese wife. However, he keeps his word and returns.\n\nThe second play is a farce. The philosopher Chuang Tzu tests his wife. He pretends to be dead and reappears under the form of a young handsome scholar. He seduces his wife and even persuades her to break open the coffin in which her husband lies to remove his heart to make a medicine for him. However, when the wife opens the coffin, the philosopher reappears and confounds her. She commits suicide from shame.\n\nBesides the translations, the book also includes a general introduction to Chinese opera, some photographs of scenes from the two plays, detailed explanations of extracts from Ssu Lang visits his mother (the latter have been recorded on tape and are available from the publisher), a glossary of Chinese theatre terms and an index.\n\nBy choosing these two plays, the author has presented nearly all the different kinds of Chinese opera characters (only the painted faces are not represented). Both plays are very well known and often played; for example here in Hong Kong, by the Chun Chau Peking Opera School in Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park. Ssu Lang visits his mother was, moreover, played two months ago in the City Hall by a group of amateurs; and famous airs from this opera are as well known to the Chinese as are the famous airs of Verdi to Italians. The background explanation is an excellent summing-up of what must be known in order to enjoy a Chinese opera; and if one wants to know more, one can read the Chinese Classical Theatre by the same author. This earlier book speaks in generalities, but here A. C. Scott gives two precise examples and shows how the principles of Chinese operas work in a given play.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206139,
        "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-1970",
        "page_number": 219,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "212\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nTRADITIONAL CHINESE PLAYS, Volume 2, translated, described, annotated and illustrated by A. C. Scott, Longing for the worldly Pleasures, Ssu Fan, Fifteen Strings of Cash, Shih wu kuan, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Milwaukee and London, 1969, pp. X, 156.\n\nThe second volume is translated with all the same accompaniments that we find in the first one. But the two plays chosen are not Peking operas. They belong to another kind of opera which was predominant in China from the end of the XVIth century to the end of the XVIIIth. The music was softer than in Peking opera and the main instrument for accompanying the singing was the flute. As in more ancient forms, the sung parts were written on different types of melodies, with verses of unequal lengths. The literary character of these verses made them difficult for a popular audience to understand. And this type of opera, created at K'un-shan, near Suchow, was later overcome by the success of the genre elaborated at the capital and favoured by the court.\n\nBut this K'un-ch'ü, as it is called, remained for years part of the training of a good Peking opera actor. The famous actor Mei Lan-fang tried to revive it around 1915-16 and again later in 1933 with the great actor Yü Chen-fei. After 1949 a new troupe of K'un-ch'ü was formed, which put on Fifteen Strings of Cash in 1956, with the actor Wang Ch'uan-song as the clown, Lou the Rat.\n\nLonging for worldly Pleasures comes from a Buddhist story: a nun, put in a monastery, escapes to find her paramour. Fifteen Strings of Cash is a detective story from storytellers' repertoires: Lou the Rat commits a murder to steal and puts the blame on the stepdaughter of the murdered man. But a good judge, disguised as a fortune-teller, confounds him.\n\nThe interest of these books lies not so much in the translation of four librettos as in all the information about costumes, make-up, and the movements made by the actors at each moment. Consequently, the work is not just one more translation, but, first and foremost, a handbook; and a good one for anyone wanting to put on and adapt Chinese plays for a foreign audience, instead of being interested in Chinese opera as a museum piece or as an...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206191,
        "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": 8,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "gramme of lectures, seminars and excursions and I should like to record our grateful thanks to those both members and visitors who contributed so willingly and so successfully to this fundamental part of our activities. Of these I should like to draw particular attention to the excursions. It takes not a little time and trouble to organize these, and a special word of thanks is due to those members who so willingly undertake these duties for us.\n\nThe following is the full list of our activities arranged during the year:\n\n12 January Professor S. Y. Teng \"Hung Jen-kan, Prime Minister of the Tai-ping Kingdom and his Reform Plans.\"\n\n16 March Commander F. Warrington-Strong, DSC, RN (Ret'd). \"Porcelain Manufacture in 18th Century China.\" (An Illustrated Talk)\n\n22 March All day excursion Visit to Tsun Wan Temples and Monasteries.\n\n24 March Captain Roger Pineau, USNR \"The Japan Expedition 1852-1855 of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry.\" (An Illustrated Lecture)\n\n6 April Mr. Frank Chippindale \"The Influence of Chinese Art and Furniture on Chippendale's Design.\" (An Illustrated Talk)\n\n18-19 April A week-end Symposium arranged by Professor L. B. Thrower of the Department of Botany, University of Hong Kong.\n\n3 May Mr. Roland W. K. Chow \"The Vegetation of Hong Kong: Its Structure and Change.\" (Demonstration and Talk, illustrated by slides) Peking Opera",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206198,
        "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": 15,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "# HON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1970\n\nThe Accounts now before you have again been kindly audited by Messrs. Wong, Tan & Co.\n\nIn my report last year I predicted that the Society would make a deficit due to forthcoming printing charges. As you can see from the Income and Expenditure Account this has been the case where a surplus of $5,691 in 1969 has been turned into a deficit of $6,529 in the current year. This is entirely due to the increased expenditure, the heaviest since the Society was revived eleven years ago. This increase can be seen in the expenditure incurred in the very successful Peking Opera, which the Society sponsored, and in the amount spent on printing Journals. The latter falls into three categories, the reprinting of Volume I, the printing of the symposium \"The Changing Face of Hong Kong\" and the 1970 Journal. The 1970 volume which you are just about to receive if you have not already done so, is a splendid work, but it has cost almost 50% more to print, due to rising costs, the increased size and not least the reproduction of coloured photographs. Members will recall that they receive this free and there is no doubt that it is exceptionally good value for money. However your Council has recently endorsed the proposal that in view of the exceptional expense, the price of this particular Journal to non-members and to members, should they wish for more than one copy, should be raised to $18 from the present $12.\n\nOn the Income side you will notice that this is more or less the same as in the previous year. Annual Memberships do not cover, and never have covered, the expenditure. It is of course important that the Society should increase its membership, not only to enable it to become wider known, but also to increase its income: this is the one positive way in which all members can contribute, by asking their friends to become members. At present, income from this source is fairly static (in 1968 it was $11,380; in 1969, $10,559; in 1970, $10,853 and in 1971 it looks as if the amount will still be under $11,000). I would therefore urge you to help in increasing our membership so that the Society can afford to produce more publications like the 1970 Journal and sponsor other activities such as the Peking Opera.\n\nPage 15\nPage 16",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206200,
