[ { "id": 204439, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "60\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS\n\nof south China that have evolved a significant culture. But precisely because of this and because they occupied irrigable valley lands, the Han Chinese came into conflict with them. Moreover, because of superior culture, technology and number, the Han gradually took over the T'ai states of the Yangtze valley and assimilated their populations. Those among the T'ai leadership who escaped Han political and cultural conquests were the ones who led their following in migration away from the front of contact. The direction of this slow historical flight was southward and southwestward,\n\nBefore the Han Chinese conquest under the Ch'in dynasty (Third century B.C.), south China contained 6-8 large T'ai states. In Szechwan the T'ai state of Shu was centered on the present provincial capital of Ch'eng-tu. The Pa state was centered at Chungking. In the central and lower Yangtze region were the T'ai states of Ch'u and Wu respectively. The T'ai state of Nan-yueh included such areas as the Canton delta and the Red river delta of Tongking. In Fukien were the Pai-yueh, sometimes politically centralized at Foochow. All of these were absorbed into the political body of China during the 400 years of the Han dynasties. Sinicization, however, took many more centuries and reached its greatest flowering in the Canton delta region during the T'ang period. West of this region in the Yunnan-Kweichow plateaus, however, a Sinicized T'ai power lingered on through the T'ang and Sung periods in the state of Nan-chao, at times strong enough to pose threats to the stability of the T'ang empire. The successor to this state, Ta-li, withered under the Mongol onslaught directed by Kublai Khan, and T'ai political genius moved across the southern borders of Yunnan into the Mon-Khmer cultural sphere in the basin of the Chao Phya river where it evolved the present state of Thailand.\n\n7\n\nT'ai autonomy within southwest China continued in smaller units in the lake and river basins of Yunnan near the Burma borders until the Communist conquest of China. The reasons for the extended freedom from close Han Chinese control over the southwest include the rough topography of the region with agriculture restricted to small basins or primitive self-sufficiency\n\nCh'en Pi-sheng, T'ien-pien san-yi (Reflections on the Yunnan borderlands), Chungking, 1941, 21-24.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205110, "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": 66, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n61\n\nYangtse basin. The national Chinese state of Sung therefore tried hard to defend Hsiang-yang against the invading Mongol forces, and the town was besieged for five consecutive years (1268-1273). The engineers who built catapults for the Mongols came from Baghdad and had such unmistakably Muslim names as Ala-ud-din and Ismail. This disproves the story told by Marco Polo, that it was the Polos who distinguished themselves by constructing the artillery used against the fortifications of Hsiang-yang10. Another technological field in which Muslim engineers excelled was hydraulic engineering. In Yunnan, a Chinese province that was incorporated into the Chinese-Mongol empire as late as 1253, the governor was a Muslim from, it seems, Turkistan, by the name of Sayyid Ajall Shams-al-Din. He did much for the irrigation of the K'un-ming basin, works that still survive today.11 The eternal hydraulic problem of China, the Yellow River, came, at some time under the Yüan, equally under the supervision of a foreigner; a Persian or rather Arab called Shams (1278-1351). He is the author of a treatise on river conservancy, the Ho-fang 'ung-i \"Comprehensive Explanation of River Conservancy\", published in 1321. The grandfather of Shams had come to China in the wake of the Mongol conquest of Arabia and settled there. Apart from hydraulic engineering, Shams is described in his biography as having been an expert in astronomy, geography, mathematics, and musical or rather acoustic theory. He had not yet lost the cultural ties with the homelands of his forefathers, as so many other Westerners did once they had come to China, but was still interested in what the Chinese biography called \"books of foreign nations\". In this case, Arab or Persian literature is certainly meant. But, ironically, the biography of Shams has been incorporated in the section reserved for Confucian Learning in the Yüan dynastic history! It is a matter for regret that of all the works he wrote in his lifetime, only the treatise on Yellow River conservancy has survived. The list of the books he wrote is tantalizing to read because their titles reflect a lasting interest in Western (Islamic) scientific thought, and their contents would perhaps have enabled us to see more clearly the interplay of Chinese and Near Eastern science.12\n\nThe largest group of foreigners in Yüan China were, however, not the Arab and Persian or Syrian scientists but merchants from the Near East. Transcontinental trade flourished under the Mon-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206414, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n205\n\nI was District Officer, South at the time and asked for a record to be made of the two ceremonies, which are known locally as Tun Fu (祭祀).* The first of them took place at Pak Wai village on Sunday, 17 January 1960. The second was performed on 23 March 1960. The same officer reported on each ceremony, and his reports are given verbatim. He was Mr. G. C. W. Grout, now retired. The second report was written up 19 months later, from field notes.\n\nHong Kong, April 1971.\n\nDETAILS OF A TUN FU CEREMONY PERFORMED AT\n\nPAK WAI VILLAGE, SUNDAY, 17TH JANUARY, 1960.\n\nInstruments used.\n\n1. Six 2 ft. lengths of split green bamboo about 2 inches wide.