[ { "id": 211432, "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-1988", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "124\n\nTable 2: Genealogy of the Jong Family\n\nJong Sun Lup m. (1) Chang (Violet's grandparents)\n\n(2) widow\n\nTin Yau (Uncle) m. Wong (Aunt)\n\n*Annie, *Mary, *Helen, *Alice, Reuben,\n\nAaron, *Esther, *Amy, *Ella, Raymond\n\n*Jong Hung (Violet's mother) m. Chan\n\nTin Suk (son, Ging Heen)\n\n*Ah Fook\n\n*Ah Look\n\n(Chun Moy) m. Heu (bond servant)\n\n(step-daughter) m. Pong (4 daughters, 4 sons)\n\nSister (Seventh Paternal Aunt)\n\n-Sister m. Chang\n\nChang Gum Chin m. Chew L-Sunny Hung Sun Chang -(son)\n\nthree-year contract with a sugar plantation on Maui and was assigned the task of chopping down ironwood trees. He was born in the ancestral home at the South Gate of the City of Shekki, District of Heong Shan, in Kwangtung Province. Because there is no certificate giving his birth date, there is some question as to whether he was born in 1847 or 1854. There were four brothers sharing the family home, but one of them had already died by the time Grandfather emigrated to Hawaii. Mother could not recall how many sisters he had. One of them was known as Seventh Paternal Aunt, who had a fondness for gossip. Another sister was married to a native of How Tow, surnamed Chang, by whom she had two sons. One of the sons, Chang Gum Chin, married the sister of Leong Chew, and came to Hawaii without his family. He went into the dry goods business with Chang Yee, Chang Kwai, Leong Chew, Chun Kam Chow, and others. He was very close to my grandparents, who would often turn to him for assistance. After he returned to China, he sent one of his sons, Sunny Hung Sun Chang, to Honolulu under the guardianship of Leong Chew.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211441, "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-1988", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "133\n\nthe truck, Uncle hired drivers to take the produce to Honolulu. I had many rides on the truck to pick up bananas which Okinawa immigrants grew on what used to be pineapple fields. Uncle prospered and was dubbed *Mayor of Kaneohe*. When it was time for him to retire from farming, he bought a piece of Cobb-Adam's land on Kamehameha Highway, one lot removed from Lilipuna Road. Uncle was extended credit from C. K. Ai, who was a friend of my parents, so that he could buy lumber from City Mill Company to build a simple but spacious home and a large garage for his trucking business.\n\nWhen Uncle was struggling to make ends meet, Father would try to help with small loans. During the First World War, when the price of guano was rising fast, Father bought a ton of the fertilizer and stored it under our School Street home. Uncle would pay the current price for each bag he took, and when the ton was used up, the profit was divided between Father and Uncle. Because the price of animal feed was also rising, Mother would wake Ruth, Helen and me at early dawn, competing with a neighbour, to gather algaroba beans from a back lot for Uncle at one dollar a bag.\n\nThere was little social life in those days. Uncle was a member of a fraternal society in Heeia, namely, the Bow Yee Tong, established in 1903. Mother told me that this was a Triad society, where members were initiated and sworn in as 'blood brothers' by secret rituals, so secret that they were not revealed even to their wives. In later years, after the death of Aunt, Uncle became a devout Buddhist and frequently visited a temple in Honolulu.\n\nUncle registered seven of his ten children with the Board of Health on 15 October 1918. At that time, he gave his name as Cheung Yau and Aunt's as Wong Fung, and his age at 38 and hers 33. Their children are:\n\nAnnie Ah Hoon (21 Apr 1902-1936) married Henry Auyoung\n\nMary Ah Moy Hiki (9 Oct 1904-) married Joseph Liu\n\nHelen Ah Sam (11 Dec 1906-) married Robert Zane\n\nAlice Ah Lin (15 Dec 1909-) married Frank Carpino (died 1982) 1927\n\nReuben Ah Kau (17 Jun 1911-) married Eunice Ching\n\nAaron Ah Mung (13 Oct 1913-8 Oct 1985)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211483, "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-1988", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "175\n\nof worth. I believe she found me to be a loyal companion when Mr. Johnson died and she was left alone with me in a big house. Midwesterners are solid, down-to-earth people who are sincere and faithful friends, and I value among them Reuben and Viola Hasskart, May Chamberlain, Augusta and Emma Baegl, Eula Lumpp, Virginia DeTar O'Toole, Ernie Graves, and the Frank DuTeils, most of whom have passed away.\n\nBeing a zoology major, I spent most of my time in Bassey Hall where the zoology and botany departments were housed. The staff consisted of a group of kindly men who took an interest in our learning and progress. Dr. Robert H. Wolcott was head of the Zoology Department; Dr. Harold W. Manter taught parasitology; Dr. D. D. Whitney taught genetics, using rotifers in his research; Dr. H. H. Waite taught bacteriology but passed away unexpectedly during the year; and Dr. Irving H. Blake, under whose supervision I did my research and thesis, taught anatomy. Dr. George E. Hudson and Mr. Webster were my laboratory instructors in Zoology and Anatomy, while Mr. Dean and Mr. Lawrence F. Lindgren gave me guidance in the bacteriology laboratory. Many of my classmates were either pre-medical or pre-dental students full of life and pranks. I always shied away from the room where they worked on cadavers for fear an arm or a leg would come flying through the doorway. Since the department was not large, I got to know other staff members, such as Dr. Otis Wade and Dr. T. J. Fitzpatrick, a botanist and librarian for the two departments, who would often offer me a ride home.\n\nAfter receiving a B.Sc. degree in 1931, I decided to work for an M.Sc. in histology. I owe much to the university for granting me a monthly stipend of ten dollars and free tuition, in return for correcting the laboratory work of freshmen zoology students. There was a good deal of fellowship among the few of us who shared the graduates room for our projects — Erickson, Dilworth, Kucera and Smith. My thesis, \"The Histology of the Alimentary Tract of the Deepwater Gurnard Peristedion longispatha (Goode and Bean)\", was published in the University of Nebraska Studies, Volume 41, No. 1, August 1941, and also in the Journal of Morphology. I was active in Phi Sigma, an organization interested in research, and to my surprise, I was elected into Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi upon my graduation in 1932.