        "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": 17,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "1969 \n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY \n\nINCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31ST DECEMBER, 1970 \n\nEXPENDITURE \n\nHK$10,743 Journal Expenses \n\n1,020 Symposium Expenses \n\nPeking Opera \n\n- - - \n\n175 Purchase of Books \n\n2,391 Sundry Expenses \n\n5,691 \n\nHK$20,020 \n\nJ \n\n(printing, stationery, postage, lecture expenses) \n\nBalance being surplus of income over expenditure transferred to accumulated funds \n\nHK$20,350 \n\n2,637 \n\n2,576 \n\n219 \n\n2,933 \n\n1969 \n\n90 \n\nINCOME \n\nHK$ 410 Life Memberships 1970 \n\n10,559 Annual Memberships 1970 \n\nAnnual Memberships 1971 paid in 1970 \n\n3,728 Sale of Publications \n\n1,082 Symposium Receipts \n\n1,075 Bank Interest Received \n\n2,865 Dividends Received \n\n211 Sundry Receipts \n\nBalance being deficit of expenditure over income transferred to accumulated funds \n\nHK$ 500 \n\n10,853 \n\n240 \n\n3,509 \n\n2,699 \n\n685 \n\n3,350 \n\n350 \n\n6,529 \n\nHK$28,715 \n\nHK$28,715 \n\nHK$20,020 \n\n \n\nQUOTED INVESTMENTS HELD at 31ST DECEMBER, 1970 \n\n£700 Stock 6% Commonwealth of Australia 1977/80 \n\n333 Shares China Light and Power Co. Ltd. \n\n800 Shares Hong Kong Electric Co. Ltd. \n\n900 Shares Lane Crawford Ltd. \n\nCost \n\nHK$11,488 \n\nMarket Value \n\nHK$ 7,661 \n\n4,030 \n\n12,487 \n\n11,738 \n\n19,600 \n\n15,549 \n\n25,110 \n\nHK$43,554 \n\nHK$64,109 \n\n11",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206466,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1972",
        "page_number": 14,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH\n\nINCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31ST DECEMBER, 1971\n\n  \n    1970\nHK$\n    500 Life Memberships\n1970\n    \n    EXPENDITURE\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    \n    \n    \n    Journal and other Publication\n    HK$20,350\n    \n  \n  \n    2,576\n    Peking Opera....\n    \n    \n    \n    \n  \n  \n    2,933\n    Sundry Expenses\n    Expenses\n    (printing, stationery, postage, lecture expenses)\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    2,637\n    Symposium Expenses\n    \n    219 Purchase of Books\n    110\n    \n  \n  \n    \n    \n    +++\n    ---\n    +++\n    +++\n  \n  \n    \n    \n    HK$16,657\n    \n    \n    \n  \n  \n    \n    \n    \n    INCOME\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    \n    \n    \n    HKS\n    200\n    \n  \n  \n    10,853\n    Annual Memberships 1971\n    \n    10,752\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    240\n    Annual Memberships 1972 paid in 1971\n    \n    30\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    3,509\n    Sale of Publications\n    \n    2,699\n    Symposium Receipts\n    \n  \n  \n    685\n    Bank Interest Received\n    \n    3,350\n    Dividends Received\n    \n  \n  \n    350\n    Sundry Receipts\n    \n    \n    \n    \n  \n  \n    \n    \n    \n    Balance being Deficit of Expenditure over Income transferred to Accumulated Funds\n    \n    2,303\n  \n  \n    \n    \n    1,681\n    \n    \n    ---\n  \n  \n    \n    \n    ---\n    \n    \n    \n  \n  \n    3,208\n    200\n    \n    792\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    HK$19,166\n    \n    6,529\n    \n    HK$19,166\n    \n  \n  \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    HK$28,715\n  \n\nD. A. GILKES, Hon. Treasurer.\n\nREPORT OF THE HON. AUDITORS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, HONG KONG BRANCH\n\nWe have examined the above Balance Sheet with the books and have obtained all the information and explanations we required for the purpose of our audit.\n\nIn our opinion, the said Balance Sheet is properly drawn up so as to exhibit a true and correct view of the state of the Society's affairs as at 31st December, 1971, according to the best of our information and the explanations given to us and as shown by the books of the Society.\n\nHong Kong, 21st March, 1972.\n\nWONG, TAN & Co., Chartered Accountants, Hon. Auditors.\n\n8",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206687,
        "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": 235,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n229\n\nThis material gives us a better picture of Chinese theatre in general. The western studies of it are almost entirely based on Peking opera. But the time has now come to show, on the one hand, the originality of each province, and, on the other, within a single province, the graduation from elaborate theatre of the professional troupes, mainly in towns, to simple rural theatre, mostly amateur. In Ho-pei province for example, one has both Peking opera, which reached the highest level of artistic sophistication, and the folk theatre from Ting Hsien district. The translation of this book brings the first important material in a western language on the rural theatre. This is no mean achievement.\n\nThrough this volume we see that the plots were often simple; sometimes only two actors were needed. The music and singing had the charm, but also the monotony, of folk music. There was no libretto, dialogue was transmitted only orally. Performances were mostly limited to festivals and the amateur groups rehearsed during the dead season. It involved no elaborate ballet or acrobatics. It praised the same moral virtues as the great plays we already know: faithfulness, filial piety, integrity; but the language was more vivid. It was not impaired by fear of vulgarity, and puns were one of its main assets. The plays at the end of the volume, like the White Snake, Sung Chiang kills his mistress, Drying the tomb with a fan also exist in Peking opera, and comparison of the two versions would be interesting. But many plays only exist in rural theatre, and through such a book they are brought to light.\n\nAt a time when ethnologists are more interested in displaying the brilliance of their minds through theories, it is refreshing to be given the raw material, and the reader is free to elaborate theories of his own or just to enjoy a good story.\n\n1972.\n\nANON\n\nTHE BIRDS OF KOREA, M. E. J. Gore and Won Pyong-Oh. Seoul, Korea, Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 1971. pp. 450, with many coloured plates, U.S.$15.00 (in Korea).\n\nAlthough a number of papers have been published previously, mainly in Japanese or in American journals, this is the first publica-",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206807,
        "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-1973",
        "page_number": 84,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "78\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\n(sun-win- \n\na glass-screen came into fashion called yang-chuang dow). With the glass-screen the puppets became round, their bodies were made of straw, hands and feet of paper, the head of clay, the costumes were copied from the string-puppets, sticks were attached to the hands and the back, and then these puppets were called yuan-shen chih-ying-hsi | ✯✯✯ (round-body paper-shadow play). Later, it is stated, the glass-screen was discarded and curtains were attached to the bamboo-frame, but nevertheless it continued to be called 'Paper-shadow-play'.\n\nAll over China the shadow-play was called p'i-ying-hsi ★BA \"Leather-shadow-play\" because the figures were cut out of leather, but in Ch'aochow strangely enough this term was never used. Referring to the paper-screen it was always, and is still now, called \"Paper-shadow-play\" and I met several Ch'aochowese who were convinced that their shadow-figures were cut out of paper. The misinterpretation is probably due to the name.\n\nThis description of development suggests many questions. Why should a light, convenient and cheap paper-screen be given up for a glass-screen, which is heavy, expensive, easy to break and almost impossible to transport? How should a hawking puppeteer carry a delicate glass-screen with his bundle and box? Was the fascination of the newly imported foreign glass-windows so great that they were adopted for the 'paper-shadow-play' in order to lend it new attraction? And if there was a glass-screen, was it translucent imitating the paper-effect or was it transparent window-glass? This question is important, because the difference would decisively influence the shape of the puppet. The name 'Sun-window' could also suggest that the shadow was not produced by an oil-lamp, but sunlight.\n\nOld Ch'aochowese vividly recall impressions of the shadow of puppets appearing on a paper-screen, but I heard no one speaking of glass. Being unable to find a logical reason for adopting a glass-screen, I would like to consider it the invention of an author who tried unsuccessfully to explain the disappearance of shadow-puppets in Ch'aochow.\n\nSome Characteristics of Ch'aochow Puppet Opera\n\nI turn now to consider various aspects of Ch'aochow puppet history. Among these, the patron saint of puppets shows certain interesting characteristics. Whilst the Peking opera actors venerate the emperor T'ang Ming Huang (713-742), who was the founder of",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206808,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1973",
