[ { "id": 204412, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CURRENCY PROBLEMS\n\n35\n\nI replied, \"on the contrary you ought to reward me with the highest decoration your country can bestow. The two hundred and thirty thousand dollars I put into circulation all possessed one very striking property\". What was that?\" he asked, Not one stuck to the palm of the hand, they all slid off I replied.\n\nPage 04\n\n44\n\n**\n\n+\n\nWhen I returned to Shanghai, in September 1945, at the end of the War, I found three currencies in common circulation. First the \"Fah Pi\", the legal tender of the K.M.T., secondly, the \"Wei Pi\" the currency issued by the puppet Wang Ching-wei Government, and thirdly the \"Mei Pi\", U.S.A. currency. I remember that whenever labour was asked for the currency of its preference the choice was invariably, “Mei Pi”.\n\n44\n\nTime will not permit to enlarge upon the use of gold as a medium of currency. When the quantity of silver exceeded the convenience of transportation, exchange into gold was the usual practice. This was in the form of dust, leaf and bar. To the inexperienced, such as myself, preference was usually for gold leaf as being more readily inspected for adulteration. But reputable exchange dealers, from time immemorial have issued their own certificates of purity which were always reliable provided they covered a first-hand purchase. I remember that towards the end of 1929, in company with another missionary, I was faced with bringing out the balance of relief funds, to the coast, through a bandit-infested area. In all the total weight of the gold was 63 ounces which we had worked into bangles which we wore high up on the arms and bars which we secreted in waist belts. We fell into the hands of the bandits who robbed us of our belongings but by the Grace of God did not search our persons. Thus through varying experience we finally reached Tientsin and I can still see the look of surprise on the face of the Agent of the Chartered Bank when we partially disrobed in his office and shot the total of our carryings on to his desk.\n\nIt is only fitting that I close with a reference to the introduction of the latest form of currency, the Jenminpiao. This came to Shanghai with the Liberation Army in May 1949. Prior to the arrival of the Communist forces and during the wild days of the K.M.T. evacuation to Taiwan, the Shanghai brokers had brought out their stocks of silver dollars and were doing brisk business all along the Shanghai streets, exchanging paper for...\n\nPage XX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204528, "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-1963", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "September 27th\n\nOctober 16th\n\nShow of three documentary films made by Mr. Hugh Gibb for B.B.C. Television:\n\n\"Rituals of Rice\" (colour) describes rice growing in Japan and old Shinto practices associated with transplanting and harvest festivals.\n\n\"Zen\" (black and white) is the first film to be made in a Zen Buddhist monastery in Japan. Permission was granted only after several months of negotiation and then the film had to be shot in one morning.\n\n\"Dance and Drama\" (colour) won the Gran Premio award for T.V. documentaries at the Bergamo Film Festival in 1961 and describes the evolution of dance and drama in Japan including the Kagura, the traditional village drama, and abridged performances of puppet plays, Noh and Kabuki theatre.\n\nThree further films made by Mr. Hugh Gibb: \"The Dyaks\" tells the story of the communal life and customs of the Sarawak \"Long Houses.\" \"Birds' Nest Soup\" was made in the Great Cave of Niah in Sarawak, where edible birds' nests are collected from the walls and ceilings to prepare one of the most expensive delicacies in the world.\n\n\"Turtle Island\" takes place on a small island off the coast of Sarawak where as many as one hundred turtles come in the course of one night to dig their nests and lay their eggs. The film tells the story of the cumbersome process and of the scientific work on these edible turtles, the collection and sale of whose eggs is a considerable industry.\n\nThe lectures in January and February by Professor S. H. Hansford on \"Some Problems of Ancient Chinese Jades and Bronzes\" and by Mr. R. D. Bromhall on \"Underwater Photography in Eastern Seas\" will be included in the Report for the coming year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204797, "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-1964", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "88 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\ncredited with the construction of the Yee Chee about 1850. What does appear fairly certain is that the Kaifong originated among the Cantonese shopkeepers and house-owners of Wing On Street, the main, and for long the only, street on the island. The street had a corporate identity which was quite separate from the rest of the island, and this is clearly shown on the 1878 tablet which is at pains to differentiate donors as belonging to either \"this street\" or \"this island\". There were one or two of them, rather than one. By the turn of the century, however, Hakka shopkeepers in the main street, the CHUNG clan, who in origin was a leading member of the Kaifong, but this was apparently a recent development. The Kaifong's interests thus became those of the island community at large. It was not necessarily in regular session with meetings once a week or once a month, but is more likely to have been rather sporadic in its activities, active only when it was asked to advise, arbitrate or organise, as the need arose.\n\nThere was also an association for religious purposes known as the Hung Man Wui. It is mentioned in the 1878 tablet in the Tin Hau temple, when it was among the principal subscribers. One assumes, therefore, that it had many members. It was responsible for the organisation of the various festivals, including the staging of processions and the customary opera or puppet shows, and its directors were chosen by \"shaking the sticks\" at the temple once a year. Apparently anyone could join and, in theory at least, anyone could be chosen by the gods for the chief posts. I am told that it still exists today, for similar objects.\n\nLest this article should leave the impression of a well-organised and orderly community which lived a peaceful existence year by year in ever growing prosperity, it is as well to call attention to the more uncertain side of daily life at the time under review. The period was characterised by the gradual break-down of imperial control which was reflected in unsettled conditions. The tablets of 1835 recording the fishermen's petition to the Viceroy recalls the presence of pirates, and cargo junks and ferries in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204983, "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-1965", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "82\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nand Wei-hai-wei, in sight of a sister ship, the Linan. The Tungchow was turned south for Bias Bay, and a few days later was recognized by another sister ship, the Sinkiang, and flags were dipped. The Sinkiang accounted for the Tungchow's being off her usual route by assuming that she was bound for the Company's dockyard in Hong Kong. This was one of the most successful piracies in the interwar years. The pirates went ashore in Bias Bay with well over £30,000 in specie, $10,000 in cash, and only the last-minute cancellation of a large consignment of silver taels prevented their haul from being much larger.\n\nThe second Tungchow piracy was almost ten years later, when she was carrying several hundreds of thousands of dollar notes from Shanghai to Tientsin. The pirates captured her the day after she left Shanghai and, as before, turned her south for Bias Bay. During the next few days they painted out her name and altered the colour of the funnel. A disquieting feature of this second piracy was the fact that the Tungchow was passed by several ships when under pirate control, including a British warship looking out for her.\n\nThis second Tungchow piracy had its amusing aspects. The passengers included a number of European school children, returning to school in North China after spending their holidays with their parents in Shanghai. The pirates made friends with them, and supplied them with fruit and other delicacies broached from the ship's stores. As before, the Tungchow was taken to Bias Bay, where the pirates went ashore with their loot. Unfortunately for them, however, the dollar notes were unsigned.\n\nThe Nanchang piracy of March 1933 was even further from the normal pattern than either of the Tungchow cases. The most normal feature was that the Nanchang was a China Navigation Company ship. This piracy took place at the mouth of the Newchwang River in Manchuria, well outside the pirates' range of operations. Also, the Nanchang, which was boarded by two junks when she lay at anchor, carried no passengers. There were no casualties in this case, but four British officers were taken prisoner, and only released after five months of tortuous negotiations and the payment of a ransom. This incident took place eighteen months after the Japanese had overrun Manchuria, and had set up the puppet state of Manchukuo; it might possibly be described as banditry—with political undertones.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205069, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 25, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "20\n\nJOHN 1. NOLDE\n\nof the six Englishmen, no one can deny that they did venture into the country-side in December, 1847, and that their bodies were found in the river several days later. But no one knows exactly what happened. They may have brought the attack on themselves by an ill-considered use of fire-arms, or they may have blundered into some kind of inter-village, or inter-clan, feud. In any case, we don't know that they were murdered simply because they were foreigners.\n\n30\n\nAs to the events of 1849, it may well be that they were organized not so much to keep the foreigner out of the city per se but to prevent serious rioting and looting within the city, which, the authorities well knew, could, and probably would, be turned against themselves. The presence of the barbarian with his goods and gold within the walls would attract every villain and trouble-maker for miles around.\n\nThe problem of the 1840's was the same as that which existed in the previous two decades: the continuing erosion of Imperial authority.\n\nChinese documents, most of them un-official, suggest a pattern of turmoil and tumult even exceeding that of the 1820's and 1830's. Triad outbreaks occurred in 1843 in the districts of Tung-kuan and Hsun-teh. In the latter, in December, \"above a hundred were killed and several hundred wounded\".31 Hsiang-shan district witnessed a serious Triad disturbance in 1844, as did P'an-yu in 1845.32 A high Chinese official, home on leave in Hsiang-shan reported that brigands ran wild in the White Cloud Mountains northeast of Canton and that the authorities were unable, or unwilling, to act.33 In 1846 the yamen of the prefect of Kwang-chou was attacked and looted.1⁄4 So serious had the situation become by that year that the Governor-General called a meeting of his chief advisors to discuss the matter. Apparently little was done, for it is reported that in 1847 a bandit chief in Hsiang-shan had gathered together more than 10,000 men and had established a \"puppet government\".35 One account notes that in 1847 and 1848 members of unlawful societies in hundreds and thousands, \"carrying tents and armed with swords\", were terrorizing the districts north of Canton.36 At the height of the \"entry\" crisis of 1849, Governor Yeh Ming-ch'en reported to Peking that should the foreigner be permitted to enter the city troublemakers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205248, "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-1967", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "and in the Colonial Office in London. Mr. Endacott's History of Hong Kong (1958) has already indicated what sort of material is available to form the necessary background to new studies in urban history and sociology.\n\nWe hope, then, that this Journal will receive contributions in this neglected field and that, in particular, it will benefit from the new project in urban studies, now being initiated by Dr. Alan Birch of the History Department at the University of Hong Kong. We hope, too, that some of the material being obtained from the Urban Family Life Study commissioned by the Hong Kong Government and now in progress under the direction of Dr. Robert Mitchell from the University of California, Berkeley, may appear in its pages. As a Hong Kong publication the Journal must play its part in encouraging and making available some of this basic information.\n\nMeantime we have not made much progress with the ethnographic aspects stressed by the Hon. Editor in 1962. Unfortunately, pure ethnography is rather neglected by scholars nowadays and, probably for this reason, less progress has been made in this field, though the curator of the City Hall Museum and Art Gallery, with the help of the New Territories Administration and others, has begun collecting items of interest, with a view to forming a local collection. Members were fortunate recently in hearing a lecture from Mr. Alan L. Kagan on the Cantonese Puppet Theatre in Hong Kong. It is hoped to include this article in the 1968 Journal. Mr. Kagan's assessment has reinforced Mr. Cranmer-Byng's remark five years ago that time is indeed short. Whereas there are only two part-time puppet troupes operating in present-day Hong Kong, there were more full-time operators twenty years ago, when a smaller, poorer, less-sophisticated and less westernised population supported this type of entertainment enthusiastically and business was good, their services being in demand all over the territory. The Editorial Committee welcomes articles of this sort and would be glad to have more of them from interested persons.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205469, "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": 11, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "5\n\n1 June\n\n19 June\n\nMiss Barbara E. Ward\n\n“Social and Economic Changes among the Boat People of Hong Kong.”\n\nMr. Alan L. Kagan\n\n44\n\nCantonese Puppet Theatre in Hong Kong\"\n\n4 September Dr. Patricia M. Marshall\n\n2 October\n\n\"The Meaning of Conservation and its Application in Hong Kong.\n\nProfessor L. B. Thrower\n\n\"The Flora of Hong Kong in its Geographical Setting.\n\n20 November Professor G. B. Harrison\n\n\"The Dutch Embassy to Peking 1794-95.\"\n\n18 December\n\nMr. G. B. Endacott\n\n\"The Old City Hall.\n\n**", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206111, "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": 191, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "186\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nthe small pre-war Yuk Wong (or Jade King) Temple, recently reconstructed, and to some open ground now occupied by a theatrical matshed erected for the Tam Kung festival where Wai Chau and Cantonese opera will be performed for the traditional five nights and four days. This is organised by the people of Ah Kung Ngam, and a small booth on the left-hand side of the road (going in) is plastered with large sheets of orange paper on which the names of all subscribers to this free opera have been written. Up to the war of 1941 and again after the Liberation, up to 13 years ago, my local informants say that puppet plays were held here, but the greater resources of a larger population have now enabled the local people to have opera troupes instead. Both Wai Chau and Cantonese opera are performed, and I was promised the former for the day of our visit.* Among the principal organisers are an old Hoklo fisherman of 75 who has lived at Ah Kung Ngam for nearly sixty years and two middle-aged Hakka men whose families have been settled there for 3-4 generations.\n\nAccording to the old Hoklo fisherman who first came to Ah Kung Ngam about 1911-1912, the Yuk Wong Temple was then 'a broken house with an incense burner'. He goes on to say that it was restored pre-war by a big subscriber.\n\nWalking back from Ah Kung Ngam (and later on, in passing by bus through Shau Kei Wan) the visitor will notice the abandoned quarry sites on the hillsides. The official yearly reports of the Hong Kong Government in the later 19th century (styled Blue Books) show that the Shau Kei Wan quarries were then much more important than any elsewhere on the Island and rivalled those in Old British Kowloon. We note, for instance, that there were 72 quarries operating there in 1872, 49 in 1881, and 51 in 1891.\n\n*The subject of the Wai Chau opera was taken from the San Kuo or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the most famous novels in Chinese literary history. The episode which was the subject for this particular play, entitled \"An Expedition for Revenge\", can be read in English between pages 597-607 of volume 1 of C. H. Brewitt-Taylor's translation of the novel in two volumes published by Kelly & Walsh, Limited, Shanghai: Hong Kong: Singapore, 1925.\n\n†The old man is right in thinking it was before his time. A list of temples in CSO No. 296/95, an old Secretariat file now kept in the Registrar General's Department, lists three trustees, all named Cheung, for the Yuk Wong temple at \"A Kung Ngam\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206192, "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": 9, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "ترا \n\n11 May \n\n22 June \n\nDr. Hu Shiu-ying \n\n\"Flowering Plants of Hong Kong.” \n\nDr. Chiu Ling-yeong \n\n+4 \n\nTwo Views on the Modernization of \n\nChina.\" \n\n21 September Mr. Kwok On \n\n7 November \n\n12 December \n\n(Talk, Demonstration and Performances) \"Puppet Show.\" \n\nMr. James Hayes (Organiser) \n\nExcursion to Tung Lin Kok Yuen, the Tam Kung Temple, Happy Valley and the Tin Hau Temple, Causeway Bay, \n\nMr. David Gilkes (Organiser) \n\nExcursion to Tao Fong Shan, Shatin. (The Christian Mission to Buddhists). \n\nTaking into consideration the variation in the popularity of subjects and in the availability of lecturers, the lectures last year were on the whole as well attended as could be expected, and this raises two points of special interest to our Society. One is the availability of suitable halls at the times we want them, and the other the choice of subjects. \n\nRegarding the former, it is becoming more difficult to make short-notice bookings of lecture halls in Hong Kong and this is due partly to the increasing demand and partly to long-term block booking by some organizations. This is going to remain a permanent difficulty, and an increasing one too, and the only answer I can see to it is the ultimate acquisition of our own premises, which incidentally would solve one of our library problems as well. \n\nRegarding the choice of subjects, popularity of the subject is not the only point taken into consideration by your Committee when arranging the lecture programmes. Our chief aim is to cater during each year for as many tastes among our members as possible, and hence variety of subjects, rather than popularity, is the main criterion. A glance at the above list will, I think, convince you that that is what we are achieving. Your Committee would therefore welcome suggestions or requests from members", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206802, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "SWATOW (CH’AOCHOW) HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\nHELGA WERLE*\n\n# Introduction\n\nThe so-called Swatow puppets are in fact wrongly named. This is due to a confusion which requires some explanation. In Western languages the adjective Swatow is used to attribute a dialect, culture or people etc., when the Chinese themselves speak of Ch’aochow. This is because the British gained access to the Ch’aochow area by the opening of the port of Shantou (Swatow) by the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858. Chinese know that the city of Ch’aochow heads one of the 8 prefectures of the province of Kwangtung and is situated on the Han River about 40 miles from the sea and as far from the border with Fukien. Swatow itself, a port with about 85,000 inhabitants in 1925, is in the delta of the Han River, five miles from the open sea.