[ { "id": 204273, "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-1961", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n37\n\nand well versed in history and literature. So Hsieh made her his private secretary. At that time, the military governors were practically independent war-lords paying only nominal homage to the crown. A rival governor, T'ien Ch'eng-ssu, was increasing his armed forces and planning to annex Lu-chou. Seeing that Hsüeh was worried about this, Hung Hsien offered to go to the rival governor's city one night to investigate. Brushing aside Hsüeh's misgivings, she pushed her hair back to form a bun, put on a short embroidered jacket and black silk shoes, carried a dagger, and wrote a magic spell on her forehead. In a moment she was gone. Hsüeh waited for her alone, and after a dozen cups of wine, it was already daybreak. Suddenly he heard something falling lightly like a leaf on the ground outside. It was Hung Hsien coming back. She had travelled several hundred miles and gone to the rival governor's headquarters, and, without disturbing the armed guards or waking up the governor, had taken from his bed-side a gold case containing his horoscope. Next morning, Hsieh sent the gold case back to his rival, with a letter saying, “Last night a visitor came and brought this from your bed-side. I dare not keep it and am returning it herewith.\" On receiving this, the rival governor, T'ien, was petrified. He sent Hsüeh rich gifts and a humble letter of apology, saying that he had no aggressive intentions and that he was going to cut down his forces. All was peace and quiet. Two months later, Hung Hsien asked permission to leave. Hsüeh was naturally reluctant to let her go, whereupon she said, \"In my previous incarnation I was a man and a physician, who, by mistake, caused the death of a pregnant woman conceiving twins. As a punishment, I was re-born as a girl and became a serving maid. Now that I have repaid your kindness, I must go.\" Hsieh realized it was no use trying to keep her, so he held a great farewell banquet in her honour. After a tearful goodbye, she disappeared and was never seen again.11\n\nThe above story is written in elegant classical prose. At the same time, chivalric tales also existed in the popular colloquial literature of T'ang times. Among the manuscripts discovered at Tun-huang at the end of the last century are many tales known as pien-wen (#), which may be translated as \"popularized texts\".15 These are for the most part Buddhist legends re-told in a semi-colloquial style, often in a mixture of prose and verse. However, some of them are not of a religious character. Among these is\n\n14 T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi ***, chüan 195. For a full translation of the story, see E. D. Edwards, Chinese prose literature of the T'ang period, vol. II (London, 1938), pp. 123-7.\n\n15 For further information, see Arthur Waley, Ballads and stories from Tun-huang (London, 1960).\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204726, "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": 29, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "20 \n\nW. C. HUNTER \n\nthere was a large Chop posted on the wall of the Company's Factory giving a review of the correspondence between the Commissioner and the foreigners up to this time. \n\nAt 5 p.m. the coolies brought us 6 buckets of water and 4 bundles [of] hay for the cows and promised to bring us some spring water tomorrow. \n\nApril 2, Tuesday \n\nNew China Street, Hog Lane and the alley in front of Cox's house have been built up with bricks for the double purpose of preventing the escape of foreigners and to keep all Chinese out of the Square. None but those on duty are permitted to come in front of the Factories. The guards are erecting more mat sheds by the water side. Supplies of bread, fruit, spring water and other things brought to each Factory. \n\nEverything very dull in the day time. The Factories, deserted by the Chinese who used to live in them, are as desolate as possible, and at night dark and dreary. We have, however, quantities of food supplied us by the Consoo. \n\nHired six of the coolies on guard at our Factory gate to wash out the Hong, and paid them 25 cents each. We have a fellow to look after our cows who comes in and goes out at pleasure, the linguists having furnished him with a pass. All the coolies, police and soldiers stationed around the Factories are each supplied with a pass which they are obliged to show on passing in and out of the gate at the end of Old China Street which is the only entrance into the Square, all the other avenues having been bricked up. The pass is a small piece of wood attached to a red string with the characters Yaou-Pae, meaning \"a pass attached to the waist\" where it is fastened. Beneath these characters are others, private marks. \n\nThe washerman came yesterday and brought our clean clothes and took some away to be washed, having no pass a linguist came in with him and remained till he went away. Everything taken from the Factories, I am told, is first carried to the Consoo House, where, with the carriers, all are examined. A precaution taken to prevent any letter or note being carried out of the Hongs which might be sent to the vessels at Whampoa, at Lintin, or Macao.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206101, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "176\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nis not an effective way of fighting pirates to give up territory, such useless tactics have never been heard of before in history.”\n\nThe hypocrisy of the official excuse is also pointed out by the scholar Ch'ü Ta-chün, author of a book on Kwangtung province30 which contains many satirical comments on the Manchus. He writes:\n\n“A Manchu self-styled official arrived who proclaimed himself greatly concerned with the protection of the people from marauders. The fact of the matter was of course that Formosa remained unconquered.”\n\nThe evacuation was announced by a proclamation giving the people three days in which to remove behind a boundary which had been set up roughly 50 li from the coast. This was disregarded and soldiers had to be marched in to drive the people away. At the same time the coastal defences were organised into a line of fortifications only a few miles from each other. Many of these mounds of earth and stone must still be visible on the hills. The people evacuated had no food or lodging provided for them. The fishing boats were prevented from entering or leaving the rivers by a line of stakes set across them. There appears to have been no attempt at organising relief. Some local magistrates tried to assign places for the refugees to live but there was too little land available for such a vast number. As a result, large numbers died, others trekked inland; whilst a good many managed to avoid the boundary guards and returned to their villages.\n\nA second and more stringent evacuation then took place. The boundary was placed even further inland and everyone was made to leave their homes. Twenty-four villages whose population remained were severely punished and the people were threatened with death if they returned. A large number died from ignorance of the official decrees since they were not adequately circulated and not all could read them. The soldiers after removing the population had instructions to pull down the houses and build forts and towers with the bricks. Ch'ü Ta-chün describes the distress over the boundary as follows:\n\n30 廣東新語 - 屈大鈞著", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206123, "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "196\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nBut in a local and a directly utilitarian point of view, the author is encouraged to believe that his work should not be placed as a candle under a bushel. This wealthy and most important Colony stands in the midst of the Sun-on District, and it seems to betoken a feeling in rear of the age, that the topography of the immediate neighbourhood should be a matter of perfect indifference. To the naturalist, the traveller, the sportsman, and the Missionary, the information should be acceptable, to say nothing of its political value. Besides, for police purposes in dealing with the all prevailing evil of piracy, when the subtlety of the Mandarin is considered, the author cannot doubt the value of his work to the British authorities.\n\nHe therefore calls attention to his Map, and solicits the favor of subscriptions to enable him to publish it.\n\nREVD. S. VOLONTIERI, Mission, Apost.\n\nHongkong, 10 May, 1866.\n\nA CASUALTY OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION\n\nBefore the New Territories were leased to Britain in 1898 the villagers on the British side of what became the new border area at the market village of Sha Tau Kok were accustomed to worship in the Man Mo temple (X) there. After 1898 this temple was located on the Chinese side of the Border, but this apparently made little difference to the religious practice of local people thereafter, even after the Communist take-over in 1949.\n\nOne of the images in the temple was that of Tin Hau (A), the Queen of Heaven who is a popular goddess among boat people and villagers near the seashore in the Hong Kong area. The people of three Hakka villages on the British side of Sha Tau Kok, namely Tan Shui Hang, Tong To and Sha Tsui which in 1961 had a total population of around 1,000 persons, were particularly accustomed to visiting the Man Mo temple to worship Tin Hau. When the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution developed in China in 1966 Red Guards singled out temples for particular attention, and it seems that iconoclastic activities also", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207239, "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": 7, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CORRIGENDA\n\n(i) Readers may find the following list of sub-heads in Dr. Bowie's article on The British Military Hospital Hong Kong 1942-1945 useful for reference purposes.\n\nIntroduction\n\nPrelude: up to 8 December 1941\n\n8-25 December 1941\n\n26 December 1941-7 August 1942\n\nThe Period of the Infections\n\nThe Period of the Deficiency Diseases\n\nThe Period of Slow Decline\n\nFood\n\nJapanese Rations\n\nAdditions to Japanese Supplies of Food\n\nGifts from Friends in Hong Kong\n\nSupplies bought with Officers' Money\n\nRed Cross Food Supplies\n\nEffects of Supplements on General Diet\n\nFeeding the Patients\n\nFeeding the Staff\n\nDeliveries of Japanese Rations\n\nStoring the Food\n\nCooking the Food\n\nDistribution of Food\n\nArrangement made by our Friends in Hong Kong\n\nBody Weights\n\nJapanese Administrative Staff and Guards.\n\nTrading\n\nSupplies of Drugs and Dressings\n\nEntertainment\n\nAugust-December 1942\n\nThe Year 1943\n\n1 January 1944-23 March 1945\n\nReasons for the Move of the Hospital in 1945\n\n24 March-9 September 1945\n\nCasualties and Evacuation of Wounded During Hostilities\n\nResponsibility without Power\n\nSex\n\nThe Atomic Bomb", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207318, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "78\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\npart, and even the music was streamlined by her. There are up to date eight plays in their repertoire: Pa-pao kung-chu† ± princess Pa-pao; T'ao-hua huo tu*; also called Su Liu-niang*; Shih yü-cho£; The Jade-bracelet; Ch'en San Wu-Niang: Tze Liang Chi : Tang Po-hu tien ch'iu-hsiang唐伯虎點秋香(三笑姻緣); Shou Shu-yüan搜書院; and Tze Lang-chu辭郎洲.\n\nHere is the content of two of these operas as they were performed by Hsiao Nan-ying in Hong Kong in 1975.\n\nSTABBING LIANG CHI (✯✯M✯)\n\nLiang Chi, a treacherous prefect, passes through the streets and his guards catch a man who roamed about instead of retiring at the approach of the prefect. When questioned, it turns out that he is a fortune-teller. The prefect dismisses his entourage and encourages the fortune-teller to look at his face and tell his fortune. After some hesitation he talks professional terminology about Liang's eyes and physiognomy and asks him about his age. 63 was the answer. Then he would be stabbed in the next 3 days; but if he could avoid it he would be very successful thereafter. If he wants to avoid it—and he asked the lord to go backwards 3 steps—then he should not go out of his house and not see anyone from outside for 3 days.\n\nThe fortune-teller, although afraid, was rather satisfied with the prospect to see this wretched lord killed.\n\nAfter this the fortune-teller wished to get out of the house as fast as possible, but the lord called his housekeeper and ordered him to feed the fortune-teller,\n\nThe gates were locked and orders given, and then the lord planned to enjoy these 3 days of unexpected leisure. As he had just got a new lady in his residence, he gave orders that she should serve him the wine that night.