\n\n2. Three cups of wine.\n\n3. Three cups of tea.\n\n4. A rice bowl.\n\n5. A nail about four inches long.\n\n6. Packet containing money.\n\n7. Candles.\n\n8. Incense.\n\n9. A plate of steamed bread.\n\n10. A plate of oranges.\n\n11. An enamelled metal basin containing a whole chicken, a large piece of pork, pig and chicken innards, all steamed.\n\n12. Joss paper.\n\n13. Firecrackers.\n\n14. Gilt leaves, red cloth and red string.\n\n15. Two flower pots filled with sand.\n\n16. Book of incantations.\n\n17. A young live cockerel.\n\nThe geomancer started by placing the incense, the cups and the rice bowl and red packet on a table in the order shown in the sketch. The incense was then lit and water placed in the rice bowl. Two pieces of joss paper were then lit, placed in the rice bowl of water, and the nail put into it. He then took up one of the pieces of wet bamboo, passed it over the burning incense and wrote certain inscriptions on it, copying out of the book, and passed it over the incense again, the written side down.\n\nThis was repeated for each piece of bamboo. Then the red cloth was cut into strips and tied with red string and gilt leaves\n\n*The first character is doubtful,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206967, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "32 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nnot on his side. He had come to Hong Kong with an express aim - to obtain cash. His design was to persuade Hong Kong merchants to invest heavily in the exploitation of the territory he claimed to rule as soi-disant King of the Sedangs, a title he had assumed in June 1888 with the passive assent of an innocent montagnard people. There were rich men in Hong Kong - speculators, gamblers, risk-takers - and Mayréna hoped to interest them in the mineral wealth and natural products of his new kingdom. Thus he assumed that meeting Sir William and Lady Des Voeux at Government House would vouch for his respectability and provide an entrée into the social enclosure of the rich European merchant class. \n\nMorès, on the other hand, had no such motivation. He was in Hong Kong with William Van Driesche, and an engineer, a M. Thorel, en route for Tonkin. His visit to Hong Kong was an accident. The Calédonien, the ship he boarded at Marseilles, berthed at Saigon and Hong Kong but not at Haiphong, so Morès was forced to travel on to Hong Kong and transfer to another ship for Haiphong, the entry port for Hanoi and the Red River basin. He was in a hurry and bent on business. Hence he stayed in Hong Kong for only a week, leaving on 29 November by the small German steamer, the Clara. It was during this week that the alleged duel between the two adventurers took place; but to explain why they had both wandered into the East and why they clashed, we must first examine their previous careers. \n\nMarie-Charles David de Mayréna16 \n\nThe future King of the Sedangs was born into a bourgeois milieu at Toulon on 31 January, 1842. His father was a commander in the French navy, who died when Mayréna was a child so that he was reared entirely by a complaisant mother. He failed his examinations for the Ecole navale in 1857 but joined the Sixth Dragoons in 1859, transferring to the Spahis de Cochinchine in 1863. He served in Indo-China until 1868, when he resigned and returned to France. His career so far had been unremarkable. \n\nThe next year he married a colonel's daughter; but little is known about the marriage and it seems likely that they soon separated or divorced. Mayréna was a great womaniser. The Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870 and he was recalled to the colours and procured the rank of captain. In February 1871 he was awarded the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206971, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "36 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nto organise the retail meat market in that state. This enterprise also failed, so the disillusioned Marquis, who had lost a large part of his private fortune, returned home to France in 1886. \n\nMorès' father, the Duke of Vallombrosa, advised his despondent son to take a long vacation and suggested a journey to India, a land the Duke had visited in his younger days. In November, 1887, therefore, Morès and his wife embarked at Marseilles for the journey out to Bombay. \n\nFrom Bombay Morès and his wife went by train to Calcutta, where they stayed with the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, and where they met Prince Henry of Orléans. The Marquis and the Prince and a few friends at once organised an expedition into the interior to shoot game. Another expedition, to Nepal, was organised soon after they returned from their first chase, this time with Medora as participant. After five weeks the party returned with the skins of many wild beasts, including that of a tiger which the redoubtable Marquise had herself shot. In the spring of 1888, Morès and his wife returned to Europe. \n\nThe ship that took Morès and his wife back to France was also carrying a number of his old comrades, former Saint-Cyriens, returning from the campaign in Tonkin. Morès had long conversations with these French colonial army officers and learned much about conditions in Indo-China. On the voyage back he thus became deeply interested in the commercial prospects of this new French colonial possession. But to open up and develop the territory necessitated the construction of a railway system: Morès decided to pioneer such an enterprise. As soon as he reached Paris he hurried to see the Minister for Foreign Affairs and presented a plan for building without government aid a railway line from Hanoi to the Chinese border. He was given official permission to prospect the region of Tonkin. On 21 October 1888, as noted, Morès left Marseilles together with William Van Driesche and an engineer, M. Thorel. On 22 November 1888 he