\n\nIn this article the term “Swatow” has been replaced by the use of the proper Chinese description of Ch’aochow.\n\nCh’aochow developed very early into a culturally independent area. Its seaboard position and flourishing port gave it the necessary economic basis and exposed it to various cultural influences. Culturally and linguistically, it is more like a prefecture of Fukien than of Kwangtung. Its dialect is distinctly different from Cantonese, so are its customs and its music, which all deserve to be studied in detail for the value of its rich ancient tradition. Among its cultural assets, the Ch’aochow puppet-theatre is truly amazing, with unique features found nowhere else in the world.†\n\nThe author has studied in the Sinology departments of the Universities of Munich, Hamburg, and Cologne. She has been a resident of Hong Kong since 1966 and has followed up her studies with field work in Taiwan, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines. She is particularly interested in folk art and theatre and is at present on the staff of the Hong Kong Arts Centre Ltd. She has published various articles on puppet theatre and folk art.\n\n† For the Introduction, see L. Richard (translated, revised and enlarged by M. Kennelly), Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire and Dependencies, Shanghai, T’usewei Press 1908, pp. 206 and 210. Also J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese or Notes connected with China (5th edition, revised by É. Chalmers Werner), Kelly & Walsh, Shanghai, Hong Kong etc., 1925, pp. 689-690. For the Min dialects of which Ch’aochow and Swatow are part, see R. A. D. Forrest, The Chinese Language, Faber & Faber, London, 1958, pp. 225-232.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206803, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "74\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nThe Ch'aochow Puppets in Hong Kong\n\nBeing interested in all forms of puppet-theatre, I had heard of the existence of horizontally-moved Ch'aochow stick-puppets in Hong Kong, but it took a long time to have the opportunity to actually see them performed. In the spring of 1973, the leader of the Cantonese rod-puppet troupe, Mak Shiu-tongA, invited me to watch a show near his home, at Block 9 of the Tsz Wan Shan Resettlement Estate. The Ch'aochow people of the estate celebrated the birthday of their patron saint Po-yeh-tan1 on the 27th, 28th and 29th day of the first month.* On a limited rectangular area of about 1,500 square feet there was a bamboo-shed on stilts serving as a puppet-theatre on one end (Plate I), another serving as a make-shift temple opposite to it (Plate II), with an altar on one side and an enormous paper dragon-robe on the other (Plate III).\n\nThe robe complete with boots, belt and lots of neatly folded paper money was to be burned at the end of the celebration, in order to bestow insignia of rank upon the saint in acknowledgement of his merits. The decoration of the robe varies according to the saint to whom it is dedicated. But it is noteworthy that besides the elaborate dragon in relief, pairs of phoenixes and young hornless dragons and the Eight Immortals, three pavilions with eight paper-figures are added. These figures strongly resemble the puppets which I saw later and their heads are also made of plaster. In Ch'aochow the tradition of puppetry and ceremonial figures are very closely related.\n\nThe stilts of the stage were four feet high, with a floor area of 10' x 10' (Plate I), where on the same level the musicians and the puppeteers sit and on which the puppets move (Plate IV). The puppet-stage was very small, with four chairs and a table, all with embroidered covers. The stage is created by five flaps of richly embroidered curtains called chu lien4; the middle one being short to enable the back-stage musicians to follow the performance closely. The two long side-flaps cover a puppeteer each. The decoration of the curtains complement each other to form a cosmical unity: the square middle part shows the lion with four peonies for each direction, representing the earth, the Yin. The Yang is expressed in the dragon design of the other four flaps.\n\nBehind the stage stands a small chest with three drawers—one for puppet-heads, one for headgear and one for arms or pennants\n\n* Lunar calendar.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206804, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\n75\n\nto be attached to the back of a puppet general and the like. There was also a wooden trunk containing about 30 puppet-bodies.\n\nThe orchestra sat on the backstage floor. The band-leader had a set of drums and a clapper. There were two pairs of gongs, two sonas and a pair of two-stringed violins. There were also two female singers with the orchestra. The whole troupe comprised 12 persons and was paid H.K.$2,500 to perform one hour in the afternoon and a full Opera for four hours in the evening.\n\nBefore the performance started, the puppets were taken out of the trunk, a stick was attached to each hand and the headless bodies were hung on a string at the joint of stick and hand back-stage (Plate V). The left puppeteer was obviously the technician. He adjusted the head on the puppet with glue (UHU), fastened the headgear, bent the wires of the hand around a sword or a halbard, hooked the leading rod into the back and led it onto the stage. While fighting the puppet often loses its head or its sword, but it is quickly repaired and the action continues. The puppeteer guides the right arm with his right hand, left hand and back-stick with his left hand. This technique gives the largest range of movements. If a general has to show his strength by leg movements, the puppeteer transfers the three sticks into his left hand and moves the legs with a fourth stick. The scene is often suddenly tumultuous when whole armies appear. The puppeteer then holds nine sticks of three puppets in each hand. But it poses a great technical problem to let them pass each other or one group another. (Plate VI) It is difficult to keep them standing on the floor, and when not in action they hang in midair (Plate VII). The puppets cannot walk, they fly over the stage (Plate VI). They can easily kneel down but often uncontrollably spread their legs. After its appearance the puppet's back-stick is taken off, its head is put back into the drawer and its body is hung on the string.\n\nThe puppet itself is tiny, about 10 inches high. Its body is a carved wooden torso, to which two-jointed legs of wire or wood are attached. The arms are stuffed like sausages with a bend at the elbow, altogether too soft to be well controlled. The costume is very detailed, including the shoes, and cannot be taken off. Only the heads can be exchanged. These heads complete with hairdo are made of clay and painted. Their features resemble the old, small, delicate, glove puppet heads of Fukien.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206805, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "76\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nThe hands are made of wire (Plate VII) which facilitates the fastening of the sticks or arms, but their appearance is ugly.\n\nThe sticks have the length of chopsticks. Made of iron, they form a small ring at one end and have a wooden handle on the other, to prevent the sticks from slipping out of the hands. The third stick is thicker and is hooked into a hole at the puppet's back from below. The puppeteers tell that in Ch'aochow some puppets were considered so precious that they were handled with sticks made of pure gold.\n\nNeither the waist nor the stick is movable.\n\nThe Historical Background in Ch'aochow\n\nAlthough well proportioned and even beautiful, this puppet has many technical disadvantages compared to the Cantonese rod-puppet or the Fukienese string or glove-puppet. The reason for this incongruousness can be found in the dominance of Ch'aochow's ancient leather shadow-puppet tradition, which was definitely well established in the Ming dynasty in that area. One can assume that it existed earlier but any proof is lacking so far.\n\nIn Ch'aochow these shadow-puppets were cut out of cowhide (which is very rough when compared to the donkey-hide used in North China or Szechuan) which was coloured. They have two-jointed arms and legs and are handled with three sticks attached to the hands and the back of the two-dimensional puppet. The author has seen such Min-nan shadow-puppets in Taiwan, and some old Ch'aochowese confirmed that the Ch'aochow ones had exactly these features. By the end of the last century, supposedly under the strong influence of the extraordinary perfection of the string and glove puppets of Ch'uan-chou, Fukien, a new type of puppet evolved, a hybrid with the beauty of a Ch'uan-chou puppet, but handicapped in movement by the technique of a two-dimensional puppet. The name paper-shadow-theatre chih-ying-hsi was also applied to the new puppet. These two kinds of puppets existed side by side for one generation, and according to witnesses the leather shadow-puppets disappeared in the 1920s.\n\nIt is yet possible to receive first-hand accounts of the time when puppets were much used. An educated elderly Ch'aochow gentleman, Mr. Su related that in his childhood, at the beginning of the Republic, there were still 3 different kinds of puppets: shadow, horizontal stick-puppets and a third kind which he describes as...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206806, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\n77\n\nbeing 2-3 feet high but cannot remember how they were manipulated. They were probably Fukienese string-puppets, which would not be surprising, as Fukienese Min-nan opera groups were popular in Ch'aochow, so why not Fukienese puppets? In Mr. Su's home, in Ch'aochow city, the greatest pleasure children derived was to play their own leather-shadow puppets behind the paper-screen. Besides the ceremonial puppet-shows at the temple festivals there were always puppet-shows performed for public entertainment in those days. He recalls that the leather shadow-puppets were by far the most interesting to watch.\n\nApart from traditional subjects, they offered a kind of political cabaret caricaturing the confusion after the 1911 Revolution or performing an amusing burlesque. They are said to have given realistic renderings of the feats and behaviour of the warlords and bandits who roamed the country between 1911 and the 1930s. These street performances were usually given by a team of two opera-singers who were too old to perform on stage. From a bamboo pole balanced on their shoulders hung a bundle of personal belongings at the rear end, and a trunk containing puppets, stage, and musical instruments at the front end. The two would set up their bamboo-frame stage in a rich private house or a public square, adjusting their lamp behind the paper-screen. They manipulated the puppets, spoke, sang, and played musical instruments using their mouths, hands, and feet simultaneously.\n\nOne very special occasion in Ch'aochow was the lantern festival on the fifteenth day of the first moon, when puppets were of prime importance. In the evening, a crowd would throng the streets to find a place at one of the many puppet-performances. Street-vendors offered puppets, with delicate heads made of clay and complete with clothes, for sale. The puppets looked exactly like those for performances, but were immovable and had no sticks at their hands or back. If parents wished to have a son or a daughter, or a groom or bride for their children, they would buy an appropriate doll on this day and keep it at home.\n\nThe transition from shadow to round puppets is clearly stated in the Chinese literary sources.* It is there repeated that shadow-puppets came to Ch'aochow in the Sung dynasty and were always performed behind a paper-screen on a bamboo-frame called chu-chuang44* (bamboo-window); and that by the end of last century\n\n* See Liu and Sun under Bibliography to this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "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", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206809, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "80\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nChing p'eng \"cleaning the matshed\" has to take place before the performance. The puppeteers take a live cock and make an incision in his throat and then carry him over the stage, dropping his blood into every corner, over the backstage and even over the musical instruments. This is done in order to protect themselves against the evil spirits or hungry ghosts, which performing puppets attract. That human actors perform at the Hungry Ghosts Festival is a development of the past 20 years for Ch'aochowese. Originally only puppets were used. The human likeness of the moving puppet fools the ghost, who takes possession of the puppet. Thus humans are protected from their assault and the whole area gets cleared of their evil influence. Puppet-shows are mainly performed as an exorcising ceremony and it therefore does not matter whether there is a public to watch the performance or not.\n\nThe actual performance starts mostly with the 'Birthday of the Eight Immortals', which is a series of good wishes. This introductory piece starts with the Peach Banquet, implying the wish for longevity. The next part is called 'To bestow Rank and Riches'; then comes the fairy who sends sons. The next short play is a ceremony to \"cleanse the matshed\" and the last is called \"the banquet at the capital\", which is to congratulate the troupe for its performance. The main play starts after this introduction.\n\nThe repertory of the two Hong Kong Ch'aochow puppet-groups comprises the following operas, which are part of the Ch'aochow Opera tradition:\n\nHu-li Luan Chou Wang 狐狸亂周王\n\nTuan-Chiao Hui\n\nLi Te-wu 李德武\n\nKuan Wang Miao 闊王廟\n\nYang Tsung-pao\n\nI Chih Mei 一枝梅\n\nThe script/stories of these operas are spoken and sung by the puppeteers. If the opera is a wen-chü or literary play, the text which is in rhymes is fixed and a script is used; but when a wu-chü or military play is performed the puppeteers use their own imagination to enrich the familiar plot.\n\nOne further point should be mentioned. Shadow-puppet theatre was very early a most important part of entertainment and when finally drama became organised, the public eye was so trained on the shadow-puppet movements that they were taken over into the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206810, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\n81\n\ndrama. This is a process which reminds of Java where the drama performed by actors Wayang Orang mimics the much earlier leather-shadow-play Wayang Kulit.\n\nHsiao Nan-ying\n\na famous hua-tan of Ch'aochow opera, who came to Hong Kong a year ago, complains that the Ch'aochow opera here is still using the stiff movements which were influenced by the shadow-puppet movements. She also tells of a typical Ch'aochow opera in which the peculiarities of the shadow-puppet-theatre are used to great effect. A movement can suddenly stop and the moment can be endlessly prolonged. For example: a boy and a girl move independently in a festival-crowd and when they by chance look at each other, they instantly fall in love and remain motionless in the position in which they caught each other's eye. And the Old Man of the Moon appears, takes imaginary strings from their eyes and binds them together. They remain like statues looking at each other until somebody cuts the imaginary strings, the spell is broken and they regain their liveliness. This technique is believed to be derived from the shadow-play.\n\nThe Wang Family\n\nThe most important puppeteer-family in Hong Kong is the family Wang who have been puppeteers for at least three generations. At the end of the Imperial era the grandfather Wang Pao-yuan was active as a puppeteer and opera-actor, and his son who accompanied him became the famous Wang Chiao-tsou, also called Wang Chiao Y. The name Chiao-tsou meaning “itinerant teacher\" was given to him, because he was a well-known itinerant teacher and opera-actor and also a puppeteer. Weary of the Sino-Japanese war he took his family to Hong Kong in 1938, together with a trunk of puppets. He immediately started to teach Ch'aochow opera and founded the Hsin-shun-hsiang puppet-troupe (The title means 'to prosper anew in Hong Kong'). His own family being very large, it was easy for him to give puppet-performances. Having for long performed himself in the leading role of hua-tan (character of a high-class beauty) he was a major force in the upsurge of Ch'aochow opera in Hong Kong in the last thirty years.\n\nWhen Wang Chiao-tsou arrived here he found three established Ch'aochow puppet-groups. Hsin-t'ien-ts'ai gave up its puppets to become an opera troupe in 1962. Lao-yuan-cheng", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206811, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "82\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\ndissolved in 1964 when because of lack of business the old leader got so desperate that he threw his puppets literally into a rubbish-bin. The third group Tung-i still exists under the leadership of Wu Mu-sen and Ch'en Yung-ming. Their puppets are older and much larger than those of the Hsin-shun-hsiang troupe, and are very seldom used now.\n\nWhen Wang Chiao-tsou died his eldest son Hsi-ch'in continued the Hsin-shun-hsiang Troupe. He usually plays the Yeh-hu, for which he is very renowned, in the opera-orchestras. This is a two-stringed violin of which the sound box is made of a coconut shell. Five of the seven brothers and sisters Hsi-ch'in, Hsi-tang, Hsi-yü, Hsi-ch'ing and Hsi-hsien are all versatile musicians or singers, joining in the puppet or opera performances. There are also six artists of the older generation with 30-40 years' experience performing with them. They are Li Chen-chiang, Huang Shun-ch'i, Ma Chen-huan, Chang Chung-liang, Li Han-t'an and Chiu Hsüeh-ching.\n\nDuring a typhoon in 1960 Hsi-ch'in's squatter hut was flooded and most of his puppets were destroyed. He travelled to Ch'aochow to replace them, but he could not find any old ones. Fortunately, he found an old-puppet-maker who made a new set which he took to Hong Kong, and it is used now by his troupe and also by the Tung-i Troupe.\n\nToday, there are about sixty puppet-bodies and eighty puppet-heads, belonging to these two troupes, the Hsin-shun-hsiang and the Tung-i. They give no more than seven performances a year between them. They are still called by Ch'aochow associations to perform at the festival of the T'ien-kung Chi on the 5th day of the first month, the festival of Po-kung Fu-te Ta-yeh on the 29th day of the third month and to the ceremony of Hsieh-shen (thanking the gods) in the 12th month. Although the name of either of the groups invited to perform appears on top of the curtain, the puppets, puppeteers, musical instruments and musicians are mostly the same. The fee is handed to the leader of the troupe who, together with the leader of the orchestra, keeps a larger share. The rest is distributed equally among all the other performers, puppeteers and musicians.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206812, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\nCh'aochow Puppets in contemporary China and overseas\n\n83\n\nLiu Fu-kuang §✯ an educated person of about 40, who is the most outstanding Ch'aochow orchestra-leader here, is closely connected with the Hsin-shun-hsiang puppet-troupe. He came to Hong Kong in 1959. According to him, puppet-troupes completely disappeared in Ch'aochow after the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. This is probably because their performances were intimately connected with the festivals of the myriads of local deities, the worship of which was strongly discouraged by the Communists. In 1957, Liu Fu-kuang saw the last troupe, called Shant'ou Ying-hsi-t'uan 4⇓✯D (Shadow-play-troupe of Shant'ou) perform in Swatow. He believes that not even one troupe is now left in Ch'aochow, after a history of about one thousand years and a hundred active troupes fifty years ago.