\n\nThe new lady (performed by Hsiao Nan-ying) was in fact the daughter of a fisherman whom the lord had killed with an arrow. The fisherman's daughter had come instead of another, in order to avenge her father. When she was summoned, she knew that this was her chance to fulfill her vows. She took a hair pin from her hair, and decided that she would stab him with it. The ladies-in-waiting brought a crown and gorgeous red garments to dress her for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207404, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "164\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nted and after a few weeks we depended upon the Japanese for the supplies of these basic necessities.\n\nThough the Japanese had not signed the Geneva Convention 1929 they apparently notified to governments concerned their intention to abide by its provisions, and in 1942 recognised the position of the International Red Cross in Hong Kong. The first Red Cross inspection of Bowen Road took place in June 1942 before I began to keep my diaries and I have now no note of this.\n\nWe did not know it at the time but the Japanese obviously decided as an article of policy to leave our hospital with its own staff to look after allied sick and wounded prisoners of war. They decided the size of the staff, the number of patients who were to be admitted and sometimes who were to be discharged. They did not interfere with the treatment of our patients nor did they remove anything other than minor quantities of drugs and equipment from our stores.\n\nI have no means of judging accurately but my feeling is that the Japanese supplied us with food, fuel and small quantities of material for repairing clothes and boots, essentials such as soap etc., on what were probably the scales they used for their own troops. Perhaps the scales were those for their garrison troops rather than for fighting troops; I can recall that our Formosan guards were poorly dressed and I know shared our anxieties when rations were late arriving. Japanese fighting troops of course drew largely upon local resources for food etc., during their campaigns.\n\nIn the hospital we had Japanese-supplied electricity and water for nearly three years, and when these finally failed we had recourse to our own alternative sources of power and improvised water supplies. We had no periods of relief from our surroundings and were increasingly closely confined as the years passed. I draw attention now to these points since, and before I close this account, I shall try to assess how far the outcome of our story, happier than it might have been, depended upon the Japanese and how far it depended on the efforts of our own staff and patients, the Red Cross and our friends in Hong Kong.\n\nI had made few records of the food situation before August 1942 but we fared none too well for rations. Of course we had some stocks of our own and Lt. F.J. Campbell, the quartermaster and his staff made forays without Japanese leave on the ration dumps accumulated by us in the Colony before hostilities began. These", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207450, "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": 218, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "210\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nwe knew that men were searched by guards on arrival in camps, drugs being confiscated. I do not remember however hearing of any serious punishment being inflicted on men discovered to be carrying drugs.\n\nOn 29 July 1945 Saito handed over five cases each marked case 111, of medical supplies from the American Red Cross. These contained cresol, dextrose in saline, saline, capsules of vitamins A and B, distilled water and dried human plasma. I don't know how he got these but they were sophisticated packs of a type quite new to us.\n\nENTERTAINMENTS\n\nSome entertainment in the form of sing-songs was provided in the seven months after our surrender on occasions when the recreation room was not flooded. At this time few of our patients were fit to go to the recreation room, but we were lucky in another direction. Corporal Carter of the Royal Signals had been wounded, and as he recovered a proposal was made that the wards might be wired and provided with loud speakers to receive a programme of gramophone music coming from a station within the hospital. I was fully occupied as a surgeon at this time and I do not know who conceived the idea. The necessary work was done, though, and the Japanese agreed to allow two periods of music each day. The operation room for this venture was a bunk occupied by Corporal Carter who soon extended his activities. These sessions were very valuable in distracting patients' attention in 1942 and 1943 from the grim realities of wounds, sickness and undernourishment. Carter, an enterprising extrovert, not overburdened with nerves soon contrived to listen to news broadcasts from British sources. He was joined by one or two others, equally bold but perhaps a little more careful, and soon we were having daily bulletins of the contents of British news broadcasts. When I took charge of the hospital these came to me and were made known by word of mouth to patients and staff. I do not now recall that any major news came by this route. The items related to the same events as we read or had deduced from the local newspaper, but of course were put out with the emphasis on our side. Carter was also asked by the Japanese to repair their wireless set on several occasions and did so. He thus had the pleasure of listening to British broadcasts inside Japanese quarters. In his own bunk where he received the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207456, "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "216\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nhospital. As a result our wards were crowded to a greater extent than ever before.\n\nEarlier all in hospital were required to sign a statement undertaking not to escape. Few of us, patients or staff, felt any compunction about signing such a document under duress and only two officer patients refused their signatures. Early in November, Colonel Tokunaga, no less, came himself and saw both officers. One thereupon signed while the other was removed and kept overnight in a small cupboard-like room in a building in Kowloon. I understood that he was not ill-treated, and it was explained to him that our British General Officer Commanding had ordered officers to sign. He then signed and was returned as a patient to our hospital.\n\nMost of our patients had lost all their kit and many did not possess even a drinking mug at this time. They were using tins which had contained tinned food, but the rims of these tins were jagged and caused much pain especially to patients whose lips and tongue were raw from deficiency diseases. Our engineers set to work and fitted empty tins with handles and smoothed out the rims and acceptable drinking mugs were soon issued to all patients. The engineers also turned out badly needed fly-swatters in large numbers.\n\nIn November we received 198 books from the Red Cross for our library, and in December another 400 library books arrived. Also in December a number of musical instruments, indoor games, packs of cards etc. were received through the Red Cross from the Pope. In November we had a stock of 270 gramophone records and these were listed and we were even able to provide requested programmes of music. From time to time we received a number of copies of the Japan-produced English language Japan Times in one of which an indignant account was given of the torpedoing by an American submarine of the \"Lisbon Maru\" which was carrying British prisoners to Japan. In this disaster when the torpedo struck, many of our men were battened down in the holds and prevented from trying to save themselves. Some were fired upon while swimming. The Japanese indignation should properly have been directed against the guards.\n\nNormally we had two check parades daily, one about eight a.m. and the other about five p.m. and about once a month on average", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207463, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n223\n\nonce to our hospital. At any rate we were prepared to try a method by which we might exercise influence on the procedure for admitting patients to hospital.\n\nWe had been preparing what we called yeast drinks for all in hospital. We interrupted the issue for a time because the fluid became very sour and was discovered to have eroded some of the zinc pails in which it had been prepared. This was an arresting thought for us who were trying to do good. We then adopted a new process for producing yeast for baking and for issue aided by an ingenious device made by Mr. Sims, our chief engineer, whose fertile brain produced many ideas for our benefit.\n\nA few of our patients were showing signs of obsessional mental disturbances, mostly harmless but we had a number of cases of real mental disorder which called for supervision. We had what used in peacetime to be called a mental ward in the hospital and we had nursing orderlies who had been trained in the nursing of mental cases. These patients however were mostly cared for in a small ward, in no way different to the other wards in the hospital and some of the supervision was often provided by convalescing patients. Only once did a mentally afflicted patient cause us real anxiety when he broke free and rushed out of the hospital toward the guard-room pursued by his attendant. The guards did not attempt to shoot and our patient was brought back quietly to the hospital. I considered that the conditions under which prisoners of war were confined did not in themselves cause mental disorder, though they may have accelerated a breakdown in men otherwise liable to be affected.\n\nIn March we received another 622 books from the Red Cross via the Japanese and a little later we installed our library in the peacetime operating room on the first floor. Some books and the musical instruments and indoor games were displayed effectively in the recreation room for the benefit of inspecting officers. The librarian did an excellent job repairing damaged books and used threads unpicked from a soldier's webbing belt to stitch back detached covers and folios.\n\nOn 3 May 1943 the Japanese asked for boxes of personal possessions which had been left behind by our nurses to be delivered to them, and within an hour Seino took away 14 trunks, boxes etc. belonging to 10 ladies. I never heard if these reached their owners in Stanley Camp.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207464, "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": 232, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "224\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nAir alerts were frequent and raids were common, though no attacks were directed near to us. During alerts we brought our patients down from the upper two floors and the arrangement worked well enough though I was always a little fearful of our excitable guards urging haste to our patients whose gait and balance were disturbed by disease. Blackouts occurred regularly and added greatly to the difficulties of our night duty staff. I used to lie in bed on many nights when the hospital was blacked out but not alerted and listen to the big American planes flying over Hong Kong, probably from airfields in China on bombing raids on Japanese held territories. Emergency checks on our numbers continued to be held at night time about once a month in addition to the regular morning and evening checks. The night checks got us up from bed for up to an hour. In May we could still use our portable X-ray machines but this was of little value because we had no films. About the same time mosquitoes were a pest and we had a number of cases of fever among staff and patients.