        "page_number": 85,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\n79\n\nthe Pear-Garden Opera School, the Ch'aochow actors and puppe-teers have backstage a tablet or image of Feng-huo-yuan T’ien-yuan-shuai. Feng, the First Heavenly Commander. His biography can be found on page 125 of E.T.C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, and reads as follows: \"Tien Hung-i, his real name, was the second of three brothers, Hsun-liu and Chih-piao who, during the K'ai-yuan Period (AD 713-742) of the T'ang Dynasty became famous court musicians....\n\n\"They were such skilled players that even clouds stopped to listen to them, and the la-mei hua (very fragrant flowers which open only in the coldest part of the winter) blossomed. The Emperor having fallen ill, saw them in a dream playing the mandolin and violin, and was promptly restored to health. As a reward he bestowed on them the title of Marquis.\n\nA ravaging epidemic having broken out, the Grand Master of the Taoists sought the musicians' aid. T'ien Yuan-shuai had a large shen-chou, spirit-boat, built, and called together a million spirits, whom he instructed to beat drums placed on it, whereupon all the demons came out of the city to listen to the music, and were seized and expelled by the musician and the Taoist Grand Master. This is said to be the origin of the dragon-boats to be seen everywhere in China on the fifteenth day of the first moon,\n\nChang Ta-shih having recognised his great ability and power, memorialized the Emperor, who canonized the three brothers as Marquises, and all the members of their family and near relatives were given posthumous titles.\"\n\nThis account indicates clearly the Feng was chosen as a patron: namely for the beauty of his music and its magical power of exorcising the evil spirits. It shows a very basic approach to music and brings to mind the many opera and puppet-performances which are staged by the Ch'aochowese at all festivals and ceremonies that deal with ghosts of which the main one is the Ta-chiu in the 7th lunar month. As a contrast it is interesting to know that the Peking opera actors have chosen T'ang Ming Huang, who already in his life time was a patron of opera as a sophisticated entertainment of the court.\n\nAnother interesting characteristic of Ch'aochow puppets (though not unique to them) is the ceremonies required to cleanse the theatre stage. Besides the veneration of the patron saint the ceremony of",
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    {
        "id": 206900,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1973",
        "page_number": 177,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n171\n\nELIZABETH HALSON: PEKING OPERA, A SHORT GUIDE, Hong Kong University Press, London, New York, 1966, HK$20.\n\nI do not think that Elizabeth Halson has a background of sinological studies, but she has the advantage of having spent some time in Peking and she was obviously an avid theatre-goer. Judging from the contents of the book, she must have been there before 1963, as she describes only the traditional style of opera, which was banned in that year and has not been allowed to be performed since, whilst the book itself was published already in 1966. She must have learned Mandarin and spent a lot of time in and around the theatre, collecting material, talking to actors and anybody available who would give answers to her questions on opera. In her book she describes in a comprehensive way what she could grasp in such a short time, which might have been two years. This is naturally far too short a time for a foreigner to penetrate more than the surface of such a complex and abstract art as Peking Opera.\n\nIt seems, too, that she had not many books to rely on, neither Chinese nor European. It is obvious that she did not have the book on Peking Opera by A. C. Scott, The Classical Theatre of China, with which I shall compare it, because she does not use his material as a background, but starts again where he had to start. The difference is that Scott has been in China and Hong Kong for about 8 years, between 1947-1955 and that he has a profound knowledge of the Chinese language, the former society, the realities and the culture in general. Today he is considered an authority on Peking Opera, with many books on this subject to his credit.\n\nScott's book on Peking Opera is the most authoritative work yet to appear in any European language. When I first saw Miss Halson's book, I was not surprised to find the subject treated in the same way as in his book, because as a foreigner you are first led by your eyes, as western ears are mostly very slow to adapt to Chinese language and music.\n\nWhat distinguishes the Peking Opera from other forms is its complicated system of symbols, which are organized in rules for the appearance, movements and voices of the actors and for the sparse stage properties. Opera was the entertainment of the court, and therefore its society is reflected in it, its thinking and behaviour.\n\n* Published by Allen and Unwin, 1957.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206902,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1973",
        "page_number": 179,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n173\n\na fish-scale design all over the dress. But neither points out that the shiny most bluish satin simulates the metal of the armour and the scales simulate the plates of the armour. The back-flap is cut into strips and they obviously look and are arranged like tail feathers; feather-strips are hanging down from various parts of the costume. The generals bristle and ruffle their feathers with every movement, and while fighting they look like an enormous flustered phoenix in attack.\n\nMost opera costumes have so-called water-sleeves of white thin silk attached to the actual sleeve. They are like cuffs, open at the seam, and when they hang down, they almost reach the floor. These sleeves play a very important part in the technique of acting. Miss Halson only describes a few sleeve-movements like: using the sleeves to hide in embarrassment, or thrown up in bewilderment, that they are used as a muff in winter and as a fan in summer. Scott explains 100 different sleeve-movements and tells by which character they are used: e.g. in T'ou hsiu the two sleeves are flung out together, to the right, whilst the face looks left, which symbolizes making a decision or anger and is only performed by the Ching I or demure young woman. I would like to add that these sleeves are found in Chinese costumes already as far back as the Han dynasty about 2,000 years ago. The cuff was not added to the sleeve, but the sleeve itself was very long. It can still be seen in the blouses worn by Tibetans. In the art of Chinese dancing, the flowing of the sleeves are such an important part, that movements are often only directed to produce the desired flow. It expresses the Chinese love for flowing lines, very well known from their brush-strokes. Actually in both books I feel the absence of linking the descriptions of the appearance with its cultural background.\n\nAll faces are made up in Peking Opera. Older people and middle-aged ones have a natural make up, young men and women have the middle of their face powdered white, cheeks and eye-lids are deep magenta. But the most striking are the multi-coloured painted faces. They are only for male parts: warriors, generals, ministers and officials. Miss Halson suggests an origin for these: branded criminals tattooed their scars to disguise the marks. This is very far fetched. Her second explanation is that the actors wanted their faces to stand out. Any make up is of course to this end; but she did not hit the simple truth. Masks were used before the great step forward was taken when, recognizing the disadvantages",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206903,
        "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-1973",