landed at Hong Kong en route for Haiphong, and the start of another adventure: the economic exploitation of the Red River basin, a scheme as grandiose as the one he had been engaged on in the Dakotas. \n\nMayréna's Odyssey in Hong Kong \n\nMayréna spent his first days in the Colony studiously cultivating members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. He visited the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207264, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "24\n\nJOHN T. MYERS\n\nincantation around the cauldron. On they go for hours in darkness. The voices at times grow louder and the drum beat more vigorous. All at once the medium who has begun to sway his body from side to side as if to invite supernatural influences begins to be violently affected. He dances and leaps in the air, the beat of the drum becomes more rapid, and the voices of the men louder and shriller. The wildest confusion reigns. It seems as though some horrid scene from the infernal regions were being enacted on earth and the devils had been let loose for a time to carry on their orgies among men.\"14\n\nWe have quoted at length the 19th century description because it is our opinion even the most zealously anti-pagan observer may have a difficult time identifying it as essentially the same type of ritual enacted each evening at Tai Wong Ye Temple. Scheduled at 10 p.m. for the convenience of a working class population the ceremony incorporates little of the din and frenzy which characterized its Amoy counterpart.\n\nOn almost any given evening shortly before 10 o'clock petitioners begin arriving at the temple. The number commonly varies from 10 to 15, with a distinct majority being middle-aged and elderly women. After burning joss sticks and offering prayers to the deity, petitioners at the direction of various tan sang who tend the altar, inscribe their name, birthday, and the names of other family members on a red sheet of paper. This accomplished they gather around a red table in the middle of the shrine chamber. The atmosphere is casual as greetings and gossip are exchanged between them. On the red table is a can of red paint, a slender paint brush, a rubber stamp, a stack of yellow paper slips, a rather large compartmentalized box with various types of herbs, and a basin of foo shui or \"sacred water\" #k. Near the table is a red, throne-shaped chair.\n\nAt approximately 10 p.m. the medium enters the temple. After greeting those present he approaches the table and takes a sip of the sacred water. Continuing to stand before the table, he begins to move his head from side to side. He then starts pounding the table with his fists while emitting loud guttural grunts. After a few moments he adopts a stylized posture signifying to all present the identity of the possessing deity. The tan sang provide him with the throne-like chair and he sits to hear the petitions of worshippers. The possession is usually effected within two minutes of his sipping the sacred water.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207710, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "\"PATTERNED BANDS\" IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG\n\n83\n\nto the edge and the tassels allowed to fall free at each side, swinging at either side of the wearer's face. In Yuen Long, the band is not worn this way but instead a longer band (145 CM) is used to tie the hat under the wearer's chin.\n\nA patterned band approximately 85 CM long, with relatively small tassels, is often used to hold the rectangular headcloth worn by Hakka women both indoors and outdoors when a hat is not worn. The band is doubled over the top of the headcloth and fastened at the back of the neck below the woman's bun, thus serving as an ornament and to hold the headcloth in place.\n\nIn addition, a band approximately 75 CM long may be used to fasten the small apron (1) across the back. To attach the band, buttons are sewed to the ends of the bands near the tassels, and these are buttoned through loops in the apron. The bib of the apron is commonly fastened around the neck with a silver chain on which old Hong Kong silver five-cent pieces serve as buttons. These aprons are worn by Hakka women both on special occasions and for everyday use.\n\nIn Tsuen Wan, at least, the bands traditionally served other purposes as well. Women said that they had to weave great numbers of them before their marriages, because of the role they played in the ceremonies, and for a week or so beforehand they stopped all other work and stayed indoors to weave. The bride was expected to give them as gifts to all the older women relatives who came to attend the festivities. Patterned bands were also used to tie back the mosquito nets on the marriage bed, and were tied around the foot-washing basin which is an important dowry item and fertility symbol. One was used as the bride's trouser string, and one was even given as a gift to the little boy whose job it was to kick open the sedan chair door upon the bride's arrival. When a son had been born, a very long red patterned band was hung over the lantern which was raised in the ancestral hall at the hoi tang (H) ceremony, symbolizing the birth of a son into the lineage.4\n\nTechnique of Manufacture\n\nThe weaving of patterned bands was the only textile art form produced, in recent years at least, by Tsuen Wan women. Their only other artistic outlet was the singing of \"mountain songs\" (山歌*) while working together in groups, and the spontaneous singing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207794, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA\n\n167\n\ngorges are the Wushan, Witches' Mountain, and Windbox Gorges, which provide some of the most spectacular and awe-inspiring river scenery in the world. There are places where the river is only 150 yards wide, where the passenger on a steamer has the feeling that the almost sheer precipices actually overhang the river. The cliffs in Windbox Gorge are 700 feet high, and it was here that the record rise in the river level of 275 feet once took place.