\n\nDuring 1943 I find recurring references in my diary to shortages of fuel and we had parties out regularly on the hillside behind the hospital felling trees. The cooks had an unenviable task trying to make fires with green wood. Food supplies, too, came at intervals which were not regular, and in June for example the rice intakes were so irregular that we had to juggle a good deal with issues. Stocks of sugar both from the Red Cross and Japanese sources dwindled also and we had to cut issues in order not to run out of supplies. By September 1943 eggs cost 1.30 yen each and rising costs generally compelled us to re-examine the system of issuing extra food for patients in need. We established that first priority should be given to patients with suppurating wounds or who had pulmonary tuberculosis; next came patients with gross loss of weight; then came those with acute fevers and those who could not eat rice and with these were banded some of the patients with visual defects, the result of deficiency diseases. In July we had to reduce the flour ration to 104 grammes a day, though to offset this the daily rice ration was increased to 384 grammes. We experimented with combinations of atta, boiled rice and ground rice to make something we could call bread and we even produced some small buns using a little flour as well. We made and issued a soup made from fish heads but this was unpalatable to most and when we abandoned the experiment we thereafter issued fish complete with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207465, "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": 233, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n225\n\ntheir heads. Though bits of protein may thus have been made available many found it hard to look their fish in the face.\n\nWe had two Red Cross inspections by Mr. Zindel in June and December. On both occasions staff and patients paraded and he made quite extensive rounds though no communication between him and us was allowed. In July though, he sent us a number of indoor games including chess sets, a table tennis outfit, two dart board sets, 18 packs of cards, four badminton rackets and two boxes of shuttles. These again had to be given prominent places in the recreation room where they could be seen. About half way through the year we began to have to pay for our four copies of the Hongkong News which we received usually each day, 15 sen each at first.\n\nIn June I was faced with a demand from Seino for reports on our compradore shop, on the state of health of our staff, on the boots and clothing of all in hospital, on patients classified by diseases, on our complaints and on our methods of dealing with mosquitoes, lice, bugs and flies. About the end of July staff, but not patients, were allowed to bathe in the reservoir provided they wore fandoshis while I required bathers to have a shower first. The supply of mains water was intermittent and low stocks of the drug forced us to reduce the daily dose of thiamine in August to 4 mgm by injection. All concerts, church services etc, had to be finished by 8 p.m. and applause, cheers for entertainers, community singing etc. were forbidden, again I think partly because of the nearness of the Japanese army's watchful critics, the Japanese navy, and partly because our own guards might take exception to noises of this kind. We had a good piano in our recreation room and a less tuneful instrument in what had been the Chinese boys' quarters. By September all concerts and piano playing in the recreation room except during church services were stopped.\n\nI failed again to get an extra rice ration for our staff and stocks of rice would not allow us to issue extra to them without reducing the amount available for patients; for my pains we were called upon to make returns to the Japanese showing all our food stocks.\n\nMembers of the staff had been allowed to store certain locked boxes containing personal possessions in our boiler house and on 3 September a sudden search of these was made by the Japanese, all locks being smashed to get the boxes open. Seven officers and two other ranks were involved as owners, and a pair of binoculars", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207477, "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": 245, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n237\n\ndays in selected cases but without improving the condition of their patients.\n\nIn addition to beautifying our cemeteries further by means of tiles removed from walls in the hospital, a wooden Memorial Cross was completed and erected in the front cemetery to those of 27 Company R.A.M.C. who had been killed. The names of the men had been skilfully carved by a patient, Private Medhurst. The ideas for beautifying the cemeteries and for the memorial cross as well as for many of the improvements made in the hospital came from many sources and I was able to give all encouragement to men with ideas and to provide materials when available.\n\nThe year 1944 was a bad one for the supply of our Japanese rations and fuel. In February we had our last baking of bread using flour, and by that time the flour was very stale and weevily. In compensation the ration of rice allowed by the Japanese was raised from 384 grammes first to 570 grammes and later to 600 grammes daily. We were never able to issue rice on these scales because of the short weight sacks to which I have referred before. A typical disappointment came in March when the ration was cut back to 480 grammes, the cut being made retrospective to 1 March. March also brought news through Watanabe who told me that Red Cross bulk supplies would be delivered twice a month and I prepared lists of items we considered desirable, again keeping my suggestions within the bounds of what I guessed to be practicable in Hong Kong. Saito told me on 8 March that supplies I had asked for on 29 February after one of his searches could not be provided. This was an advance for me because so often in the past I never heard what the decision was on any request. In our first receipt of Red Cross supplies in March we received cod liver oil which I allocated to the medical officers for use as they judged proper. We had also received some shark liver oil from visitors and I used this by adding it to any stews we had in proportion of 5 minims for each person in the hospital. At this time we began to issue to all in hospital soy bean powder as such, instead of making what turned out to be rather repulsive milk from it. We continued to make soy milk for certain patients on the assumption that it might be more readily absorbed. Our meals were often late, mainly because of difficulty of getting good fires in the kitchen. Deliveries of rations were often irregular and we were generally uneasy about the system. Our guards seemed to share this anxiety. The quality of rations", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207481, "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": 249, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n241\n\nin the operating theatre had about 15 hours in hand and all instruments except those in constant use were vaselined and stored in airy places. Typically, after all the fuss, mains electricity was restored on 10 September for two hours in the morning and one hour in the evening and we were again allowed to use our remaining generator. By 19 October our allowance of current for lighting was subjected to a further 40% cut and our power to an 80% cut. We now used the theatre on one day a week using our own generator, but the need for individual diets and surgical procedures had dropped very substantially. By 25 October all mains electricity was cut off and thence forward we used our small generator for short periods on Tuesdays and arranged our work to coincide with these periods.\n\nDuring 1943 we heard regularly the sounds of American bombers passing overhead but Hong Kong itself was rarely attacked. In February 1944 came the raid after which we had to crop our hair short, and by August raids and alerts were frequent and I noted eleven in my diary for that month. In the hospital our air raid precautions worked well enough and no accidents occurred as a result of patients being hustled downstairs by guards in the pitch dark. As I could not influence the guards myself I tried to get our administrators to send someone down during air raids to help to calm the guards. No one ever came, though eventually we got a telephone line between the hospital and the Japanese administrative quarters which I could use when I wanted, though it proved to be of little practical value. During September and October raids and alerts by day and by night were frequent and there was a particularly heavy raid on 16 October. In November and December the alerts and raids continued and on Christmas Eve we had three raids between noon and seven o'clock, four on Christmas Day and three on Boxing Day and the spate of alerts continued till the end of the year. One raid occurred, as I have noted earlier during a Red Cross inspection on 22 December and there had been raids also on each of the preceding three days.\n\nAt 31 December 1944 our total ration strength in the hospital was 200 and my sketch of the events of the year illustrates the increasing pressures being brought to bear on the Japanese by the allies, mainly of course the Americans. In the hospital the general feeling by the end of the year was one of buoyancy since the evidence of an approaching end to the war was clear. I shared", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207496, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "256\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nOn 4 August Mr. Zindel carried out a Red Cross inspection of the hospital together with Colonel Tokunaga and his staff, the whole lasting only about twenty minutes and I had no conversation with him. At this time we had been receiving small quantities of fresh meat at weekends and this had gone on for a few weeks before meat was replaced by salted fish, the first fish we had had for a long time. In early August the weather was remarkably cool, dull and showery with the wind varying from S.W. to N.E. The barbed wire was now being brought closer to the hospital and excluded the playing field. We had two dangerously ill patients on 7 August and we received a drum of diesel oil from Saito via our engineers.\n\nMr. Sims was able to repair a burned out high tension cable on our X-ray set and I noted that we put an extra lock on the linen store, a further indication that active trading was still going on. The last Red Cross supplies we had received came in on 29 June and we were running short. Our wheat stock was exhausted and we stopped cooking buns but continued to produce a so-called cake each week and bread made from rice and beans was issued every second day. The Japanese issue of cigarettes for workers which had been due on 20 July arrived on 8 August and Saito told me that wood for fuel was very difficult to get and asked me to economise. We had made two attempts without success to make a wood saw from iron bedsteads. We had now a working party wiring and installing a water supply and a lavatory in the school sports pavilion for the use of the Japanese. We were given 186 small towels, enough for one to each person in hospital and the remainder were raffled. By now the hospital was tired of the lack of news, but remained fairly cheerful except for the blight of three patients on the dangerously ill list. On 15 August one British patient died, thus making the fifth death which had occurred in the Central British School. On 16 August we had a funeral, and a young bull was sighted in the hospital compound but just escaped us. On the same day my diary contains a note to the effect that the war was over, news which reached us via the guards. It is rather remarkable that the official surrender had been made only the previous day in Tokyo. I tackled Saito directly, asking for news but he replied that he had none, though he did promise to tell me as soon as any was available. Next day I asked Saito again in the morning for news and was answered very brusquely that he did not understand my question.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207511, "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": 279, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n271\n\nI can recall only three occasions on which the Japanese interfered with internal discipline in the hospital and I have given a short account of two of these earlier. On the third occasion our executive sergeant-major Mr. Bartley had crossed the Japanese in some way and for the only time in my three years' experience Sergeant Seino came to me, indicated displeasure with Bartley and asked if I wanted him removed from the hospital staff and sent to P.O.W. camp. Bartley's executive ability was of great value in the hospital and I had no hesitation in saying that I did not want him removed. He stayed with us until our release.\n\nPatients and staff were fairly often slapped by guards for some real or imagined disobedience or slight. These punishments were never serious, but I was always apprehensive that the person slapped might retaliate and so cause real trouble. I took up the cudgels on behalf of our people on every occasion, but I never obtained any real satisfaction and I wondered how much authority our hospital Japanese administrators had over sentries.