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212131, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "50\n\nus to re-date two Nestorian manuscripts discovered in Tun-huang in 1980, and suggests contexts for their composition. Best of all, it throws valuable light on one of the most appealing Nestorian missionaries of the T'ang period, Adam, archbishop of China and composer of the celebrated Sian tablet inscription. As will become clear, Adam possessed an extraordinary talent for the art of public relations.\n\nThe 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching'\n\nThe main source for the Nestorians in Tang China is the Sian tablet.* The tablet, discovered in 1625, was originally set up in 781 by the elders of the Nestorian church on the premises of a Nestorian monastery in the city, then China's capital. It was probably buried by Sian's Christian community during a period of persecution or unrest to save it from destruction, but we do not know when: possibly as early as 845, possibly as late as the 980s. Christians in Yüan China knew nothing of it, and appear to have believed that they were the first to bring the Gospel to China, so we can safely conclude that when Marco Polo arrived in China in 1279 the Sian tablet had been long underground. Its discovery in 1625 caused a sensation, both in China and Europe. In China, Christianity enjoyed a short wave of popularity, and the Jesuit missionaries found that for a few years they were making converts in far larger numbers than previously. In Europe, the discovery stimulated scholarly interest in the history of the separated eastern churches. Forays were made into the Middle East in the early eighteenth century by antiquarians in search of old texts. These expeditions came none too soon, and it is in large measure due to the efforts of the scholars of the Age of Enlightenment that the history of the Nestorian church has been preserved in more than its mere outlines.\n\nThe Sian tablet carries a long inscription in Chinese, supplemented by a few sentences in Syriac, and we learn from it that the monastery in which it stood had been founded in 638, on the orders of T'ai-tsung, the second emperor of the T'ang dynasty, in response to a petition from a Nestorian monk named Reuben.2 It is implied, though nowhere explicitly stated, that this monastery was the first Christian foundation in China. The inscription, apparently aimed at satisfying the curiosity of visitors to the monastery, includes a brief sketch of\n\n* See Plate 1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212134, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "53\n\n1\n\n景案\n\n+\n\n'brilliant scholars', and a Christian community ching-chung\n\nthe 'brilliant assembly'. The Christian monasteries which\n\nappeared all over China in Kao-tsung's reign filled the land with 'brilliant happiness', ching-fu. Christ is described as 'the brilliant and reverend (ching-ch'uan) Messiah'. At his birth a brilliant star (ching-shu) told of good fortune'. In the most emotionally-charged context of all, ching occurs in a veiled and ambiguous reference to the crucifixion: the Messiah 'hung up a brilliant sun (ching-jih) to take by storm the halls of darkness'. The use of the character ching in this way shows that the composer of the Sian tablet inscription wanted to extend and deepen its normal meaning 'brilliant', thereby adding to its effectiveness as a descriptive term for Christianity.\n\nUntil the beginning of this century the Sian tablet was the only source for the expression Ta-ch'in ching-chiao, Syrian brilliant teaching', as an official identity for Nestorian Christianity in T’ang China. We now have more evidence for its use. The expression occurs in a number of Nestorian manuscripts discovered in 1980 at Tun-huang, where there was a Nestorian monastery in the Tang period. Altogether seven separate works, all in Chinese, have been discovered. Two, the Book of Jesus the Messiah, and the Essay on Monotheism, are seventh-century documents composed shortly after Reuben's arrival in China, and neither the geographical term Ta-ch'in nor the descriptive term ching-chiao are found in these early works. Of the other five works, one, the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy, contains three occurrences of the term ching-chiao, but none of Ta-ch'in. The manuscripts of three other works, the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, and the Book of the Origin of Origins, all display Ta-ch'in ching-chiao prominently in their titles, but neither Ta-ch'in nor ching-chiao occurs in their contents. All three works, however, are listed in a fifth work, the Book of Praise, with the phrase Ta-ch'in ching-chiao omitted from their titles. The Book of Praise, which was found together with the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity on a single manuscript, is rather different in style from the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity. It contains one reference to Ta-ch'in pen-chiao, ‘our teachings of Syria', but does not contain the expression ching-chiao, 'brilliant teaching'. All occurrences of ching-chiao in these documents use the curious variant form of the character ching found on the Sian tablet.\n\n12", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212136, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "55\n\nassociated with Persia, not Syria, until 745. The expression 'teaching of the scriptures' is found in three texts dating from before the middle of the eighth century. One is a Nestorian tract, the Book of Jesus the Messiah, written between 635 and 641, shortly after Reuben's arrival in China. The other two are imperial decrees, one of 638, and the other of 745. They deserve special respect because, as official documents, they were drafted with care, and used terminology with precision. The decree of 745 also provides evidence that up to 745 Christian churches were called 'Persian monasteries, and that the official name for Christianity was Po-ssu ching-chiao 'Persian teaching of the scriptures'.