\n\nAbove Wanhsien the valley of the river opens out, and navigation to Chungking and beyond is comparatively simple. Until the Szechwan Steam Navigation Company's second steamer, Shuhun, went into service in 1914, steamers on the Yangtze, like junks, required trackers to pull them up the most powerful rapids, and a unique feature of the Upper Yangtze was the trackers' paths cut in the hillside thirty or forty feet above the river level. At these places junks were often lightened of their cargo and passengers before negotiating the rapid.\n\nIn the year after the Swinhoe expedition the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce supported another expedition up the Yangtze and into Szechwan by the famous German explorer Baron von Richthofen. His report on Szechwan is the most important until then, being the first to include an accurate description of the famous Red Basin of Chengtu, and its legendary irrigation system. This basin, with an area of some 3,500 square miles, is the only large area of level ground in the whole province, and has a population of about six million. Its remarkable fertility is due to the irrigation system introduced by Li Ping in the third century B.C. Li led the Min River through a hill and distributed its waters over the wide plain through a network of canals.\n\nOther notable journeys in Szechwan and West China between the late 1870s and early 1900s, included those of E.C. Baber and Sir Alexander Hosie of the China Consular Service, Archibald Little of Upper Yangtze fame, and A.E. Pratt, the zoologist. Pratt's travels lasted three years from 1887 to 1890. He built his own boat at Ichang to take him through the Gorges and past Chungking to Kiating, from where he journeyed overland to the sacred Mount Omei, over 11,000 feet high. Pratt's travels deserve to be better known, as they were the first in West China to be undertaken for purely scientific purposes. He blazed the trail for the later journeys of the botanists George Forrest, Kingdon Ward, and E.H. Wilson.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209679, "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": 336, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "314\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nofficials, poets and scholars at different periods to illustrate the diffusion of sinitic culture eastward along the Huang He and eventually southward into the Zhang Jiang delta, floodplain and the Red Basin. In spite of the effort, Chen does not add much to our knowledge of the pattern of expansion of the Chinese cultural realm. The discussions on the cities of China (chapter 3) and the urban development of Beijing (chapter 4) are highly descriptive. Apparently Chen has exhausted every possible data source available to him, and he has succeeded in presenting a very detailed discussion on the form and content of Chinese cities, but he leaves much untold regarding the processes involved in their evolution. The Loess Plateau and the Huang He (chapter 5) and the Great Wall and the Grand Canal (chapter 6) are significant and highly humanized landscapes in China. Again, Chen has been able to condense a mass of data into these short chapters which give a detailed chronological description of these landscapes. In connection with these subjects, it is unfortunate to note that the author has made little reference to other scholars who have researched extensively and written on similar topics: for instance, Professor Ho Ping-ti on the loess plateau of China, Professor Chang Sen-dou on the cities of China, Professors Owen Lattimore and Harold Wiens on the expansion of sinitic culture, just to mention a few.\n\nIt should be emphasized, however, that Chen is not offering a holistic treatment on the cultural geography of China, and he is aware of this. What he is offering is a look into the wealth of historical data that may be tapped for geographic studies on China; for instance, the value of local gazetteers (chapters 2 and 9) and records of exploration and travels (chapter 7) and the use of maps in the study of place names (chapter 8). At this point, this reviewer would query the logic used in arranging these topics and the relevance of including Chen's address as the concluding chapter in the book,\n\nThe book contains 32 maps of a remarkably high level of cartographic skill. However, 29 of them are confined to chapters on the migration of the cultural core and on Chinese cities. The bulk of the presentation then, suffers from a lack of illustration which would have added immensely in establishing coherence in an otherwise jumbled and often tedious mass of place-names and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211080, "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "116\n\nThe dragon boat procession reformed and set off in the direction of the groom's home where the newly weds would live. Two women in front were wearing funny hats: one banging the gong while the other thumped a plastic oil drum. They were followed by eight pairs of women rowing in formation, while at the back were the two women with the rudder of tin cans and the woman representing the dragon's tail. Above the bride's head was held the sieve of pomelo leaves and ginger root, carried by the 'fortunate' woman. One attendant, wearing a Western style short evening dress, was carrying a pink umbrella held over the bride, to which was tied a sprig of cypress and pomelo leaves with red cord. A second attendant carried the red and gold patterned tin suitcase known as gar chong (#), containing the jewellery the bride had been given, while a further attendant brought a large suitcase with the bride's belongings. Another woman carried a white enamel basin decorated with red characters for double happiness and flower motifs. In the basin food and other items were wrapped in red cellophane paper, and decorated with cypress leaves.