\n\nWithin the hospital the routine discipline affecting patients and staff was in my hands. Control in wards was in the hands of medical officers in charge, assisted most effectively by the system whereby selected patients were placed in charge of internal ward affairs. These patients were of several nationalities and were not always senior in rank. Their characters and standing with patients seemed to give them more effective authority. I have referred earlier to petty thieving.\n\nOccasionally offenders had to be dealt with formally by me in my office. Usually a reprimand sufficed though occasionally a man would be confined in a small room in an outhouse with a wire stretcher as bed. This method was used rarely and a man's food was never cut in any circumstances, while he was closely observed during the term of his punishment in order to avoid adverse effects. At the end of the war no records of misconduct were handed over to any authority by me and no man was reported to any service authority for misbehaviour of any kind.\n\nMany of the problems I had to cope with arose from the antagonisms which spring up between individuals, particularly if they are called upon to work in conditions of close proximity. There was no relief from the physical presence, the personal habits, the method of working of others in the particular team so that it was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207516, "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": 284, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "276\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nordered to do so, unwounded. However this may be, there we were, available to relieve them of the responsibility of caring for our casualties.\n\nThe next point of importance is the Japanese decision to behave like other belligerents and abide by the terms of the Geneva Convention though they had not been signatories. As a result, they recognised and accepted representation in Hong Kong and some, at least of the activities of the International Red Cross Society.\n\nAs a possible third consequence they allowed the hospital to remain in its buildings and concentrated there all allied wounded from other hospitals in the Colony. They used it also to receive some, but not all sick from the P.O.W. camps.\n\nAll of these actions conferred clear benefits on the Japanese, as well as upon us.\n\nAny drugs or dressings removed by them from the hospital were in such small quantities as to be unimportant to us. Even when an electricity generator was taken, we still had another left. Except when some unacceptable decisions to admit too late, or discharge too early, sick prisoners were made by the Japanese the clinical freedom of our doctors was not challenged.\n\nThe hospital was given staple food and fuel rations and clothing and boot repair materials on a scale which may have been based on a standard used for Japanese troops who of course were known to live in part off the country in which they were operating. International agreements of course required only this scale to be observed. I think that our guards fared rather better than we did on their basic rations, especially in fish, but I have recorded earlier the anxiety shown by guards when their rations, like ours were late in arriving. I recall here the public statement to us in 1944 by a supplies officer that there were shortages on the Japanese side but that they would try to keep the hospital properly supplied. This was an appeal to us to understand their position, an appeal which fitted ill with much of the Japanese bearing towards prisoners. Their plight then, in Japan itself as well as in Hong Kong and no doubt elsewhere was extremely grave and their desperate resistance for another year is surprising. It was however hard, even impossible for prisoners to take then the detached view that we can today.\n\nWhile the Japanese haul of booty in the form of drugs and medical supplies in Hong Kong must have been enormous the quantities that reached the hospital were negligible and we were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208012, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG 1942-1945\n\n35\n\ndishes\". After a few months she was allowed out of the camp in the care of this Swiss national. She then sent parcels to friends in camp. Among other things she bought bottles of vinegar, emptied out the vinegar, refilled the bottles with gin and sent them to camp!\n\nThe Hong Kong News of April 16, 1942 reported that 300 parcels for Stanley were received by the Foreign Affairs Section of the Japanese government in the HK & Shanghai Bank. Still, few internees received parcels from the city, although one man was said to have received so many that he got a hernia carrying them up the hill to his room.\n\nMore internees benefited from the Camp Canteen, which first opened in February 1942. Like most things in camp, it took a while to get the canteen running smoothly. At first it was first come, first served; later, a tab system was organised and this resulted in a more equitable chance for the internees. On one occasion in February 1942, the Americans bought the entire stock of the canteen. This was hardly popular with the British or the Dutch. It was, however, explained by the fact that only the Americans had the necessary small notes. Large notes, such as $500 notes, were rapidly depreciating in HK and were refused by the canteen operator.\n\nAs for Red Cross parcels, they were delivered to Camp on three occasions: November 1942, September 1944 and March 1945. Containing clothing, tinned food and bulk supplies like sugar and coffee, the distributions of parcels were exciting events, not only for what was received but also for showing that the internees were not forgotten by the outside world. In regard to supplementing the Camp food with vegetables from Camp gardens, a few internees began gardening soon after being interned, but most did not, because they did not expect to be in Camp long enough to justify the work involved. Gardening on a large, communal scale did not begin for nearly two years, in 1944.\n\nThe Black Market was an outstanding feature of Stanley Camp outstanding because of its magnitude. Food, the main item of trade, of course, was brought into Camp by the guards for sale to the internees, and valuables of the internees were sent out for sale in the city. Most transactions were made via internee-traders who acted as go-betweens. One unusual feature of the Black Market in Stanley Camp was that internees could “buy” yen by writing sterling", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208625, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n55\n\nexpected at any minute, especially when we passed a level spot of ground, to be ordered to turn around and face a firing squad. Half way down our driveway a plane was heard overhead and our guards herded us over to the bank at the side of the road so as to be out of sight of the aviator. Here, while waiting for the plane to disappear, our guards noticed two watches. Mine was one and its small chain was dangling from my pocket. The guard came over, pulled out the watch, looked at it, hesitated (for it was not a wrist watch and they were more in demand) and then deciding it might do, yanked it free from its clasp and resumed his post.\n\nThe plane by this time having disappeared, the guards marshalled us in line again and off we started, wondering where we were bound for and what was going to happen to us. Some thought we were going to be taken to Repulse Bay for internment, but as we got to the foot of our hill we turned not left, but right, towards Stanley Village, but instead of continuing on we were routed up a small driveway which led to an unused road just behind the Carmelite Convent. As we passed an open space where a number of soldiers were standing, I again thought of a firing squad, but we kept marching on until turning up another bypath, we were told to halt. This dead end of the road had been cut out of the hill and we were thus pretty well protected from flying bullets, for the fighting was still going on, at least sporadically.\n\nHere we noticed a higher ranking officer than we had hitherto seen, and he had with him a portable radio or telephone set, probably the latter as wires were in evidence along the ground. We were ordered to sit or squat down—it was most awkward to sit and to rise with our hands tied behind our backs, but we had to do so again and again. The officer then, using a very few English words, questioned us. We tried to make him understand that we were \"church\" people, and though puzzled he finally seemed to grasp the significance of this word. After making us sit and rise repeatedly to indicate our nationality—there were in our ranks Americans, British, Canadian, Irish, Polish and Russian, for in addition to us Maryknollers, there were Bishop O'Gara, and Father Charles Murphy, Canadians; Mr. Brown previously mentioned, British (or rather Australian); Brother Bernard the Salesian, Irish; Father Szeliga, Salesian, Polish and a Russian, whom we called Michael, who also had been in the employ of the British. Incidentally, Father", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208630, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "60\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nremaining hardtack biscuits and the rest of the milk in the can. In the course of the morning our door was pushed ajar and we were given a pail of water and a few more biscuits. (The water, as we learned afterwards, came from a well nearby, the city water supply having been shut off or the mains broken since some days before Christmas. At our house during that time we had filled all available bottles with the precious liquid and had even drained out the water from the hot water heating system.) With the pail of water was one small cup, and as our hands were still tied, one of the soldiers who brought the water held the cup to our lips and we drank in turn.\n\nDuring the day we continued to clean up the debris in the garage, and succeeded in getting rid of a little more rubbish. We had to work quietly and in the absence of the sentry as we did not wish to excite his suspicions. During the night the rickety wooden bed had fallen apart, and in the morning the old iron bed was taken away we surmised for the purpose of cremating the dead bodies that left us with a little more floor room. As previously mentioned there were a few odd articles of clothing on a line in the garage and these we commandeered as substitutes for pillows.\n\nSo\n\nIn the afternoon of the twenty-seventh our hands were untied by the guards for the space of about an hour, so that we could eat our biscuits and drink our water. This was certainly a relief. We were likewise allowed to go outside for a short period in order to limber up, and were also informed that we could go to a nearby well for more water. Accordingly Father Keelan and I started off in company of a soldier to a house just in the rear of Dr. To's home. As we walked through the little ravine which leads to the beach we could see the vestiges of soldiers' camps, and in the unusual stillness which reigned, Stanley looked very desolate. We drew two pails of water from a rather deep well and brought them back to our brethren. In the meantime, a half dozen of us, under the lead of Father Troesch, were allowed to go up to our house to secure some clothing and blankets. They soon returned bringing with them a few armfuls of odds and ends of clothing, a blanket or two and a few tins of foodstuffs. Someone then brought us a small Chinese firepot; we found a large tin can which had contained the army biscuits and we were allowed to cook a meagre supper just outside our garage door. Hardtack was soaked in a large tin of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208709, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n139\n\njewelry through the Camp guards. So we sold the high-priced items of the parcels, both Red Cross and from town.\n\nI also sold an overcoat for 3,500 yen, a fountain pen for 540; Father Hessler's clock went for 1,200, etc. We were only sorry we had no gold teeth to sell as some people did; almost every wedding and engagement ring in the Camp went the same way. The money raised from the various sources was used to purchase only one thing—powdered egg yolk. Some of it came in over the wire at a very high price, but still a better value than the parcel items. We also gave poor families the money to buy their allowance of egg yolk and other foods in the canteen, and in return, they gave us a share of the egg yolk.