[ { "id": 209037, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "BOOK LISTS\n\n167\n\nFor these reasons the work is thoroughly recommended. It is to be hoped that, when he finds time, Dr. Baker will produce similar work on the city, which is just as fascinating as the countryside. A last word of thanks goes to Mr. Robin Hutcheon, Editor of the South China Morning Post, who saw a good thing and made it all possible.\n\nOne regret perhaps? Each volume cites its own guide to reference books and the third has a useful index to the whole, but I'm lazy and would have liked page references to help me track down the originals of quoted passages.\n\nHong Kong, 1981.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nCHINESE WALLED CITIES: A COLLECTION OF MAPS FROM SHINA JŌKAKU NO GAIYŌ, Benjamin E. Wallacker, Ronald G. Knapp, Arthur J. Van Alstyne, Richard J. Smith, eds. (1979, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press). 266 pp.\n\nThe reader who wants one hundred sketch maps of traditional Chinese walled cities—as they stood in the 1930's—will find them in this book.\n\nLest this brief statement seems to do less than justice to a volume of 266 pages, let me quote from the description of Chinhsiang (page 130) in Shantung: \"The city is 45 kilometers southwest of Chi-ning. Population is given as 3,000 households and 15,000 individuals.\" On the right-hand side of the page, there is also a drawing of the city wall, noting that it is 8.0 m. high, 3.0 m. wide at the top, and 10.0 m. at the bottom. On the map of Chin-hsiang, you can also see that there is a north gate, an east gate, a south gate, and a west gate.\n\nThe Introduction notes that these maps were made by Major Ishiwari Heizō of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces in China, and were originally published by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1940 under the title Shina Jōkaku no Gaiyō (General outline of the walled cities of China). The editors added a few photographs to break up the monotony, but no extra research.\n\nChinese University of Hong Kong, 1980.\n\nDAVID FAURE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210383, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 354, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "333\n\nChina's Island Frontiers Studies in the Historical Geography of Taiwan. Edited by Ronald G. Knapp. The University Press of Hawaii and The Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1980. xv. 296 p. 41 figures.\n\nAs the cover jacket to this book states \"This collection of essays is not a comprehensive treatment but a multifaceted look at the patterns and processes of Taiwan's historical geography.\" The range of the eleven essays is quite broad. The editor, however, has grouped them under two headings: the first includes essays on migration and rural settlement, and the second on urbanization and economic integration.\n\nThe first article by Wen-hsiung Hsu traces the development of Taiwan from an island inhabited solely by Malayo-Polynesian speaking aboriginal groups to a Han-Chinese primary settlement frontier by 1683. This study uses mainly Chinese sources and a Dutch source, plus some archeological information on pre-historic Taiwan. No Spanish or Portuguese documents are consulted. Hsu's viewpoint of early Taiwan's political history is summed up in the conclusion: “Taiwan is the only Chinese area that has been colonized by three foreign powers: the Dutch (1624-1662), the Spanish (1626-1642), and the Japanese (1895-1945)” (p. 28, italics mine). In my opinion, the Chinese were one of many foreign groups encroaching upon the island during the early colonization of Taiwan and only the Japanese can be said to have colonized a truly \"Chinese area”.\n\nThe second chapter by I-shou Wang, “Cultural Contact and the Migration of Taiwan's Aborigines: A Historical Perspective\" describes the problems the aborigines have encountered under each period of political control and colonization starting from the Dutch period and ending with the current Chinese period (1945 to present). Wang is objective in his view of Taiwan's settlement history, but he does not draw any comparative conclusions concerning aboriginal treatment during the various periods mentioned.\n\nIn the third chapter, Ronald G. Knapp focuses on a case study of settlement and land tenure on the Taoyuan plain concentrating on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Knapp describes in detail the tenancy rights found during the early eighteenth century.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210384, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 355, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "334\n\nwhich were divided into cultivation rights, surface rights, and sub-soil rights. Knapp's article on Taoyuan is followed by Cho-yun Hsu's description of settlement in the Yilan (I-lan) plain where such tenancy practices were not found. Hsu's main argument is that it was \"entrepreneurial leadership that guided pioneering activities and affected subsequent development\" (pp. 85-86) on the Yilan plain in contrast to \"foreign initiatives, military colonization, and patent-derived efforts” common in other areas of Taiwan.\n\nWen-hsiung Hsu's second essay concentrates on discovering the role voluntary organizations played in instigating social disorder during the Qing (Ch'ing) period in Taiwan (1683–1895). The author divides the Han-Chinese settlers of Taiwan into three large groups: Zhangzhou (Chang-Chou) people, Quanzhou (Ch'uan-chou) people, and the Hakka. Uprisings usually only received support from the group to which the leader belonged whereas the other two groups would oppose the uprising out of hatred of the third group rather than out of love for the Qing. Hsu concludes that the voluntary organizations, often based on the above-mentioned groupings, increased the frequency and raised the scale of social disorder prior to the mid-nineteenth century but their proliferation after that date facilitated social integration (p. 105). Why the three groups began to cooperate with each other at that time is not explained which leaves the topic somewhat unfinished.\n\nThe final chapter in Part One is a brief discussion by Chiao-min Hsieh of names given to places in Taiwan by the island's various ruling groups.\n\nPart Two, \"Urbanization and Economic Integration,\" begins with a chapter written by Tao-chang Chiang on the walled cities and towns in Taiwan. The discussion deals both with the form of individual walled towns and their distribution throughout the island. Chiang briefly describes how the walls often limited urban growth and how they affected the street patterns when growth beyond the walls did occur since main roads all began at the gates. The Japanese removed many of the walls and in their place built broad encircling boulevards.