\n\nPeople from Ch'aochow make up a large percentage of the Overseas Chinese population of South East Asia and Ch'aochow opera flourishes there; but there is said not to be one single \"paper-shadow-play\" troupe overseas. This shows that from the great tradition of puppet-theatre, only the two troupes in Hong Kong are left. It is therefore the last chance to savour and study this tradition before its extinction which, at least at the moment, appears to be inevitable.\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nBatchelder, Marjorie H.: Rod-puppets and the Human Theatre, Columbus, The Ohio State University Press, 1947.\n\nHuang Chun-ming: The Forbidden Puppets' in Echo of Things Chinese, Taiwan, October 1972, pp. 24-34.\n\nJacob & Jensen: Das Chinesische Schattentheater, Stuttgart, 1933.\n\nMargareta Niculescu: The Puppet Theatre in the Modern World compiled by Union Internationale des Marionettes under Margareta Niculescu, George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., London, Toronto, Wellington, Sidney, 1967.\n\nTsim Tak-lung (compiler): Puppet-demonstration on pages 45-47 of ‘Chinese Theatre in Hong Kong', Proceedings of a Symposium, Nov. 22-23, 1968, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1968.\n\nBurger, Helga: 'The Cantonese Stick-puppets', in Kaleidoscope, Hong Kong, March/April 1973.\n\n\"The Far Eastern Puppet Theatre' in Souvenir Book of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, 1974.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206915, "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "劇潮藝東\n\nPlate I. Puppet-opera stage of the Ch'aochow horizontal stick-puppets.\n\n(Plates I-VII by courtesy of Helya Werle)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206918, "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": 195, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "Plate IV. Puppet stage; note the orchestra in the background.\n\nPage 195\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206920, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "Plate VI. Techniques of manipulating a puppet crowd.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206939, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "4\n\nTerritories\", talked to us in December on Chinese ancestor worship, particularly at the clan or lineage level. Dr. Baker, who is a lecturer at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, carried out his first field work in Hong Kong, in Sheung Shui in the New Territories, and later published a book about the social organization of the area.\n\nMr. Ian Diamond, formerly of Fiji, and Hong Kong's first Government Archivist heading the new Public Records Office, talked in January about Hong Kong's records and the organization and purpose of such an institution. His talk will be published in our Journal, as will also that of Mr. Lethbridge.\n\nMr. Diamond's talk was preceded by an Extraordinary Meeting of the Society to consider amendments to numbers 10 and 11 of our rules. A reprint of the rules is necessary and this provided us with an opportunity to bring them up to date. Formerly Council members had been eligible for election for two years (although in practice we have held annual elections), and no arrangements had existed for enabling the Society to continue using the services of past Presidents. The new rules provide for a one-year period of office for members of Council, including office-bearers, and for past Presidents to stay on the Council as ex officio members. Voting was nineteen in favour, none against, and one abstention, and the new rules were therefore passed.\n\nThree additional talks have also taken place within this new year. One was given by Mrs. Helga Berger (Ms Helga Werle) of the Hong Kong Arts Centre, an enthusiastic member of our Society and an expert on Chinese folk arts. She talked on the subject of Chinese puppets: their history, religious functions, uses for entertainment, and how they are made. She brought along specimens of glove and stick puppets as used in Kwangtung and Fukien, and additionally some puppeteers who demonstrated their methods of manipulation. This talk preceded the Hong Kong Arts Festival at which puppet performances were held, and greatly added to our appreciation of these performances. Dr. Michael Colbourne, Reader in Tropical Hygiene and seconded from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene to the University of Hong Kong, also talked to the Society. His topic was a research project for the study of health of squatters settled in high-rise flats in Singapore, with which he was connected. He also looked generally at problems", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "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", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207322, "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": 90, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "82\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\ning without giving any thought to it, and above all without hearing the opinion of their daughter about it. But the father repudiates these comments, saying that it is the duty of parents to choose a husband for their daughter and the duty of the daughter to obey.\n\nAct IV\n\nAs soon as the daughter has returned from cousin Kuo's home, the parents inform her about the arranged marriage. Completely shocked she says that this is out of the question, and that they should ask T'ao-hua for the reason. Then she bursts into tears and runs out. T'ao-hua is terribly frightened and follows her, but is summoned back by Mr. Su.\n\nNow the questioning begins. A girl servant fetches \"the law of the house\" [two approx. 60 cm long bamboo-halves fastened together on one side as a handle*]. It comes out that as the daughter spent so many happy years playing and studying with her cousin, the children's fondness for each other has grown into love. They have already openly declared their love and vowed to marry.\n\nT'ao-hua is scolded and accused of letting all this happen, and is asked why did she not inform the parents. Mr. Su beats her. The movements of this scene are beautifully mimed and choreographed into dance, as T'ao-hua kneels and whimpers cries for mercy. Mr. Su holds her left hand and mimes to beat her back. She walks in a circle around him using the ai-tze-pu (dwarf-step) very characteristic of Chiuchow opera. It has been suggested that this imitates the shadow-puppet's way of hurried walk. The knees are bent because the puppet has a joint there, but this joint is not controlled. [In this dwarf-step one foot is put on the ground, then that knee is put on the ground, then the other foot, and then the other knee, etc.].\n\nBut then the mother scolds the father for bringing their only daughter into such a calamity. They now both listen to T'ao-hua's clever arguments and sympathise with their daughter and her maid. They decide to put off the intended marriage with the Yang family until they find a way out of this contract.\n\nAct V\n\nMr. Yang travels with his wet-nurse to Chiuchow to visit the Su family personally. Being betrothed to Su Liu-niang he wants\n\n, used for punishment.\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207548, "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": 316, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "308\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nfind that for a joke, which he would be unable to explain to his friends, she had painted a crab in indelible ink around his mouth. The prince got away with it the first time by telling his friends that he had painted it himself for amateur theatricals. However, when next she painted one on his forehead, he was at a loss as to how to explain it away and never again demanded the company of the businessman's wife.\n\nHaving examined Chief Marshal T'ien in some detail, let us move on to a Swatow articulated figure with which it is closely connected. At the back of a bamboo temporary stage of a travelling Ch'aochow opera company in Singapore there was a small shrine (Plate 23) on one of the crates used for transporting the actor's robes. This shrine contained Marshal Tien seated well back, under a plaque bearing the title Han Lin Yuan (✯✯E) (The Han Lin Academy*). Before it, between a doll's size wicker chair and a bamboo pot of incense sticks, was a seated articulated puppet (Plate 24) dressed in a short-sleeved jacket and knee-length trousers. He was known as Chi Hsiang Ko (**) (Lucky Brother) and, as one of the actors explained, he is a three-year-old child, another form of Marshal T'ien, who when seen outside the bounds of the theatre is an extremely potent fertility deity and who, when on a permanent altar in a temple, is also prayed to for luck. This articulated image of a child deity can be seen in several temples, (one especially attractive one—rather surprisingly nude—being in a cave temple near Tanjong Rambutan in Perak), all worshipped by the childless of the Ch'aochow communities for sons and daughters. One temple keeper, possibly with tongue in cheek, said that Chi Hsiang is the brother of Kuan Yin, who in one of her forms is the 'Giver of Sons'***.\n\nThe Three Jesters\n\nIn his articles on three prominent puppets Schipper explains that the 'Jesters' who stand out amongst the total of 72 puppet heads and 36 bodies of the Fukienese puppet theatres, are the three gods of marionettes. He continued that puppet plays are connected\n\n* The Chinese nation's highest academic institution during Imperial times.\n\nSK. M. Schipper: 'The Divine Jester', Academica Sinica 21:1961, pp. 81-94.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207549, "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": 317, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n309 \n\nwith Taoist exorcisms and are performed at wedding ceremonies to obtain from Heaven the happy union, using the ritual of a local Taoist folk religion heterodox cult of the Three Ladies' (三娘). The 'Three Jesters' are called by the puppeteers the \"Three Brothers' (三兄弟) or, individually, the Great, Second and Third Wang Yeh.* \n\nSchipper then explained that he and his informants had made many conjectures in order to identify the Three Jesters. He believed tradition links the Three Brothers (Three Jesters) with the Three Tien Brothers and thus with Tien To Yuan Shuai, and this seemed to him to be better founded than other conjectures. He continued that the identity of T'ien is extremely confused, and claimed that T'ien is reputed to be the master of T'ang Emperor Ming Huang (唐明皇) and to have taught the actresses of the Peach Garden (梨园), popularly believed to be the first academy of the theatre. Iconography, he said, represents T'ien the puppet as the 'laughing lad', similar to T’ien To Yuan Shuai. \n\nSchipper observed that when the plays are of the northern Fukienese type, the Three Jesters are identified with T'ang Ming Huang, the patron of the theatre of North China. When the play is Southern Fukienese or Ch'aochow, T'ien To Yuan Shuai (Chief Marshal T'ien) is the patron, and the Three Jesters are identified with him. The T'ang Emperor is also often referred to in Taiwan and South East Asia, where he is also accepted as the God of Actors bearing the title of the Imperial Prince or King of the Western Ch'in (Hsi Ch'in Wang Yeh, 西秦王爷) or Hsi Ch'in Lao Wang Yeh (西秦老王爷), or, on Taipei and Keelung altars just as Hsi Ch'in Wang (西秦王). (He is called the King of the Western Ch'in because of his exile in Szechuan, in Western China). His image is more colloquially referred to as The Young Gentleman (小哥) and less respectfully as The Old Boy (老郎). Schipper agreed all this might seem highly incongruous, but, he continued, the tradition which links the 'Three Brothers' (The Jesters) with Tien To Yuan Shuai (Chief Marshal T'ien) seems, as we said earlier, better founded than others. \n\nWang Yeh \n\nSchipper has linked the Three Jesters with the Fukienese epidemic gods by the title of Wang Yeh. He also noted the legend \n\n* More often than not Wang Yeh (Imperial Princes) in Fukienese communities are epidemic deities.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207816, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "The Ancient Mon-Pagan, Peru & Nakorn Pathom 189\n\n(Rama VI) complete with Shakespearian house and a statue to his dog whom he suspected had been poisoned by jealous courtiers.\n\nThe Pagan theme of temple paintings, though of a different period, may also be taken up again in Dhonburi, across the river from Bangkok. Dhonburi was the capital between the fall of Ayuthaya in 1757 and the establishment of Bangkok in 1782 and boasts a number of old temples, many still having their original mural paintings. The little visited Wat Wai Thepnimit is lost amid sluggish canals and has paintings in good condition dating from the late 18th century. Like many of such temples, the scene above the main door inside represents the victory of the Buddha over the temptations of Mara; the scene behind the altar shows the division of the world into paradise, earth, and hell; and at the lower levels on the sides, between the windows, are the stories from the last ten Jataka tales, while above are serried rows of alternating orahan, or devotees, and yaksa or giants. In better condition, though in not so charmingly dilapidated a building, is the temple of Wat Chaiyathit, which can only be reached by a walk by narrow canals and a railway track. The well-known paintings at the fine Wat Suwannaram on Klong Bangkok Noi need little introduction. The small dual buildings of Wat Rumarin Ratchapaksi near Wat Dusit, bombed by accident in the last war, are now at last being repaired, though not before the weather has caused considerable damage to the quality of the paintings. One of the most impressive buildings to survive the passage of time and weather is the old library at Wat Rakhang, the Ho Trai. This has three rooms and was formerly part of a dwelling of General Chakri, the founder of the present dynasty, in the 18th century. He had it converted into a library for the temple after he became king. The carved entrance doors are magnificent, and the Ayuthia period lacquered library cupboards are in very good condition. The paintings, which had been much damaged by time and smoke from a fire at the temple, are now being restored. The scenes depict barely recognisable episodes from the Thai version of the Ramayana.\n\nBangkok does not lack evening entertainment, but there is not much that can rival the setting of Krisnavara House, with its collection of antiques beside the Chao Praya River, for a performance of the now rarely presented hoon krabawk, or stick puppet theatre. The figures are clothed in 19th-century court dresses and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207965, "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-1977", "page_number": 4, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "173\n\nthe kaifong, which was fixed by auction, the keeper of the scale could keep the charges paid for the use of the scale by merchants. The fee was used for the management of the temple and the annual celebration of the birthday of T'in Hau, usually held towards the middle of the Fourth Lunar Month. To prepare for this festival, the committee had to arrange for donations from Sai Kung residents to make the necessary purchases and to contract with a troupe for the opera. Besides the birthday of T'in Hau, the kaifong also had to arrange for a puppet show at the Great King Earthgod's shrine, and the offering of a pig at the temple at the beginning of the year, on the day of the T'in Hau Festival, at the Kwan Tai Festival, and at the end of the year.35\n\nThe activities of the kaifong committee became routine. Some time in the 1930's, a younger generation of merchants in Sai Kung formed themselves into the Chamber of Commerce. The leader of this new body was Lei Shiu Yam, of Lan Nei Wan. When World War II broke out, it was this group that was the more active in Sai Kung Market.\n\nDAILY LIFE C. 1920\n\nPopulation\n\nThe census of 1911 counted 9,243 people in Sai Kung District, which at the time also included Shap Sz Heung and villages near Sham Chung and Pak Sha O. The same census reported that there were 2,633 Punti-speaking, 6,599 Hakka-speaking, and 11 Hoklo-speaking villagers in the district. It probably neglected the boat population, the size of which must now remain unknown. As recorded, the Sai Kung population amounted to 13.4 percent of the total population of the New Territories.\n\nVillage, lineage, and voluntary association\n\nThe reported population was distributed through 126 villages. The great majority of these had a smaller population than 100, and many could not have been more than isolated houses. By no means the smallest, Tin Ha Wan had 37 people, Mok Tse Che 51, Tai Nam Wu 33, Ma Lam Wat 43, and Tso Wo Hang 24. Only 21 villages in what is recognized now as Sai Kung", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208081, "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-1977", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "104 \n\nYUEN-FONG WOON \n\nHeaven image and place it in their own tang-liu. Whoever had a son born that year would buy a lamp and hang it there. The number of lamps thus meant the number of additions to the lineage. If one's lamp had not been lit at the tang-liu during the year of his birth, he would not have the right to receive the ritual meat at his ancestral hall, \n\nThe lantern remained lit until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. On that day, each lineage lighted a whole chain of beautifully decorated firecrackers and then sent the hang-tseung (be it Kwaan-kung or the Goddess of Heaven) back to its own heung temple where it would remain until the following New Year. Whoever caught the first firecracker falling down would have all the luck for the year. So everyone struggled to catch it. Fights often occurred in the attempt. This was known as the fa-paau event (打炮). \n\nAnother event connected with the New Year Festival was the village opera. Sometimes professionals were invited to perform puppet shows; sometimes a Cantonese Opera troupe was invited and sometimes the villagers themselves performed. In all these cases, the Kwaan and the Oo organized their own performances. \n\nThe worship of the Earth God happened on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh lunar month. The Kwaan and the Oo worshipped their own Earth Gods in their own ancestral hall. \n\nIn contrast to Na-loh, Lung-tsai She was a picture of integration in its ceremonial life. There were no ancestral halls in the village for the Kwaan, the Wong or the Tang, only a community temple. Nonetheless, my informants called it their \"village ancestral hall”. This was probably because it had a lay-out similar to an ancestral hall. Like the latter, there was a huge wooden board inside the temple with the name Lung-tsai Hall (龍仔堂) written on it. Below this was an altar for putting all the sacrificial meat. Underneath was an Earth God shrine. But unlike an ancestral hall, there were no tablets at all in the temple. \n\nThe village also owned a hang-tseung of the Goddess of Heaven which was placed in a multi-surname heung temple on the outskirts of Ts'ung-long Heung. The hoi-tang ceremony was performed in the Lung-tsai Hall instead of a tang-liu. On New Year's day, the Wong, the Kwaan and the Tang each sent representatives to form a joint procession to take the Goddess back to the hall. When the \n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208277, "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-1978", "page_number": 1, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "180\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nearthgods, and the decennial ta-tsius (festivals to thank the gods and feed the ghosts). Besides these festivals, births, weddings, and deaths, also called for celebration.47\n\nMany of these festivals are still celebrated, but some of the rituals which used to mark them are no longer practised. In the Mid-Autumn Festival, for instance, it used to be common practice for women and young people to sit outside their houses at night and repeat certain lines until one of them went into a trance.48 After mid-night, on the Tsat Tse Festival, villagers gathered water, which could be preserved in a jar and used as medicine throughout the year.49 Temple celebrations were hardly as well endowed before World War II as they are today. In the place of the operas that are presented to the gods nowadays, there used to be puppet shows only except at Sai Kung Market, which alone could afford opera pre-war.50 Feasts were essential to all celebrations. At temple festivals, each worshipping group held its own feast; at grave worship ceremonies, lineage members ate together at the graves, and for all other festivals, each family celebrated on its own. Feasts at weddings and funerals were open to all villagers from all of the villages in the same neighbourhood alliance.51\n\nCelebrations were meant to be colourful. They fulfilled the need for entertainment in village life at a time when other forms of popular entertainment were unknown as well as expressing deeply ingrained religious beliefs.