\n\nThe value of the military yen had been fixed at one yen to four Hong Kong dollars, or one yen to one U.S. dollar. Early in the Camp, we bought three eggs for a yen, but the printing presses kept working and the yen kept dropping. In 1945 one pound of powdered milk brought 800 yen, but the official rate was still one yen to one U.S. dollar, and the U.S. Red Cross was sending us $25 monthly, for which we got 25 yen. The price of egg yolk soared correspondingly, going up to over 1,000 yen per pound in the Black Market. Raw brown sugar brought 400 yen. One could get a good pair of shoes for a pound of sugar.\n\n\"Father Meyer's Powdered Egg Yolk\" became a joke about the Camp. The Catholic women volunteered to make it into omelets for the sick. They found that a little rice gruel made it hold together quite nicely. Sea water was used to salt it. Even such an omelet made a big difference to those who were receiving plain boiled rice and vegetable stew for most of their meals. For one year, we received no fish or meat in the rations supplied, and during one-half of the year, the Camp had no bread.\n\nWe helped the sick irrespective of creed. Among them were fourteen tuberculosis patients in the \"sanitorium\", a small building originally constructed to house the occasional leper among the inmates of the Hong Kong prison at Stanley. One of these omelets was an event in their day.\n\nDuring the last year, the situation became especially alarming for pregnant mothers. Their blood-count would drop from a normal 4,000,000 to 2,000,000, even 1,800,000. The doctors were helpless;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209005, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n135\n\nmajor during the early K'ang Hsi period. He had taken part in the suppression of the disturbances led by Ng Shaam-kwai in the south. He was promoted to Yau Je or colonel and then to Ti Tu or brigadier of the Fukien Province. In the 56th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1717), he was promoted to be Chuen Fu or Governor of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces.\n\nAt that time, pirates were disturbing the south coast of China, and the people there led a hard life. Yeung Lin lowered their taxes and improved their living. Two years later, in the 58th year of the Kang Hsi reign (1719), he was made Viceroy of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces. He then proposed to erect 126 forts, walled cities and guard-stations, and to strengthen the fortification of the coast by increasing the garrisons to 3991 men. His proposal was authorized, and in the first year of the Yung Cheng reign (1723), he was appointed to be Viceroy of Kwangtung specially responsible for all matters of the Kwangtung Province. He died a year later, (1724).\n\nTo conclude, the Fat Tong Mun Fort must have been built when Yeung Lin was Viceroy of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces, within the period between the 59th year of K'ang Hsi and the first year of the Yung Cheng reign (1720-1723). The fort guarded the Fat Tong Mun and had 8 cannon places and 13 guard-houses. A garrison of 25 soldiers under one pa-tsung or sergeant from the Tai Pang Battalion was stationed there. Then in the 15th year of the Chia Ch'ing Reign (1810), the fort was evacuated and finally abandoned.\n\nThe fort became a ruin, long neglected. It is now being excavated under the direction of Dr. Solomon Bard, Executive Secretary, Antiquities and Monuments Section, Urban Services Department, Hong Kong.\n\nHong Kong, January 1981\n\nANTHONY K. K. SIU\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Tung Lung Island was called South Fat Tong or Nam Fat Tong in the past. It lies to the east of Hong Kong Island and guards the eastern entrance to the Victoria Harbour.\n\n2 Chapter 4 of the San On Yuen Chi, Chia Ch'ing edition **縣志卷四**.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209472, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "return to what might be called the amateur ideal. One was supposed to be both \"red\" and \"expert,” but the emphasis was on being \"red.\" Local Party secretaries were given extensive powers to intervene in almost every phase of production and administration, not to mention the judicial process. The extent of this intervention tended to vary in degree of intensity during the following years, and for a while before the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution a certain degree of professionalism returned to the managerial and scientific research fields, but not to the law.\n\nPerhaps the most significant aspect of the Anti-Rightist Movement was not so much the immediate suffering of many intellectuals and the suppression of professionalism in various fields but was rather the greatly increased emphasis on class struggle. Class struggle is an essential ingredient of Marxism, and Mao's first important work as a Marxist was an analysis of the various classes in Chinese society. It was this analysis that brought him to an understanding of the Chinese peasant's potential for revolution. During the early years of the People's Republic the major class enemies were landlords and bureaucratic capitalists who were a relatively small and fairly well-defined group. After the Anti-Rightist Movement the major class enemy became the so-called bourgeois rightists, a label which could be applied to anyone, but which was in fact especially applied to intellectuals suspected of disagreeing with the current policies of the Party leadership. The expanded use of this label paved the way for the bloody violence and repression of the Cultural Revolution. Bourgeois rightists were no longer considered to be merely backward elements in the society but were vilified as counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people, a sub-human category, beyond redemption, which deserved to be destroyed in any way possible and without mercy. The humanistic idealism which had been such a part of the revolution in its earlier stages, and indeed, led many people at first to support the Cultural Revolution itself, gave way to fanaticism and factional violence.\n\nDuring the Cultural Revolution the police, procuratorate, and courts became early centres of attack by Mao's Red Guards. Although the police and courts continued to function in most places throughout the Cultural Revolution, their top personnel", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209863, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "100\n\nFurther to the west is Shalowan (\"Sand Snail Bay\") a big village with a fine beach and a fine wood behind it for “fungshui”. The villagers defend their beach against sand diggers with firearms; it guards their paddy fields behind. There is a settlement of early man on the headland near the village; old fields just behind the site are, apparently, for dry crops.\n\nIn a suitable light ancient log slides can be seen, running straight down the steepest hills, on this stretch of coast.\n\nBetween Shalowan and Tai O the only place of note is Sham Wat (\"Deep Dene\"), a narrow valley with two or three tiny hamlets.\n\nJust to the east of Tai O is Po Chu Tam (“Precious Pearl Pool\"). The name may either preserve the memory of a pearl fishery or enshrine a local legend: pearl oysters were once to be found in Hainan only 200 miles away. Po Chu Tam is the back door to Tai O, from it a navigable creek runs down to Tai O town. Po Chu Tam has a big temple with a shed for dragon boats; the head and tail are kept in the temple. On a low headland nearby is a ruined Chinese fort: its work is now done by an Indian guard, put there after a piracy in 1926. Another protection is an old wall with a gate, which stands across the path from Po Chu Tam just outside Tai O. Any active man could out-flank it by going up the hill.\n\nTai O (\"Big Haven\") is the biggest town in Lantau, with over 2,000 people. It was recently building an electric light and power station, run on oil. The town straggles along the shores of its creek, and has a small agricultural plain behind it. About 3 miles up into the hills is a big Buddhist temple, with a number of \"fasting halls\"; these have lately built a bridge and widened the path going up hill. Tai O salt is made in big salt pans, but is of poor quality, and only fit for salting fish. The creek cuts off the hills on which the Police Station stands from the town: it is crossed by a sampan ferry which is leased by auctions held by the elders of the place. In the wider part of the creek is a substantial settlement of boatpeople. They live in huts built on piles driven into the creek bed. These piles are often of stone, but often also of wood or bamboo. The huts are lashed to the piles with wire.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211679, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "69\n\nThe embarkation took place at midnight. It had begun to rain. There was no street lighting; the night was very dark and the gangway up to the hulk was slippery. These hulks were great steel pontoons, two hundred feet long, with a large deck house, in which were located the shipping company's office and some residential quarters. Wide stairs led down to the holds below, where the inward and outward cargoes were stored pending transfer elsewhere. To approach the ship you had to walk round outside the hulk along a gangway, about three feet wide, left between the deckhouse and the edge. To facilitate the movement of cargo no railings were put along this edge. I was carrying our younger child and I remember the feeling of horror when our other child, at a moment when the amah's attention was attracted elsewhere, toddled along to the edge to look over at the black tide rushing between the steel sides of the ship and hulk. My wife just in time snatched him back from the wet slippery edge.\n\nThe steamer was of the usual river design, like any small sea-going merchantman, but with more super-structure and a flatter bottom. There were not berths sufficient for all the refugees, who began to sort themselves out, some in the saloon and others in the smoking room. A wild alcoholic glow added to the sociability induced by the common dangers of the situation and I regret to say bets were taken whether one of the refugees, who was conspicuously expecting a baby, could last out till the ship reached Shanghai. When the Captain decided to start, husbands and bachelors were reluctantly persuaded to go ashore to return to their solitary and darkened houses.\n\nNext day the Consul decided to get in touch with the Chinese general who held the appointment of Garrison Commander at Kiu Kiang. This official was elusive but he eventually agreed to come to the Consulate for a conference. The safety of the foreigners in Kiu Kiang was really his responsibility and after some pressing he undertook to furnish protection. The British guards were consequently withdrawn from the Concession gates to the two hulks.\n\nDuring times of civil commotion respectable and well-to-do Chinese would bolt their doors or put up the shop shutters, as the case might be, and remain inside; but in any Chinese town there would also be an unruly element of loafers, pickpockets, thieves, and toughs, as indeed in any western city. Now was the opportunity for these hooligans. By midday the streets of the Concession were filled with a seething mob", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212661, "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": 215, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "196\n\ntelling. Folk stories have it that the eldest son of one of the Ch'ing emperors visited Taiwan in disguise. Some say that the prince was the son of the emperor Ch'ien Lung others, the emperor Chia Ch'ing. Still others suspect that it might have been long before during a previous dynasty but what matters here is that legend claims that the prince came under attack from robbers and was saved by a local hero. Some claim the hero to be Wang Te-lu whilst others are quite positive that it was Li Yung, one of Chu I-kuei's lieutenants during the revolt of 1721 who was captured by the Ch'ing forces and executed in Amoy. Images of Li Yung, known as Sui-chia Wang [The Prince Who Followed the Imperial Carriage], can be seen in at least two temples in Nantou county in central Taiwan where the legend is recounted with great zest. In another version Chia Ch'ing, whilst still crown prince, was said to have visited Taiwan in disguise, with the general in charge of his guards said to be Li Yung. When the crown prince was informed that he was about to be ambushed by the Hsiao family using Taiwanese hill tribesmen to do the dirty deed, he immediately instructed Li Yung to attack the Hsiaos. Li forced the Hsiaos to retreat but was himself killed in the struggle. He was later deified and his festival is celebrated annually in Nantou on the 12th of the fourth lunar month. Intriguingly there would appear to be no substance to the story that any crown prince ever visited Taiwan.