[ { "id": 206758, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG\n\n29\n\nSo it was that on 14th December, 1903 the Honourable Gershom Stewart*, an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, rose to move the following motion-\n\nThat in the opinion of the Council it is advisable to increase, if possible, the means of shelter for cargo boats and sampans during the typhoon season.\n\nIn the course of a long speech Mr. Stewart said it was a fact to be borne in mind--\n\nThat the harbour is after all the reason of our existence here, from the harbour we either directly or indirectly, all of us, depend on our subsistence.\n\nWe are now in the happy position of having an abundant revenue and I have now put in a plea for a humble and hard working section of the sea-faring population who have no means of advocating their own cause.\n\nHe then spoke at some length on the dangers which the boat people faced in the course of typhoons with particular reference to that which had occurred in 1900, and went on to recommend his resolution to the Council on two grounds-\n\nThe first being that of self-interest for we indirectly will get some benefit because we are doing something to assist trade and secondly on the higher ground of our common humanity. For I think it is right and proper that we should afford all the protection and help we can to an industrious and hard-working section of the community. For during a certain part of the year they may claim to be following a dangerous avocation, because we must remember that these people in numbers, men, women and children have nothing between them and the next world but perhaps a half inch plank when it may be blowing a hurricane in the harbour.\n\nMr. Stewart's resolution was seconded by Mr. C. W. Dickson* who pointed out that--\n\n* Listed in Who's Who in the Far East 1906-7 June (Hong Kong, China Mail, Publishers) as b. 1858, came out to Hongkong Bank, Jan. 1883, Exchange Broker, Chairman of the China Association.\n\n* Charles Wedderburn Dickson, listed in Who's Who in the Far East as partner in the firm of Jardine, Matheson and Co., and Deputy Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, b. 1863, arrived in Hong Kong 1884.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215069, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "122 etc. are the actual Taisui who perform the functions and duties of the deity. The bells have magical properties and a Hokkien god carver in Singapore explained that all Taisui images should carry one of four specific charms. The main one is the bell which when rung causes the hearer to lose his way and wander aimlessly. Therefore a demon hearing it forgets his task and wanders off. The other three charms are the seal of office which when shaken causes the heavens to quake; and two swords, one male and one female. Another unusual feature is Taisui's footwear. Normally he wears sandals but occasionally only one foot is shod the other being bare. This form is comparatively common on Fukien community altars, an excellent example being in the Buddhist temple in Yen Kiu Road in Singapore. Only one example has been noted in Hong Kong, on an altar on a junk in the Pearl River. The one bare and one shod foot is said to represent the amount of rain expected during the coming season [see above under The Rôle of Taisui for an explanation provided in eastern China]. A similar story has been told about the Immortal Lan Caihe and, as we have seen above, about Mang Shen.\n\nAn unusual large clay image of Taisui in a temple near Kam Tin in the New Territories depicts him with the bell in his left hand, and with a third eye. The bell, according to the temple keeper, has magical properties. Even more unusual is the image in Hung Hom in Kowloon with the usual bell in Taisui's right hand but unusually he has a Tantric necklace of thirteen skulls draped around his neck.\" Other lone image carvings are standard, anonymous seated officials or scholars with no particular characteristic and only identifiable as Taisui by the written Chinese characters on the front face of the base or because they are standing on piles of spirit money which, according to common belief, no other deity does. The lone Taisui image tends to be referred to as the 'Taisui [or Intendant] of the Current Year' EX-\n\nOver the years and in a number of places ranging from Singapore to northern China various informants have explained, mostly contradicting each other, that the images with a bell is the Taisui of the Year, the one with a scroll or tablet is the Taisui of the Month and those without anything are the Taisui of the Day.\n\nIn a small temple in Sepang near Port Dickson in Malaysia, three images on a side altar stand side by side. A typical Taisui image with a\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216199, "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": 498, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "432\n\nskinned, whilst the other had been put to work supervising the father's labourers in the fields and whose skin had been burned black. The elder was said to be depicted at thirteen years of age whilst the second was two years younger. Ruan, the younger prince, is portrayed with a fierce expression whilst the elder has a gentler look despite not having any eyebrows. Both tend to be depicted with white [pink] or black skin, and are barefoot. Both are dressed simply, in trousers and a small apron. They wear golden bracelets on their forearms and their head-dress consists of a gilded crown from which protrude long peacock's feathers. A tiny matshed seaside shrine at Port Dickson, also on the west coast of Malaysia, contains a small composite image of the youths, most certainly wrestling, one grasping the other by his queue and an arm.\n\nIn a temple in Singapore the keeper was adamant that the two youths only spoke Hindi and that many of the devotees in his temple praying before them were Singaporean Indians who regularly consulted the Hokkien [Fujian] spirit medium in the temple. In every day life the medium only spoke Hokkien and therefore had to work through a spirit interpreter. The Indian devotees, he added, could only understand their mother tongue, Tamil, one of the Dravidian languages of southern India and who seemed to be able to converse with the deities through the medium without any trouble 'as the medium in his trance spoke Tamil'.\n\nIn one temple in Fujian recently a local Chinese explained that they were homosexuals presumably a guess inspired by their pose. However, you can imagine our reaction when in a village temple in Kaohsiung county in southern Taiwan we saw what appeared to be the standard image of the pair, swathed as usual in silken robes donated by devotees, being “undressed\" by the leering temple custodian to reveal that the dark skinned youth was holding the white skinned by the forearm and his queue whilst the white skinned youth had one arm around the shoulder of the black skinned one, but was holding the black skinned youth's penis with the other hand. The custodian fell about when he saw how disconcerted we were. The village elders left their card playing on the temple veranda to join in the general laughter which encouraged village children to rush in to see what was happening. They were chased out but not before several had managed to see the image and were unable to get out fast enough to tell the others what they had seen. The custodian explained that someone had ordered the image to be carved this way some years ago, possibly as a joke, and very few devotees", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]