\n\nThe procession stopped briefly in front of the earth god and again firecrackers were set off. At the Ma Jo temple the young couple paused and bowed three times before continuing to their new home. Cymbals rose to a crescendo; the couple, followed by other relatives and the Chilin, went into the house, and a long string of firecrackers was set off.\n\nThe rest of the procession now dispersed as those inside the house settled down for a cool soft drink. It was now 2.15 pm and in the street women were feasting on food prepared that morning, especially on a salty vegetable soup known as ham choy cha (**), chicken, and for dessert, sweet dumplings which are only served at Lunar New Year and special occasions such as wedding ceremonies. These are considered a lucky symbol of getting together. Later that afternoon the newly weds would offer tea to the groom's parents, and then at 6.00 pm all who had taken part in the ceremony were invited to a restaurant in the village of Sha Tau Kok for a large feast to round off the day's festivities.\n\nPlates 19-23 illustrate this article. They were taken by the author.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211865, "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": 280, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "255\n\nDIARY OF VOYAGE TO CHINA*\n\nFrom March 10, 1861 to August 6, 1861\n\nIt is with a combination of curious feelings that this journal is commenced. There is a mingled hope and fear, gloom and light, anticipations of a bright future, and occasional forebodings of ill. Yet whatever may befall, whether pleasure or pain, prosperity or adversity, it is a joyful fact that nothing can happen unless directed by a Father's hand. Jesus knows all, and safe under his guidance all will be well.\n\nSunday, March 10th\n\nWent on board at ten o'clock, and just put matters straight enough in the cabin to be able to spend the Sabbath. About eleven I came on deck, just as the vessel began to move out of the basin. She was towed down the Thames. A great crowd of people saw her departure. As she floated down the Thames I often gave way to melancholy thoughts, when I considered all I was leaving behind, and all that is in store for me. Sometimes the burden felt greater than I could bear. Yet I felt that Jesus was with me, and under his guidance I feared no ill: it was my Father's business I was about, and surely he would give me grace and strength to perform it.\n\nThe Prince Alfred went easily down the river, and cast anchor off Gravesend. On board were several people, friends of the captain, who although it was Sunday, were going to Gravesend for a holiday and treat, at his expense. They were a swearing set of fellows, and seemed to be old captains of ships. A Sunday in such company I never spent. I would not go to lunch with them, and at dinner time I was glad when all was over, and I could be alone in my cabin. But even here their shouting and laughing, when the wine and spirits began to take effect, was a great nuisance to my ears and mind. I never spent such a Sunday in my life. So as soon as it grew dusk I fastened my cabin, made up a bed and tried to sleep. For two days I had had a headache, which now grew worse, and very little sleep I had. My cabin, although in the quietest part of the ship, is rather the worse for noise. Every person that walks overhead on the deck is distinctly heard, and the noise is enough to keep one awake, to say nothing of the rolling of the ship.\n\n* From the John Fryer Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211867, "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": 282, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "257\n\ndropped, and shifted just where we did not want it.\n\nThursday, [March] 14th\n\nToday we were tacking about but have made little progress, since the wind is dead against us. The weather is beautifully serene and calm. Nothing to be seen on all sides but the wide ocean, except here and there a ship in the distance. Pleasant walking on deck, though the wind was very cold.\n\nOften are my thoughts going back to bygone days. Were I not naturally sanguine, and of a cheerful disposition, I should deeply feel at having left so many friends, among whom since Christmas I had spent so many social happy hours. Yet I cannot help feeling that there will be no more enjoyment till my wanderings are all over, and I am once more safely settled down in old England.\n\nWednesday, March 20th\n\nSince last Wednesday I have had rather a strange week of it, and have been unable to make any addition to my journal. How the time has gone I cannot imagine, and today having aroused from a sort of stupor, I inquired the day of the month and was quite astonished. I will endeavor to give some idea, as far as memory goes, just what I have gone through.\n\nOn Friday the 15th we had a stormy day, and the weather being dead against us we had to keep tacking about. We came in sight of the Isle of Wight, and then off again in sight of France, then turned about and came back again. The seasickness came on with a vengeance, and I felt that poorly, I was a misery to myself, and all on board. The only consolation I had as I sat in the cabin, over a basin, labouring away, was to hear the captain's wife in the opposite room, doing the same thing. So I felt I was not quite alone in the world. My only comfort was to get to bed and try and sleep as much as possible. As to eating it was entirely out of the question.\n\nOn Saturday we came off Portland Bill, and then turned round and came again in sight of France. The seasickness increased to a considerable degree, and all I could do was to lay in bed, and be sick, and think over the past, lament over the present, and look forward with gloomy thoughts into the future.