[
    {
        "id": 206812,
        "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-1973",
        "page_number": 89,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\nCh'aochow Puppets in contemporary China and overseas\n\n83\n\nLiu Fu-kuang §✯ an educated person of about 40, who is the most outstanding Ch'aochow orchestra-leader here, is closely connected with the Hsin-shun-hsiang puppet-troupe. He came to Hong Kong in 1959. According to him, puppet-troupes completely disappeared in Ch'aochow after the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. This is probably because their performances were intimately connected with the festivals of the myriads of local deities, the worship of which was strongly discouraged by the Communists. In 1957, Liu Fu-kuang saw the last troupe, called Shant'ou Ying-hsi-t'uan 4⇓✯D (Shadow-play-troupe of Shant'ou) perform in Swatow. He believes that not even one troupe is now left in Ch'aochow, after a history of about one thousand years and a hundred active troupes fifty years ago.\n\nPeople from Ch'aochow make up a large percentage of the Overseas Chinese population of South East Asia and Ch'aochow opera flourishes there; but there is said not to be one single \"paper-shadow-play\" troupe overseas. This shows that from the great tradition of puppet-theatre, only the two troupes in Hong Kong are left. It is therefore the last chance to savour and study this tradition before its extinction which, at least at the moment, appears to be inevitable.\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nBatchelder, Marjorie H.: Rod-puppets and the Human Theatre, Columbus, The Ohio State University Press, 1947.\n\nHuang Chun-ming: The Forbidden Puppets' in Echo of Things Chinese, Taiwan, October 1972, pp. 24-34.\n\nJacob & Jensen: Das Chinesische Schattentheater, Stuttgart, 1933.\n\nMargareta Niculescu: The Puppet Theatre in the Modern World compiled by Union Internationale des Marionettes under Margareta Niculescu, George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., London, Toronto, Wellington, Sidney, 1967.\n\nTsim Tak-lung (compiler): Puppet-demonstration on pages 45-47 of ‘Chinese Theatre in Hong Kong', Proceedings of a Symposium, Nov. 22-23, 1968, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1968.\n\nBurger, Helga: 'The Cantonese Stick-puppets', in Kaleidoscope, Hong Kong, March/April 1973.\n\n\"The Far Eastern Puppet Theatre' in Souvenir Book of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, 1974.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211715,
        "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": 130,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "105\n\nbamboo comes from Vietnam. Saigon Bamboo, as it is often called, has the double advantage of high inflammability and resistance to worm. Not every factory can afford to buy this type of bamboo cane, however, especially those engaging in the production of low-priced commodities. These factories, instead, often use Haifang Bamboo (T), Peihai Bamboo (EV), Shant'ou Hairy Bamboo (€, Phyllostachys edulis) and Formosan Bamboo (A). These sticks are cheaper but their fibrous surface makes the manufacturing processes difficult.\n\nThe second type of bamboo used is called Grass Bamboo (#†, ts’ao chu) which comes mainly from China. The species is more often used to manufacture joss sticks of greater length. The length of this type of joss stick demands a species of bamboo which has the joints wide apart. Moreover, the bamboo exploited must be old and dry enough so that the bamboo core can support the immense weight added to it by the incense powder. As a result, bamboo bark and cambium are very seldom used as they are either too brittle or too slender. Instead, the xylem of old bamboo is used since it alone is hard enough.\n\nIn the field study, it was found that other than three incense wood mills and four factories specializing in the production of incense coils, all the factories used bamboo canes from China as their basic raw materials. Nevertheless, three of them reported the use of bamboo from Singapore as a supplement in the production of higher grade joss sticks. Only one uses the canes from Thailand.\n\nTo prepare bamboo trees for joss stick manufacture, they are first felled into logs, and then cut into canes. The canes must have a square cross-section so that the final products do not flatten out. In addition, the longitudinal cross-section of the canes has to be uniform in order to produce fine joss sticks.\n\nb) Incense Wood Milling\n\nWithin the broad categories of joss sticks and incense coils, incense products can be further sub-classified on the basis of their fragrances. In general, the fragrances of joss sticks include Aloe-scented, Sandal-scented, Cypress-scented, Rose-scented, Lign-aloe-scented, benzoin-scented and scentless. These different kinds of scents come from different kinds of fragrant trees. Today, aloewood is obtained from Aquilaria agallocha which is widely grown in Hainan Island and Annam. Ch'ên-hsiang (D), as it is often called, is not commonly used because it",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    }
]