\n\nThe Book of Jesus the Messiah is the earliest Nestorian document to survive from Tang China. There are two, slightly different, versions of this work, and the earliest version has been shown on stylistic grounds to predate the Essay on the Charity of the Creator (one of the three chapters of the Essay on Monotheism), a work known to have been written in 641. The Book of Jesus the Messiah was therefore written within six years of Reuben's arrival in China in 635. It is probable that it is the 'scripture' which, according to the Sian tablet, Reuben translated into Chinese for the emperor T'ai-tsung to support his petition to establish a monastery in Ch'ang-an. It gives a fair digest of the Christian message, and its length is right for a document intended for submission to an emperor. If so, it was written before 638, the year in which Reuben's petition was approved.\n\nTowards the end of the text of the Book of Jesus the Messiah, after a description of the crucifixion, the following passage occurs:\n\n\"The earth quaked and the hills rocked, and the gates of all the graves in the world were opened and all the dead received life. When men saw that it was so, some still did not believe the teaching of the scriptures (ching-chiao), that the Messiah would die again, but most men did believe.\n\nIt is true that in this passage ching-chiao most probably bears its literal meaning, and refers to the Old Testament prophecies of the death and resurrection of Christ; but once this convenient term was coined, it did not take long before it suggested itself as a suitable Chinese name for the Christian religion. Christians liked to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212137, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "56\n\nappeal to the authority of scripture, and the high moral tone of their scriptures was a decisive factor in securing imperial permission to preach Christianity in China. It is understandable that, presented by Reuben with a summary of the Christian message, the imperial authorities should have approved, or perhaps even suggested themselves, the term 'teaching of the scriptures' for the strange western religion. In 638 the term ching-chiao, 'teaching of the scriptures', is found in an imperial decree as the official Chinese term for Christianity.\n\nT'ai-tsung's decree of 638 was issued in response to the arrival of Reuben in Ch'ang-an, and gave permission for the Nestorians to establish a monastery in the capital. The decree has been preserved in the Tang hui-yao, an important collection of documents of the T'ang dynasty, and reads as follows:\n\nTruth can be recognised, whatever its name: wisdom can be discerned, whoever its possessor. Every region has its appropriate religion, which by its imperceptible influence benefits the inhabitants. The virtuous Persian monk Reuben (A-lo-pen) has come to our high capital from afar with the 'teaching of the scriptures' (ching-chiao). We have carefully examined this teaching, and find it mysterious, admirable, and tranquil; we have studied its principles, and are satisfied that they lay stress on the essentials of life. Its language is spare and elegant, and its thought is coherent. It is clearly a helpful doctrine: let it be admitted to our empire. Let a monastery be built in our capital by the appropriate board in the I-ning ward, and let twenty-one monks be appointed there.\n\nThe term 'teaching of the scriptures' also occurs in another imperial decree made over a century later, in 745, by the emperor Hsüan-tsung. This decree has also been preserved in the T'ang hui-yao, and reads as follows:\n\n\"The ninth month of the fourth year of the T'ien-pao period. The Persian 'teaching of the scriptures' (ching-chiao) originated in Syria (Ta-ch'in). Long ago this teaching was brought here and has been practised in China. When the monasteries were first built, we called", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212144, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "63\n\nmonastery by his famous general Kao Li-shih, to the temple nameboard written in Hsüan-tsung's own calligraphy, and to lavish carpets donated by Jazedbouzid. We are also told that Reuben was escorted into Ch'ang-an by Tai-tsung's chief minister Fang Hsüan-ling; that Kao-tsung appointed Reuben 'spiritual lord of the empire'; that Hsüan-tsung's five brothers, all princes, visited the monastery in the 720s; that Su-tsung refounded a number of Nestorian churches; and that Tai-tsung invited the leaders of the Nestorian church to attend his birthday feasts. These are a curiously assorted selection of honours, and the reason that they are mentioned is doubtless because complimentary scrolls or other souvenirs of these occasions were on public display in the Ch’ang-an monastery, and therefore needed some historical explanation.\n\nGiven its likely readership, the Sian tablet inscription is a masterpiece of tact and suavity. It says what it needs to say and glosses over what is inconvenient. Nothing would have made a worse impression on such an audience than a frankly evangelical message. The Book of Jesus the Messiah is evidence, if evidence is needed, that the Nestorians in Tang China did not conceal the fact that the founder of their religion had been a crucified criminal. Nevertheless, many Chinese would have found this a shocking idea, and Adam sensibly avoided mentioning the crucifixion in an inscription aimed at casual visitors to an exotic foreign monastery, and dwelled on aspects of the \"brilliant teaching\" which were more likely to appeal to his audience. The Christian cross, therefore, which was prominently displayed on the tablet, was explained as a symbol of the four corners of the earth, and the crucifixion was mentioned only indirectly.