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211895, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "285\n\nJuly 17th\n\nOnce more on board ship and seated at the cabin table, I am endeavouring to recall to mind a few reminiscences of Batavia, which I trust may prove interesting to all who read them. I will begin where I left off, and tell you that the sea being rather rough, we got a good drenching before reaching the shore in the boat. I had on my light suit which I had up to that time worn but little. The sea water has done it but very little injury. In fact it was so hot that long enough before we reached the town it was dry throughout.\n\nIn we pulled, among the crowd of shipping, and at last reached the entrance of the Canash. This is a canal about two miles long, reaching from the town to the sea. It was full of small ships and boats. As we neared the lower town, the sides were covered with green trees and bushes. I really felt quite like a prisoner released after a long confinement, and it was a treat to hear the birds sing once more.\n\nWe passed the Dutch fortifications, and then stopped at the custom house, where our effects were taken note of, and we were allowed to enter the town. They are very strict as to who they let into the town, as we could easily see, for we were well overhauled.\n\nWe went a short way along the road till we came to a Dutch store, where the captain went in and we stayed a short time. We there met the captain of the ship which we passed the day after the storm. He had been in some days, and that rather vexed our captain. He was a smart little Dutchman, and quite the gentleman. I had a few minutes chat with him.\n\nThen we took a carriage and went up into the town. The carriages are like an English Chaise, and only room for two. Of course they are open, and have an open place behind so as to have a cool breeze right through. The horses are all about the size of very small donkeys, and as thin as possible. There are two to every carriage, and they can hardly move along. You cannot hire one for less than three and a half rupees, or 5/10; but you can keep it for six hours for the money. The drivers are Malays, and wear the \"basin\" kind of hat I spoke of before. They have to keep the whip constantly going.\n\nWe drove through the town which in the European parts is very neat", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212166, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "85\n\nfather who had owned the land on which the temple stood had consulted the deities and found that his daughter had been deified. He had an image of her carved and placed on the altar. This was transferred some time during the mid 1960s to another small shrine within the same temple and again her image stood alone but this time she had under her shrine a cardboard box which contained, according to the temple keeper, an embalmed parrot. The elderly nun claimed that it was Miss Liu's pet. The image and parrot remained until 1983 when the temple was refurbished and the image disappeared for a while. In 1986 it reappeared on the family altar in the rear of the large Buddhist temple next door, dedicated to the Liu family. Her image was now draped in red silken robes and somewhat strangely was labelled Miss Lin. She still held the miniature handbags but the parrot was nowhere to be seen, and the temple staff denied ever having seen or heard of a stuffed parrot. They confirmed that her name was Lin and not Liu but were unable to say why she was now on the Liu family altar in the Buddhist temple. And there she remains, last noted in 1989 still on the Liu family altar.\n\nA cult, that of 'the Prince descended from the Dragon', Lung-shih T'ai-tzu, was established in the mid-1960s in the northern suburbs of Kowloon before being transferred to Lo Wai above Tsuen Wan in the New Territories. It is a piggy-back cult dependent upon the local Cantonese major cult of the Dragon Mother, Lung Mu. The story begins with a boy, Huang Hsin-tsai, born in Shamshuipo, Kowloon, in 1949, the son of refugees from Canton. His parents died soon after they arrived in the Colony leaving him in the hands of the lady who now runs the new cult temple. In 1960 the youth, now 11 and still living with the lady in Shamshuipo, fell ill with swollen legs and abdomen. She nursed him carefully back to health but in 1962 he was thought to have eaten something which did not agree with him and, despite a visit to the Wong Tai Sin Temple, he died. Accused by her neighbours of neglecting the youth she was exonerated by him when he appeared to her in a dream to explain that he was now the stepson of the major deity, Lung Mu, and had the power to cure on her behalf. Once a year thereafter he provided the lady with a large basin of very tiny pills for her to distribute to cure people's ills; he also appeared to her in dreams to help solve difficult problems put to her by devotees. The lady, now the temple keeper, has a number of elderly ladies to help run the corrugated iron and brick temple which she has had built near his grave.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214710, "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-1999", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "89\n\ncalled. 'hair vegetable), is a homonym for 'get rich'. This basin-meal lunch was the final item on the agenda for the day that the main ceremony was held.\n\nWith this having taken place on the Wednesday at Sheung Tsuen, and the god, Taai Wong Ye, having been burned the same evening, the bamboo-framed matshed was dismantled the following day. As follow up, the Author thus decided to return to the village three days later. The five tun fu pots filled with sand, with a single, split-bamboo talisman with prayers written on it in each pot, had been placed circling the old banyan tree (see Plate 7). Tied to the top of each talisman was a golden (foil) kam fa and a red ribbon - both auspicious colours. There were remains of joss sticks burned by villagers.