        "page_number": 180,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "174\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nof a mask, they painted the features of the masks right on the face. The mask cannot change its expression, it lacks the spirit of the eyes and is lifeless, it hinders the speech and even more the singing, as is the case in the stagnant Japanese Noh-play. Mr. Scott does not give any background at all, but names the 15th century as the beginning of painted faces and gives them as the origin of the Japanese Kabuki make-up. He also says that their design is according to the Chinese rules of physiognomy.\n\nThe subject of painted faces is very extensive: a book published in Tai-wan a few years ago contains a thousand varieties of painted faces*.\n\nTurning to other aspects, the Peking Opera stage is empty except for a table and 2 chairs. If a chair is placed on a table, it means a mountain, and can be used to indicate, for example, a general addressing his army. Rain, wind and storms are indicated by black or blue flags of thin silk, which are carried over the stage. Carrying a horsewhip means that this person is riding, a military order is indicated by a small triangular flag, 2 square flags with a wheel-design indicate a carriage and so on.\n\nBoth authors describe in more or less detail the system of the Peking Opera schools. It is surprising how few people know that we have such a school here in Hong Kong. 40 children are trained in this school, some as young as 6 years old. They get up early to train their voices, then comes the teacher for acrobatics, then opera parts are rehearsed. In the afternoon, they study general subjects, and in the evening they go to the Lai Chi Kok amusement park to give their daily performance.\n\nIf you want to take the chance, which is so easily available, to see this intriguing type of opera, you should also spend a few hours with Elizabeth Halson's short guide. This book really does fill the newcomer's need for a comprehensive, well-ordered, introduction enabling him to enjoy and appreciate what he sees in the opera; though not yet what he hears, like Chinese enthusiasts who go to the opera in order to hear it.\n\nHong Kong, 1973.\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nChang Pe-chin: Chinese Opera and Painted Face, Taiwan, Mei Ya Publications, Inc. 1969.\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207245,
        "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": 13,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "5 films have been shown many times. This time—in June—we had a new film on the boat people of Hong Kong \"Dragons of the Sea\" made with Miss Barbara Ward, an anthropologist and also an old friend of our Society. We were invited together with many of the boat people and others in Hong Kong who had helped make the film a success. In July one of Mr. Brian Brake's films \"Borobadur, Cosmic Mountain” was reshown. Borobadur is one of the world's greatest Buddhist monuments, situated in central Java. Mr. Brake is well-known for his documentary art films. In September another of his films \"Ramayana” a major epic of the Far East was shown. Ramayana has culturally influenced Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and other parts of the East and has been represented many times in paintings, sculptures, dances and theatrical performances. In December films on Taiwan were shown in connexion with our excursion to Taiwan over the Christmas holidays led by Miss Werle. The Taiwan visit was a great success I understand (I never seem to be able to go on overseas trips myself owing to family commitments during the holiday seasons). Members visited Hualin, Taipei, the National Palace Museum and the Peking Opera School; various temples; and Tainan where a shadow puppet performance was seen. It was with great reluctance that we had to cancel our proposed visit to Borneo over the Easter holidays, owing to insufficient numbers. We realise, of course, that for many people this is not a “free” time and the possible lack of response was due to this fact.\n\nPUBLICATIONS\n\nSeveral of our talks for 1974 will be published in our coming 1974 journal, which will also include, apart from several original articles, two valuable reprints, one on the Tang Family of Kam Tin by the late Sung Hok-pang, and another on place names of Hong Kong and the New Territories by Mr. K. M. A. Barnett. Most of the items have already been passed to the printer and it is hoped the Journal will be ready for distribution by June this year. Also in press now, are the papers relating to the two symposia we held: Hong Kong, Chinese tradition and the Development of a Town; and The Flora of Hong Kong. Professor Lofts' symposium on the Fauna of Hong Kong is also in preparation.\n\nARTS CENTRE\n\nAs old members will recall, the Society is a constituent member of the Hong Kong Arts Centre. For new members our object is",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207326,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1975",
        "page_number": 94,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "86\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nching the room they find the parting letter on her desk. The mother starts wailing, cursing her husband. They call the servants to check the house, and the two male servants return and report that they found the back-gate open. They panic, and the wet-nurse rushes out to inform the groom's family.\n\nAct X\n\nThe servants lead the way with lanterns to the river. Mr. and Mrs. Su are followed soon after by the eldest of the Su clan, and by Mr. Yang and his wet-nurse. Then the group meets T'ao-hua and she joins in the search. Mr. Su now accuses Mr. Yang of having pushed their daughter to commit suicide. Mr. Yang reads Liu-niang's last letter but is not impressed. Perhaps it is a trick to avoid the marriage. He will not believe it until he has tangible proof.\n\nAfter walking in many circles they come to the bank of the river, where a servant discovers the shoes of Liu-niang. The parents wail and scold Mr. Yang, and finally the old ferryman approaches with his oar. When asked whether he had seen Liu-niang, he answers that he did not see anybody, but heard a big splash. Whereupon the whole party decides to return home.\n\nThe ferryman calls back T’ao-hua and triumphantly tells her that he can now finish the couplet of the 13th month, because every so many years there is in fact an intercalary 13th month. And on this gay note the play ends, providing the reason why this opera is colloquially called \"T'ao-hua Crosses the River”.\n\nAct VIII is the climax of the play and Act IX and X the anti-climax.\n\nFOOTNOTE\n\nChiuchow Opera and Peking Opera\n\nThe repertoire of Chiuchow opera contains plays taken from the Peking opera, as well as plays based on Chiuchow's local traditions. Ch'en San Wu-niang and Su Liu-niang are both typical Chiuchow operas which have no parallel in the Peking opera. Both are elegant and refined literary operas, with a very strong local flavour in the treatment and development of the subject, and in the music and performance style.\n\nIn a Peking opera the hard laws of society, the five relationships instituted by Confucius, are more important than human happiness; and in Peking opera the same plot would have quite a different dénouement, most probably with a tragic end. How would a well-kept young lady ever dare",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207327,
        "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": 95,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA\n\n87\n\nto go against her parents, or go so far as to run away with her secret love? It would be unthinkable and outrageous. Because, just as today, the Yang-pan or Revolutionary Peking Opera has to propagate a certain moral and ethics, with any other human behaviour being excluded from the stage, so the Peking opera, which used to be under official support and supervision, could not deviate from the officially supported Confucian ideals.\n\nThe southern coastal areas of China were not \"enlightened\" by the Confucian civilization of the Yellow River plains until the Tang Dynasty, when the minister Han Yü, an eminent scholar, was sent into exile to Chiuchow because he tried to prevent the spread of Buddhism in China. He worked hard to instill Confucian values into the local population, and to set up a Confucian social and administrative system. Han Yu must have made a great impression on this area because his name appears frequently, not least in the name of the river which attracted the settlers to build Chiuchow on its banks, which is called after him, Han River.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
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    {
        "id": 207628,