\n\nInstead, the inscription argued that the 'brilliant teaching' promoted happiness and good order. It scotched any suggestion that Christianity was a religion from some vague western Eldorado by stressing that the Messiah had been born in Ta-ch'in, just west of Persia, a country which had been precisely located by eminent Chinese scholars. It tactfully insinuated that China had been most prosperous under those emperors who had encouraged the 'brilliant teaching'. It subtly suggested that a religion which could win compliments from a succession of T'ang emperors was a religion worthy of respect, and dwelled particularly on the favours of the four most recent emperors, Hsüan-tsung, Su-tsung, Tai-tsung and Te-tsung, towards the Christian religion. Middle-aged readers would remember all of them. Finally,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212147, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "66\n\nexpression 'brilliant teaching' and its meaning. The first section of the inscription, which describes the main doctrines of the Christian faith and the missionary character of the Christian church, concludes as follows:\n\n\"This true and unchanging way is wonderful and hard to name. Its merit is so clear and its usefulness so obvious that we strive to express it by calling it the 'brilliant teaching'.”\n\nAdam also removed from a quotation in the Sian tablet inscription two inconvenient references to the former official identity of the Nestorian church, the teaching of the scriptures'. As has been mentioned earlier, the emperor T'ai-tsung gave permission in 638 for Reuben to build a Nestorian monastery in Ch'ang-an, and the relevant imperial decree has been preserved in the T'ang hui-yao. This decree is also quoted by Adam in the Sian tablet inscription, but with two slight, but significant, changes to the authentic text. Where the original referred to the virtuous Persian monk Reuben', Adam silently substituted 'Syrian' (Ta-ch'in) for 'Persian' and, carefully altering the original text of the imperial decree as little as possible, transformed the phrase 'Reuben has come to our high capital from afar with the teaching of the scriptures (ching-chiao)' into 'Reuben has come to our high capital from afar with scriptures and images (ching-chang)', by the deft alteration of only one Chinese character. Again, this suggests an effort to promote a new image: if the term 'brilliant teaching' had been firmly established in 781, it would have been unnecessary to take such pains to avoid references in the Sian inscription to the previous official identity of the Nestorian church.\n\nAdam and the promotion of the term 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching'\n\nIt should come as no surprise that a man of Adam's character was determined to ensure that his new term for Christianity, the 'Syrian brilliant teaching', should be uniformly applied by all Nestorian monasteries in China, so as to achieve maximum impact. There is evidence that, once this term had been adopted by the Nestorian church as an official description in 780, efforts were made to apply it consistently and to erase traces of the former official identity wherever they occurred. So far, this process has not been adequately analysed. In fact, a sustained effort appears to have been made in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212149, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "68\n\nrecopied in the 780s either by Adam, or on Adam's instructions. The Book of Praise contains a prayer giving thanks for the composition of 35 named books. The explanatory note makes it clear that Adam had been given access to Ch'ang-an's imperial library (presumably by the emperor Te-tsung); that these 35 books had been translated by him from their original Syriac into Chinese, and were a small portion of the scriptures which Reuben had brought to Ch'ang-an in 635; and that the translations had been sent to the Tun-huang monastery. The note reads as follows:\n\n\"Regarding the list of books, there are altogether 530 religious works of our church of Syria (Ta-ch'in), and they are all on patra leaves in the Syriac language. In the ninth Cheng-kuan year [635] of the emperor T'ai-tsung of the Tang bishop Reuben (A-lo-pen) came to China and presented a petition to the emperor in his native language. Fang Hsuan-ling and Wei Cheng made known the interpretation of the words of the petition. Later by imperial order bishop Adam (Ching-ching) of this church translated the above thirty and more rolls of books. The majority are on patra leaves or on leather in wrappers, and have still not been translated.'\n\nAmong the 35 books listed are four of which versions have been recovered from Tun-huang, the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy, the Book of the Origin of Origins, the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, and the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. Now if these books are, as the note to the Book of Praise implies, seventh-century works connected with Reuben, 'Christianity' should be rendered by the term 'teaching of the scriptures', and be associated with Persia, not Syria. Instead, notes in the manuscripts of the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord and the Book of the Origin of Origins state that they were written in the Sha-chou Ta-ch'in ssu, the 'Sha-chou Syrian monastery', implying that the notes, at least, were added after 745. Furthermore, in the titles of three of these four works, we find that the term Ta-ch'in ching-chiao, the 'Syrian brilliant teaching', has been added. It does not occur in the titles as given in the Book of Praise. In the case of the fourth book, the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy, the title remains as given in the Book of Praise, but the term ching-chiao, ‘brilliant teaching' occurs three times in the text. All four manuscripts have been copied (or at", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212150, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "69\n\nleast edited) some time after the adoption in 781 of the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching'. As we know that all four works were translated from Syriac into Chinese by Adam in the 780s, it seems reasonable to connect this editing process with Adam.