[ { "id": 204433, "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-1962", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "54\n\nSOME OF CHINA'S THIRTY-FIVE MILLION NON-CHINESE\n\nA lecture delivered on January 15, 1962\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS, M.A., PH.D.*\n\nThe title of this paper indicates the existence in China of enough people, fundamentally of non-Chinese origin, to be equal to the population of Korea, Poland, or Mexico. Before discussing them, however, it is necessary to define the term Chinese. At least two definitions may be acceptable: one is that Chinese are citizens of the territory constituting China as a state; the other is more restricted and applies to that unique cultural group known as the \"Sons of Han\" which evolved the ideographic Chinese writing, which has a recorded history and literature of several thousand years, and whose ethical character has been epitomized in the teachings of Confucius. They constitute ninety-five per cent of the people of China, but there remain five per cent who do not derive from the cultural heritage of the Han, but whose ancestors occupied areas north, west and south of the Yellow river heartland of the Han people. These speak different languages, practice different customs, wear different habits and often make their livelihood in different manners from those of the Han. Recent classifications show at least fifty different such ethnic groups in China. This talk, however, is concerned with only the groups in south and southwest China where about twenty-five of the approximately thirty-five million people in the non-Han classification dwell.\n\nIf we examine the historical ethnography of China at the time of Confucius, we find that the Yangtze valley and China south of it belonged not to the Han but to the non-Han peoples. By this time, however, many of the occupants of the Yangtze valley had to a greater or lesser degree become acculturated to Han-Chinese ways. A fief holder of the Chou emperor who was \"barbarian\" whose descendant became the king of the state of Ch'u in the central Yangtze valley was proud to declare:\n\n* Dr. Wiens has spent many years in China. He is Associate Professor of Geography, Yale University, and has specialized in geographic studies of Southern China. Author of China's March Towards the Tropics. He spent the academic year 1961-62 as a visiting lecturer at the University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204668, "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-1963", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "KASHMIR HOLIDAY\n\n133\n\ngrazing round the tents and our staff from the boat, now transformed into mountaineers, plus the owners of the ponies were all waiting to receive us. Two of the ponies had been hired to carry the ladies on the trek but in point of fact they were never used except by Gaffar and his son when their feet got sore.\n\nA large log fire was already alight outside the larger tent, hot water was waiting for the canvas baths and a three-course dinner was being cooked outside the cook's tent down-wind. This, I would add, was the normal evening routine throughout our trek, for the ponies with all our tents and supplies would pass us during the morning and everything was set up before we reached camp at night. Generally one pony stayed with us to carry the lunch and our spare clothes, and later we perched on the top two live hens that we had bought from some shepherds we met on the way. They were intended for dinner one night but we became so fond of them that they survived the expedition and came all the way back to the boat with us.\n\nThe way led along the west side of the Liddar river, past Arau, the last village before the pass, and to the foot of the great Kolahoi glacier. Here we camped, at 8,500 ft., and spent the next day exploring the pink-coloured glacier and watching life in the valley: marmots, snow pigeon, white-capped redstart, chough and Himalayan griffon. By the third evening we had reached the Yamher Pass and as it was too late to attempt the crossing we camped at the foot in a bare plateau. By now we were far above the tree line and as it was very cold we had gathered wood on the day's walk and stacked it on the top of the ponies' packs.\n\nNext day we were lucky for there was not a cloud in the sky and when we reached the top of the Yamher at 14,000 ft. the high peaks of the Himalayas stretched in a great semi-circle before us. Dead ahead, clear and glittering in the sun, was the unmistakable magnificence of Nanga Parbat (26,660 ft.) whilst to the west was the fringe of the mountains in the Hindu Kush. Eastwards lay the peaks of Ladakh and Baltistan. It was unforgettable.\n\nTo the uninitiated the only part of the whole walk which may bring a slight fluttering in the stomach is the first 500 feet of the descent from the top of the Pass. But help is always at hand", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204874, "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-1964", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "152\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ncannons still point to the sea. The inscription on two of these both on the eastern wing, is relatively clear. The words on the easternmost one show that the cannon was cast in the eighth moon of the fourteenth year of the reign of Chia Ching (1809), serial number Ching 80, weighing 1,000 catties (1,333 lbs.) and was cast by the master of the Man Shing Furnace. The second cannon was cast by order of the Fat Shan Magistrate in the tenth moon of the twenty-first year of the reign of Tao Kuang (1841) by Craftsmen Lee, Chan and Fok. The two dates are rather interesting. It can be imagined that the first cannon was transferred from the Fort at Nan Fau when the fort was first built and the second was cast in Fat Shan specifically for this Tung Chung Fort when Viceroy Lin wished to strengthen coastal fortification as he feared that Captain Elliot might attack the coastal areas of Kwangtung. Two of the cannons on the western side have shapes distinctly foreign to the Chinese, and they are more subjected to weathering than the others. As these rather remind the observer of those kept in the Raffles National Museum and the Malacca Museum, it is possible that these pieces might have been captured from the Portuguese or might have been cast with their help earlier on.