        "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": 16,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1975\n\n(Covering the period April 7, 1975-April 1, 1976)\n\nThis has been another active twelve months for your Society. I start my Report with a review of the programme and will then turn to matters concerning publications, the Art Centre, Library, Membership, and the Photographic Survey which has been one of our more recent ventures.\n\nDuring the period we have organised nine lectures, 2 excursions to places of local interest, and one tour abroad, to Burma. We have arranged two film shows, one recital and a symposium — the seventh in our series. Most events were well attended.\n\nLectures and films related to the regions of China, contemporary and traditional, Vietnam, India, Korea and Hong Kong. The year started last April with a lecture on changing patterns of merchant organization in late Ch'ing China given by Dr. Wellington K.K. Chan, a visitor from the United States, and also in that month we arranged our first excursion, to Macau, where members, guided by Dr. Leigh Wright, visited Chinese temples and toured the Museum and colonial cemetery. In May and June our focus was on Peking opera. In May, Dr. Rulan Pian, visiting professor in music at Chung Chi College, spoke on musical elements in the opera; and in June Dr. Chiao Chien explained revolutionary opera as a means for transmitting values and political ideas. The arts were further represented in June with a demonstration of Kathak dancing by a well-known expert Mr. Satyanarayana Charka; and in July and August we showed films--one on Chinese paintings and one on music. Another film dealt with the excavation of a Silla tomb of 5th century Korea.\n\nIn August Sir John Addis, formerly Ambassador to China, described a visit to Ching-te Chen; and in September a talk was given on Brahman ritual by Professor Fritz Staal. Also that month James Hayes, our editor and one of our vice-presidents who in his professional life is District Officer Tsuen Wan, led members to visit his area. The focus was on the past-historical places, the present, as well as the future of the area--development plans. Following, in October, a discussion was conducted by Drs. Graham and Elizabeth Johnson, both anthropologists working in Tsuen Wan",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
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    {
        "id": 210985,
        "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": 47,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "22\n\nTwo completely different factors come into the picture, namely Gaullism and Italy.\n\nA hidden but deep correspondence had always existed between Gaullists and Maoists. Both emphasised the importance of historical roots and long-term perspectives, for France de toujours as well as for the Sons of the Han on their everlasting Yellow Earth. Both had refused to align their nuclear policies with the strategies of the superpowers. André Malraux's visit to China in the 1960s, both as a former activist in the 1926-27 revolution and as a prominent Gaullist intellectual, was a symbolic episode, much publicised in France. Had General de Gaulle not died suddenly in 1970, he most probably would have paid Mao Zedong the visit already arranged by his old companion Etienne Manach, then French Ambassador to Peking. It would have been an extraordinary performance, in both the grand French and Chinese traditions.\n\nItaly was also very influential. There has always been a special connection between Italy and China. Chinese intellectuals have always felt very much at home in Italy, and the active sympathy for Maoist China of such prominent Italian intellectuals as Malaparte, Alberto Moravia and Maria-Antonietta Macchiocchi certainly made an impact on Parisian literary circles. Altogether, many influential French intellectuals were in those years very keen on visiting China and however brief their visit publicising their sympathy for China. Be they Claude Roy, Etiemble, Roland Barthes, Philippe Sollers, Julia Kristeva18 or many others, their individual approaches may have differed one from another, but they were all indulging in China as if their commitment to China was more important than China itself. They also affected a definitely revivalistic attitude, as if they were the new sinophiles in the grand eighteenth-century tradition.\n\nBy and large, Maoist China was very chic in French cultural life of the 1950s and 1960s. The theatres were packed full at every Peking Opera visit, the books of Han Suyin sold very well, Chinese exhibitions of art at the Grand Palais were a must, the veteran film-director Joris Ivens, Dutch by birth but settled in France, embarked on a 12-hour film on Yu Gong and People's China's achievements, and the well-established literary publishing series",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213411,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 7,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT ......\n\nHON AUDITOR'S REPORT\n\nvii\n\nxxiv\n\nARTICLES:\n\nEdwin Haydon - Chinese Customary Law in Hong Kong's New Territories: some Legal Premises.... 1\n\nD.H. Liu - The Peking Opera 43\n\nAlfred Y.K. Lau - An Outline of the Urban Development of Sai Ying Pun in the Nineteenth Century 59\n\nDavid Faure - The Emperor in the Village: Representing the State in South China 75\n\nAnne and Stephen Selby - China Coast Pidgin English......... 113\n\nRichard Webb - the Use of Hill Land for Village Forestry and Fuel Gathering in the New Territories of Hong Kong 143\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES:\n\nJohn Hodgkiss - Life on the Fringes: The Biology of Mangroves and the Role They Play in Hong Kong 155\n\nR.G. Horsnell - The MacIntosh Cathedrals 171\n\nKeith Stevens - Singapore's Disappearing Temples and The Decline and Apparent Demise of a Popular Religion Cult 181\n\nKeith Stevens - Two Groups of Chinese Deities Rarely Seen on Chinese Altars ........... 187\n\nDan Waters - The Chinese Labour Corps in the First World War: Labourers Buried in France 199\n\nPeter Vine - Experiences as a War Crimes Prosecutor in Hong Kong.\n\nBOOK REVIEW\n\nvi\n\n205\n\n217",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213479,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 75,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "43\n\nTHE PEKING OPERA\n\nD.H. LIU\n\nIt may sound strange to many that the Peking Opera originated, not from Peking, as it is generally believed, but from the obscure county towns of Huang Po (黄陂) and Huang Kong (黄冈) in the Hupeh Province on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. From its early beginning as local, folk song amusement of surrounding areas, it gradually gained popularity and traveled beyond the provincial boundary to Peking where it settled down and prospered during the reign of Emperor Chien Lung (A.D. 1751-1795)\n\nAs the troupe travelled on its way to Peking, it absorbed many of the methods and techniques of different theatrical groups, notably, the K'un Chu (昆曲) and the Hwei Ban (徽班) with one sole dogma it has persistently adhered to the original dialect of the Hupeh Province in its performance up to the present day.\n\nThe Stage in the Early Times:\n\nAt the beginning, the stage was a very simple structure with no proper sitting arrangement for the audience. People would sit around a square-shaped table with two persons on each side. I remember that, when I was a boy, the first theatre we had in Yienta (烟台) where I was born, was called the Tan Kwei Tea House (谭家祠茶馆). People went there to watch the opera and at the same time, enjoy a cup of tea. Why not? People were out to enjoy themselves. I still remember how people would enter the theatre and leave it at will. You sat at the table watching the play, drinking Chinese tea and cracking melon seeds, all at the same time. You will say that this would divert the attention of the audience from what was going on on the stage. Why worry? If the actor or actress was good, the audience, of course, would automatically stop drinking tea and pay close attention to the stage!\n\nI still remember that, in those happy days, the theatre waiters would throw a hot towel to you from a distance of ten feet to wake you up when you were tired. What a wonderful idea!\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76",
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    {
        "id": 213482,
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        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1995",