\n\nNext Donald R. DeGlopper traces the development and decline of the port of Lugang (Lu-kang) on Taiwan's west coast and the trading \"systems\" or hinterlands", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210385, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 356, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "335\n\nwhich it served. Some reasons for Lugang's decline include the silting of the port's shallow harbour, integration of its hinterland into the island-wide economy — largely accomplished by the construction of the west coast railroad, and the limitation of the Fujian (Fukien) trade after the Japanese occupation of Taiwan in 1895. Deglopper concludes that the decline of Lugang after the mid-nineteenth century is not an isolated phenomenon but must be understood through the port's relationship to the rest of Taiwan and to Fujian. This is a good descriptive presentation of Lugang.\n\nChapter 9 by Yi-rong Ann Hsu, Clifton W. Pannell, and James O. Wheeler applies statistical methods to analyze the development of Taiwan's transportation network both in terms of network connectivity and connectivity of urban centres from 1600 and 1972. The analysis clearly portrays the development of the road and rail systems after 1893. The concluding comments stress the parallel relationship between transport development and economic growth. Another chapter by Ronald Knapp delves into the particulars of a rarer mode of transportation, the push car railway or daisha as it is known in Japanese. The daisha played a significant role in integrating Taiwan's agriculture into the rest of the Japanese empire by providing transport between farms and railway stations. Knapp discusses the relationship of this mode to the development of railroads and roads, again stressing the Taoyuan plain as a case study.\n\nIn the final chapter, Jack F. Williams discusses the importance of the sugar industry in Taiwan's development from the Dutch period down to 1975 with some predictions about the future. Williams points out the significant transformation in this industry when the Japanese took over the island in 1895. The Nationalist Chinese Taiwan Sugar Corporation is seen as a slightly less exploitative continuation of the Japanese system. Despite the declining role sugar plays in Taiwan's economy, when one considers the company's importance in the lives of the thousands of cane growers and workers and the indirect employment generated in other related industries, the Taiwan Sugar Corporation emerges as the single most important government-owned corporation on the island even today.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212424, "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": 366, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "343\n\nRonald G. Knapp, The Chinese House: Craft, Symbol and the Folk Tradition, (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, Images of Asia Series, 1990) viii + 87 pp. Index\n\nThe study of traditional Chinese rural architecture is critical to the clarification of the \"little tradition\" of the ordinary Chinese villager. It is still the case that too little is known of how the 98% of Chinese who dwelt in rural areas lived. Until we can understand how people in the villages lived, what the physical surroundings were in which they passed their lives; until we can truly understand the harshnesses and simplicities of these houses; until we can see how the houses were created, and from what materials until then we cannot really understand China.\n\nStudies on traditional vernacular architecture in China are not common, in any language. In English, Prof. Knapp is almost alone in writing about such buildings. His China's Traditional Rural Architecture, A Cultural Geography of The Common House (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1986) and China's Vernacular Architecture: House Form and Culture (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1989) are far and away the best introduction to the subject. This book from Oxford University Press is a shortened and simplified introduction to these two fuller treatments. It is very welcome, as providing a short, but masterly, summary of this important subject to the general reader.\n\nThere are inadequacies in this volume. In particular, the terrace houses which are found in the general Hong Kong area are not treated in it, nor, indeed, in Prof. Knapp's other books. In general, they treat the northern Chinese houses more fully and satisfactorily than the southern. More detailed plans and usage descriptions would be desirable. A glossary including Chinese characters is badly needed. It is greatly to be hoped that Prof. Knapp will one day produce a definitive, and exhaustive, study.\n\nThis book, by Oxford University Press, is marked by a wealth of illustrations, many of a very high quality. The book is well worth the very modest cost. Anyone reading it will receive an excellent introduction to an important subject.\n\nP.H. Hase", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213309, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "1=1\n\nExtel, Ernest I, Feng-Shui, Graham Brash, 1984 (Just published 1882)\n\nFan Wei, 'Village Feng Shui Principles', Chinese Landscapes: the Village as a Place, ed. Ronald G. Knapp, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1992, pp. 35-45\n\nFeuchtwang, Stephen, An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy, Vantage, Southern Materials Centre Inc., Taipei, 1974\n\nFong, Gordon, An Introduction to Chinese Geomancy, privately published, Australia, 1980\n\nFreedman, Maurice, 'Chinese Geomancy: Some Observations in Hong Kong', The Study of Chinese Society: Essays by Maurice Freedman, Stanford University Press, 1979\n\n— 'A Report on Social Research in the New Territories at Hong Kong, 1963', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 16, 1976\n\nGroot, J.J. de, The Religion of the Chinese, Macmillan, 1912\n\nGroves, Derham, Feng Shui and Western Building Ceremonies, Graham Brash, Singapore, 1991\n\n2\n\nGwee, Peter Kim Woon, Fengshui: The Geomancy and Economy of Singapore, 1991\n\nHase, Patrick H., and Lee Man-yip, 'Sheung Wo Hang Village, Hong Kong: a Village Shaped by Feng Shui', Chinese Landscapes: the Village as a Place, ed. Ronald G. Knapp, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1992, pp. 79-94\n\nHayes, James, 'A Ceremony to Propitiate the Gods at Tong Fuk, Lantau, 1958', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 5, 1965\n\n— 'Geomancy and the Village', Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today, week-end symposium, October 1966, Brochure of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society\n\n— 'Local Reaction to the Disturbances of \"Fung Shui\" on Tsing Yi Island, Hong Kong, September 1977-March 1978', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 19, 1979", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 } ]