\n\nThere is further evidence that the manuscript of the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord was copied in the 780s, which supplies a link with Adam's translation work in Ch'ang-an's imperial library. The manuscript concludes with a note prescribing readings from three scriptures: the Book of Heavenly Treasure, the Book of the Sacred King David, and the Book of the Good News. These works are, respectively, the Gezza, or 'treasury', a service-book containing a collection of anthems, hymns, and collects; the Book of Psalms, called Dawida, 'David', by the Nestorians; and the Evangelion, a book of selected readings from the Gospels. Although copies of these works have not yet been found at Tun-huang, all three are among the 35 books listed in the Book of Praise. Startling as it may seem, Adam seems to have been the first man to have made Chinese translations, 150 years after Reuben first arrived in China, of these standard Nestorian liturgical works. These translations were sent to Tun-huang by Adam, along with the other 32 translations he had made, and thus became available for use by the monks of the Sha-chou monastery in Chinese-language services.\n\nThe four Tun-huang manuscripts which were recopied in the late eighth century in response to Adam's efforts to promote the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching' show other traces of Adam's concern for coherence and consistency. As we have seen, Adam standardised and improved the Chinese translations of a number of Christian terms, and his versions also occur in some of these documents. A-lo-he PT, the term for God in the Sian tablet inscription, is also found in the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of our Lord and the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity. Ching feng, Adam's term for the Holy Spirit, is also found in the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity. Mi-shi-he, 'Messiah', occurs in the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, and the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy.\n\nThe Problem of the Kai-yuan Documents\n\nA curious puzzle, however, is presented by the manuscripts of the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord and the Book", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212151, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 93, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "70\n\nof the Origin of Origins. Both texts prominently feature the expression Syrian brilliant teaching in their titles and explanatory notes at the end of the texts state that they were written in the 'Sha-chou Syrian monastery'. As the monastery is called a 'Syrian' rather than a 'Persian' monastery the manuscripts must have been either written or copied later than 745, and as they use Adam's term 'Syrian brilliant teaching' they can probably be dated to the 780s. But the explanatory notes at the end of the texts tell us that the first manuscript was copied in the fifth year of the Kai-yuan period (717) by Chang-ku, and the second in the eighth year of the same period (720) by Su-yüan, both novice monks (fa-tu) in the Tun-huang Nestorian monastery.\n\nWe have no reason whatever to believe that Nestorian monasteries were called 'Syrian' monasteries as early as the second decade of the eighth century, and indeed Hsüan-tsung's decree states quite specifically that they were called 'Persian' monasteries until 745. These early dates, therefore, can only be accepted if we reject the plain sense of Hsüan-tsung's decree of 745, ordering all Nestorian monasteries in China to adopt the title Ta-ch'in ssu, ‘Syrian monastery', and I prefer to conclude instead that our manuscripts of these two works were copied and edited in the 780s. We have seen already, in the case of T'ai-tsung's decree of 638, that Adam was not worried about introducing anachronisms into old texts if they were necessary to preserve the coherence of his new 'Syrian brilliant teaching' identity. Accordingly, we need not be surprised to find the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching' and 'Syrian monastery' employed in texts ostensibly written over thirty years before a Nestorian monastery could be called a 'Syrian monastery' and more than fifty years before Christianity would be described as the 'brilliant teaching'.\n\nNo doubt the originals of our copied manuscripts were indeed written in Tun-huang in the second decade of the eighth century by Chang-ku and Su-yüan. The puzzle is to explain how it was possible for the Kai-yuan documents, as I shall call them for convenience, to be translated into Chinese at Tun-huang in the early eighth century, when Reuben's Syriac texts of these works lay neglected in Ch'ang-an's imperial library; and why it was necessary for Adam to translate these two works into Chinese in the 780s, as the Book of Praise implies he did, when Chinese versions already existed at Tun-huang. I can only conjecture what might have happened. Obviously some of Reuben's Syriac 'scriptures' existed in China in more than one manuscript, and the monks at Tun-huang in the early eighth century had their own", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212152, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "71\n\ntexts of these two works. Adam, working in the imperial library in Ch'ang-an sixty years later, probably translated Reuben's Syriac originals into Chinese without realising that translations had already been produced in far-off Tun-huang. Later, as the Book of Praise implies, he sent Chinese translations of thirty-five Syriac works to Tun-huang, and his new translations of the Kai-yuan documents were among them. The Tun-huang monks were evidently unwilling to destroy their own Chinese translations and replace them with Adam's, and it is their version which has survived, but in a copy made in the 780s. Adam had probably directed that new Chinese texts on Christian subjects should consistently use the 'Syrian brilliant teaching' identity, and that old texts should be edited where possible, to be brought into line with the new style. The monks therefore recopied and lightly edited their own Chinese texts to conform to the new identity. But they continued, understandably, to acknowledge the translation work carried out more than sixty years previously by their own monastery's monks, Chang-ku and Su-yüan.