[ { "id": 210781, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "HAINAN ISLAND: \n\nA BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH \n\nD.L. MICHALK* \n\n115 \n\nIntroduction \n\nHainan Island forms the extreme southern limit of the People's Republic of China, save for the Paracel Reefs. Sometimes referred to as the Tail of the Dragon, Hainan lies between longitudes 108°30′ and 111° east and latitudes 18° and 20°31' north. It is separated from the mainland by the 25 km Qiongzhou Straits, and is part of Guangdong, accounting for 15 percent of the Province's area. Located in the South China Sea, Hainan is about 300 km east of Vietnam across the Gulf of Tonkin, some 500 km southwest of Hong Kong, and a similar distance from the provincial capital, Guangzhou. \n\nHainan is oval-shaped with the longest NE to SW axis measuring 309 km and the shorter NW to SE axis, 221 km. With an area of 34,077 km2 (Anon., 1982b), Hainan is about half the size of Tasmania and ranks as the world's twenty-sixth largest island. Although it accounts for less than 1 per cent of China's land area, its tropical climate, rich mineral and petroleum resources and strategic location make it an important, yet undeveloped region of China. \n\nHainan has always been regarded as a backwater by successive Chinese dynasties and a mystery to foreigners. Indeed, had it not been for a handful of inquisitive academics and devoted missionaries who \"found Hainan\" around the turn of the century, our knowledge of the island would have amounted to little more than folklore. Using these western sources, the aim of this paper is to provide a brief insight into the history of Hainan, particularly the role played by foreigners in its development. \n\n* Senior research agronomist, Agricultural Research and Veterinary Centre, New South Wales Department of Agriculture.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210782, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "116\n\nD.L. MICHALK\n\nAnnexation and subjugation of Hainan\n\nAlthough some ancient sources refer vaguely to the existence of Hainan, it was the act of annexation of the island in 111 BC during the reign of Wu Ti, the Han Emperor, that marks the start of Hainan's recorded history (Schafer, 1969). Of the condition of Hainan when invaded by the Han armies, little is known, except that the island was in the possession of unorganized aborigines called Li, who today number 700,000 and rank as the largest minority group in the island's 5.6 million people. The Chinese invaders had no conception of the size of the island, and for more than seven hundred years of occupation, Hainan was depicted on maps as little more than a wavering coastal strip with occasional southward bulges.\n\nThe lack of thorough exploration was due first to a pre-occupation with exploitation of the island's northern pearl beds, rumours of which initially lured the Chinese to this “treasure island” (Schafer, 1969), and second to the strength of the Li people in the hinterland which confined the Han invaders to the coastline. Two administrative areas were established by the Han government to subjugate the \"savage Li\" and thereby hopefully sap the untouched treasures from the island's interior: drugs, incenses, precious metals, pearls, tortoise shell, ivory and coloured, scented cabinet timbers (Mayers, 1872), all luxury goods prized by the Chinese Court.\n\nThe southern and larger half, including those wild and inaccessible areas which were the principal centres of the Li population, was called the Prefecture of Tan-erh (literally Drooping Ear), a name used to describe the Li whose ornament-weighted ear-lobes hung down to their shoulders (Savina, 1929) as photographed by Clark (1938). The northern and smaller division of the island was known as Chu-yai, signifying the Shore of Pearls after the lustrous gems produced in the mussel beds adjacent to the Straits of Qiongzhou.\n\nPearl gathering became an important industry as the demand for personal adornment increased at Court, and the Hainan pearls were particularly prized for their lustre. Rapid colonization followed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210800, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "134\n\nD.L. MICHALK\n\nare committed. However, any foreign proposal which is consistent with these plans might be more favourably received than one which is not included.\n\nIn the short time that Hainan has been opened to foreign investment, forty-four contracts representing a total investment of US$ 87 million have been signed with foreign firms, thirty-four of which were operative in 1983. To provide technical counterparts for these projects, more than 4,000 intellectuals, cadres and workers have been transferred to Hainan, while many overseas Chinese have also offered their services. Talks on a number of key projects are under consideration including a petrochemical plant, an express highway, additional power stations (China Daily, 1983), and a tunnel link with the mainland across the Qiongzhou Straits (South China Morning Post, 1984), while the first joint-venture for onshore oil exploration in China was recently arranged for northern Hainan with an Australian consortium (Sydney Morning Herald, May 27, 1985).\n\nAlthough significant development has taken place over the past five years, naive mishandling and in some instances outright abuse of the autonomy delegated to Hainan officials has hobbled the momentum. Recent reports of corruption and profiteering on Hainan have exposed a sophisticated system where racketeers have spent cherished foreign exchange on imported cars and home appliances made cheaper by the preferential import duty cuts the island enjoys, and resold these on the mainland at huge profits. One source alleged that the racket involved the purchase of more than 89,000 cars, 2.86 million televisions and 252,000 video recorders which cost more than US$ 1.5 billion in foreign exchange (Thompson, 1985). Besides prosecuting officials, the Central Government has reacted by strictly limiting funds for joint-ventures and technology imports, and increasing import duties by as much as 80 percent to price foreign goods out of the local market.\n\nHainan's agriculture has also undergone development through the adoption of new agricultural policies and the transfer of technology from western nations. In the last five years substantial changes to commune structure and productive practices have occurred with the introduction of the \"production responsibility", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215318, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "THE POPULAR RELIGION GODS\n\nTHE HAINANESE\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n43\n\nIntroduction\n\nThis article is a study of the popular religion gods to be found on the altars of Chinese folk religion temples on the island of Hainan as well as in 'Hainanese temples' within the confines of former colonial territories in south-east Asia. I will be endeavouring to isolate the purely Han Chinese Hainanese deities from those of their surrounding neighbours, the non-Han minority peoples on Hainan itself as well as from emigrant Han Chinese communities in south-east Asia. The latter includes emigrants who speak the Han linguistic groups of Hakka, Hokkien (and its sub-groups including Minnan and Hengwa (Xinghua)), Cantonese (and two of its sub-groups) and Guangxi, as well as the smaller groups such as Chaozhou [Swatowese].\n\nThe tropical island of Hainan, literally \"South of the Ocean,\" lies off the south coast of China and was formerly part of Guangdong province. In 1988 it became a province in its own right. 150 miles in length and 100 in breadth, it is one sixth the size of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, half the size of Ceylon and four times the size of Cyprus, with its main port of Haikou and the provincial capital, Qiongzhou, both on its northern coast.\n\nSeparating the island of Hainan from the mainland is the Qiongzhou Straits, with the 170-mile-long Leizhou peninsula in Guangdong province leading into the mainland proper. The proximity of the Leizhou peninsula has led to a small number of the deities with a Guangxi base being incorporated into Hainanese legend and carried by emigrants to all parts of south-east Asia, often without the connection being realised. Devotees in distant parts have assumed that these deities were unique to Hainan, even to accepting place names within the legends as Hainanese when they were quite clearly from the Leizhou-Guangxi border region.\n\nHistorically, Hainan island was one of the later regions to be", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]