\n\nThe musical culture\n\nSinging was an important ingredient of village life. At weddings, brides sang for \"several days and nights\" to express their sorrow at having been \"forced\" into marriage. At funerals, women relatives keened to express their grief, and to recount their relationship with the deceased. \"Mountain songs\" were sung between young men and young women. In some villages, the singing of these \"mountain songs\" was institutionalized, so that it was understood that Sha Kok Mei, for instance, would sing \"against\" Pak Kong in an annual \"mountain song\" contest. Punti, Hakka, and the boat people, all had their own songs. In addition, there were professionals, who came into the villages to sing for money. Quite a few villagers still remember the little clappers these singers carried.52", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208694, "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-1979", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "124\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nall-pervading air of suspense, and while we were quite free and unmolested on our trips to the City, we felt the heavy atmosphere that seemed to envelope the city. The crowds as usual milled about in the downtown section, but there was not the gaiety of former times, nor the life in the people. The city was still suffering and so were its people—from oppression and from starvation. Strangely enough at Bethany we were not bothered by inquisitive visitors; only occasionally would a Japanese soldier wander through the House and stare at us, and once a Chinese \"puppet\" detective paid us a ceremonial visit and asked us when we were going to Kwong-chauwan.\n\nDuring this time, many of the Fathers took advantage of the occasion to consult dentists and oculists, and Dr. Chawn, our Maryknoll dentist, was splendid. Realizing our financial straits, he very magnanimously waived payment of our debts to him until after the war. Others of our professional friends were equally kind and sympathetic.\n\nOCTOBER\n\nOne of the things we prized most at Bethany was the luxury of a private room. Having been packed in small rooms with from four to seven others for almost eight months was not a little trying on tempers, and to be able to go to one's own private room was indeed a luxury. For quite some time we had no electric lights in our rooms, as in order to save expense all extra light circuits had been cut out, but we did not mind burning our candles and vigil lights until time to retire. Later on, however, we had lights re-installed in our rooms. We also could sit on our spacious verandahs and watch the glorious sunsets on the South China Sea.\n\nAs mentioned previously, immediately on our release from the Camp, we had made out applications for permission to leave the Colony and had submitted these in proper form to the Foreign Office, of which a Mr. Oda was the head. According to usual procedure in the case of third nationals desiring to leave the Colony, it took about two weeks for the governmental machinery to work, and so when this time had about elapsed, Father Toomey asked Mr. Oda about our permissions. The answer came back: \"Decidedly no!\" We were enemy, and not neutral or third nationals, and under no consideration could we leave the Colony!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208753, "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-1979", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "In cases of chain-misfortune, the family will consult a medium who evokes the spirits of their deceased ancestors until settlements of complaints result in a more peaceful existence.\n\nThe duty of filial piety and related family virtues are still strongly emphasized in education and traditionally derive from Confucianism. They have, however, become part and parcel of the Chinese tradition as a whole and of the family religion in particular. Although in Taiwan families tend to be more often than not nuclear, the duty of filial behaviour is taken seriously. Several temples have used modern techniques to instill and propagate traditional virtues by putting the 24 stories of heroic filial piety on animated puppet shows (e.g., Changhua, Hsinchu).\n\n(ii) The Community: for the majority of the rural population and to a large extent of the city dwellers, religious life centers around (home and) the community temples. Traditionally, each neighborhood, hamlet, or village has its own temple, and this temple is the focal point of the whole group, around which social life is organized. Although some details discussed here also apply to Buddhist and Taoist temples, the average community temple is quite distinct from both of them. Most community temples in Taiwan are neither Buddhist nor Taoist: the gods enshrined and worshipped are of popular creation or of popular choice; they are non-denominational and are community \"property\". Only in a few cases can it be said that the gods derive from one or the other of the voluntary religions: more often, the secondary gods are of Taoist or Buddhist origin. Examples are Kuan-yin: rarely a primary deity, and formed more often of secondary importance in Matsu temples. Ti-tsang-wang is another case. He is the Chinese adaptation of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha of Buddhism; although few temples enshrine him as their principal deity, he seems to be ubiquitous all over Taiwan as a deity on one of the main side-altars. On the Taoist side, Lü Tung-pin can be mentioned as a secondary deity, whereas Hsüan-t'ien Shang-ti is an example of a well-spread cult of a primary Taoist god. But in the majority of the cases, the most frequently worshipped deities are of purely popular origin: Matsu, Kuan Ti, the gods of pestilence, Pao-sheng Ta-ti, T'ai-tzu yüan-shuai, etc.15\n\nWhat determines the community and folk-religious character of these temples even more is their actual origin: these temples are\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208847, "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-1980", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "208\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nTseng Lan Shue an on lung ceremony every thirty. Sha Kok Mei also had a regular ta tsiu.\n\n* Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 31.7.81, Mr. Chau T'in Shang 9.7.81. The ceremony, taken more as a game of fun, was known as \"puk sha ngau tsai\".\n\n49 Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, Mr. Lei 9.7.81.\n\n60 Before the War, puppet shows were performed at the earthgods' festivals at Sai Kung Market and Pak Tam Chung, and the ta tsiu at Pak Kong and Pak Sha Wan. With the exception of Pak Kong's ta tsiu, which was held once every ten years, these were annual celebrations. See ints. Mr. Kong Hei 21.6.81, Mr. Chau T'in Shang 7.5.81, 9.7.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81, Mr. Lok Tsau On 21.6.81.\n\n\"1 See, for instance, descriptions of the feasts in int. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, feast at grave worship in int. Mr. Cheung T'o 15.6.81, at wedding ceremony in int. Mr. Tsang 25.6.81.\n\n52 For general comments see Mr. Tse Wing 9.6.81, Mrs. Lau 21.6.81, Mrs. Tse 21.6.81, Mrs. Cheung née Wan 26.6.81, and for samples of these songs, Mr. Lok Kau Kei 26.6.81, Mr. Ip Wan 2.7.81.\n\n53 C. Fred Blake, \"Death and abuse in marriage laments: the curse of Chinese brides\", Studies in Asian Folklore 37, pp. 13-33 quotes extensively from a text of Hakka songs found in Sai Kung. The Oral History Project has found records of these songs in other villages, but not in Sai Kung itself.\n\n5 Hong Kong Government Administrative Report 1913, p. N 16.\n\n56 From the Hong Kong Government Administrative Report 1922, the Hong Kong Government Administrative Report 1923, and interview reports, schools were found in Sai Kung Market (Sung Chen and two others) and the following villages (names of schools in brackets): Mang Kung Uk (Ts'ung Kong), Pak Tam Chung, Wo Mei, Ho Chung (Tsik Shin), Tseung Kwan O (Lap Tak), Yim Tin Tsai, Tai Po Tsai, Sha Kok Mei (Yuk Yin), Tai Wan (Sui Ying), Tai No, Nam Wai, Pak Kong (Man Shang), Tai Long, Wong Chuk Yeung, Pan Long Wan, Sheung Yeung (Ling Wan), Ta Ho Tun, Pak Ngah, Kau Lau Wan, Kau Sai, Seung Sz Wan (Wai San), Hang Hau (Man Uen), Tseng Lan Shue (Lung T'ang), Tan Ka Wan (Shung Ming), Yung Shu O, Ko Tong, Tai Wan Tau, Wong Mo Ying, Ma Yau Tong, Man Yee Wan, Nam Shan, Che Keng Tuk, Pak Kong Au, Ma Nam Wat, Siu Hang Hau.\n\n56\n\nInts. Mr. Lok Shang 21.5.81, Mr. Chan Kei Shang 28.5.81, Mr. Cheung To 29.5.81, Mr. Chan Shau 19.6.81, Mr. Uen Chan Wan 22.6.81, Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 20.5.81, Mr. Lam Kaap Shau 8.6.81, Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81.\n\n57 Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81, Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 20.5.81, Mr. Kong Hei 21.6.81 went to Sung Chen. Mr. Wong went from Sung Chen to the Roman Catholic School in Wai Chau and then Canton. Mr. Cheng Chung T'ing 21.5.81 went to the Yau Ma Tei Government School, Mr. Uen Chiu Ming 13.2.81 went to the Tai Po Teachers Training School, but did not graduate. The Chans of Ho Chung sent their sons to Nam Tau or Canton; see Mr. Chan P'aang Hing 29.5.81. Mr. Chau T'in Shang's elder brother was educated in Canton, see int. 3.6.81. See also int. Father George Carusso 20.5.81.\n\n58 Mr. Wong Ts'ing 23.6.81, Mr. Tsang Yau 23.6.81, Mrs. Tse née Lau 24.6.81, Mr. Lau Wan Hei 25.6.81, Mrs. Yung née Wan 2.7.81, Madam Chiu I Mooi 18.7.81, Mrs. Yau née Tse 22.7.81, Mr. Chan T'aai", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209661, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 318, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "296\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nNga Tsin Wai until he retired over ten years later. Work usually started at the second watch and continued until dawn. There was usually one man in his time, with help if things weren't so quiet. At Tai Wai, in Shatin, the village youths would act, for instance, as watchmen during the decennial Ta Tsiu1 festival, since it could be assumed that not only would most houses then be deserted, with their residents out watching the puppet show, but also that there would be large numbers of outsiders in the area as well. Neighbouring villages would often cause trouble during the Ta Tsiu because of the Fung Shui influence of the Ta Tsiu on them. The youths would work in shifts. This was also the case during the Ta Tsiu at Shek Pik on Lantau Island, though here these protective rituals were performed every three years instead of every ten. In normal times at Nga Tsin Wai, the watchman patrolled all six lanes inside the village, and also the area round about the outside of the village. He also sat occasionally in the entrance gateway of the village during the night.\n\nThe watchmen's night began at 6 p.m. The first watch (tau kaang) was from then until 9. The second (yi kaang) was from 9 to midnight. The third, fourth, and if necessary a fifth, were from 12 to 3, 3 to 6 and 6 to 8 or 9. The drum was beaten at half-hourly intervals, and it was usual to beat the number of each kaang: three during the third kaang and so on. But at dawn it was usual to beat the drum many times, indicating the finishing or 'breaking up' of the kaangs.\n\nTo ta kaang (T), the watchmen used a drum made of cow hide (ngau pei koo) beaten with a wooden stick, stated to be not of bamboo. He thought that all the Kowloon old villages beat a drum, and was certain that Sha Po, a sister village, used a drum like Nga Tsin Wai. However, he added that in many other places the watch used a gong (loh) instead.5\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Hong Kong Government Gazette, 8th April 1899, p. 546.\n\n* CSO 1903 Ext/3690, minute of 7th May 1903, in Public Records Office, Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209885, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 144, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "122\n\noutbreak of bubonic plague in 1894.22 The reason given by old members for establishing a Fuk Tak Kung(4) is that in his lifetime the god was a noted Chinese medical practitioner, and therefore well suited to become the guardian god of a crowded city district. The shrine may, however, be even older than this. The district was already well established by the 1850s,28 and probably had guardian shrines from the outset.\n\nThe god looked after a specific area of the city. The old 'chops' and wood-block charms that survive from pre-war days carry the name Sai Ying Pun in the title. The boundaries, as given by the leaders active in the mid 1960s, some of whom had been associated with the committee from their earliest years through their fathers and grandfathers' service as managers, centred on the shrine's location at Sheung Fung Lane. However, it is said that, in pre-war years, among the many persons who came regularly to worship at the shrine on the god's birthday on the 18th day of the first lunar month, were people from outside the boundaries and even from Kowloon, so great was the reputation of the shrine. Many of the outside worshippers came in groups known as pao wui.(4)25 It was stressed, too, that this shrine had no connection with the Tai Ping Shan Fuk Tak Kung described below, for that earth god shrine lay in, and the god looked after, a completely separate locality.\n\nThe shrine was tended by a keeper appointed by the managers. When my informants were young, the keeper was an old woman who lived on the premises and died there about 1930, aged over 80. There is a splendid photograph of her still kept in the shrine.\n\nThe body of managers comprises a minimum of 34 persons each year, but has often been around the 40-50 mark. Its duties are solely to do with arranging for chanting by nam mo lo(1) (Taoist priests) at the god's birthday in the first moon and at the Yue Lan or Hungry Ghosts festival in the seventh moon. At the god's birthday, but not at Yue Lan, the religious rituals have always been accompanied by a puppet show (never opera) for the traditional three days and four nights.20 The managers also have the responsibility of arranging for the procession of the god through the district under his protection", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209888, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "125\n\nThe population of the district was already large by an early date. The census for 1858 lists 7,261 males and 4,338 females; of whom were presumably children. By 1891 the population had risen to 31,302 persons. It was a mixed group, as in the Ap Lei Chau case, but very much larger.\n\nsome\n\n29\n\n29\n\nThe persons providing the information that follows had lived in the area for 33 and 41 years respectively when I discussed the shrine with them in 1966. The first, a woman, was the chairman of the 1960 committee. The second, a man, had attended to the shrine since 1954 and had been secretary to the committee since then.\n\nAs at Sheung Fung Lane, puppet shows were given each year in the first moon in the pre-war period and after; but since 1954 they had been replaced in Tai Ping Shan with performances of Cantonese songs (...). Again, as with the other shrine, it has long been the custom for pau wui (...) from in and outside the Tai Ping Shan district to worship there on the god's birthday. In 1961 there were nine of these wui in attendance, consisting of groups from associations of vegetable hawkers, fruit hawkers, fish dealers and hawkers, florists, construction workers, catering workers, carpenters, traders, and even workers from a funeral parlour. Many of these groups were regular annual visitors.\n\nThe committee comprised about thirty local residents. Each contributed an agreed amount sufficient to cover the cost of the worshipping and puppet or singing performances; no subscriptions were solicited from local people or from the worshippers, though it seems to have been customary for the pau wui to make contributions.\n\nThe selection of managers seems to have been conducted along the same lines as at Sheung Fung Lane. Lots were drawn before the image of the god to determine the managers. On another occasion, those selected drew papers among which three were marked for the senior management positions. The rest were marked tai kat, as at Sheung Fung Lane. The two-stage election was probably held here pre-war also.20\n\nAs with the body that looked after the shrine at Sheung Fung Lane, the Tai Ping Shan committee was concerned with religious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209890, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "127\n\nthe 18th to 20th days of the 1st moon, the birthday of the earth god. To celebrate the occasion, a Committee of twelve members was formed. One of these was the Chairman (Chung Li), one the Vice-chairman (Hip Li) and the rest were ordinary Committee members (Chik Li). All the Committee members were chosen from among those interested in taking up the post by casting divining blocks before the gods on the altar, as at Ap Lei Chau; thus, as we have seen, in a different way from the nearer Sheung Fung and Tai Ping Shan shrines. The Committee was also responsible for subsidizing the function in case there was a deficit.\n\nThe annual celebrations took place, not at the shrine, but in Hau Wo Street, a few hundred yards away. A temporary metal structure of about 12' X 8' was erected for the purpose of staging a puppet show. Sacrifice was offered and joss papers and candles were burnt. To conclude the ceremony, there was a distribution of gifts, mainly rice and other foodstuffs, to the poor of the district.\n\nAccording to Mr. Chow, local residents were generally very interested in this event. They believed that by celebrating the festival they would be more fortunate and prosperous throughout the whole year.\"4\n\nThe Earth God Shrines at Nam On Fong and Sai Wan Ho, Shau Kei Wan\n\nI turn now to other shrines of this kind at Shau Kei Wan, in the eastern part of Hong Kong Island. Shau Kei Wan has a good harbour and was a fishing port and boat people's anchorage long before 1841. Its land population was given as 1,200 persons in the first Hong Kong census of May 1841. By 1860 it was listed as having 2,561 land dwellers and 4,338 boat people. In the mid 1860s it was said to have had 307 houses and shops, and 603 boats. In the 1871 census it had 2,360 land inhabitants. At the 1911 census the land population had risen to 11,727 and the number of persons on boats was given as 6,440.5\n\nThese figures include not only the town section of Shau Kei Wan, long known as Tung Tai Kai (東大街) or Great East Street, but a number of villages, and stone quarries with their attached", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209892, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "129\n\nBefore its first removal to permit further development of the area, the shrine is said to have been very popular with local villagers, shopkeepers and quarrymen. The whole village of Tsin Shui Ma Tau, to which my informants belonged, went down to the shrine on the god's birthday, and the customary dinner was held in the open near the pier. After its removal to another site, it was less popular with local people who apparently did not like the new location. This site was cleared in its turn in the mid 1960s, and the incense burner and other property were moved for safe-keeping to one of the Shau Kei Wan temples. Eventually, the committee gathered funds for a proper temple and for the first time in its history the god was housed in a permanent building and not, as previously, in the open or in a wooden hut. A brief account with excellent photographs appeared in The Star newspaper for 27 January, 1970.