\n\nEpilogue: the Five Dynasties Period\n\nWe have seen how Adam tried to ensure that all Nestorian churches in China consistently used the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching'. During his lifetime, his position as metropolitan of China ensured that his flock complied with his wishes, but it is clear that the consistency by which he set such store broke down once he was no longer there to enforce it. This process can be seen at work in the manuscript in which the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity and the Book of Praise have been preserved. The former work seems to have been copied in the 780s, as it consistently applies the terminology found in the Sian tablet inscription. But the Book of Praise, although written on the same piece of parchment as the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, is written in a different hand and clearly at a much later date.\n\nThe Book of Praise, much of which is a hymn of thanksgiving for the existence of the 35 Syriac works translated by Adam, seems to have been written either in the tenth or the early eleventh century. The Tun-huang cave in which it was found was sealed in 1036, providing a terminus ante quem for its composition, and the formulation ‘emperor T'ai-tsung of the T'ang', proves that it was written after the final collapse of the T'ang dynasty in 906. At any rate, it was written not long before or after Abu'l Faraj met the despondent Nestorian monk", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212153, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "72\n\nin the Christian quarter of Baghdad, when Ch'ang-an and its glories were only a distant memory, and the Nestorian church in China proper was virtually extinct.\n\nIts tone is one of elegiac regret for an illustrious past, when the leaders of the Nestorian church had enjoyed access to the emperors of China; when Fang Hsüan-ling and Wei-cheng, two of the most powerful men in T'ai-tsung's court, had welcomed the first Nestorian missionary to China, and when the emperor Te-tsung had summoned a Nestorian archbishop to the imperial palace to translate the Christian scriptures into Chinese. The term 'brilliant teaching' does not appear either in the text of the Book of Praise or in the explanatory note, although there is a single reference in the note to our religion of Ta-ch'in'. The text of the Book of Praise lists, as we have seen, a number of books brought by Reuben to China in 635, including the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy, the Book of the Origin of Origins, the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, and the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. The manuscripts of the last three documents which have survived contain the term 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching' in their titles, but the phrase is omitted from the titles as given in the Book of Praise. Also, the term ching-feng (pure wind) is no longer used for Holy Spirit: instead we find a transliteration of the Syriac Ruha de Kudsha. The man who wrote the Book of Praise did so on a manuscript which contained a text of the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity with 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching' prominently displayed in the hymn's title. He nevertheless felt able to ignore this example of 'correct' usage in the Book of Praise.\n\nThere are a number of stylistic similarities between the Book of Praise and the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy, which suggest that our manuscript of the latter, although deriving from a seventh century Syriac original translated into Chinese by Adam, was copied in the tenth century. Firstly, its title is exactly as given in the text of the Book of Praise, and does not contain the expression 'Syrian brilliant teaching', found in the other late eighth-century manuscripts. Secondly, as in the Book of Praise, a transliteration of the Syriac Ruha de Kudsha is used instead of the term ching feng to denote the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, both texts use an obscure transliteration of the Sogdian word for 'rock' in the proper name 'Simon Peter' (Chang-wan Chang-jia, 'Simon the Rock'), instead of adopting a straightforward Chinese equivalent. Fourthly, both texts use one only of the two", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212154, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "73\n\nelements in the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching\". The expression ‘brilliant teaching' for Christianity occurs three times in the text of the Book of the Secret Peace and Joy, but there is no reference to Ta-ch'in.\n\nWe must conclude that, by the tenth century, the Nestorian monks at Tun-huang no longer used Adam's formula Ta-ch'in ching-chiao as punctiliously as they once had, although both Ta-ch'in and ching-chiao are found separately, and that a tendency to render proper names by transliteration from the Syriac had replaced the earlier policy of finding appropriate Chinese terms for them. Other examples of this tendency can be found in the titles of some of the thirty-five books listed in the Book of Praise: The Gospels (Syriac: evangelion) are the A-wan-chü-li-yung ching; the Epistles of St. Paul (Syriac: shlicha, the Book of the Apostle) the Shih-li-hui ching; the Book of Hosannas the Wu-sha-na ching; and the Book of the Cross (Syriac: tsuliba) the Tz'u-li-po ching. Although these are the titles, according to the Book of Praise, of books translated by Adam, it is difficult to believe that he would ever have allowed them to be given such meaningless names in Chinese. We have seen how much care he took in the Sian tablet inscription to make himself clear, and suitable Chinese titles could easily have been found for these books. But book titles, as we have already seen in the case of other Tun-huang manuscripts, are obvious targets for updating in the light of changing taste, and these Syriac-influenced titles were probably given to Adam's books by the Tun-huang monks in the tenth century. They lived on the fringes of China and were not writing for discerning scholars in the capital, as Adam was. They preserved the memory of their past glories under the leadership of men like Reuben and Adam, but a definite change of style had taken place since the confident days when the Sian tablet was erected. They were conscious that an era had passed.