        "page_number": 78,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "46\n\nThe Play Writers of the Peking Opera\n\nMost of the early play writers of the Peking Opera were uneducated men with little knowledge of Chinese history. Some of the cues used in the play are risqué, vulgar and very, very rough. We do have our own Shakespeares in the T'ang or Sung Dynasties and their plays are among the best written literature of the times, but the general public would not go to their shows because they could not understand the literature - and the plays died a natural death. It is exactly the rough language of the later age that the people could understand, that made them flock to the theatre to see them.\n\nSome of the Funny Things You See in the Peking Opera\n\nWhy should a man's whiskers be three feet long from his chin almost to his knees? Why should an official, or a warrior, or a country squire wear such clumsy shoes with paper soles about two inches thick? Human nature! Once I heard an American cut an album whose main theme was:\n\n\"Anything you can do, I can do better.\"\n\n11\n\nFrom the very beginning, we didn't have any sharp art critics who would condemn these anomalies. Theatre, like politics, if not held in check at the beginning, can be a dangerous thing.\n\nThe Prop and the Gesture\n\nYou will notice that all Chinese theatres have a scarcity of theatre props. They make use of certain movements of the body or gestures to indicate any situation or event. This is because it is much cheaper. For instance, you cannot bring a horse to the stage, so the actor holds a horse whip (an ornamental one) to indicate that he is riding a horse. The following are more examples of the same:\n\n(1) when the actor enters a house, he lowers his body, and steps over something. That means \"stepping over the threshold.\"\n\n(2) when he enters the room, he makes some movements with both hands in the air. That means \"latch up\" or \"lock up\" his room.\n\n(3) if he holds a candlestick, or if someone else carries a paper lantern, it shows that it is night time.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    {
        "id": 213483,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 79,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "(4) if he treads \"in the air\", this means ascending the staircase. (5) when two men are holding an oar - this indicates the existence of a pontoon bridge for someone to use it to get to a nearby boat or sampan.\n\n(6) two big flags, each bearing the imprint of a wheel, held by a man or woman in each hand, with a noble lady in the middle, indicates that the lady is sitting in a chariot.\n\n(7) punishment or degradation of an official or scholar is indicated by \"taking away his hat\".\n\n(8) if a man wears a heavy balaclava, that means he is on a long distance trip or in severe cold.\n\n(9) there is no eating scene in Peking Opera. Drinking wine is denoted by raising the wine cup, with the right hand, to the lip, and hiding the movement by raising the sleeve of the left arm.\n\n(10) a man without a hat, constantly swinging his hair from side to side or tapping his finger on his forehead, or the constant rubbing of hands means he is in trouble and does not know how to get out of it.\n\n(11) why does an important figure walk from the back of the stage to the centre in a funny gait? This is because the Chinese theatre usually has no curtain, as the Western theatre does, so he has to perform the action in a dignified way.\n\n(12) wiping the eye with the sleeve denotes that the actor or actress is weeping or crying. I don't know why, but possibly handkerchiefs were not used in China in former times.\n\n(13) you will find that, in some of the play, a chair is used to represent the front door of a house or cave house.\n\n(14) a painted cloth screen, with an opening in the middle, represents the city wall and the entrance to the city.\n\n(15) you never see a man sleeping on a bed with a pillow. To portray that he is sleeping, he always sits upright in a chair, with his day clothing on, behind a cloth screen.\n\nThe Painted Face Actors\n\nHow much do you know about these painted Faces? From behind these facades, how much can you make out of it, to foretell the kind of character or personality of the man the actor is trying to represent on the stage? The following few hints maybe of help for you to understand the character of the man in history that the actor is portraying.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213488,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 84,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "52\n\nThe Performance and Life Style of the Opera Actors and Actresses\n\nVolumes can be written on the subject of the life of the actors and actresses of the Opera art. However, to put it in a nutshell, their lot is anything but desirable and happy. Although many successful actors and actresses do later have a higher standard of life in an ordinary Chinese society, I wonder if they would choose such careers again at their own free will. I shall try to give some of the reasons and you can draw your own conclusions.\n\n(1) In most cases, these men and women hail from poverty-stricken families and enroll in a theatrical school at a young age, sometimes from eight to ten years of age. By doing so, they relieve their families of the burden of providing for an extra mouth to feed in the household. They have to undergo a very, very strict monastic life during the seven-year period of training in that school. Each day they have to practice singing and take acrobatic exercises, as the case may be, and suffer bodily punishment if they fall out of line, from blows from a heavy stick which may be very painful. Sometimes, the teacher indulges in smoking from a long wooden pipe with a brass burning receptacle at one end. A sharp knock on the pupil's forehead, from the brass burner of the pipe, can be fatal. Even so, the teacher will not be prosecuted because it is clearly written in the contract of admission that he or she is absolved from blame for any consequences arising from such punishment.\n\n(2) The Peking Opera industry is never a free institution. Singing, walking, and movement of the hand must follow the orthodox rules. The pupils must try to fit into this Procrustean Bed by all means, if they are to succeed. You may ask how can they project themselves as individuals if everybody has to tow the line. Yes, they can. If you are talented enough, you still have enough room to manoeuvre to show your own style and make yourself famous.\n\n(3) When you play the role of a warrior in a fighting scene, to a lesser extent a civilian role, you have to wear those heavy head dresses. To prevent these head wears from falling down in the midst of the acting, the actor first has to tie a piece of moistened, fine black silk tightly around his head before putting the real hat on, again tightly",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213490,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 86,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "54\n\nIn that case, they are victims rather than the promoters. I read in some articles that a high official of the Ch'ing Dynasty painted a landscape picture for the famous actor Tan Hsin-pei (譚鑫培) and addressed him as Hsiao-xiong (小雄) meaning \"Little Brother” another euphemism indicating the recipient as one of his homosexual friends. The result? Tan tore the scroll up as soon as he received it.\n\nThere were no human rights in the early days. Actors and actresses could be penalized for what they delivered, which was actually part of the text of the play. In one case, it was rumoured and has to be clarified that the same actor - Tan Hsin Pei - was entangled in another debacle in which he was greatly humiliated. He was invited among others into the Palace to play the role of Ch'ing Ying (程嬰) in a play called 《趙氏孤兒》 (To Sacrifice One's Own Son to Save the Son of a Loyal Friend.). When Ch'ing Ying went in to consult his wife for the giving up of their only son, his wife, naturally like all mothers, refused. Then he sang his morbid arias “常言婦人心腸狠,最狠莫如婦人心”- \"The most cruel hearts in the world are the hearts of women\".\n\nOne thing he forgot was that he was singing the song in front of the Dowager Queen H. M. Tz'u Hsi. She immediately stopped the play and asked Tan to explain why the hearts of women were the most cruel hearts in the world. Tan replied that he merely followed the text of the play. Of course, she wouldn't listen and gave the poor man forty strokes with the birch to make him know better how and what to sing before the Empress the next time. This shows that there was little human rights in those days.\n\nThe social position of the theatrical people greatly improved after the 1911 Revolution, but still there was a ground swell of general discrimination of society toward the theatrical people as a whole - a custom which takes long to eradicate. Even in modern times, few parents will allow their daughters to marry an actor or their sons to marry an actress. They consider that this may lower their social standing if they do.\n\nThe ice is breaking, though. Not long ago a famous Hong Kong medical practitioner who was happily married to another famous doctor's daughter with children suddenly asked to divorce his wife to marry a famous Peking Opera star. This did not materialize and the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213492,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 88,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "56\n\nof the Pear Garden\" (T).