*\n\nIn the post-war period this shrine has been linked with the Nam On Fong Yue Lan (M) Festival Committee but before the war, and up to the time of its first removal, there was no such Yue Lan committee. Moreover, the annual celebration was not, as now, held during the Yue Lan festival in the 7th lunar month but took place on the earth god's birthday on the 2nd day of the 2nd month. The religious service was, at that date, always accompanied by a puppet show. The arrangements were in the hands of a group of village elders, later joined by local shopkeepers as the population grew. The local people visited it on the first and fifteenth days of each month, and offered a pig's head on the birth of a son and a chicken on the birth of a daughter. The change in the date of the main celebration came after the war, and the reason for it is said to have been the large number of deaths in the district during the Japanese Occupation, and the advisability of worshipping the unquiet spirits of the deceased lest they harm the living.\n\nIn the pre-war period the managers of this shrine, styled chik lei, came together through a combination of mutual acquaintance, accepted reliability, ability, willingness to donate a minimum level of funds towards the expenses of the festival costs,\n\n* These photographs are reproduced at plates 6-8.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209895, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "132\n\nnames for temple business, many chik lei of this shrine (as in all the other cases detailed above) preferred to use their shop name. In such cases it was left to the owner of the shop to decide whether he, his wife, or an employee should attend any meetings and dinners held in connection with the selection of the principal leaders, or the arrangements for the celebrations and the squaring of accounts.\n\nThe leaders were chosen a year in advance, so that they had plenty of time to make the necessary arrangements. After settling the accounts, and posting them on the festival ground for all to see, the Chung Lei for that year would give a dinner party to consult the body of managers as to who would serve as Chung Lei for the following year. By that time the interested parties would have assessed their degree of interest and their financial position, and would be ready to name a sum. A decision would then be taken.\n\nNot all the funds required to hire the nam mo to and the puppet troupe, and to erect the matshed stage, were provided by the principal and assistant Chung Lei, although it was expected that they would make good any unexpected deficiency. Parties of managers, in threes and fours, wearing large straw hats bearing prominent characters with the name of the committee, would canvass local residents. In return they would receive slips to paste or put up in their premises. One manager collected the money, another recorded the sums in a book and one gave the traditional form of receipt. Proceeding together in groups besides showing solidarity and evincing the genuineness of the proceedings was also a way of deterring frauds.\n\nTaken from a number of different locations on Hong Kong Island, established early in its urban and suburban history, the accounts given above all serve to indicate the decentralized nature of their shrines and temples. Their importance for these local communities is underlined by the fact that they were provided by local initiative and managed by committees of local residents who organized and managed festival celebrations and protective rites on their behalf. These accounts also show the different ways in which the committees were renewed from year to year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209977, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 236, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "214\n\nand general merchant, who came to Hong Kong with his brothers when young. As the eldest, he controlled the family finances and the distribution of work. The second brother went on to Australia, and then returned to Hong Kong. The third brother was a small ship-builder, running his own sampan construction business near the old Kowloon City pier. The fourth brother was a policeman. The eldest Chan's son, my informant, succeeded him as manager of the temple on his death in 1925.\n\nDuring these years the temple's following had been steadily growing. It is reported that in the younger Chan's time, and before, over twenty villages of central and east Kowloon2 took a regular part in the religious celebrations conducted at the two temples. This represents a striking difference from the days, a century before, when the Goddess of Mercy shrine and temple were the private concerns of the small and unimportant Chu family of Tai Hom,\n\n3\n\nThis statement of interest is substantiated by the practices described to me by elders of villages in the area. Two managers, styled chik li (1) were provided by each village. Each year, some weeks before the main Kwun Yam festival, the chief manager called them together for a discussion as to whether the usual arrangements would be made. These consisted of chantings by nam mo lo (), the staging of the customary puppet shows for the four days and five nights usual in this region, and a dinner held in front of the temple the day after the festival. Upon agreement to proceed as usual, each village was allocated one or more subscription books, and the chik li or their helpers collected funds from those among their fellow villagers who wished to take part in the dinner and the general celebrations.\n\nThe chik li were not elected by the villagers: they seldom if ever were in the villages of this region. They came from among that body of working elders who managed the affairs of each village. They were either the elders themselves, or persons deputed by them. The Chairman of the body of chik li was selected through a procedure basically the same as that described for other temples and shrines in the Hong Kong region. All the village chik li gathered at the temple at a fixed day and hour. The divining blocks were cast an agreed number of times and the\n\n3", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209978, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 237, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "215\n\nperson with the highest number of positive responses would become the principal for that year's functions and observances.\n\nAs permanent manager, responsible for the land, structure and property of the temple, Mr. Chan was in a separate category, and his duties were not subject to the throws of the blocks. He kept his position through his continued interest and activity, and his status as a prosperous man who devoted his time and money to temple business.\n\nThe temple was crowded at festival time, but not at other times. All sources of information agree that about thirty tables, seating around 250 persons, were regularly put out each year in the 1930s for the yearly feast in front of the temple, and large crowds flocked there to worship and to attend the puppet shows given at this time and, it was said, much earlier. The villagers often came in the large groups organised for worshipping purposes and known locally as pao wui (✨). An old lady from Po Kong village recalls going there regularly with such a group shortly after her marriage into Po Kong about 1900. In her youth it was mostly men who went to worship from her village. Her father-in-law often went to the temple for thanksgiving (he died in 1914, aged 66), and there were usually at that date twenty to thirty people in the visiting party from that village, very few of them women. Roast pork was divided among the members of the pao wui after the worshipping.\n\nThe temple owed its popularity to the supposed efficacy of the goddess. The old lady mentioned above stressed that the Kwun Yam image there was very kind-hearted, and hence greatly revered locally. The village people attached great importance to the personal connection between their families and the goddess: and, as she put it, ‘many girls of my day became her god-daughters, and my brother-in-law had become her god-son'. In case of sickness or perplexity, the villagers would have resort to the goddess. From what I have heard from old persons in the other villages of the adjoining area, this was the prevailing sentiment in pre-war days, and accounts for the general popularity enjoyed by the temple. The fung shui of the temple was also held to be good, providing additional assurance to worshippers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209992, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 251, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "229\n\np. 60. Day, Peasant Cults, pp. 107-108.\n\np. 60. Burgess, J. S., The Guilds of Peking, New York, 1928, p. 179.\n\np. 69. A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, Hong Kong, 1960, p. 138.\n\np. 69, Maugham, W. Somerset, On a Chinese Screen, London, 1922, p. 138.\n\np. 70. Broomhall, Marshall (ed.), Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, with a Record of the Perils and Sufferings of Some Who Escaped, London, 1901, p. 8.\n\np. 74. Burkhardt, V. R., Chinese Creeds and Customs, Hong Kong, 1953-58, Vol I, p. 106.\n\np. 81. Ball, Things, p. 75.\n\np. 86. Ibid. p. 668.\n\np. 90. Williams, S. Wells, Middle Kingdom, Vol I, p. 340.\n\np. 92. Ibid.\n\np. 93. Doré, Researches, Vol V, p. 533.\n\np. 94. Ibid, p. 535.\n\np. 97. Ball, Things, pp. 499-500.\n\np. 101. Barnett, K. M. A., The Peoples of the New Territories' in Braga, J. M. (ed.) The Hong Kong Business Symposium, Hong Kong, 1957, p. 265.\n\np. 102. Hashimoto, Mantaro J., The Hakka Dialect, London, 1973, pp. 1-2, p. 109. Obraztsov, Sergei, (translated by MacDermott, J. T.) The Chinese Puppet Theatre, London, 1961, pp. 27-28,\n\np. 110. Dolby, William, 'The Origins of Chinese Puppetry'. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978. Vol XLI. Part 1, pp. 109-110.\n\np. 112. Spencer, Cornelia, Made in China: the Story of China's Expression, London, 1947, p. 122.\n\np. 114. Burkhardt, Creeds and Customs, Vol I, p. 13.\n\np. 114. Clemens, John, Discovering Macau: a Visitor's Guide, Hong Kong, 1972, p. 121.\n\np. 114. Werner, Dictionary, p. 503.\n\np. 117. Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842: the History of Hong Kong Prior to British Arrival, Hong Kong, 1963, p. 83.\n\np. 118. Peplow and Barker, Around and About, pp. 4-5.\n\np. 122. Ride, Lindsay, \"The Old Protestant Cemetery in Macao', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong, Vol III, 1963, p. 14.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210079, "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-1984", "page_number": 50, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "29\n\n2. Historical precedents: many of the sets of temple oracles, and certainly the major ones (B-1, B-2), contain somewhere near the edge of the printed slips short sentences which are rather titles than complete sentences. W. Eberhard has done a preliminary examination of these and states that they refer to historical or legendary events from China's past often known to the general public through popular dramas. Although traditionally the majority of the rural people in China were illiterate, they would naturally know the stories referred to in the oracle slips from their own experience of stage performances in the village. Drama, and in modern times puppet theatre, have been effective ways to educate the people in the countryside, especially since these stories usually contain a moral lesson, and extol such national virtues as filial piety, righteousness, integrity, loyalty, patriotism, etc. By attaching a reference to a famous event of the past to the oracle, the ordinary uneducated worshipper would understand the basic meaning of the oracle: what happened long ago to hero so-and-so, also applies today to the problem at hand. Eberhard quotes eleven examples from set B-2 (the Kuan Ti oracles), from which I pick the following one:\n\n“No. 10: Meng Chiao passes the examination at fifty”, thus very late in life. Meng was a friend of the scholar Han Yu (768-835)... The oracle indicates that success will not occur until very late...\"22\n\nThe application from the story to the particular request made by the worshipper seems to be very clear: Whatever was asked for will not be immediately granted but the petitioner will succeed in the end. The worshipper is encouraged not to give up but to remain patient.\n\nIn a table at the end of his article, Eberhard lists for B-1 and B-2 the number of plays or stories that he has been able to identify, i.e., to find the corresponding drama and/or story in literature. Very likely some titles refer to local dramas and are thus not easy to identify. In B-1 (the 100 Kuan Ti oracles) 83 are identified, whereas for 10 oracles the titles are missing (I presume in the set available to him). What is interesting is that the titles of the two sets under study (B-1 and B-2) are not the same, and they are probably", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210744, "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-1986", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "78\n\nOBSERVATIONS AT THE JIU FESTIVAL OF SHEK O AND TAI LONG WAN, 1986\n\nCHAN WING-HOI\n\nI. Introduction\n\nThe jiu festival of Shek O and Tai Long Wan on Hong Kong Island reported in this paper was celebrated from 17th October 1986 to 20th October 1986. According to the villagers, this was the sixteenth celebration which took place once every ten years. During the festival Taoist priests were hired to perform rites, and puppeteers performed puppet shows on a temporary stage. A poster put up by the festival committee referred to the duration as three days and four nights. By the standard of jiu celebrations in the New Territories, this would count as a \"three-day jiu\". As in the case of celebrations in the New Territories, the hired Taoist priests started with an opening session on the evening of the first day, and continued with daily processions and non-repeating major rites for three days. On 19th October, the main day of the festival, the villagers participated in a major procession to the celebrating villages.\n\nThe Shek O festival I found very much a repetition of the pattern found in the New Territories. The schedule and content of the rites were exactly the same except perhaps for the fact that the procession on the main day involved the main god of the celebration as well, and the priests hired were those usually seen in the New Territories. However, whereas in the New Territories, only bona fide villagers enjoyed the exclusive right to organize the jiu, here in Shek O the participants included indigenous villagers as well as outsiders. They included people who spoke different dialects, some having moved into the area only in the last ten years. Moreover, in Shek O, the spirit tablets for the ancestors of individuals who contributed extra money for the purpose were also displayed, and this practice is usually found only in Yu Laan rituals. Some of these features that seem peculiar to Shek O are probably related to the nature of the settlement, of which I learned only a little in the few visits I made during the celebration,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210745, "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-1986", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "79\n\nII. The settlements\n\nThe puppet theatre and most of the Taoist rites took place at a site in Shek O village during the festival. The participating villages included Shek O as well as Tai Long Wan and Hok Tsui. Hok Tsui is more than three miles from Shek O and used to hold its own celebration. A formerly separate settlement, Seung Wai, was midway between Shek O and Tai Long Wan about 2 miles away. Its residents had moved to Shek O in the 1920s or 1930s. Taking Seung Wai into account and assuming that it had joined the festival before the removal, the festival had been celebrated by three neighbouring villages.\n\nHaving one of the most scenic beaches in Hong Kong, Shek O is a popular holiday spot for the urban residents of Hong Kong. Double-deck buses run between Shaukiwan and Shek O at half-hour or shorter intervals from early in the morning to 11:30 p.m. Near where the road divides for Shek O and Tai Long Wan a golf club which caters mainly for Westerners occupies a large area of land. Near the bus stop at Shek O are several shops, food stalls, restaurants and bicycle rental shops catering for the needs of the holiday visitors. Some of the shops have tables where one can sit for a drink. When there are few visitors in the winter season there are local people playing mahjongg or chatting over glasses of beer in some of those shops.\n\nThe casual tourist will notice a dense settlement of cottages and huts, and in the areas with better views, Western-styled \"villas\". Few of the houses are in the style of indigenous village houses found in the New Territories. Near the bus stop is an area of vegetable gardens run by Hoklo residents whose presence in the settlement was conspicuously represented during the jiu celebration by several flags set up near the bus stop. Superficially, everything suggests that Shek O is a rather recent settlement.\n\nBut Shek O has existed as a village for more than 150 years, if, as the villagers claim, the last decennial jiu was the sixteenth.' Originally, the villages were inhabited by Punti and Hakka people. A 73-year-old woman who married in from Hok Tsui told me that her husband's family had been there for four generations. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210754, "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-1986", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "88 \n\nCHAN WING HOI \n\nidiosyncrasies of the festival. But no, it was because the priest had become familiar with the local leaders. Chan himself later explained to me why he was given the job. The village representative had attended a jiu festival in 1965(?) and was impressed with the small banners put on display at the Taoist altar. Those were presented to Chan by various communities for his performances at their festivals. The Shek O leaders asked the puppeteer Leung Nung about him. Leung had worked with Chan when Chan worked as a puppeteer and spoke favourably of him. The Shek O leaders subsequently contacted Chan to negotiate for his service at the Shek O jiu festival. Before Chan was hired, the contract for the priestly service went to Lau Sing Jai, a priest who lived in Tai O.\n\nA Cantonese puppeteer group was hired to perform for all three days of the festival. For the principal day of the celebration two other kinds of entertainers were also hired. These included piu-sik, children in stage costume representing well-known historical or fictional characters. They were hired from Cheung Chau, for they performed at the annual jiu festival there (which was also dominated by Hoklo, Wai Chau and Chiu Chau people). The other team was a Chiu Chau ceremonial music group hired through their fellow townsmen in the committee.\n\nTwo lion dance groups participated in the procession on the main day of celebration. One was styled \"lion dance group of Shek O residents\" and the other \"Leung Yi Hoi\", a kungfu master. The members of the latter dance group were probably also local residents.