[ { "id": 206802, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "SWATOW (CH’AOCHOW) HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\nHELGA WERLE*\n\n# Introduction\n\nThe so-called Swatow puppets are in fact wrongly named. This is due to a confusion which requires some explanation. In Western languages the adjective Swatow is used to attribute a dialect, culture or people etc., when the Chinese themselves speak of Ch’aochow. This is because the British gained access to the Ch’aochow area by the opening of the port of Shantou (Swatow) by the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858. Chinese know that the city of Ch’aochow heads one of the 8 prefectures of the province of Kwangtung and is situated on the Han River about 40 miles from the sea and as far from the border with Fukien. Swatow itself, a port with about 85,000 inhabitants in 1925, is in the delta of the Han River, five miles from the open sea.\n\nIn this article the term “Swatow” has been replaced by the use of the proper Chinese description of Ch’aochow.\n\nCh’aochow developed very early into a culturally independent area. Its seaboard position and flourishing port gave it the necessary economic basis and exposed it to various cultural influences. Culturally and linguistically, it is more like a prefecture of Fukien than of Kwangtung. Its dialect is distinctly different from Cantonese, so are its customs and its music, which all deserve to be studied in detail for the value of its rich ancient tradition. Among its cultural assets, the Ch’aochow puppet-theatre is truly amazing, with unique features found nowhere else in the world.†\n\nThe author has studied in the Sinology departments of the Universities of Munich, Hamburg, and Cologne. She has been a resident of Hong Kong since 1966 and has followed up her studies with field work in Taiwan, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines. She is particularly interested in folk art and theatre and is at present on the staff of the Hong Kong Arts Centre Ltd. She has published various articles on puppet theatre and folk art.\n\n† For the Introduction, see L. Richard (translated, revised and enlarged by M. Kennelly), Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire and Dependencies, Shanghai, T’usewei Press 1908, pp. 206 and 210. Also J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese or Notes connected with China (5th edition, revised by É. Chalmers Werner), Kelly & Walsh, Shanghai, Hong Kong etc., 1925, pp. 689-690. For the Min dialects of which Ch’aochow and Swatow are part, see R. A. D. Forrest, The Chinese Language, Faber & Faber, London, 1958, pp. 225-232.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210286, "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": 257, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "236\n\nCHOI CHI CHEUNG\n\ntwelve to fifteen priests but according to a committee member, because of economic reasons, they decreased the number of the priests. They started to have a nun join the team since 1981. However, she makes no difference for the common worshippers. There was no special interaction between the common worshippers and the priests. Even in the rituals relating to the Ming-che, no one except the Japanese wife of a \"Newly Dead\" invited the Japanese priest to chant before the Ming-che. In place of priests, the Temple keeper (Chu-tzi), a Chinese man from Shantou (Swatow) was employed by the families of the 'Newly Dead' to chant before each Ming-che. The purpose of this ritual was to inform the 'Newly Dead' that the family will send (burn) a paper-made house (Ming-che) to the underworld and now they are going to send the \"Contract\" of the house, and with the 'Contract' the 'Newly Dead' can get the house after it has been sent.\" The Japanese priests who performed all the official rituals were respected by the common worshippers who kept their distance from them.\n\n24\n\nThe common worshippers came from various parts of Japan. Most of the informants claimed that there were no limitations, anybody could come to worship. There was no data referring to the origins and residential places of the worshippers. However, at least one man, a Hokkienese who is son-in-law of the chairman of the festival, came from Gunma Prefecture; several families came from Yokohama; a group of Hokkienese came from Shikoku (they came to worship a ‘Newly Dead' who helped them immigrate to Japan a few years ago); 2 related families came from Himeji; 3 from Osaka (2 are Hokkienese, the 3rd one immigrated to Japan in 1981, he was a Taoist from Peking); and one Hokkienese came from Kyoto (he was in charge of the Chinese Ghost Festival at Uji, Kyoto). As shown in table 2, the number of participants contributing 1000 yen or more numbered 708,\n\nHowever, if the tablets of the ancestors are taken as substitutes for family participation the number of the families involved should be more than the figure shown. Though the family segments into several economically and residentially separated households, the households always worship under the same ancestor-tablet as a religious family.\" One informant (a 32 yr. old Cantonese) told me that he had 7 siblings, the eldest died during the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215114, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "167\n\nhis patriotic rage caused him to grind his teeth so that after his death it was found that all but three or four had been worn down to the very gums.\n\nXu was a civil mandarin, the prefect of Suiyang, a native of Yanguang in Gansu province, who was posthumously awarded the title Weixian Wang by the emperor. His festival is celebrated on his birthday, the 29th of the first, or the 2nd of the sixth lunar months. In Mucha near Taipei an image of Xu's consort stands on a rear altar in his temple.\n\nAlthough their images are to be seen in most of their temples together, both on the same altar, in a few places they are also to be seen individually as the lone main deity on an altar. Further complications include both deities noted individually on altars in temples where the temple keepers deny that their particular individual deity is in any way connected with the other deity who is not present.\n\nWhen they are together as joint main deities their images are very similar and cannot easily be identified apart. They are usually portrayed as customary military figures, dressed in armour, sitting on thrones and holding unsheathed swords but without any unique identifying characteristics. In many temples they have a pair of military and civil aides flanking their altars and, in one instance, in Tainan, Zhang has an 'army' represented by six miniature images of military and civil aides on the altar table before his main altar.\n\nAmong the many legends told about these two deities one related in a Chaozhou temple in Bangkok related how the cult came from \"the north” and arrived in Chaoyang, a small city on the coast of Guangdong just south of Swatow [Shantou]. Zhong Ying, a Song dynasty soldier [ca. AD 1200], whilst escorting taxes gathered in Chaozhou to the capital was resting overnight in a temple somewhere in central China when he heard voices of Xu and Zhang, the two deities on the main altar, instructing him to carry their images on his return to Chaozhou to spread their cult into southern China, which he duly did.\n\nAccording to the Chaoyang county annals a force of foreigners [red-haired bandits] attacked Swatow [Shantou] in 1854. They were repulsed by the Chinese defenders when the latter were aided by giant apparitions of Zhang and Xu who, amidst a host of horsemen, came to\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]