\n\nThis Chinese version of Don Juan lived an absolute profligate life. In his later years, he lavished much of his love on a country-bred beauty called Yang Yu-huan (E) and neglected his State's affairs, which brought about his downfall. In 755 A.D., one of his trusted lieutenants named An Lu-shan (I), a half-Turk, half-Sogdian, revolted. The poor Emperor had to flee from Ch'ang An (E), his capital, with just a few escorts, including his immediate family and a few soldiers, heading for Szechwan (PTI). When the entourage arrived at a place called Ma Wei Po (5), the escorting soldiers refused to go any further and demanded that the Emperor get rid of the concubine Yang. The Emperor had to give in and act accordingly. At last, a general named Kwo Tzi-yı (97) put down the rebellion and restored peace to the land. The Emperor Xuan-zong lost his throne to his son.\n\nIf you ever go to Xian (1) in the Shaanxi Province, you will find a bathhouse called Hwa Ch'ing Chih (#) in the suburb where Yang Yu Huan used to bathe. The area has been restored and kept in good condition to this day.\n\nTaboos\n\nThere are many, many regulations and taboos in the Chinese theatrical circle, including the Peking Opera group. Some of these taboos help to keep smooth the running of the theatre as an orderly institution; otherwise, chaos would reign. For instance, the actors and actresses are not allowed to sit on the trunks of other performers. Once I had the privilege of visiting the backstage of a Peking Opera theatre. There were rows and rows of heavy trunks on the floor where the stage clothing was stored. Some of the actors or actresses were doing their make-up. Layers and layers of stage clothing were neatly folded and stacked in the trunks. There was order and neatness everywhere. Imagine, in the absence of taboo and regulations, what the situation would be. It could be a madhouse where everyone was fighting to have the right kind of clothing to go on the stage, and when they finished acting, they would just throw things around.\n\nI know one or two other taboos, of which everyone, yes everyone, has to observe, such as you should never utter the word “Geng\" \"E”",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213493,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 89,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "57\n\n19\n\non the stage and never mention the word \"Meng\" when back stage. What do you do when you have to use the forbidden words in a specific place? You simply substitute, as in the first place, the word “Geng” with the word “Jing”. So instead, the actor will sing, in one play \"Ting qiao lou da chu jing,\" which means \"When I heard the Drum Tower strike the first hour ..\" You will note that in the script the word \"Geng\" remains, but when the singer sings it, he immediately changed it to “Jing” in order to comply with the Taboo. There is no singing back stage, so when someone struck up a conversation with someone else and needed to use the word \"Meng\", you simply say “Da Huang Liang” instead. I have asked many people inside the profession, but no one can tell me why it is so and who started it.\n\nFinal Word of Appraisal\n\nI have written so many paragraphs of anomalies in the setting and acting of the Peking Opera - the question arises as to why the Chinese people still flock to see it. The answer is that the Opera gives them \"beauty\" - beauty in singing, beauty in the acting, beauty in the story as written and acted upon. (Sometimes, though, the beauty is far fetched and subject to logical questioning.) This is why some of the audience will go back to see the play a hundred times and never get tired of it. Certainly, in their heart, they have some fondness toward the acting, the singing which they want to enjoy, which they could not do without, like drugs. In China, we have a word for this kind of mentality, we call it \"itching\". They go back to see the same play many, many times in order to “quench” their itching.\n\nThen what about the anomaly?\n\nIn the psychology of the theatre goers, the whole play is a fake, not the real thing and if there is some small misinterpretation of the story, or the wrong costume the actor wears on the stage, why worry. As long as their \"itching\" is touched and satisfied, everything will be just fine.\n\nA Word of Thanks\n\nOn June 16, 1991, the Shenyang Beijing Opera Troupe was in town for a nine-day performance at the City Hall in Hong Kong. My friend,",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213494,
        "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-1995",
        "page_number": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "58\n\nMiss Elsa Bueanaventura, had never seen a Peking Opera before and was anxious to see one. She asked if I could go with her and explain some of the things to her. I agreed and chose Sunday, June 16 to go. Before we went there I wrote most of the parts of this essay and three synopses of the three plays that happened to be staged that day as a guide, namely:\n\n(1) The Reunion at Gucheng (#)\n\n(2) The Story of the Black Pot (??) \n\n(3) The Trial by Three Judges (###)\n\nAfterwards, I found this guide contained much valuable information for the initial theatre goers, too good to be thrown away. Consequently, I wrote several additional paragraphs to complete this essay. Thanks are due to Mr. and Mrs. Albert Neudeck, Mr. Yeh Yuen-chang and Rev. Kerry Schottelkorb for correcting and polishing my English to make it readable.\n\nNOTE\n\nIt happened that only these three plays were staged that day. They were good plays and the actors and actresses did an excellent job, but the plays lack the universal appeal of the general theme of this article so they are excluded from this rendering.\n\n!\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213906,
        "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-1996",
        "page_number": 258,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "232\n\nDuring the many dynastic changes since its foundation its existence has been chequered by a number of misfortunes. Hung Wu, the first emperor of the Ming, rebuilt its shattered walls and refurbished its many rooms. It was fit and proper that the main building should be in Peking, but Hung Wu, unable to forget that Nanking had become the capital of his choice, also built and endowed a sister institution in that city. With the advent of the Manchu dynasty in 1644 this last foundation ceased to exist.\n\nOur story now turns to backstage of a temporary side street Ch'aochou opera theatre in Singapore's Chinatown. The mat shed theatre over a framework of bamboo was a standard construction seen from time to time when a side street would be taken over and the theatre erected for a few days whilst virtually non-stop opera would be performed and relayed by an external tannoy system to ensure that everyone within earshot, and not just the audience sitting on stools and benches before the stage, would not miss a note.\n\nThe old man in charge of backstage, surrounded by crates containing the robes, head-dresses, beards and other accoutrements for the players, had his own special easy chair, a folding canvas camp chair, alongside the portable altar or shrine suspended from a lateral bamboo facing forward. The two images of deities had been removed and placed on a folding table together with standard offerings beneath the shrine.\n\nThe interior of the red portable shrine was concealed by two hanging red curtains, some two foot wide and the same in height, denying any view of the contents. The two deities, virtually identical images of youths swathed in red robes and wearing red embroidered trousers, were articulated to permit the robes to be slipped over the arms before being buttoned up the front.\n\nOn closer examination the three characters embroidered on the front top of the red curtains hanging before the shrine described it as the Han Lin Academy. This title in such an unexpected place is extraordinary. The old man was at first unwilling to explain its significance and then under a little pressure confirmed that he did not know. Nor did any of the cast. Can any reader cast light on the reason for this title being given to a backstage shrine?",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214225,