\n\nIV. The ritual site\n\nAs in the other places, for their festival Shek O residents built temporary structures in which altars for gods were set up. In these structures, the Taoist rites and theatrical performances took place.\n\nTwo long temporary structures had been built facing one another, each divided into several partitions. One of the structures housed the priests' altar, a room for them to rest in, the puppet theatre, and a room for the puppeteers. Facing the altar and the theatre was the other structure, with partitions for paper images of\n\n! \n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210755, "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-1986", "page_number": 106, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "Puppet theatre \n\nor \n\nVillagers preparing for the arrival of Tin Hau with the procession on the main day.\n\n89", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211249, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "285\n\nthe stream, waterfalls and gardens returned.\n\nIt had been an impressive show, enlivened by the little comedy of the amiable man and the two girls.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nNOTES ON TEMPLES AND SHRINES,\n\nHONG KONG ISLAND\n\nThe 1983 Journal contains my article about urban shrines and temples, written largely from the organizational and managerial aspects. See \"Secular Non-Gentry Leadership of Temple and Shrine Organizations in Urban British Hong Kong”, in JHKRBAS 23 (1983), pp. 113-136.\n\nThe present Note refers to one of the shrines examined in the article, the Earth God shrine at Sheung Fung Lane, Sai Ying Pun at pp. 121-124 therein: and to another in the urban area of Hong Kong Island which was not included. This second shrine is the Pak Kung altar at Peel Street in the Central District, just below the junction of Peel and Staunton Streets.\n\nSheung Fung Lane\n\nOn 9th February 1974, when serving in the Urban Services Department as Assistant Director of Urban Services (Hong Kong Island) I attended the opening of the celebrations marking the god's birthday which falls in the first lunar month.\n\nThere was a pailau (M) or ornamental arch at the junction of Queen's Road West with Centre Street. The stage for the customary puppet opera performances, together with its adjacent temporary altar, both made of bamboo, were assembled in a nearby public playground. The whole frontage of the combined stage and shrine constituted another pailau.\n\nRibbons were stretched across the whole frontage, with another", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211951, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 366, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "341\n\nis performed by the men. Each member (or each group of them) take turns to organize the annual celebration. The organizer would collect the rent, buy the offerings, and keep the balance. He might, through a bidding system, let some other member take care of the business. The profit was incentive for a member to take up the responsibility. Each of the interested members would quote a price for the offerings and the one who offered the lowest price got the job. He made a profit from the difference between the bidding price and the cost.\n\nAmong the ritual associations, I have more information about the Hung-Sing associations, the two Cheun-Fu associations, the two Yi-Chung associations, and the Ngau-Wong associations. The Hung-Sing association membership corresponds to a certain extent to the village of Shui Tau in which the Hung-Sing temple is located. Each of the others named above had members in different villages. But there seems to be an important difference between the two Cheun-Fu Wui and the others: the former were rich men's clubs and the latter poor men's, which in one case has members from among the non-Dang villagers of Sha Pui Leng.\n\nTHE JIU FESTIVAL\n\nVI. ELEMENTS OF THE FESTIVAL\n\nA. Overview\n\nThe main part of the festival in 1985 was a seven-day period in which Taoist rites were conducted and puppet theatre performances given, followed by a separate period in which opera performances were given. But if the preparations are to be counted as well, the events spread over a period of almost a year. The preparation started in the first month of the lunar calendar, when 60 men were selected by divination as ritual representatives (yun-sau) to represent the community in the rites. The villagers responsible then consulted an expert to choose auspicious dates, times and directions for the various events, which included two preliminary Taoist rites near the middle of the year. They also had to contract for and supervise the construction of temporary structures for the celebration, and to hire opera and puppet theatre troupes and Taoist ritual specialists, among others, for services. In addition, they had to make arrangements with various government agencies, such as the police, and the fire services.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211952, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 367, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "342\n\nThe festival was estimated to cost a total of more than one million dollars. The opera cost $357,000, paper images $150,000, temporary structures $150,000, and the puppet theatre $110,000. The opera was paid for, as is the tradition, from the funds of two lineage trusts, those of the Naam-Kai jou and Ching-Lok jou. Each contributes $180,000. For the other expenses, each of the villagers paid a subscription of $300, with the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives each paying an extra $500,\n\n50\n\nThe main participants were the Dang villagers of Kam Tin. For the purpose of organizing the jiu the villagers were divided into five gu sections. Each section corresponded to a village, except that the Tai Hong gu included, besides Tai Hong Wai, Ko Po, Kam Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. Also taking part were the villagers of Ying Lung Wai, the settlement of the second branch of Hung-Yi's lineage outside the heung of Kam Tin. They paid half subscriptions and got the last three places among the 60 ritual representatives. Some of the non-Dang residents in the heung also participated. Those include the Sa Bui Leng villagers and post-War and later immigrants from China who operated farms and shops in Kam Tin. These \"outsiders\", however, could not become ritual representatives. The ritual representatives were to stand for all the villagers in the Taoist rites and in some of the rites the villagers performed on their own. There were also religious activities conducted by every household. At three points of the festival, i.e. the opening day, the main day, and the concluding day, every household came, family by family, to worship at the various ritual sites, and a priest visited each house on the last day to purify the family altar. In addition, each and every person was named in the ritual memorials which were read aloud and sent by fire to heaven, with a copy posted in the ritual area for all to read and check.\n\nMany other villagers in the area were also peripherally involved. They offered their congratulations by having fa-paai banners set up in the festival site, and by paying a formal visit to the site on the main day with their lion/unicorn dances. To wait to receive them the elders of Kam Tin lined up in cheung-saam,\n\nB. Ritual Area\n\nThe festival site was beside the Jau and Wong Temple. A large paang temporary structure was erected. Outside the main structure were three small linked temporary structures for first-aid, the fire services, and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211953, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 368, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Ching Lok Ancestral Hail\n\nFaan Posts\n\nSite for fetching water\n\nFaan Posts\n\nN\n\nMau Ging Tong) Ancestral Hail\n\nJau & Wong Temple\n\nSite for posting the name list\n\nPaak Mou Seung Wing used as kitchen\n\nGeneral Gods\n\nJade Emperor & City God\n\nFaan Posts\n\nA\n\n8\n\nSite for offering to gods\n\nGuardian Gods Yau-Saan Daai Si Wong Gwon Yam\n\nCompartment for villages\n\nCompartment for villages\n\nC\n\nAncestral altar\n\n0\n\nPuppet altar Theatre\n\nA-B-C-D Main paang Later used for opera\n\n(Map taken from Tanaka 1989)\n\nThe Kam Tin Jiu Festival Ground\n\n343", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211954, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 369, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "344\n\npolice. A cluster of smaller temporary structures were built to house the paper images of the Jade Emperor, the City God, the Daai-Si Wong and Baak Mou-Seung. The Daai-Si Wong, also known as Gwai-Wong (King of Ghosts) is a transformation of the goddess Gwun-Yam, who has a fierce appearance befitting his role in the ritual: to oversee the ghosts when they come for the offerings. The Baak Mou-Seung, literally the White Unpredictable, is one of the two Unpredictables, both members of the Underworld bureaucracy who take peoples' spirits when they are to die. Further away from the main paang was a larger structure for general gods, which was to house most of the gods invited from local temples and shrines.\n\nDecked out with many fa-paai banners from the villagers and outsiders, the main structure had several partitions. At the entrance in front were two huge paper images of two armed gods, who served as the supernatural guardians of the paang. Beside them were two horses with attendants, and a pair of lions. Furthest from the entrance was a stage divided into three sections, all facing the entrance. The middle one is the Taoist altar where the priests performed many of their rites. To the right was the altar for the Dang ancestors Hung-Yi and his two wives. On the left side was the puppet stage, on which plays were performed. On both sides of the central area of the paang were rooms for each of the five gu villages/groups of villages, plus Ying Lung Wai. On the same rows were two rooms for the guards for the festival site, one for guards drawn from the young men of Bak-Bin and the other from those of Naam-Bin. Nearer the front on the right side was a temporary altar for Gwun-Yam.\n\nOn the left side was a large partition dedicated to four separate groups of paper images, many with pottery/ceramic heads. The area was known as the yau-saan, a place to harbour ghosts. Each of these groups was divided into three levels. Two large groups depicted the ten Kings of the Underworld on the topmost level. Under the Kings on the middle level were ten shops, each with signs indicating the business: barber's, brothel, sundry goods shop, pawnshop, second-hand clothing, department stores (two), tailors, porters, and “cool” drinks. On the lower levels were some devils, ghosts under torture in the Underworld, and many shoppers. The subjects of the two other groups were more difficult to identify. One of them was labelled Zizhu Lin, “Purple Bamboo Grove”, the place associated with the Goddess Gwun-Yam. She and her male and female attendants were recognizable among the images on the topmost", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211960, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 375, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "350\n\nworld by first fixing them in the arms of a mounted paper horse rider known as gung-chou, who served as a messenger, and then burning the three (horse, rider, and memorial) together. The other form, known as bong, was posted in a rite on the main day of the festival on a wall, and remained there until the conclusion of the ritual.\n\nThe scripture chanting/Repentance session took place before the Three Pure Ones three times a day. The manual used was the common Jade Emperor's Repentance Scripture. The sessions were very short. The one I timed lasted only fifteen minutes. The other daily rite was the procession of offerings, which started at the Taoist altar with worship of the Three Pure Ones, then visited all the five faan posts, all the temporary altars and the Jau and Wong Temple, the guardian gods of the paang, and the yau-saan. The procession included flags and banners, and was preceded by a man holding a \"spirit summoning flag\". At each spot it stopped at, the priests briefly chanted and made offerings.\n\nThe other (and longer) rites involved a lot of chanting and singing, which, in many cases, nobody could hear clearly. The amplified music of the puppet theatre drowned out any other sound. The only exception was a scholar of religion from the Chinese University of Hong Kong who had the high priest carry a wireless microphone for him and who could therefore listen to the priests' words from a headphone radio and compare them with the manual. My descriptions of the Taoist rites, therefore, are often interpretations of what I saw and heard on the basis of past experience and manuals. 63\n\nE. The Participants List in the Taoist Rites\n\nOf the elements of the rites, the villagers probably knew most about the Memorials in their different forms. The women villagers in general knew less about the festival (or they pretended to). When I asked some elderly ladies at the ritual site what da-jiu was all about, they explained that it was heui-lok promised to Jau and Wong, to commemorate them. They suggested that I should ask elderly men instead. It was men who knew more about these things. The knowledge was handed down from one generation to another. But I overheard, during the opening rite, the same group of elderly ladies asking themselves how many priests were reading the Memorial (the one to be burnt). They observed that there was too much noise for them to hear the reading. They explained to me that the names of all the villagers (yan-hau) were being read. The priests\n\nPage 375\n\nPage 376", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211962, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 377, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "352\n\nF. Theatre\n\nAfter the seven-day rites period, the main paang was modified for use as the opera theatre. The raised area originally partitioned for the Taoist rites, puppet plays and the ancestral altar was converted into the opera stage. The ancestral tablet of Hung-Yi and the statue of Gwun-Yam were moved into the smaller paang for the general gods. The rest of the main paang became a raised audience seating area divided into left and right halves. The right half was for Bak-Bin and the left for the Naam-Bin. Here Bak-Bin included Ying Lung Wai. There was also a clear partition of each half into two sections. One section was for males and the other for females. Between the seating areas for Naam-Bin and Bak-Bin was a separate area, the front part of which was seating for guests, and the rear part of which was left empty, probably for standing audience.\n\n64\n\nIn the afternoon before the first opera performance, the rite of exorcism, Jai Baak-Fu, was performed by the opera players on the stage. To the accompaniment of percussion patterns played on large cymbals, gongs, and drums, a man in black fought with a yellow \"white tiger”. Although the opera troupe's ritual practice was to perform this ritual only at places where there had never been any theatrical performance before, the Dangs, for the sake of safety, made a special request and paid the troupe an additional fee to have the rite performed.\n\nThe allocation of theatre seats caused some conflicts among the villagers. I had been told that the seating was allocated on the morning of 24th December, and a chu was allocated seats according to its position in the jiu Memorial. A young man from Shui Tau told me that a fight almost broke out on account of the seating arrangements. There was hot disagreement between some youngsters of Wing Lung Wai on one side and those of Kat Hing Wai on the other. There were more than ten of these young villagers from each of the two villages who were quite ready to fight.\n\n65\n\nSome others solved their seating problems in a more peaceful manner. I learned about the case of a Kat Hing Wai family which was not one of the ritual representatives and had therefore been allocated seats very far from the stage. But the eldest son of the head of the family managed to purchase some seats for his parents to express his filial piety. Another Kat Hing Wai villager had asked him (the son) for a loan of a few", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212095, "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-1990", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "14\n\nvillage scholar once described to me by Tsuen Wan elders as \"having no degree, but scholarly (man hok ka), liking books and study\"; persons who might themselves be schoolmasters or could otherwise maintain a reputation for being educated men. The influence of such persons in the village was correspondingly great.25\n\n5. Augmented by Other Means of Ethical Education\n\n(a) Story-telling\n\nOne other means of educating children in the standard and expected norms was through story-telling and related pastimes. In response to questions put to elders in the Tsuen Wan villages about books and story-telling in their youth, various titles were mentioned, some of them surviving in hand-copied editions. It had mostly been the elderly villagers of their day who had owned such books and, in their leisure hours, had transmitted their contents to the younger members of their families. Judging from the titles listed, the moral content of many of these stories was high, emphasizing such qualities as loyalty, charity and filial piety, denouncing oppression and injustice, and showing the old principle of retributive justice in operation.26 Though intended mainly for amusement, their contents had the effect of reinforcing the ethical indoctrination received from other sources. These customary extensions to formal education were the more influential because there had been no newspapers or periodicals on sale in the Tsuen Wan shops in their youth, i.e. in the period 1910-1925. Thus the field of information had then been restricted to traditional reading material and its various means of transmission.27\n\n(b) The Man and Puppet Opera Stories\n\nWe can now pass from books and stories to the opera. Even in the 1970s, it was possible to glimpse the hold which the old entertainment still exerted upon the people. In Tsuen Wan, they still flocked to see the traditional opera performances held in the temporary matsheds erected on waste or temporarily vacant ground at festival times, on the temple deities' birthdays, and at important events in the calendar such as the Hungry Ghosts' Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and the Lunar New Year.\n\nIn describing the staging of plays to celebrate the birthdays of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212215, "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-1990", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "134\n\nphone. It was a friend of mine, a former N.O., to let me know he had just heard from the British gunboat that the Luftwaffe was bombing Warsaw. I went over to a party at another table to tell them that the launch picnic we had arranged for the following Sunday would be off. The news spread from table to table. No emotion registered on the faces of the stolid English people sitting on the verandah of that exclusive club. A stranger coming in just then would have noticed nothing out of the ordinary except, perhaps, that it was later than usual when the members scattered from their tables to go home to dinner. I do not think that this display of composure was entirely due to British phlegm; it sprang in part from an unimaginative failure to realise what the news meant. Warsaw was very far from Shanghai. My Sunday picnic need not have been cancelled for all the difference the war made in its early stages. The chief problem seemed to be whether those with children in England should move them elsewhere, to the States or to China. There was no encouragement to join up; in fact, young men were informed officially that it was their duty to stick to their jobs to keep British trade going.