\n\nThe granite slabs used for building the fort are foreign to the valley. They might have come from Chek Lap Kok Island across the Bay or might even have been brought in from T'un Mun (Castle Peak). There are many of these slabs lying about the fort and some have found their way to becoming part of a rural house. Recent site preparation for an extension of the school building revealed a tiled floor below the present ground level. Had some sort of a garrison been maintained throughout the dynasties? Is the present form of the fort a result of several expansions in the nineteenth century? Were there originally more cannons mounted on the battlements? Where are the sites of the other constructions mentioned in the Annals? The answers to these questions would be of great value in establishing the important role played by Lantau in the history of the region.\n\nLOAN-WORDS IN THE CHINESE LANGUAGE\n\nA gap in our knowledge which I suggest should be filled would be to establish the date of the introduction into China of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205279, "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-1967", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "34 \n\nJEN YU-WEN \n\nregular) palace, tien, was for the Queen Mother Young and was called by the name of Ts'u-yuan Tien (18. \n\nIt is reasonable to imagine that when they arrived in Kowloon their manner of life was practically the same as later in Ya-shan. The royal party with their attendants and the generals and ministers with their families went ashore followed by a number of royal guards, while the rest of the one hundred thousand soldiers had to stay on the boats. I believe that the royal party, including the mother Queen, Tuan Tsung, his younger brother and their closest attendants, were welcomed by the Salt-field Administrator, who was the chief official of the area, and accommodated in the better and more permanent houses in Kuan-fu Tsai. It is said that at the foot of the Kuan-fu Tsai Hill there was a large, flat stone which the Queen Mother used as her dressing table and hence it was called the Queen Mother's Dressing Stone, wang-mu shu-chuang shih (14†). The others had to live in the several villages and houses and huts which were hurriedly built with whatever materials were available in the area, such as bamboo, wood, mud, straw, stones, etc. No magnificent and beautiful palaces or mansions could have been built, owing to lack of time they stayed for only two months and want of the better class of building material. Such temporary houses must have spread all over the area. \n\nA close scrutiny of the earlier government maps show that the terrain in this area was very suitable for habitation. There was a brook which ran south from the northern mountainous area. There was another one running east from the valley between the two pincers on the northern end of the Kuan-fu Mountain. The two brooks converged on the western side of the Sacred Hill to form the Ma-tau-ch'ung, (i.e. stream), which then flows into Kowloon Bay. Thus there was enough fresh water for drinking, cooking and other purposes for thousands of people. It was in this large plain that the Kuan-fu Travelling Palace of Southern Sung was located (see map). \n\nIX. THE REST OF THE ITINERARY \n\nHaving encamped at Kuan-fu for two months from the 4th to the 6th, being the summer of 1277, the royal party, now threatened by the advent of the Mongols, moved on by boat with all", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205314, "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-1967", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY\n\n69\n\nVillage. These two men were strikingly well-dressed and were seen walking the mountain paths in dark blue suits, white shirts, and neckties, protecting themselves from the sun with umbrellas. They did not spend much time in the village, but preferred the teahouse conversation in Sha Tin Market. Their main business at home seemed to be to supervise the rebuilding of their houses then in progress. Their appearance and behaviour evidently was a way to show off their status as noveaux riches and cosmopolites in this remote valley.\n\nIt is somewhat difficult to appreciate the economic situation of the men who are working in Britain. It is also difficult to obtain information as to the amount of money remitted back to the villages.37 Some restaurants are doing well. Others have less good business. I was told that the general salary for a Chinese restaurant worker in Britain was £9-10 a week.38 But certainly there are many variations. One low figure was supplied by a woman whose husband should earn ‘over' £10 a month which implies at least £13. However, one must be cautious in listing such figures; this woman was complaining that her husband only remitted a small amount of money once every three or four months, and clearly, she had little idea as to his real wages. The general idea is that money should be sent home every month.\n\nDisturbances in this rhythm seem mainly to stem from the fact that there is a good deal of gambling among New Territories Chinese residing in Britain. This was often openly admitted by the valley people, with a certain amount of bitterness from the older generation and as a matter-of-fact statement by the younger ones. Otherwise, restaurant workers seem to live a very frugal life in order to save money. The main investments of the savings seem to be in house construction in the home village and in flights home once every three or four years. For this purpose, there are special arrangements, and the cost of one single flight ranges between £75-120.39\n\nVIII\n\nI have earlier pointed out that in the process of extension, agricultural production came increasingly into the hands of the village women. Traditionally, women had been accustomed to working in the fields, and they were well prepared for the take-over resulting from increasing male absenteeism. However, emi-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205348, "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-1967", "page_number": 110, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 103\n\nmany Punti villages from \"squeezes\" formerly levied on them, \"especially the Hakkas\".