\n\nA fascinating story is told in Nan Kun-shen, the cult centre for five pestilence Wang-yeh, gods of pestilence, just north of Tainan in southern Taiwan. It is believed that the Wang-yeh are all deified officials and feared by demons; however, there have been occasions when demons have disguised themselves as Wang-yeh to take advantage of people and the only way to identify whether the image of a Wang-yeh on an altar is occupied by a genuine deity was for a senior mandarin to kick the image. If the occupant is a demon in disguise then the image will fall over. Wang Te-lu is said to have been taken to Nan Kun-shen where he kicked the image of the most senior Wang-yeh with his official boot without the image budging, proving that the deity was genuine.\n\nThis short biography of Earl Wang Te-lu reveals how little we know about him. What is interesting, however, is that unlike virtually every other biography of Chinese mandarins there is no reference to him winning high praise for his academic achievements, and his entry into officialdom, if folk memory is to be believed, was to all intents and purposes a commission awarded in the field, and his career, as far as we can perceive it, spent entirely in military capacity.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212719, "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": 28, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "13 \n\nimposes upon readers. He had joined the large skirmishing force led by General Liu Ho-ling, commander of the Ko-i Force of the Szechuan Army Corps and Mesny's immediate chief, to harry the Miao tribesmen. Mesny remarks that upon retiring the General and Mesny came under fire from a Miao ambush with hundreds of bullets whizzing close to them. Mesny quickly dismounted and soon cleared the wood [in which the ambushers were hidden] and the enemy fled leaving their dead and wounded. Some ten lines further on, after an anecdote about a splendid prize that he had captured, an eight foot long Miao rifle, he explained that the Miao-tzu had lost more men in and near that wood than they had all day as Mesny had laid an 'ambuscade' for them with two companies of General Liu's guards. If one bears with Mesny's usual hyperbolic claim that he had laid the successful ambush, one is left wondering what he was doing, alongside the General, when they fell into the ambush, which Mesny would appear from an earlier paragraph to have foiled alone with great success.\n\nAt another point in the narrative, when General Liu goes off leading a local attack, he leaves Mesny behind because 'the Commander-in-chief needed Mesny's advice more than he, General Liu, did.' Liu was defeated, 'badly' says Mesny, and one can sense the schadenfreude. Mesny added that one of the battalion commanders had commented that General Liu would appreciate Mesny's abilities better in future! It is not hard to imagine General Liu becoming more and more irritated by this young foreign whippersnapper who always knew best. General Liu has only to leave Mesny behind and, as luck would have it, be defeated.\n\nHis lengthy and often involved autobiographical essay in his Miscellanies only cover the period from 1861, when he was 19, to 1870 and the end of the first campaign in Kueichou to suppress the Miao tribesmen's rebellion, when he was still only 28. From 1870 on we are dependent upon the copious and varied snippets in his Miscellanies, both long and short, until the final publication of the Miscellanies in 1905 when he was 64. Dr Tiedemann of SOAS, University of London, has discovered that Mesny wrote at least a dozen letters from Kueichou from May 1872 to February 1874 published in the Shanghai newspaper, Shanghai Budget and perhaps even more in the Celestial Empire, the paper which took over the Shanghai Budget in 1874. No copies of these papers appear to be available though we can surmise that they probably covered Mesny's activities during that period. From 1905 until his death fourteen years later, in 1919, we have to rely on his obituary, admittedly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212839, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "133\n\nif we did not stay. They were not merely glad to see us because we were British; they hoped we would be able to arrange reimbursement to them for the cost of feeding the Chinese troops. At Nancha I had been most embarrassed by my large escort, which even after the subtraction of the men who were sent to accompany Stan on his reconnaissance, still numbered twenty; they ate at the headman's table and, when I offered to pay, the situation became difficult because it set a precedent inconvenient to the Chinese. Percy refused to allow me to pay, and I had to get around it by making a gift to the headman of some packets of needles that I had brought from India. Needles were very scarce and correspondingly valuable, and these particular packets had got wet when a truculent bullock had kicked off my box into a river, the day before we reached Nancha.\n\nAt the moment the Chinese troops in Kokang did not number many. The battalion had long since been withdrawn from the south, where the Japanese had established a bridgehead across the Salween at Kunlong. Of the fifteen other ferries in Kokang, six faced north across to Chinese territory. Over there the Chinese maintained guerilla forces behind the Japanese lines, and they had small guards on this side at the ferries, perhaps a hundred men in all. These troops sometimes brought in their own rice, of which Kokang was short, but they relied on the headmen to produce the rest of their supplies, cooking oil, vegetables, salt, and pork. In Kokang they fed better than in China, a small advantage which no one could begrudge them in view of the terrible hardships the Chinese troops had to endure, but it came hard on the Kokang villages. I was glad to learn that nominal prices had been fixed by the Chinese, after our arrival, though at much below current market costs, and that at any rate sometimes these were actually paid. The Chinese also called for free transport from the villages, and at Nancha the headman frequently had to produce plain clothes, taken off the backs of the all too scantily clothed people, for the use of Chinese troops crossing the river to join the guerillas on the far side. There, as in Eastern China, most of the guerillas were disguised as local inhabitants. There was nothing I could do about all this, except to suggest to the headmen that they carefully keep any receipts issued to them by the Chinese officers for supplies taken.\n\nIn Burma before the war paper rupees had largely displaced silver coins; but in these conservative border districts paper was not welcome, and silver coins were preferred. Of course, the paper money of the Burma", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213269, "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-1994", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "71\n\nMost Chinese will, however, tell you that a dragon has sinews and veins which can be severed. Blood can be spilled. Thus, when the earth's flesh was pierced, blood, in the form of bright red, ochre-coloured earth, appeared during excavations for the construction of Hong Kong's underground railway in the 1970s. This could mean the time had come for workers to down tools. The evil that might follow had to be averted ritually. Taoist priests would then beat ceremonial gongs and offer prayers to pacify spirits of the earth where the dragon's peace was being destroyed. Exorcism in modern day Hong Kong is by no means uncommon (Raceday rites, 1987). Neither is exorcism uncommon in Christian churches. It is mentioned in the Bible.\n\nOne can compare certain Buddhist, Taoist or folk-religion ceremonies, which purify and bestow blessings, with walking through fields in Europe in springtime while conducting a Christian Rogation Service to ensure a good harvest.\n\nInterestingly, some Chinese came to the conclusion during the last century, that foreigners know far more about fung shui than they are prepared to admit. Otherwise, why would they have picked such a fine site (as it was then) for the Governor's residence? Why would they plant vegetation over the slopes of Victoria Peak in which dwells the resident dragon?\n\nReturning to the cutting edges of the Bank of China: a fung shui master is supposed to adhere to strict ethical standards and not do anything which could be construed as the 'black art'. He should not 'attack' a neighbour. However, in the New Territories, for example, a case where a successful family's fortune has suddenly waned has sometimes been traced to the desecration of an ancestor's grave. As a result, revenge against perpetrators was, in the past, not uncommon.\n\nA buried 'person' needs to 'breathe', and, whether he or she can do this properly or not, affects his or her descendants. Some believed Chiang Kai-Shek's rise to power depended on his mother's fine grave. This, the Communists are said to have dug up.\n\nThe People's Republic's 'Red Guards' went to considerable lengths during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) to destroy the 'Four Olds' (old customs, old habits, old culture, old thoughts). These included fung shui.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214319, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "141\n\nbeen sacked in the memory of man. When the Taiping rebels came to the walls of Nanchang in the middle of the 19th century, they saw sitting on it the figure of a huge man swinging his feet in the moat. He was apparently selling sandals three feet in length to the beleaguered citizens. That was enough for the attackers who turned and fled. It was the figure of Xu Xianzhen. This, however, was not true of the Wan Shou Gong at Xi Shan which, according to temple records obtained by Professor Liang Hongsheng. These are quite clear that since the Furen Palace was first constructed there in 1743, it was destroyed by fire first in 1820 and again in 1856, after it had been rebuilt in 1848, by the Taiping rebels. It was again repaired in 1871 only to be destroyed once more nearly a century later by Red Guards,\n\nSomewhat surprisingly Xu has been seen on altars in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, possibly carried there by immigrants from Fujian province, a province immediately to the south of Jiangxi. His is, however, a minor cult deity.\n\nAn image of Xu, one of the minor healers in a group of five, on the main altar in a temple in Hsinchu, in northern Taiwan, portrays him as a standard Daoist immortal with a sword and small Daoist crown. The gilded image is swathed in a golden robe and all that can be seen are his face and bald head, his black beard and one hand holding the sword aloft. He and the others are collectively revered by devotees as celestial doctors who reveal herbal prescriptions for devotees through a spirit medium. The senior celestial doctor in the group of five is Yang Zhenren, better known perhaps as Yang Zhensong; the other three junior doctors being Xuan Zhenren, Wu Zhenren and Sun Zhenren. The old temple keeper who had founded the temple and is now dead, came over to Taiwan in the 1930s bringing the cults with him from Nanping in Fujian province, some 200 miles due south of Nanchang.\n\nA temple in Singapore, opened in 1971, has Cuji Zhenjun\n\nas the main deity on its main altar. The temple keeper was in no doubt that this deity was Xu Sun, a famous Song dynasty doctor, who was portrayed as a black-bearded, seated Daoist, dressed in colourful robes and a scholar's hat, but without any unique characteristics. His image is flanked by two aides who have not been noted anywhere else:\n\nCishui Lingguan Dadi\n\n刺水靈官大帝", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214353, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 211, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "176\n\nimage with one of the other titles is the same god.\n\nThe Fengshen Yanyi records numerous departments of the Celestial World including, for example, the Department of Thunder. It has a chief, General Wen, and twenty-four subordinates, amongst whom are the spirits of wind, rain and lightning; these are often referred to as the Five Spirits of Thunder, Lei Shen. Another is the Department of Fire Spirits. Its departmental head, Luo Xuan of Fire Dragon Island, called himself Yan Zhong Xian, the Immortal of the Flames, and was a fierce-looking iron-toothed, red individual. His immediate subordinate was Liu Huan, a yellow-faced demonic being who, during the Shang-Zhou struggle, brought along the materials with which they nearly destroyed the capital of Xi Ji, before being themselves routed. Luo Xuan was awarded the title The Chief Spirit Ruler of the Southern Region Three Atmospheres Fire Virtue Star: Nan Fang San Qi Huode Xingjun Zhengshen. Among his subordinates are a pig, monkey, tiger and snake spirits, all representing the different kinds of fires. The tiger is the 'tail fire' which is very hot; the pig is a 'house fire' which bursts out unexpectedly; the monkey is the 'nose fire' which comes suddenly through openings; whilst the snake is the 'winged fire' which leaps from one place to another. Liu Huan causes fires to spread.