\n\nSince the outbreak of the war between China and Japan, there had been a succession of political murders and outrages in the foreign areas of Shanghai. I think probably that the Chinese government started it. They considered any \"puppet\" fair prey and, I daresay, those Green and Red tongs came in useful. Then the Japanese retaliated by organising terrorist gangs of their own, and attacking Chinese with prominent government connections, or such as refused to collaborate. It almost amounted to a reign of terror, under cover of which ordinary crime, too, increased. The police found great difficulty in coping with the situation. They themselves were sniped at by both sides. The police, in both foreign areas, were remarkably efficient, but unpopular with the official Chinese, because so often involved in suppressing illegitimate political activities, which had a long history in Shanghai.\n\nMy wife and I were living in a small flat in the French town, and several of us, in preference to joining the Shanghai Volunteers, decided to join the French Special Police. We were issued with a blue uniform, with a thin red line down the trouser, a police kepi, and a French tin hat; also a large Mauser automatic, one of numbers collected from time to time at the Concession entrances from disbanded Chinese troops seeking admission to the safety of the foreign area. In this accoutrement we paraded several evenings a week at the Central", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212216, "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-1990", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "135\n\nPolice Station, and were allocated various districts to patrol. We worked in pairs. Sometimes a regular French policeman accompanied us, in addition to several Chinese constables of the French Police Force. We would walk along as the spirit moved us; and on arriving at a cross-roads would take up a position in the middle of the street, cock our pistols, and stop all cars to look inside them. The idea of this was to catch kidnappers, as they usually carried off their gagged victims by car. One day we stopped a large car, only to find the venerable Mr. Yu Ya Ching in it. He was the senior of the five Chinese representatives on the Municipal Council. I do not know who was the more astonished, he or we! On another occasion when we looked into a car we found a complete thuggery of Russian gunmen; there is a large White Russian community in Shanghai, a survival of the Russian revolution, and many of the men were engaged by rich Chinese as bodyguards. They looked ugly, as if they were more used to holding people up themselves than being held up. The next car turned out to contain the puppet Mayor of the Chinese Municipality, who durst not venture abroad without a heavy escort. All passed off with mutual compliments. In my time we fortunately never ran into a real gangster: I have difficulty in hitting a haystack even with a snug little weapon, let alone with so heavy a piece of ancient ironmongery.\n\nUntil about 10 p.m. a heavy traffic would continue in the Avenue Joffre, the main highway on our beat. Sometimes, when we went out on bicycles, a form of sport to which I had been unaccustomed for at least a quarter of a century. I found it rather tricky moving in patrol formation amidst the traffic. If we came across an obstreperous drunk, we would turn tactfully in the opposite direction. It at least gave the Chinese some confidence to see armed foreign patrols out at night, a confidence which, I fear, may have been exaggerated. Sometimes we would stand at the corner of the street, at about the time the cinemas came out, and watch our families go home; and, when the time was up, we might go into that little bar on the ground floor of the Cathay Mansions for a bottle of \"Ewo\" Beer.\n\nAt the police station the French Municipality provided sandwiches, crumbly French rolls split in half, buttered, and holding a slice of ham, which we would munch, while our leader made his report. Then early in the morning we would go home, feeling we had earned our sleep.\n\nThe cinemas of Shanghai are as luxurious as any in the world.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212613, "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-1991", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "147\n\nconvenient to sit on if the ground were wet, and of a consistency not uncomfortable when used as a pillow: the other a rain cape, as issued to the Indian Army. These capes are cut amply so as to cover the whole of one's accoutrements. They are reasonably long, and as the material is stout, they are wind-proof, and help to retain warmth on a cold day. They are excellent to wrap up in before lying down to sleep. With these two items, one could face most things, even the discomforts of travel in war-torn China.\n\nTianmushan 1942-42\n\nThe officials of the Chungking government had been watching the Shanghai puppet show with close interest. I suppose, at the time of Munich, had one asked the average citizen of Czecho-Slovakia what he thought of the British, he would have replied that he thought they were pro-German. In the same way the Chinese in Chungking, influenced by the Shanghai spectacle, concluded that there was a strong pro-Japanese faction in Britain. That was very unfortunate, because it reinforced Chinese suspicion of British motives, a suspicion rooted in a fallacious interpretation of history and nourished by Kuo Min Tang teaching.\n\nBritain was at war with Germany for one and a half years, alone. Mr. Churchill, quite rightly, in those reports he presents from time to time to the House of Commons, reminds the world of it. China was at war with Japan for four and a half years, alone; and although from about the summer of 1941 the Japanese have concentrated their attention elsewhere, so that the war in China for long periods subsequently was only passive, and did not therefore involve active exertion at the level which throughout has been demanded of the British, yet we can fully appreciate Chinese feeling and the expectation that the extent of China's travail should be recognised.\n\nI was staying at Tennis Court Flats, the name given to a temporary wooden building erected on the Embassy tennis court to accommodate part of the staff, after the British Embassy had been damaged by bombing. I was having breakfast upstairs on the verandah when the first vague reports of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour arrived. As further reports came in from Hongkong and Manila the situation became clearer. In the evening I went for a stroll in the streets. The dense population of Chungking, packed between river and hill, had no facilities for sport, the idea of which indeed was unknown to the mass of the people.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212639, "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-1991", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "173\n\nactivity of the British Military Mission in Hunan and to withdraw the British troops to India. It looked as if our party would be all that remained, and I hoped that now at last we should be given a medical officer - Dr. Petro had in the meantime left us - and our full complement of officers. We had been much handicapped by the shortage of officers which prevented our manning the forward dumps properly and maintaining our contacts with the forward generals, while the school courses were in progress.\n\nReports continued to come in of successful operations by our teams at the front. We were particularly pleased with the report of one military train, the engine of which was blown up by a specially laid pressure-switch mine with considerable casualties to the passengers. We also had some failures. The members of one of our best guerilla teams were laying a pipe mine in the road at night, when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by Japanese. The leader promptly trod on the mine and the report we received stated that in addition to killing the team the explosion had killed some of the enemy.\n\nIt would be wrong if I gave the impression that there was a positive state of activity along all the fronts round us. At the time the Japanese were advancing on Shangjao the front was more active than usual; but on the whole the warfare was passive rather than active. I think a passive state of war accords more with the Chinese genius. The Chinese have had few foreign wars; their wars for the most part have been amongst their own people, where cunning and silver bullets counted for more than actual fighting. Life, God knows, is held cheaply enough in China and it cannot have been from any desire to save life that the preference for manoeuvre and deception arose; I would judge it derived more from an appreciation of the intellectual concomitants of warfare, as is well exemplified in the teachings of Sun Tze.\n\nIt was by denying facilities, rather than by fighting, that the Chinese resisted the Japanese. Not by any positive activity was a large Japanese garrison, supported by a still larger puppet army, held in the Yangtze delta; it was the negative pressure of a potential activity, which had not to assert itself to make itself felt. In the same way I argued that if the Japanese knew there were fifty well-trained demolition teams in the delta country astride their communications - and I had little doubt the Japanese knew just how many teams we trained - then they would feel compelled to increase their defensive arrangements by that much, in case all fifty", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212845, "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-1992", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "139\n\na mess for the British, with a kitchen where Lao Teng ruled: similar buildings for our Chinese, Burmese, Kachin and Chin assistants; and barracks for the K.D.F. We also built a store-room, where one of our Chinese assistants, a most excellent man who had previously worked in the service of one of the few remaining Chinese sawbwas, presided; an armoury, where Stan played about with screwdrivers in his spare moments; and an office, and a wireless station. As our party grew larger we kept on having to increase the accommodation.\n\n―\n\nAt most times of the day there would be a small crowd of visitors from distant villages, sitting on their haunches outside the office, with offerings of eggs and chickens, or wandering through the camp looking at everything. They too were much impressed with our water-works. But the main show-piece was a Browning machine gun, which Stan had mounted on a post in the centre of the camp for A.A. protection; it was one of a number salvaged from an R.A.F. supply plane which had crashed in the mountain nearby. If we wished to impress a visiting headman we would loose off a few tracer rounds from this gun at the hawks, circling far overhead. We never hit a hawk but the demonstrations delighted these good simple people.\n\nThe furniture was mostly of the fixed type, and of bamboo: beds, shelves, hooks; baths, basins, and stools. For our mess room we borrowed a table in the local style from the headman; it was only two feet high, with benches of corresponding height, a much more comfortable height in my opinion than our own high chairs and tables. There is a good deal to be said for the argument that the nearer you sit to the ground the more sociable you feel. A dear old man, an expert in bamboo work, became one of our permanent retainers, and when anything came unstuck he would busy himself going round and doing the repairs. There were no nails.\n\nThe evenings were still chilly; at night we would light a camp fire outside the mess door and sit around and talk, often about the ration of rum which, if we were lucky, might be included next time the aircraft made a sortie. Our talk seemed to be much of food and drink; in the supplies we received from the air naturally weapons for our work took precedence, so that we had to rely much on local provender for our nourishment. With Lao Teng in the background we did not do so badly.\n\nThe Myosa's brother paid me a visit; I shall call him the Puppet,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212846, "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-1992", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "140\n\nthough that description is scarcely fair to him. I do not think he was really disloyal to his elder brother, the Myosa; he had merely been caught in a situation which was beyond him. He was a weak character, the Chinese had terrified him, and he was as butter in their hands. I was concerned for our protection; though Lunghtang was ten miles back from the Salween, apart from the unarmed village watchers at the ferries, and an odd post of the K.D.F., there was nothing between us and the enemy. I asked the Puppet to let us have twenty men of the Defence Force. We would arm them, train them, and retain them as our personal bodyguards. He could not refuse.\n\nDuring his reconnaissance Stan had investigated the state of the Defence Force. They were about 200 strong at Sincheng, to watch the Japanese opposite the Kunlong bridgehead; their arms consisted half of British and half of Chinese rifles; they were desperately short of ammunition; their training was poor. I arranged with the Puppet that after training the bodyguards he would send us his five Bren teams for a course and for equipping with new guns, as most of those they had were damaged. Later we would train a platoon at a time, and equip them with further rifles and light automatics. I hoped also to find men of the guerilla type for use in trans-Salween operations, but these men would mostly have to be recruited from the tribes across the river, so that they could return to operate on their own ground.\n\nThe controversy between Tommy and Sten guns had settled itself. I had been for standardising on Stens, but Jack and Stan were both used to the Tommy and insisted on carrying one; I carried a Sten, which with its clip weighed 5 lbs against their 10. I noticed one day a Tommy had been loaded on the pack animals and on going up the line found Stan carrying a Sten! An extra 5 lbs makes a lot of difference when you are marching up and down mountains! Jack too soon fell into line and we made presents of our Tommy guns to the Puppet, who already had one or two. I also arranged to replenish his ammunition supplies.\n\nThe country people were poorly clad; no new cloth had come in for several years. We were able to include in our supplies some bolts of cloth, Shan pants, jerseys, and rubber shoes; they were originally intended as gifts for those across the Salween who worked for us, but we soon found they dared not receive such gifts because the Japanese, when they saw anything new, immediately realised that it came from their enemies, and concluded that those who wore it were helping our", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212849, "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-1992", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "143\n\nsix hundred yards. To explain this ballistic anomaly to our raw country lads of the K.D.F., proved beyond our powers. The long thin triangular bayonet, which hinged over and folded down along the rifle when not in use, looked very fierce when extended. The extended bayonet was held in position by a small stud, too weak for the work, a fault in design which must have cost many an Italian his life.\n\nSincheng, the Puppet's headquarters, was only twenty miles to the south. I had postponed calling on him out of reluctance to get mixed up in political questions, for ours was a military party. However, when the training of the bodyguards from the K.D.F., had been completed, I decided to go down and see about the collection of the new Bren gun teams. In the Myosa's day the British flag flew at his headquarters, but since the Puppet's advent I knew the Chinese flag had been hoisted.\n\nI had better now relate the story of the Myosa, so far as I know it. The Myosa had appointed a young relation of his, Tsai, to command the Defence Force. He was a vain and stupid young man. When the Chinese agreed to train the officers of the Force, Tsai, with some other officers, was sent to the Chinese school at Talifu. They stayed there for over six months; Tsai then returned to Kokang, bringing with him a Chinese officer from the school to serve as assistant commander. Not long after their arrival the rising against the Myosa took place; the leaders were Tsai and his Chinese assistant commander.\n\nOn the way to Sincheng I passed Fu Ko Ying, a hill the top of which was the scene of one of the two attacks on the Myosa and his troops; there was some fighting and men were killed on either side. We saw the holes left by the shells fired from trench-mortars by the attacking force. As neither the Defence Force nor the people of Kokang had any trench-mortars, whence could these trench-mortars have come?\n\nAfter the attacks and the flight of the Myosa, the rebels marched north as far as Nanchi, looting as they went. The local Headmen were unable to do anything to protect themselves; the headman's house at Nanchi, where we later stayed, was also looted. The Myosa had concealed money with friendly headmen in various villages; the rebels set about to locate the treasure, and found some, which was carried off to Tsai's village in south Kokang. It appeared to me possible that the Japanese might be behind the fermenting of this revolt, but all I could learn pointed clearly to the fact that they had nothing to do with it. They were indeed reported", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212850, "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-1992", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "144\n\nshortly after to have raised Tsai's house, so that at any rate part of his ill-gotten wealth probably fell into their hands. Tsai and the Chinese assistant commander were then taken and executed by the Chinese troops. We saw their graves at Sincheng. This had all happened some months before our arrival. While I was in Kokang at least one further store of money belonging to the Myosa was discovered and the bullion sent to Sincheng; for whose benefit, it was no part of my business to enquire.\n\nWhen the Chinese appointed the Puppet to the Myosa's position they also made him commander of the Defence Force and gave him a Chinese colonel as second-in-command. On arrival at Sincheng, as anticipated, I found the Chinese flag flying and Chinese officers, who never left the Puppet's side, behaved as if they had taken over the country. I hoped to persuade them of my friendly disposition and to enlist their co-operation. I was not successful; at a feast given by the Puppet the second-in-command got slightly drunk and openly twitted me with my alleged friendship for China, a lack of manners with which I had never before met among Chinese.\n\nAll through Kokang there are extensive poppy fields. The crop ripens in the spring. In Burma, following the Indian practice, opium was controlled by monopoly, and could only be smoked by licence. The Burmese themselves do not smoke opium, though they sometimes eat it; only persons of Chinese blood smoke. Supplies for the Burma monopoly used to come from Kokang; there was also smuggling across the border from Yunnan, where it was for long grown openly. By the efforts of the Chinese government the cultivation in Yunnan had been very largely suppressed — I myself never saw any growing in Yunnan but a great deal of opium was still smoked in Yunnan. There was no secrecy, for instance, about the opium dens in Kun-ming. So now the flow of traffic was reversed. Yunnan received its opium from Kokang and the Wa states, and the commerce in the drug must have produced large profits for those who took part in it.