        "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": 83,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "46\n\nJones, Russell (1997), Chinese Names, the Traditions Surrounding the Use of Chinese Surnames and Personal Names, Pelanduk Publications.\n\nKao, George (1946), Chinese Wit and Humour, Coward-McCann, New York.\n\nKarlgren, Bernhard (1971), Sound and Symbol in Chinese, Hong Kong University Press.\n\nLee, Lily Xiao Hong and Sue Wiles (1999), Women of the Long March, Allen and Unwin. Edited extract South China Morning Post, 'Saturday Review,' 'Women on the March' 20 February 1999.\n\nLee, Sherry (1999, February 2), 'Reviving the art of Silent Gestures,' Hong Kong Standard, 'Life' supplement.\n\nLexikon der Ägyptologie (1997), 'Humour.'\n\nLin Yutang (1937), The Importance of Living, Reynal & Hitchcock, New York.\n\n(1936), My Country and My People, William Heinemann.\n\nLindsay, Oliver (1978), The Lasting Honour, the Fall of Hong Kong 1941, Hamish Hamilton.\n\nLittle, Jennifer (1998, June 25), 'Chinese Kiwi Comic Gags Racial Stereotypes,' Hong Kong Standard.\n\nLiu, D.H. (1995), 'The Peking Opera,' Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch Journal, Vol. 35.\n\nMathews, Jay and Linda (1983), One Billion, a China Chronicle, Ballantine Books, New York.\n\nMcGregor, Richard (1997, August 22), 'Interpreters' nightmares,' South China Morning Post.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215119,
        "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": 215,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "172\n\nof\n\n17\n\nGuo Ziyi, born in Wenzhou in Zhejiang province ca. AD 700 and only deified many years after he had fled from Guo's service [Illustration 8].\n\nGuo, after a dream, became suspicious of Wen's powers to perform miracles, and Wen, realizing the danger he was in, fled and became a butcher. When a heavenly messenger revealed to Wen the evil of taking life, he gave up slaughtering animals and entered a monastery. Later, he moved to a temple dedicated to Tai Shan, the Lord of the Underworld, where he became the senior medium and communicated with the souls of the dead. He was renowned for his ability to bring rain and help devotees stricken by drought.\n\nEpilogue\n\nThese nine individuals, an omnipotent Chinese emperor, and a hero, and general, believed to have been the emperor's personal physician; a powerful victorious general with immense progeny; a garrison commander and the city mandarin who died in defence of an imperial stronghold; and four minor soldiers, referred to as generals who also died for the emperor, have been deified with their images placed on popular religion temple altars within limited areas of south-east China and Taiwan, their legends being eagerly retold by temple custodians and devotees.\n\nThe Rebellion has held Chinese imaginations for centuries - mainly, it would appear, because of the story of the fall of the emperor's concubine bringing to its listeners a mixture of sadness and anger at the weakness of character shown by the emperor.\n\nA Chinese Biographical Dictionary published in 1898 in London by Bernard Quaritch\n\n2 In Hunan province and the Yangzi valley in general, Lao Lang, the patron of the theatre, of musicians and actors, has been identified in a number of places as a deified human named Zhuang Zong. He was said to be the patron of Peking opera but only of such groups touring central China. His image in Hunan portrayed him as a clean-shaven, white-faced young man without any special",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215349,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 126,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "74\n\nperhaps taken over within their own ethnic temple.\n\nThe Iron-ox General is a black-skinned demonic figure dressed in pantaloons and anklets, standing, with a tiger skin draped around his waist, and with a bolero covering his shoulders. He has a narrow plain coronet, and is holding a heavy chain in his left hand and an axe raised above his head in his right.\n\nThe Iron-ox and Bronze-ox were both live oxen transformed by Lishan Shengmu into human, albeit demonic form, to be her guardians and to protect the gateway to her mountain. They have powers in their own right which include, it is claimed, the prevention of natural disasters, and in particular flooding.27\n\nb] In Fujian province prior to 1949 it was not uncommon to see the Eight Youths, young boys running round the procession when the palanquin containing the image of the deity was being borne around his parish. The boys were regarded in most places as the incarnate soldiery of the spirit armies of the deities. In others they were underworld generals whose exorcising dance was performed to rid the vicinity of demons. In Taiwan groups of young men regularly meet in certain temples and practice exorcist drills which they then perform for the public during annual ceremonies. Their other function is to act as bodyguards to the major deity in their temple when he is taken out in his carrying chair to process around the town. These youths are known in Taiwan as the Eight Underworld Generals A#. They are skilled in martial arts, have their faces painted in specific patterns using a number of bright colours, somewhat similar to the actors in Peking opera but generally regarded as demonic faces, and are dressed in a uniform of jacket and trousers and in a few temples, according to one temple keeper, they wear red bands, similar to those worn by the Boxers of the 1900 Rebellion, identifying which unit they belong to. The markings and forms of these youths tend to be identical with the Ba Jia Jiang, the statues lining the walls of Underworld temples in Taiwan. Such statues have also been noted in several Hainanese temples in South-east Asia where the group of Eight is known as Ba Ban Gong A, The \"Eight Bosses\". Whereas the total, Eight, would appear to be somewhat immaterial to most devotees and temple keepers, in Singapore the Eight represented the large number of gaolers in each of eight of the Ten Courts of the Underworld responsible for purging\n\n28",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 216316,
        "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": 75,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "24\n\nas seated, holding a long-stemmed lotus flower with a small temple perched on the blossom, and has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. Wei Tuo Pusa is represented by a golden statue in which he poses wearing armor and holding a drawn sword. Wei Tuo is the protector of all Buddhist temples.\n\nOn the other side of the Tian Wang Dian is the third courtyard, on the far side of which is the Hall of the Great Hero (Da Xiong Bao Dian). This hall's origins date to an 1878-1879 reconstruction, when it was rebuilt to replace an earlier structure destroyed during the Taiping rebels' attacks on Shanghai in 1860-1862. The hall was closed for a massive reconstruction and renovation in November 2002, but had been reopened by January 2004. The interior is now nothing less than spectacular. Three large Buddhas (San Fo) are placed in the centre. Sakyamuni Buddha stands in the centre, flanked on the left by the bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Pu Xian) seated on an elephant, and on the right by the bodhisattva Manjusri (Wen Shu) seated on a blue lion. Overhead the hall's ceiling is pierced by a massive wooden dome that spirals upward, looking much like the wooden domes (Zao Jing) often found over traditional Peking Opera stages (Xiju Wutai). Behind the San Fo facing out the rear exit is a large Guanyin statue in front of a floor-to-ceiling landscaped rockery covered with smaller figurines depicting the Buddhist heaven and hell. Along the side walls stand 36 quite expressive human statues of the Buddhist saints, 18 on each side of the hall. This is an unusual number, which seems to include 16 Arhats (Luohan) and 20 Devas (Zhu Tian), and an assortment that includes such non-Buddhist figures from Chinese tradition as Confucius (Kong Fu Zi), the War God (Guan Di), the God of Literature (Wen Chang), and the Kitchen God; Hindu gods such as Brahma, Indra, and Yama (Yen Lo); as well as Buddhist deities such as the Four Heavenly Kings (Si Tian Wang) and the bodhisattva Wei Tuo as well. The hall also houses one of Longhua's three bronze bells, this one dating from 1586.\n\nOn the other side of the Da Xiong Bao Dian is a fourth courtyard. On the far side of this fourth courtyard is the Hall of the Three Gods (San Sheng Dian). This hall is dominated by enormous floor-to-ceiling golden statues of three Buddhas (San Fo) who appear side by side in an unusual standing position with golden flames rising up behind them. In the centre is Amitabha Buddha (O Mi Tuo Fo), to your left is the bodhisattva Da Shi Zhi, and on your right is the bodhisattva Guan Shi Yin.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]