\n\nThe story begins with the last ruler of the Shang making an offering at the temple of the goddess Nü Wa. Having written a poem on the wall of the temple, a graffiti that offends her, she sends three monsters to bewitch him.\n\nThe following résumé of the last two chapters of the book brings into focus the tenor and style of the story. Jiang Ziya, about whom tales are told of his ineffectual efforts to become a trader and thus satisfy his wife's demands that he should do something useful, was eventually introduced to the Court and King Zhou Xin, who gave him a high position. Jiang antagonised Dan Ji, Zhou Xin's concubine, by getting rid of one of her vampire friends who had disguised herself as a human to share with the evil queen the flesh and blood of the victims she had slaughtered. Jiang was being taken away to be executed outside the palace but managed to slip through a hole in a bridge and disappeared. The guards sought him everywhere and finally assumed that he had been drowned. He had however been able to conceal himself.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214364, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 222, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "188\n\ncults. Popular religion is an amalgam of Chinese peasant beliefs with shamanism and the use of magic. The reason for the interdict on popular religion, apart from the reference to it as \"purely superstition,\" would appear to be because it is not in any way an organised religion with a controlling malleable body and having to obey orders in a chain of control.\n\nIn the first flush of the Communist victory in 1949-1950 temples in a great many places were closed down, taken over and used for community purposes such as granaries, police and even local military barracks, schools or créches, or destroyed. The few that remained, having been allowed to lie unused and untouched, were mostly laid waste during the Cultural Revolution [1966-1976] when the young Red Guards saw it their duty to destroy all elements of old ways. Since the early 1980s more and more religious establishments within Mainland China have opened or, in the majority of places, re-opened. They have been refurbished and new statuary made to replace those destroyed during the early days of communist rule or during the Cultural Revolution.\n\nMany temples have now been renovated and restored to their old glory with statuary created by young artisans guided by the elderly whose memories of the iconographic detail has proved, on the whole, to be comparatively poor. As an example we can see in Kuan Hsien near Chengtu in Szechuan province, the former image of the major local deity, Li Ping, the official who designed and arranged the irrigation system which made the Chengtu plain the major agricultural region it is today. Previously he was portrayed as a standard scholar-official, sitting, dressed in robes and cap but without a unique characteristic. Today, however, he is depicted as a politicised middle-aged man, standing in a Stakhanovite pose typical of the nineteen fifties and sixties. This in no way inhibits devotees today from kneeling before and revering him.\n\nMany of the new images depict dynastic scholars, officials or women, with well formed and not unattractive heads and faces, and swathed in silken robes which conceal a basic frame constructed of slats of wood unlike pre-1949 images the bodies of which were made in the whole. The images of small children usually accompanying the image of maternity goddesses are almost without exception modern children's dolls without their clothes whereas during dynastic times the children were all equally well carved as the major deities. It is worth adding how truly hideous and garish some of the new edifices are.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214365, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 223, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "189\n\nIn late 1997 in northern Shansi province whilst touring round village temples as well as those on high mountains it was soon apparent that the Cultural Revolution had laid the majority of village temples low and left them in ruined dereliction. However, Buddhist temples far from the cities had been more fortunate and these still contained undamaged images albeit in a poor state of care. Many of the village temples were being used as squatter residences usually for a single elderly person, with the walls crumbling, the roofs matted with grass and weeds between the roofing tiles, doors and windows agley and hanging on one hinge, and in a few places the images of the old deities still lying on their backs on the floor where they had been flung thirty years earlier by the Red Guards, and awaiting rescue. Villagers were still interested in their temples but have not the funds to do anything about renovation, at least for yet a while. The elderly remembered the gods and the majority had small cheap images, on their household altars or paper icons pasted to their walls, mainly of Kuan Yin and Kuan Kung.\n\nOne temple stood out as a born-again Buddhist establishment, with an in-house priest and several ladies ranging from very old to a young woman in her late twenties who all cared for him and hung on his every word. They were punctilious with their greetings and their constant invocation of O-mi-t'o Fu, as well as with their gentle pressure on their foreign visitors to feel the sanctity of the place and, in particular, of their priest. The temple, a recently refurbished building of wood and tiles on the site of a former temple, had no feel of age nor did it in any way bring to mind its former self, the building which had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Sadly, it was a utilitarian construction with a few religious appendages, and similar in style to many an old village school with little if any of the sense of numinous felt in old temples.\n\nAlso during this visit to northern Shansi we came across the old temple which had been dedicated to Wu Lang. This was described in detail in Volume 37 in an article entitled the Yang family of Generals.\n\nMainland press reports during the years 1995-6 have frequently referred to provincial crackdowns on the construction of 'illegal' religious temples as well as the excessive building of tombs. Some regions, it was reported, had been seeking to promote tourism by engaging in superstitious activities on the pretext of respecting \"the traditional culture of the motherland.\" The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the party, called for a complete ban on Chinese tourists paying homage at temples and monasteries, even though such practices have been tolerated", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214368, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 226, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "192\n\nfunded for the temple.\n\nA logical progression, though always thought impossible in Mainland China, has been the deification of the late Chairman Mao. In Taiwan we have seen images of Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen on altars, revered as are the scores of historical worthies and heroes, but the thought that one day an image of Mao Tse-tung would grace the altar of a Chinese temple was so far fetched as to be ludicrous. None the less, Reuters printed a picture of a peasant in a rural temple in northern Shansi in early 1996 standing before a life-size image of Mao on the altar. Another sighting, of the small white bust of Mao on a household altar in a village on the banks of a river in the upper reaches of Yünnan province during the summer of 1997, was easily explained. The altar bore no other images and it was through this village and across the village's bridge, during the Long March, that the Chinese Red Army passed leaving behind a strong folk memory.\n\nMao, it must be remembered, was revered as a god in his lifetime, with cadres and Red Guards bowing before his image during the Cultural Revolution, and reporting the day's activities. And it has not been uncommon for taxi drivers in some of the major cities during the late 1980s and early 1990s to carry pictures of Mao suspended from their rear-view mirror as a protective amulet, though this has been more of a gimmick, but the idea of a statue of Mao on the altar in present day China is still astounding.\n\nWhat is less strange, perhaps, is the description of a Mao image being carried at the head of a religious procession in Fukien province, providing \"legality\" for this ritual procession of deities. Posters portraying the main Central political leaders were also borne aloft at the head of the procession.3\n\nNo doubt there have been zealous cadres carrying out the anti-feudal, iconoclastic purges following the party line and, recalling the clue provided in the report on Hupei, it would seem more than likely that the large number of illegal temples and shrines destroyed are in fact the small rural shrines dedicated to the Earth God which farmers have in their fields. By and large, it has been quite obvious that in general people will continue to go to temples to offer prayers and incense, and that temples and the deities will thrive, or possibly simply survive.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214507, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 365, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "334\n\ntherefore to the outside of the building, which is of neo-gothic design. Although built in the 1930s, long after Germany ceased to hold sway over Tsingtao, the cathedral was built largely with German money. However, before it was completed the money supply was drastically reduced by the incoming Nazi government. Hence the inside, had we been able to see it, would have shown such incongruous features as flat ceilings instead of the vaulted and beamed roof that the outside would suggest. Legend has it that during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, two over-zealous Red Guards climbed the towers with the intention of removing the crosses from the top, but they fell to their respective deaths before completing their mission. As the cathedral is in a very narrow street, it is not possible to get a good camera angle unless one walks somewhat away from the front, down to the street to the left, where a lively street-market gives interesting and contrasting foreground possibilities - the whole looking rather medieval. In fact, the street market is worth a visit in its own right, being very extensive and lively. A chopper seller (as used in Chinese cooking and violent crime) was being very vocal at the time we were there.\n\nHills and beaches - the east of the city\n\nWe had organised a picnic lunch from the hotel. Given that time was tight we did not want to spend an hour or so hidden away in a restaurant. Instead, we took our picnic lunch up Qingdaoshan Hill, formerly Bismarck Berg. Access to the hill was somewhat unusual, being through a small museum on Jing Shan Road. The museum was in fact closed, but our guide managed to navigate us through and out of the back door, whence up the hill. A look-out post at the top gives good panoramas of the city and out to sea. The picnic lunch was adequate, but Philip Bruce appeared to be very pleased that he had brought his tin of sardines from the Co-op in Worthing.\n\nFortified and refreshed, our next mission was to find any remains of the German cemetery. Its location was clear enough from the many old maps that we had between us, but the guide was not hopeful of finding anything of interest. And so it turned out, or almost. The cemetery is now Baihua Park, and is remarkable for a reason that cannot be much further removed from cemeteries. On entering the park we noticed a wedding couple, and another - and another. There must have been upwards of 30 or more newly married couples wandering around", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215067, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "120\n\ndisasters.' She is portrayed as a Daoist deity sitting cross-legged on a lotus, with gilded robes and a small crown, and with eight arms and three faces. Flanking her are two demonic, black-skinned deities standing, each with six arms and dressed in armour, holding weapons and charms in each of their hands. They are her attendants known here as Gnasher, Qiechi J, and Biter, Yaoya, titles not encountered anywhere else. The sixty Taisui images stand on lower tiers in two groups in five rows, either side of a space between the groups leading from the main entrance to the main deity on the top tier. But before the main deity on the second tier is a lone Taisui, the Taisui of the current year, changed annually at the Lunar New Year. Finally, the sets of double doors to the hall are decorated with depictions of the deities of the Twenty-eight Constellations +, the Ershi ba Xiuxing each deity having a 'human' form and its own attributes.