[
    {
        "id": 214192,
        "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": 50,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "13\n\nvariety of humour and just talking mo lei tau (nonsense, f). It all adds up to people coming out of a show and feeling good about themselves.\n\nChinese humour\n\nWhereas Westerners have been described as being seriously humorous, Chinese have been said to be 'humorously serious' (Kao, 1946; XVIII). Chinese humour is, by and large, down to earth, with a surfeit of action, with the hero's mother breaking a leg or the bully being beaten up. Much of it may, nevertheless, be, so called, mo lei tau, and include a certain amount of Western style slapstick.\n\nIt was not until the beginning of the 20th century (unlike the West where they became popular two or three centuries earlier) that cartoons became popular in China (Xu, 1989; preface). The reason was largely because China was a semi-feudal society and people did not have freedom to create works of humour and sarcasm. Today, under socialism, works considered 'in poor taste' are often still not accepted for publication. Often cartoons tend to be used as resistance to oppression and, like a dagger or javelin, aimed to do 'battle.' Having said all that, however, many Westerners (as well as many Hong Kong Chinese) believe humour in China is not subtle enough and it does not demand rapid thought. In the main it is straightforward, then there is a pause followed by the punchline.\n\n'Laugh talk' (slapstick), as it is sometimes dubbed, generally goes down well with Chinese, and, between the two World Wars, it is understood that on the first night of a show put on by the family of Sir Run Run Shaw, in Shanghai, an actor, purely by accident, fell through the floorboards. Because this was considered hilarious by the audience, the Shaw showbiz family made it a permanent part of the act.\n\nThe author recalls when he visited Hainan Island, in China in 1987, in an off-the-beaten-track village, a Chinese infant was placed on his shoulder. The child wore standard Chinese shorts, with a longish vertical split in the seat. This conveniently opened automatically when it squatted to do its business. As it sat on the author's shoulder its bare bottom rubbed against his face. What a joke! All the Chinese, espe-",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214933,
        "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": 29,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "* 23 June 2000. Visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum to hear Mrs. Valerie Garrett on her collection of Chinese costumes. A real lifetime's work in Hong Kong went into this collection and members were treated to a masterly exposition by Valerie on how she succeeded in acquiring the costumes and their origins.\n\n* 17 July 2000. Visit to Oxford. This was a fascinating day to see many aspects of Oxford that one does not normally visit. We started at the Pitt Rivers museum to look at the Sir Aurel Stein collection and the conservation laboratory housing the textiles brought back by him. In the afternoon, a visit to the Ashmolean Museum was made featuring the Shaw collection (not Sir Run Run) and a collection of mid-nineteenth-century Yarkand and Kashgaria costumes once belonging to Robert Shaw, British Commissioner in Ladakh, who was an intelligence gatherer within the machinations of the Great Game. In the late afternoon, we invaded David Paskett's house to view his own paintings focusing on \"Glimpses of everyday Chinese life.\" David has made frequent visits to China and is well known for the reproductions appearing on the cards of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Art museum. The day ended with a congenial Chinese dinner. For this very successful day, we need to thank Mrs. Rosemary Lee, whose organisational ability was up to its usual high standards.\n\n* 28 October 2000. Lecture by Mrs. Janice Thorpe. \"Hong Kong Revisited.\" Janice had recently returned from Hong Kong where she was one of the R.A.S. volunteers who worked with the Antiquities and Monuments Office, surveying heritage sites. This was a wonderfully all-embracing lecture which brought home not only the places which many of us had not seen but should have seen, and were still there, but also the very rapid changes and, in some cases, demolition of many well-known heritage sites.\n\n* 27 January 2001. Chinese New Year Lunch at the China City Restaurant, Soho, London. This was attended by 51 members and friends, including one who travelled up from Cornwall and one from Belgium.\n\nXXVIII",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    }
]