\n\n10\n\nFurther follow up visits by the Author revealed that, on the 1st and the 15th of every Chinese month especially, joss sticks are burned near the tun fu pots largely by elderly women on behalf of their families. Nevertheless, the pots often give the impression of not being particularly well looked after. The site is untidy. This is a pity. The new West Railway line, of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, is planned to come into operation in November 2003. The tunnel is due to be finished in 2002. The pots will be left for the full duration of its construction and, if they cease to be effective, a nuen fu ('warming' of the talismans) \"revival ceremony\" may be needed. If so, Taoist priests will again officiate.\n\nComparisons of various tun fu ceremonies\n\nHow does the Pat Heung ceremony compare with other tun fu ceremonies that have been conducted elsewhere (Baker; 1980, 21)? Unfortunately the Author has not been able to find any written information, nor has he heard any oral accounts of tun fu ceremonies conducted outside Hong Kong although he gathers they do take place in places like Taiwan. Often in Hong Kong, like the one mentioned earlier (see Endnote 1) on Ma Wan Island, or those that the Author has seen in places like Sha Tin and Kam Tin, the pots were placed near earth-god shrines. All these ceremonies were much smaller than the main ceremony at Pat Heung described in this paper. No matsheds were erected at these smaller gatherings. Sometimes ceremonies are held close to tsz tongs (ancestral halls), although not normally inside.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215105, "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": 201, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "158\n\nof victorious battles he captured Kaifeng and Luoyang where he had himself proclaimed emperor of the new dynasty of Greater Yan. His further campaigns and those of his subordinates were at first victorious; however, they then began to suffer a series of defeats at the hands of Guo Ziyi, one of China's most renowned generals, whose successes led to increased loyalist resistance to the rebel forces.\n\nA major consequence of the rebellion of An Lushan, was the withdrawal by the emperor of his forces garrisoning the North-west thereby losing control over China's far dominions in Zungaria and the Tarim Basin [today's Xinjiang province] for the best part of the next thousand years.\n\nFor a while it seemed that the balance was turning in the emperor's favour. However, the Capital garrison at Chang'an [Xi'an] was incapable of resisting the attacks of the rebel forces and after the defeat of his main army on the banks of the Yellow River the emperor in great alarm was forced to flee Chang'an accompanied by some of his entourage. They fled west heading to Sichuan province ahead of the rebel advance. En route, at Ma Wei, his escort mutinied, killed Yang Guozhong and forced the emperor to order the Concubine Yang be strangled to pacify his discontented guards. Stories have varied but the most popular versions claim that the emperor had no choice but order her to be strangled by his chief eunuch or that she was forced to commit suicide. On reaching the safety of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, the heir apparent had been persuaded to usurp the throne. Weary and distressed the old emperor, now in Chengdu, gave his assent to the new reign and became the retired emperor. The new emperor bestowed the title of Taishang Huangdi\n\nupon his father but kept him under house-arrest.\n\nThe heir-apparent made his way to Lingzhou in Gansu where he was proclaimed emperor Su Zong and was soon joined by two armies, one under Guo Ziyi. By 757 Guo had recovered the main and subsidiary capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang from the rebels, whereupon the new emperor summoned the former emperor back to Chang'an to ensure that he would not be the focus of any further intrigue and threat, where he died in 761. The father was then canonised as Zongming Huangdi\n\nthough usually he is still referred to as Ming Huang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215613, "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": 390, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "341\n\nNEXUS OF VILLAGES BY UNICORN DANCING TEAMS\n\nCHIU HANG SHI\n\nIt was chilly, cloudy and rainy on Sunday, January 27, 2002 in Hoi Pui Tsuen, Pat Heung. This village is inhabited by the Fan, the Cheung and the Kan. This area was quite inaccessible before the construction of the Tai Lam Tunnel and recently the West Rail Station.\n\nSome 60 people, mainly young men and some leaders of the village, have been gathered in front of the village office since 2:00pm in a jovial manner. Inside the village office, a temporary altar was set up facing the entrance of the building with a tablet of hand-written characters on it. Some seven unicorn dancing teams arrived by 5:00pm. All teams were first greeted by the unicorn team of the host village and then each team proceeded to the two ancestral halls (Fan's and Cheung's) to pay tribute to the ancestors. A banquet of basin meal of 120 tables was served in the evening.\n\nThe organizer of this celebration was Nam Shing Tong. This celebration has been held every year after the Handover. The reason for doing so was that this Tong has had some extra money left every year.