\n\nThe second temple is some fifteen miles from Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi province in mainland China. Once more there is a separate hall but here dedicated to the wife of the main deity of the complex, the major medical god Xu Zhenjun. In the centre of the Hall is a large rectangular altar with the sixty Taisui ranged on all four sides along two tiers, with the image of Xu's wife and her two attendants positioned on the top of the third tier where she is identified merely as 'Xu's wife,' furen A. Her Hall, the Furen Gong, has stood within the temple complex since at least 1820 though it, together with the other temple halls, has been destroyed three times. Once apparently by accident in 1820, once by the Taiping iconoclasts in 1856 and finally by the Red Guards in 1966. However, it has only been within the last century that her hall has had images of the Taisui added to the gods within the complex and placed on the lower tiers of the plinth of her altar. The temple custodian did not know who decided on this addition, why or when.\n\nIn both of these temples, as in a number of other temples, the images of the sixty Taisui are portrayed as individuals with unique characteristics. A few look demonic, the majority are normal humans, with or without facial hair, young and old, and all are seated and dressed in a wide range of robes. Some are soldiers, some elderly mandarins - and although from lists provided in temples they all have individual personal names, none apart from the President, Yin Jiao, would appear to be recorded in legend or myth. However, several god carvers in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215084, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "Taiyue, is also known as \n\nTaisui Xingjun \n\nDangnian Taisui \n\nZhiping Taisui \n\nTaisui Ye \n\nTaisui Dijun \n\nAku A \n\nA \n\n值干大歲 \n\n大歲爺 \n\n大歲帝君 \n\nTaisui Yin Yuanshuai \n\nYin Jiao Jiangjun \n\nYin Tianjun \n\n人成殷元帥 \n\n殷天君 \n\nYin Gao \n\n殷過 \n\nZhimian Suiyun Taisui Shen Yin Jiao \n\n六十甲子本命神 \n\nTian Xian Liushi Yuanchen \n\nLiushi Jiazi Benming Shen \n\nDevotees often refer to the Taisui of their particular year as \n\nBenming Yuanchen \n\n本命元辰 \n\nDuring the Cultural Revolution in a Shanghai Temple of the City God, Red Guards were reported having forced a devotee, an elderly lady, to break up one of the sixty wooden images of Taisui with a hammer \n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "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": 215682, "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": 459, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "411\n\nThe British Consulate in Chunking collected subscriptions from amongst the expatriates and other interested people to raise a memorial to Plant. This took the form of a 30 foot high obelisk constructed of dressed blocks of pink granite on a brown sandstone base. It was erected at Xintang Village where the Dragon Horse Stream flows into the Yangtze. The inscription, which was in both English and Chinese, was eradicated by the Red Guards in 1968 after they had, unsuccessfully, tried to blow it up.\n\nUnless it is moved, the monument will be inundated by the raising waters when the dam across the Three Gorges is completed.1 Plant's beloved rapids will become small eddies on the surface of a huge man-made lake. Hundreds of tracker villages will have been moved to other locations, some far from the river. A tradition of 5,000 years endurance will be gone forever.\n\nThe above is an account of Captain Plant's professional life in China. However, gaps occur in both his early professional life and in his private life.\n\nAs you have read, Archibald Little met Samuel Plant at the Oriental Club in 1900. Prior to this time Plant had commanded steamers on the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates but we have been unable to find information on his Mesopotamian career.\n\nWe know Samuel Cornell Plant was born on 8th August, 1866 in Framlingham, Suffolk. His wife, Sophie Alice Peters was born on 29th November, 1870 in Hoddesdon in the County of Hertford to an illiterate shoemaker and his wife. Samuel Cornell and Alice Sophie, as she appears on the Entry of Marriage, were married in the Consulate General in the District of Bushire in the Province of Fars, Persia on 16th April, 1894. His profession is listed as a master mariner, nothing is given for Alice Sophie.\n\nWhat was a young woman of 24 years doing in Bushire and how did she meet Captain Plant?\n\nIn 1921, en route to Hong Kong and home leave, Samuel Plant died on board the \"Teiresias\" on 26th February. His death certificate gives as the cause of death ‘right lobar pneumonia and heart failure.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216311, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "19\n\nestablished to restore order within the temple's community of resident monks. In 1944 this committee restored the Da Xiong Bao Dian, and the next year, 1945, the Bao Ta. Once the Sino-Japanese War had ended, in 1946 life in the temple returned to a resemblance of its pre-war normalcy. However, the tranquility which existed within the temple for the next three years was suddenly disrupted when the Communist's captured Shanghai in May 1949 and proclaimed the People's Republic in October 1949. With all the disasters the temple had survived over the previous 900 years, the worst was yet to come.\n\nPeople's Republic, 1949-2003\n\nIn June 1949, one month after their capture of Shanghai, the new Communist government took over the temple, and on October 1, 1949, the day celebrating the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the Red flag of the P.R.C. was flown from the top of the pagoda. This unprecedented disrespect shown by the new regime to the temple by flying its flag from the pagoda was only the first in a series of incidents which illustrated the temple's now endangered status. The temple grounds were drastically reduced in size by at least two-thirds when their garden area was seized by the state and converted into Longhua Park in 1954. The temple's halls were temporarily appropriated by the government in January 1956 for a series of meetings held between local government officials and Chinese businessmen to explain and then celebrate the new policy of abolishing private enterprise in favor of a new system of joint private-state companies. The celebration involved a party for 2,000 people which undoubtedly included activities such as smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol which are contrary to the Buddhist faith. This temporary appropriation of the temple by the government for non-religious purposes was herald of worse things to come during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).\n\nIn the summer of 1966 Longhua Temple suffered a devastating series of events over a one month period which destroyed nearly all vestiges of its centuries old heritage. On August 24, 1966 a mob of more than 1,000 Red Guards (Hong Wei Bing) rushed into the temple and in one day destroyed all of the temple's Buddha statues, library of books, treasures, and art work. The next day, August 25, the Red Guards returned with the intention of destroying the Longhua Pagoda (Bao Ta), which we've seen had probably been built in the Northern Song", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216312, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "20\n\nDynasty (960-1126). First they tied ropes around the base of the pagoda and tried to pull it down, but when this failed they poured oil all around its base, intending to set it on fire and burn it down. At this stage the account recorded in the local records (zhen zhi) states rather mysteriously that \"the strong opposition of the residents and other people\" forced the Red Guards to give up. Thanks to the intervention of these nameless people, the pagoda repeated its performance of having miraculously survived many upheavals throughout the temple's history.\n\n1\n\nNonetheless, the destruction of the relics within the temple halls continued for another month. On September 3rd an estimated 103 antique relics found in the temple were looted. This was followed on September 14th by the intentional destruction of the Da Cang Jing, a sacred Buddhist scripture which weighed 1,763 kilograms before it was shredded into waste paper. Finally, on September 30th the Ming Dynasty bronze bell in the Bell Tower (Zhong Lou), which weighed 2,574 kilograms, was cut into pieces and melted down as scrap metal, as was the last remaining Buddha statue, which had been a gift of Ming Emperor Wan Li, and weighed 334 kilograms.\n\nHaving now been destroyed as a functioning temple, all that remained were the empty buildings. In 1967 the temple buildings were all rented out as warehouse storage space to the China Rice and Oil Import Export Co. The one exception was the Master's Room (Fang Zhang Shi), in which some monks may have continued to live a hidden existence.\n\nAfter 15 years of having been closed as a place of worship, Longhua Temple was finally reopened in February 1981 after three of the main halls had been repaired, including the Mi Le Dian, Tian Wang Dian, and the Da Xiong Bao Dian. The government tried to make further amends in 1983 by giving the temple a new set of scriptures known as the Long Cang, which had been preserved in the Shanghai Library. In 1984 the Bao Ta pagoda was repaired, and these repairs continued with the restoration of the San Sheng Dian in May 1986.\n\nIn 2001 a giant new shopping centre called Longhua Tourist City was built behind the pagoda, but this surprisingly has not damaged the environment, and in fact has added the convenience of additional restaurants in the area at which one can rest after a long day's exploration.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216313, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "21\n\nof the temple complex.\n\nOne other positive result of the new development is that the section of Longhua Lu which passes in between the walled temple compound and the pagoda has now been closed to vehicular traffic, unless you count motorcycles, and turned into a pedestrian mall.\n\nLonghua Temple's current structures\n\nThe 40 meter high octagonal wooden pagoda, Longhua Ta, has orange walls with red cross timbers, upturned eaves and wood railing balconies at each level, and a metal spiral spire on top. As late as 1934 visitors could still ascend to the top of this tower, but now it is closed and cannot be entered or ascended. The base is encircled by a brick wall with a perpetually locked gate, which keeps admirers at arm's length. Depending on who you believe, it may have been built during the Three Kingdoms, the Bei Song or the late Qing Dynasty. After extensive research into the difangzhi local histories, the author has concluded that the current pagoda may possibly be the same as the Xin Bao Ta first constructed in 1066 by the Song Emperor Ying Zong. Although at that time the temple was named Kong Xiang Si, the Longhua Pagoda's official name has continued to be the Bao Ta to this day. In 1984 the pagoda underwent a massive restoration during which the entire tower was covered with scaffolding, and a giant boom crane dropped a brand new copper spiral ornament onto the tower's roof. Although impressive, Longhua Ta is not the only pagoda in Shanghai, as is sometimes claimed, but is in fact only one of a total of 16 pagodas within the Shanghai Municipality.\n\nThe grand outer Shan Men gateway to the temple complex is one of the most impressive sights it has to offer. The five-gate pai lou has a granite stone frame with five wooden double gates, above which are three inscribed wooden signboards, all of which is covered by an enormous three-tiered wooden roof with multiple layers of upturned eaves, itself supported by layers of intricate wooden brackets. The top of the roof is covered with tiles and decorated with dragon-fish ornaments. Each wooden gate is one-foot thick, which should have made the temple impregnable to attack during times of unrest, but unfortunately did not stop the Red Guards in 1966.\n\nPassing through this outer gateway, you enter the first of six", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]