\n\n1\n\nNOTES\n\nHong Kong has a fine collection of bronze crosses from the Ongut region, worn by Nestorian Christians during the Yüan period, in the Fung Ping Shan museum of Hong Kong University. See F. S. Drake's article \"Nestorian Crosses and Nestorians in China under the Mongols\", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2, 1962, pp. 11-25.\n\nHis Chinese name, given in the Sian tablet inscription, was A-lo-pen. It is suggested in Volume 3 of the Cambridge History of China that A-lo-pen is a transliteration of Reuben, and this seems to me as good a guess as any.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212860, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "154\n\nAbdullah Sassoon (Member Bombay Legislative Council, 1818-1896)\n\nDavid Sassoon and His Family\n\n2 daughters\n\nSir Albert Abdullah\n\n2 daughters\n\nSir Jacob\n\nSir Edward\n\nSir Victor\n\nJoseph\n\nHannah Moise (d. 1870)\n\nSir Elias David (1843-1884)\n\nMeyei\n\nLeah Gubbay\n\nDavid (d. 1879)\n\nHannah Joseph (d. 1826)\n\nDavid Sassoon 1792-1864 (First Jewish trader in Shanghai)\n\nFlora Hyeen (d. 1886)\n\n3 daughters\n\nDavid Sassoon 1832-1867 || Flora Reuben\n\nDavid Reuben\n\nArthur Abraham David\n\n1840-1912 || Eugenie Louise Jadilk Perugia\n\nDavid Aaron\n\n1841-1894 || Flora Abraham\n\nFrederick David\n\nDavid Sassoon's elder brother, Abdullah Sassoon, who had supervised the family's business in Bombay, was a member of the Bombay Legislative Council. David Sassoon and Company, incorporated in London to buy and sell raw cotton, began to carry opium in the early 1830s. After the Opium War ended in 1842, David Sassoon and Company moved into Hong Kong, and, as soon as British authorities were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212861, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "155\n\nestablished in Shanghai, Sassoon moved his legitimate articles of trade there until 1858. Meanwhile, Jardine, Matheson and Company, which had hithertofore been the major trader in opium, had been buying through native Indian firms in India and carrying it in their own ships to China. It was partly due to Sassoon's manipulation of the opium supply and the opium market that led Jardine, Matheson to abandon the opium trade and to diversify its interests in Hong Kong and China. After 1871, Sassoon companies controlled the opium market.\n\nDavid Sassoon died in Bombay in 1864. He was married twice, and had a number of sons, who took turns managing the business in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London. After David's death, his second son, Elias David Sassoon, organized E.D. Sassoon and Company. Thereafter, there were two Sassoon companies, known by contemporaries as the Old Sassoon (David Sassoon and Company), and the New Sassoon (E.D. Sassoon and Company). A number of employees of the Old Sassoon, such as Silas Hardoon, joined E.D. Sassoon and Company as partners.\n\nOther Families\n\nShortly after the arrival of the British Consul at Shanghai in November 1843, three young employees of David Sassoon and Company began working and living in Shanghai. The three were E.J. Abraham, M.S. Moshee, and J. Reuben, the last a founder of the Jewish congregation, Sheerith Israel, in Shanghai. In quick order, other Jewish young men arrived at Shanghai to work for the Sassoons, including a number of names later distinguished on the China coast. At first, the young men returned to Baghdad or Bombay for their brides. Eventually, as more Jewish families settled in Shanghai, marriage partners were chosen locally.\n\nThe Abrahams\n\nDespite being identified by Cecil Roth in The Sassoon Dynasty as the one Jewish merchant family of Shanghai closely associated with scholarship, the Abraham men were first of all traders handling commodities typical of that time, including opium. Eleazer Abraham had come to China as a clerk in the David Sassoon and Company. In 1843 he was in Hong Kong, and in 1850 in Shanghai. In 1904 D.E.J. Abraham was recorded to have sued the Sassoon Apcar Steamship Company to recover opium which had allegedly gone astray.14 The grandson of the first Abraham in Shanghai, the noted R.D. Abraham, was elected leader", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212862, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "156\n\nThe Abraham Family\n\nEleazer Joseph Abraham\n\nDavid Ezekiel Joshua Abraham\n\nDavid Abraham Reuben m Ruby Moselle (1890-1982)\n\nEzekiel\n\nJoseph\n\nIsaac\n\n1\n\nAziza\n\nof the Jewish community, and served it well. His son, Ezekiel Abraham, recalled how the Jewish community had rallied to succour the refugees from Eastern Europe and Germany in 1938 and 1941 when some 17,000 to 18,000 refugees found their way to Shanghai.\n\n\"The Japanese commander had called in R.D. Abraham, as leader of the Jewish community in Shanghai, to tell him that a shipload of Jewish refugees had arrived. 'We cannot let them land,' said the Japanese. 'Why?' Abraham wanted to know. 'There is no place for them to live, and the refugees have no money to feed themselves,' reasoned the Japanese. 'In that case,' said Abraham, thoughtfully, without a smile, 'you will just have to shoot all of them, because there is no other place on earth for them to go.' Then he paused for a few moments before confiding in the Japanese, 'or, we can open the Sassoon warehouses in Hongkew and let the refugees live there, and put them to work in the factories.'