\n\nAt first one might have no idea why unicorn dancing teams from some apparently unrelated areas would be invited to come. 1. Yuen Long, well, it is reasonable to have a team from Yuen Long. Hoi Pui Tsuen is in Yuen Long, 2. Shatin, it is quite the other part of the Territory, and 3. Sai Kung, it is obviously very far away. Later, I was enlightened by being told that they were from the same instructor, Master So. The unicorn dancing team from Sai Kung was particularly able to draw one's attention - it was known as Pak Kei Lun (Northern unicorn), which was black, as different from the unicorns commonly seen in Hong Kong, which were bright and colourful. The Pak Kei Lun had two small horns, which might, ironically, make it no longer qualified to be a unicorn, in a Western sense. The ordinary unicorn had five colour strips around the neck: red, yellow, blue, white and black, resembling the five directions: south, centre, east, west and north.\n\nPage 390\n\nPage 391", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216039, "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": 338, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "272\n\nAlthough not part of the Zhenjiang story a Daoist cult centre on Mao Shan, a mountain some fifty miles to the south, was visited annually by a stream of pilgrims in the Spring, a great many of whom passed through the convenient port of Zhenjiang. The Daoist Mao Shan school was arguably the most powerful Daoist sect during the Tang and maintained its great prestige down to at least 1949. The Mao Shan Daopai as it is known, is renowned for its seances and medium trances, and according to Mao Shan sect priests was founded in the fourth century AD with the Mao Shan sect priests considering themselves to be the highest ranking of all Daoist orders.15 The sect originally appears to have been meditative and only later did it fall into line with other sects.\n\nIn 1917 two images were observed by Otterwill in Zhenjiang, in procession, Yan Gong and Jiang Gong #, both patron deities of river boatmen. Both deities were popular on altars in and around Nanchang, Anjing and along the Yangzi. Also popular in central China, C. B. Day records that Yan Gong in Zhejiang province was one of the Five Daoist deities who presided over a period of danger, a member of the Celestial Board of Health 瘟部五帝.\n\nThere have been but few references in western writings to the legend and role of Yan Gong, a Patron of Sailors. According to Doré, \"he was regarded in Central China as the protector of sailors and the god of the tides [Chao Shen].\" This, presumably, means the patron deity of sailors in the rivers and estuaries of the Yangzi basin. However, Yang Laoda is the usual patron of boatmen on the Yangzi. Werner1 provides a more detailed description of Yan Gong, the god of sailors, adding a little to Doré. He notes that Yan Gong had a temple built in his honour near Shanghai during the reign of the first emperor of the period of the Three Kingdoms [ca. AD 240] and that he was the deified hero in that temple who protected Shanghai from rebel attacks during the reign of Ming Shi Cong [ca. 1540]. Other legends claim that he was born during the Song in Jiangxi, that he was one of the four major deities of Jiangxi province, and was a censor famous for his integrity. Or that he was again a native of Jiangxi but born during the Yuan, and drowned during a storm when returning home. He was buried but was seen by the inhabitants of his native district on the same day. When his coffin was brought to Nanchang and opened it was found to be empty, a miracle which led to a temple being built in his honour. Sailors have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216046, "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": 345, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "279\n\nfrom\n\nsince. Legends claim it to be either a Buddhist pagoda dredged up the bed of the Yangzi Song dynasty from about 1000 AD or a memorial shrine to a Song dynasty prefect of about 1090.\n\nA stone Stupa or dagoba [containing Buddhist relics] is situated on a stone platform supported by four pillars over a busy street in front of the Guan Yin Cave to the north of Yuntai Hill to the west of Zhenjiang. In years gone by people heading for the small ferry across the Yangzi had to pass under it and gained confidence for their chancy ferry crossing from the protective power emanating from the relics. It is said to have been built during the Yuan dynasty during the 13th century.\n\nDaily life of foreigners in this insignificant Treaty port\n\nDuring the heady days of westerners within the Yangzi basin the steady stream of river steamers sailing the river under the protection of foreign flags and the twin fleets of protective river gun boats of the RN and USN, trade flourished and even an early form of tourism existed. Zhenjiang was famous for silk piece-goods, silk cord tassels for official hats, medicated wine called White Flower Wine, Baihua Jiu, aromatic plants, and fine sturgeon. However, for the foreign residents the greatest bane was the boredom. Although there was the Club where cards, drink and perhaps a few books and newspapers helped while away the long evenings, the ennui of the same faces, the same voices and the same topics of conversation was sufficient to bring some to the verge of suicide and some over it.\n\nLife was fairly constrained. There were only two provision stores to serve the foreign community during the first decades of the 20th century, Foo Chong and Chong Hsin. And according to L.C. Arlington Zhenjiang Concession, despite its very limited numbers, boasted its own aristocracy, with the Consul and the Commissioner of Customs as joint Sovereign Lords. The port, he added, was full of individuality, and social life; and the clubs - that for the Upper Circles [Zhenjiang Club] and that for the Lower Strata [Customs Club] - combined to produce constant gossip and occasional friction.20 There were a number of peculiar characters but none more peculiar than an American missionary who had been divorced by his wife owing, it was said, to his peculiar ways. He professed to carry out the teaching of St. Paul by consorting with the coolies in the native city, and providing them with\n\nPage 345\n\nPage 346", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]