\n\nIn Kokang the Myosa had been the agent for the collection of the small annual house tax, of which he retained a percentage, remitting the bulk to the government. Now there was no government to which to remit, but the Puppet had heavily increased the rate of taxation, and collected it in opium. According to the reports of the village headmen he had so assessed the tax that nearly the whole of the annual opium crop went into his hands. It was a very heavy burden for the village people to bear,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212851, "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-1992", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "145\n\nand probably compelled them to increase the area of opium cultivation. Obviously the crop was being passed on through the Chinese officers at the Puppet's headquarters. I had found there that they used his office as if it were their own. This may have been another reason for the grip the Chinese had taken of this small state. When Allied government is re-established in Burma it is to be hoped that serious attention will be paid to the question of opium. On the barren slopes of Kokang it is one of the only crops which grow, and so the problem is chiefly economic, the finding of a substitute crop. I noticed that no opium was planted in the Lihsaw villages; they were all Christians, converted by the American Baptist Mission—a mission which does the same as Dr. Seagrave's very excellent work in Burma, and they had been taught to grow potatoes instead. But the Lihsaws are not numerous, there are limits to the demand for potatoes, and further alternatives will be required.\n\nKokang was not self-supporting in rice. The normal flow of commerce is along the motor road from Kunlong to Hsenwi and Burma; that road was now cut by Japanese occupation, and Kokang had to depend on China for additional supplies. I believe the Puppet did his best to exchange part of his opium for rice, but not very successfully. Yunnan itself had inadequate supplies to feed the large forces of the C.E.F. for whom quantities of rice had to be imported from further afield. It was a difficult situation for the Puppet and one which put him the more under Chinese obligation.\n\nI got to know many of the headmen personally and well; with two exceptions, men recently appointed by the Puppet, they were hostile to him, and anxiously awaited the return of the Myosa, whose fair and just administration had left happy memories.\n\nI did not fathom the system of appointing circle and village headmen. The Myosa appeared to have the authority to make appointments, but I found in many places that the post was hereditary; many of the headmen too were of the Myosa's family. They often had managers, or Prime Ministers, who managed their affairs for them; and in at least some instances the function of manager to a circle headman was hereditary too.\n\nI returned from Sincheng to Lunghtang with a baffled feeling; the Bren gun teams were sent for training, but I felt they were the last the Chinese would allow to come, and the event was to prove my doubts justified. The despatch of further men was delayed on one pretext after", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212853, "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-1992", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "147\n\nwireless. We had small hand generators for charging the batteries, but our skeds were so heavy, that even though we hired coolies to turn the generators in relays for fourteen hours a day, we could not keep our batteries up. So it was proposed to drop a \"chorhorse\" to us, a small petrol machine which would do the job. That was the one container we never found. The package was heavy, it broke away from the 'chute, and must have dived into the earth, where it probably buried itself a good many feet. We did not get our \"chorhorse\" till my relief arrived with a large mule train overland from Kun-ming.\n\nThe dropping of money was an anxiety; there was a tendency to overload the containers, and a proportion broke away and crashed to earth, burying and scattering a jumble of bent silver rupees. I kept the responsibility for money in my own hands, and on the whole we lost remarkably little thanks to the innate honesty of the simple natives, who helped us to collect the scattered treasure. They did not like accepting the bent dollars in payment; but I had to insist; we had too many on our hands, and after all they contained the same amount of metal.\n\nI was due for relief before the rains; the officer sent for the purpose was a well-known young Tibetan explorer. Let us hope he will some day add to his books by giving us an account of his adventures in Kokang; they were not few. Although in my time, the Japanese had on several occasions put us in a state of alarm, by advances from Kunlong, so that we once dispersed to hideouts in the hills, they never actually chased us. That was fortunate for though we had hired mules from the Puppet, we were by no means mobile. My successor, however, had a different experience which should be well worth the relating.\n\nAs for the Myosa, his case was referred to the highest authorities, and the British insisted on his release, without trial. He was flown over to India where he went to recuperate in a hill station. I cannot tell you the end of his story, because I do not know it myself. We must leave him in his bungalow on a hill top in India.\n\nIt was mid-May of 1944 before I could start on my return journey. I took Rogue with me, and Lao Teng. The Americans had kindly given us a case of C ration; for each meal there was a tin containing five biscuits, two lumps of sugar, coffee powder for two cups, and four glucose candies; and a second tin with vegetable hash, vegetable stew, or hash and beans. It was all excellent, and saved time cooking; only", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213832, "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": 184, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "157\n\nlimited by the size of its villages and their economic status, Tung Chung did not adopt the tso-she ceremony in the earth god worship as Kwangtung's countryside did in the 1920s. Again, worship is mainly on a personal, rather than village, basis.\n\nThe most important supra-individual/lineage inter-village social activities in Tung Chung, as remembered by the older generation, were the chiao ceremony and the Houwang's Birthday Festival. Literally meaning sacrifice or offering, the chiao is a large-scale Taoist ceremony, performed to wipe away evil, forestall calamities, restore peace, and renew life in the way of cosmic harmony for the entire population of a community. It consists of a series of rituals, which are commonly called ta-chiao (arranging sacrifices or making offerings). In spite of its rich meaning, the chiao can be better understood as a festival with a dual purpose: giving thanks to the deities and offering sacrifices to the spirits of the dead. Basic items of activity include chanting by Taoist priests, called nun-mo-lao (chanting fellows), inviting local deities to the altar placed in a matshed, going to the puppet show and the communal meals, and joining a parade through the villages. Beginning in the late Ch'ing, the chiao ceremony was held in Tung Chung regularly in the 14th lunar month, and especially after plagues had taken many lives there. The Shek Mun Kap village, being the oldest village in the area, served as the locale. According to an old villager, the village became a local venue of social and economic activities after some shops were established there. Villagers liked to gather at the place to gamble and chat. It was, therefore, a suitable centre for popular festivals.\n\nAs an inter-village ceremony, the chiao required donations from all households at every village. From each village, a man was chosen as yuan-shou (leader of worship) by casting the divining blocks in front of the earth god at the entrance of Shek Mun Kap. He had to pass the divination three times in a row. These men took charge of money collection, the preparations for the occasion, and the hiring of matshed and stage builders, the puppet show troupe and the nun-mo chanters, etc. They also acted as the village representatives in assisting the ceremony. At the site of the chiao ceremony, in front of the earth god shrine at Shek Mun Kap, a matshed was set up temporarily to enshrine the Houwang image \"invited\" from the local temple. Oblations, joss sticks, and candles were put in front of the idol. Erected behind the earth god shrine was the gigantic bamboo and paper figure.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213833, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "158\n\nof Ta-shih-wang E, the keeper of ghosts who maintained order, provided food and clothing to the hungry ghosts, and then took them back to the netherworld.\" Vegetarian fast was required during the chao period of three days and four nights. Puppet shows were also performed for several days to entertain both human and divine participants. Chanters hired from outside were responsible for the liturgy, which included scripture reciting, praying, and the burning of paper offerings. As for local villagers, they mainly came to enjoy the free vegetarian feasts and puppet shows. As pointed out by David Faure, the festival is an occasion for popular entertainment, as much as for worship.\"\n\nAn important ritual of the chiao ceremony was a gala parade called hsing-hsiang † (walking through a neighbourhood of villages) held on the third day. The image of Houwang was carried in the procession led by chanters and followed by male villagers. Firecrackers were set off to clear the road and when passing a village, joss sticks, candles, and paper offerings were burnt to expel all ghosts and leave the local population safe and flourishing with Houwang's blessings. \"As the principal local deity, Houwang obviously played a crucial role during the chiao festival. Deities from other districts, such as the Empress of Heaven from Ma Wan Island or Chak Lap Kok, were not invited to the ceremony.\" Thus, the parade embodied the strong territorial sense of the community, publicly affirming the hsiung as a neighbourhood of specific villages. Villages passed by paraders, including Shek Mun Kap, Mok Ka, Shek Lau Po, Ngau Au, Nim Yuen, San Tau, Ma Wan Chung, Ma Wan, Ling Pei, Wong Ka Wai, Lung Tseng Tau, and Ba Mei, were all considered members of the Tung Chung community. While village representatives took charge of preparations for the chao days, a body called the Chieh-fang-chu-hui (Neighbourhood Association) was assigned responsibility for the preparatory work for Houwang's Birthday Festival. From the mid-1920s, however, the Neighbourhood Association had to also assume responsibility for preparations for the chiao festival, replacing the village representatives. Concomitant with this change, Tung Chung Street, where the number of shops had increased with time, replaced Shek Mun Kap as the local social and economic centre. Various goods, including groceries, medicinal materials, cooked food, coffee and tea, coffins, and even opium, were now sold on Tung Chung Street. \"As the position of Shek Mun Kap and the role of village representatives in the chiao festival declined,\n\n36", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213834, "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": 186, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "159\n\ntrans-village bodies, such as the Neighbourhood Association, emerged as sponsors of large-scale social and religious activities. Directors of the Association were owners of four shops, Te-ho, Yao-ho & Ali, Ching-ho li and Kuang-hsing, located on Tung Chung Street at lower Ling Pei, then the commercial core of the area.\n\nThe changes occurring in Tung Chung were accompanied by the decline of the chiao ceremony. After the mid-1920s, the festivities never achieved their previous scale and the related rituals were simplified. A 79-year-old villager at Lung Tseng Tau testified that in 1927, when he was a 15-year-old employee of the Te-ho Shop, then the head of the Neighbourhood Association, the chiao ritual was limited to the burning of paper offerings. There were no nan-mo chanting or puppet shows. The festival proved too costly for the villagers. While a Te-ho employee earned only HK$15 a month, for example, the hiring of the chiao priests could cost several hundreds. At the beginning of the 1930s, it is said, the chiao ceremony ceased in Tung Chung.\n\nThe Neighbourhood Association lacked the financial resources to support more than one festival, and the Houwang's Birthday celebration was kept at the expense of the chiao festival.\n\nAfter the chiao ceremony was discontinued, whenever pestilence struck, the Houwang's idol was paraded through the villages at midnight. The nan-mo chanting priests led the procession and firecrackers were used to clear the path. The rituals might be repeated in the following two nights. The route of the parade was decided by divination at the Houwang Temple. When Shek Mun Kap ceased to be the centre of the chiao festival, the Houwang Temple became the most important venue for various religious activities.\n\nIt is not difficult to detect the Houwang's influence on the daily life of Tung Chung's villagers. Charms reading \"under Master Houwang's command\" (侯王爷) can be seen everywhere, on trees, banisters, poles by the road, or on the doors or window frames of villagers' houses. These amulets were “sought\" at the Houwang Temple. At home, villagers may install the Houwang's shrine next to their ancestors' spirit tablets. A family named Feng at Ma Wan Chung had their family shrine of the Houwang elaborately surmounted with golden tassels and draped with red cloth. Everyday, the god, together", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215210, "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": 306, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "270\n\nconnection, as my mother was a Yip from Chan Uk Village, also at Nam Tau. There were over ten families of Ng in Kowloon Tsai, but we had no ancestral hall there. There were two parts to the village, an upper and lower part - Sheung and Ha Wai. We lived in the Ha Wai. There was a Tin Hau temple at the village, and we had puppet shows on the goddess' birthday every year when I was young. We also had a Ta Chiu in the village every ten years.\n\n'I was married to a Li of Sheung Sha Po Village when I was 18. My husband was a revenue officer in the Customs service. We had three houses in the village, but they were all demolished for the airfield extension. We were sent first to a vacant tenement house in Cheung On Street [not identified in a modern street guide, but very likely to have been in nearby suburban Kowloon] whose owner had left. We were there for 4-6 months, before moving to Model Village.\n\n'I am Shing Sung, now 55, a Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau and came to Kowloon when I was 18 to join my uncle who owned a wooden house at Tsat Kan Uk [The Seven Houses], a place north of old Kowloon Tsai Village. I later built a wooden hut there for myself. I came to Model Village after the war. I remember that there were private fields in the general area, as well as government land. People named Fung, Hui and Tsang owned fields there before the war.\n\n'I am Madam Law Mui, aged 57, also Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau, and came to Kowloon when I was 20, to marry Shing Sung's elder brother - also to The Seven Houses. We farmed government land there, for which we had a permit and paid fees, both before and after the war. There were many people at Ap Tsai Wu (Duckling Pond), the name of the general area where we lived and farmed. They were scattered here and there, because we were all vegetable farmers and you built your own house beside your own plot of land. Like Shing Sung, we moved to Model Village after the war.\n\n'I am Madam Kwai-fung, aged 64. I am a Hakka, born at Sha Po Tsai, Kowloon, where my family had lived for several generations. My father kept a store in Lower Sha Po, near Blacksmiths' Street in the Kowloon City suburb. When I was 22, I was married to Ng Sam-hong, a Punti, of Old Kak Hang Village, next to Nga Tsin Wai, when we had gone to live in a newly repaired house. We had two houses of our own at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215835, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "HONG KONG'S CHINESE ASSOCIATIONS: THEIR CEREMONIAL OCCASIONS AND THEIR HELPERS\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n67\n\nIntroduction\n\nThe close involvement of the District Offices of the New Territories Administration in the pre-1997 Hong Kong Government in the celebration of festivals and major religious rituals by local communities throughout the lunar year was described in Chapter Seven of my Friends and Teachers, Hong Kong and its People 1953-87, published by Hong Kong University Press in 1996. This particular feature of the Administration's work had seemed worthy of special notice, since its personnel's interaction with their leaders, their many helpers, and less directly with the audiences and participants, had always helped to build up and sustain the \"government and people\" relationship.\n\nSuch occasions provided the connecting links of community life across the decades. Some were regular annual events, like the main festivals of the lunar calendar and the birthdays of the gods in the local temples, often with accompanying opera or puppet shows. Less frequent, but equally regular were the important, quasi-religious Ta Chiu or periodic protective rituals, still held nowadays by large villages or linked groups of villages in the longer settled districts of the New Territories, but held practically everywhere a century ago.\n\nThe officials' participation extended to many other community events, especially those held or organized by Hong Kong's Chinese associations in town and country, individually or jointly. They attended at ceremonies marking a special occasion, such as the completion of a new school building provided by a kaifong association or religious body, or the finalization of a local public works project by a village or rural committee. They might help to inaugurate or close the district summer youth programmes held from the late 1960s onward, or the local community's evening of entertainment for the elderly. Other major events attracting their presence might include associations' dinners connected with fund-raising drives for a special project or a charitable purpose, usually with a singing or even opera performance.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216400, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "109\n\ntrouble in Hankow might be expected, the unrest in the Atlantic Fleet, the Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and the change of Sterling from a gold basis, with its serious effect on ships' companies paid in silver, were events all calling for the closest attention.\n\nOn 18th September 1931 the Japanese Kwantung army in Manchuria, Lieut. General Shigeru Honjo, staged an incident which enabled them to allege that the Japanese owned South Manchuria Railway had been dynamited north of Mukden. Armed with this excuse, a premeditated assault was launched by them against the city of Mukden itself.\n\nAt the time the local Chinese war lord was a protégé of Chiang Kai-shek, Chang Hsueh-liang or the 'Young Marshal'. In June 1928 his father, Chang Tso-lin, the 'Old Marshal,' had been assassinated by the Japanese.\n\nUnfortunately as a consequence of his internal conflict with the Chinese communists, Chiang Kai-shek had decided on a policy of first conquering the bandits and rebels, his euphemism for the communists. He reasoned that with these left wing groups eradicated then later he would be able to deal with the foreign, or Japanese, invaders. So it was that in order to limit the extent of what he saw as merely being an incident, he ordered the 'Young Marshal' not to actively resist the Japanese move against Mukden.\n\nIn short order the Japanese army went on to occupy the remainder of that large and rich province of Manchuria. Thus was established the region later to become their puppet state of Manchukuo.\n\nThere were two important results.\n\nFirst, by their action in Manchuria, which certainly had not been sanctioned by the civilian government of Japan, the army established itself as a power within the government. No longer was every aspect of government under civilian control.\n\nSecondly within China the people saw that China as represented by Chiang Kai-shek, had permitted Japan to occupy a part of their country. By not attempting to eject the Japanese, and so endeavouring to rally all", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]