\n\nGhe Ezras\n\n+15\n\nEdward Ezra switched from the opium trade to large-scale real estate construction and management in 1900. He erected - on the land bounded by Nanking, Kiujiang, Szechwan and Kiangse Roads - 1,000,000 taels worth of residences that enjoyed modern amenities. His own home on Joffre Road boasted a ballroom and a music room. The family interests included hotels. The Astor House Hotel, on Broadway and Whangpoo Road, occupied three acres of ground. Edward Ezra, who was a Director of Astor House, was the first person born in Shanghai and educated at the Shanghai Public School to be elected to the Municipal Council. Socially linked to the Sassoons from the beginning by marriage, today", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213393, "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": 215, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "Hatt. Virgie Chittenden, Western China, a Journey to Mount Omei, Boston Ticknor and Co, 1888\n\nHedin, Sven Anders, The Silk Road, English translation, New York Dutton, 1938\n\n— My Life As An Explorer, London Cassell, 1926\n\nHillard, Mrs Barnet(Low), My Mother's Journal Hope 1829-1834, Boston Ginn & Libs. 1900\n\nManila, Macao and Cape of Good\n\nHolden, Reuben Andrus, Yale in China, the Mainland, 1901-1957, New Haven The Yale in China Association, 1964\n\nHolm, Puts, My Nestorian Adventure in China, a Popular Account of the Holm-Nestorian Expedition to Sian-fu and as Result, New York and Chicago. Revell, 1923\n\nHomer, Jay, Dawn Watch in China, Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1941\n\nHopkirk, Peter, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road. The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia, London John Murray, 1980 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press)\n\nHosie, A. Three Years in Western China, London Philip, 1897 (Taipei Reprint Cheng-wen Publishing)\n\n—, On the Trail of the Opium Poppy, London, 1934\n\n1\n\nHoy Ching-ming, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China. 1840-1937 Cambridge (Mass). Harvard University Press, 1965\n\nHsu, Immanuel C.Y., The Rise of Modern China, New York: Oxford University Press. 1970\n\nHuang, Ray, The Lung-ch'ing and Wan-li Reigns 1567-1620, Cambridge History of China, vol 7, 511-84\n\nHue, Ivan, Recollections of a Journey Through Tartary During The Years 1844 1845 and 1846, a condensed translation by Mrs Percy Simmett, London Longman, 1852\n\n- A Journey Through the Chinese Empire, New York, 1855\n\n1\n\nHughes, Mrs Thomas Francis, Among the Sons of Han Notes of Six Years Residence in Various Parts of China and Formosa, London. Innes & Brothers 1887\n\nHume Lotta Carswell, Drama at the Doctor's Gate the Study of Dr. Edward Hume of Yale-in-China, New Haven Yale Association, 1961\n\nHummel, Arthur W, ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ching Period. Washington DC Government Printing Office, 1944 (Taipei Reprint. Cheng-wen Publishing)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214193, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "cially as it involved the only 'foreign devil' present, thoroughly enjoyed it even though the joke has been repeated countless times throughout the ages. Many jokes, both in the East and the West, are of course repeated over and over again over a period of years. Although possibly rather feeble by today's standards, the author remembers a riddle being repeated to him when he was a child in England. The question was: 'When is a door not a door?' The answer was, 'When it's a jar (ajar)!' This was told countless times and seemed to have been passed down from generation to generation as many jokes in many countries are.\n\nIn the case of a Chinese example of an oft repeated joke there is the saying, Ah Yee Leng Tong (-). This really means \"gone to the Second Wife's to drink lovely soup.' Up to October 1971, Chinese men in Hong Kong could legally take concubines. The principal wife, generally, knew her position and was pretty secure, but the concubine, so it was said, needed to prepare tasty soup (and other things) to please her husband to make sure her position also was secure. There is a restaurant named Ah Yee Leng Tong in Causeway Bay, on Hong Kong Island, and whenever the name is mentioned it always raises a smile.\n\nHaving said that, however, Chinese tend not to laugh out loud so much as Westerners, but, in Hong Kong, said Reuben M, an American part-time comedian who has lived in the Territory for a number of years, even Westerners are inclined to be more subdued than people living in the West. Nevertheless, it was pointed out by the same comedian that, if Chinese don't like a show and they are bored, they can be a noisy, distracting audience.\n\nLaughter can certainly help break down barriers, including pricking bubbles of solemnity at meetings, and there are few occasions when some degree of hilarity does not serve a useful purpose. Certainly humour is an important key to the happiness and well-being of us all, irrespective of race, just as anger and depression have the opposite effect. Norman Cousins was stricken with a seemingly incurable disease. He decided to keep himself occupied with a diet of humour and, as he lay on his sick-bed, he watched old silent movies of Laurel and Hardy and read anything that would make him laugh (Cousins, 1979; 39). He recounts he made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anaesthetic effect that gave him at least two hours of pain-free sleep. Gradually he began to recover. A good bout of laugh-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214222, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "43\n\nSources and acknowledgements\n\nA considerable amount of material in this paper has been drawn from the author's own experiences. Much of it he has heard with his own ears rather than just repeating what he has read or what others have told him. This information has been gleaned over a period of four-and-a-half decades living and working with Chinese in Hong Kong and while visiting cities and regions in the People's Republic of China and while visiting overseas Chinese communities.\n\nThe author is grateful to a number of Hong Kong comedians, including Reuben M., Brent Ambacher, Harry Wong and Michael Hui. He is also grateful to a number of Chinese friends, such as Howard Young, Legislative Councillor, Joseph Chow, civil engineer and businessman, who enjoy amusing their friends, both Chinese and Western, by telling jokes. Thanks are also due to Nury Vittachi, journalist, author and part-time comic.\n\nThe author also acknowledges help received from Dr Kristin Stapleton of the University of Kentucky, Carol A R Andrews of the British Museum, Josephine Khu and Dr Sandra Tsang of Hong Kong University, Dr Elizabeth Sinn of the Centre of Asian Studies, Hong Kong University, and Catherine Lau of the Hong Kong Fringe Club.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]