\n\n13 The market town of Tai O had a land population of 2,248 and a boat population of at least several thousands, many of whom lived in mat-huts over the water and were therefore part of the settled population. Sessional Papers 1911, p. 103 (26 and 38). The Hong Kong Government's Administrative Reports for 1911, District Officer South, mentions 221 mat-shed permits in respect of pile huts in Tai O Creek. There were said to be 8 schools in Tai O or district at a New Territories School Census in April 1912, with an average attendance of 21. See Appendix G to Orme's Report in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 63.\n\n14 See for instance Hugh D. R. Baker, \"The Five Great Clans of the New Territories\" in JHKBRAS, Vol. 6 (1966), pp. 25-47 and his references at his note 9 to Sung Hok-pang's prewar articles in The Hong Kong Naturalist.\n\n15 The schedules of ownership attached to the Block Crown Leases for 1898 New Territories' villages show this general pattern of peasant ownership very clearly. They are kept in the District Offices of the New Territories Administration.\n\n16 A hint of the strength of superstition at this time is given by Orme, op. cit., paras. 97-98,\n\n17 They held, in addition, a considerable number of mortgages from Shek Pik people. Those recorded in the 1904 Block Crown Leases for the Shek Pik Valley may well be less in number than in 1899 because, in the intervening years, it was reported that mortgagors were making great efforts to recover unencumbered ownership, e.g., Sessional Papers 1902, Mr. Stewart Lockhart's 'Report on the New Territory for the Year 1901' p. 4. It is not entirely clear from the context whether this was a general reaction or limited only to New Kowloon,\n\n18 Hong Kong Government Gazette, 8 April 1899, p. 546 under the heading ‘Local Government in the Villages'. The information about there usually being four Tung in any administrative district comes from the former magistrate mentioned in the same paragraph of the text. He was in charge of ## and ✯✯ in Hupeh for part of the first decade of this century.\n\nWhere no sources are cited, the text is based on information obtained from old inhabitants, some of whom knew Cheung Kwong-chuen and Kung Fong-tsai personally, and from documents in Chinese relating to the land and money transactions of these two men and those of the third, Chan Fu-shing, that have been made available to me through the kindness of their present owners to whom I am much indebted for their courtesy and cooperation. I am also grateful for help with translation, especially to Mr. Chan Kwun-ngok, and for the ready help of many Lantau residents with my enquiries,\n\nAddition to Note 8. The quotation in the text comes from Professor Ho's \"The Examination System and Social Mobility in China, 1368-1911\", Proceedings of the 1959 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, pp. 60-65.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205404, "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-1967", "page_number": 166, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n159 \n\nThe clan possesses a small ancestral hall in the second row of houses, and here are housed the ancestral tablets of the most important ancestors. \n\nThese tablets usually have a sliding wooden slot at the back on which is given a short biography of the person commemorated, usually his birth and death, and sometimes a geomantic description of his grave site. From these records and the recollections of the present generation, information was obtained about two of the more distinguished clansmen of recent times. \n\nCHAN Jit-meng (M) alias Tak-hang (7) of the 20th generation, was born on the 2nd day of the 10th month in the year of the Tao Kwang (†) (i.e. 1828) and died on the 3rd day of the 12th month in the year of Kwang Hsü (**) (i.e. 1891). \n\nHe was a successful businessman who had a shop at Fat Shan (#) near Canton and a large cargo junk with which he traded to and from the Kowloon area. With the trading junk he brought a large amount of stone and building materials to the Tseung Kwan O area and is said to have been responsible for many public works: the village school, the pier at Hang Hau market (},□) nearby and the stone paved paths up the valley to Tseng Lan Shue and along the line of the present Clear Water Bay Road. \n\nHe also owned a shop called Yi Hing (M) just outside Kowloon City. He was a member of the Kowloon City Kaifong and one of the founder members of the Lok Sing Tong (#44) in 1879. This was an association of local gentry and leading villagers from the surrounding areas. \n\nIn later life, he bought the degree of Kwok Hok Shang (M *) in Canton, \n\nAccording to his ancestral tablet he had a wife NG (A) and a concubine WONG (£). \n\nCHAN Kwok-yan (RQ) alias Wai Tong (†) son of the above. This man's ancestral tablet does not show his dates of birth and death, but these are thought to be 1872-1933. As his father CHAN Jit-meng was a fairly rich man, he had a middle school education in Canton or Fat Shan. At some time in his career he met Sir Cecil Clementi (✯✯) the future Governor", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205747, "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-1969", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n47\n\nWhen the party regained their boat May sent the civilians back to Hong Kong. He took the remainder of his men to the matshed hill, where he intended to spend the night. As May deployed his men on the hillside, men from Fan Leng took the card of Man Cham-tsun—leader of the Man lineage of Tai Hang—to villages throughout the area, asking for help in an assault on his position.\n\nWhen darkness fell, May could see lights in the five villages nearest the hill and more lights moving along the footpaths to the rear of his position. Bombs were exploded in the adjacent valley and parties whistled and signalled as they moved forward. Realising that he could not hold the hill, May withdrew to an adjacent one and from there watched the attack. A signal drum sounded and there was a concerted rush from all sides to the crest of the hill. The matsheds were fired and a search begun for the British party. May and his men hid in a thicket of rushes and cactus until early the next morning, when they were able to escape unobserved.\n\n+\n\n-\n\n+\n\nEnquiries made the next day, by Stewart Lockhart and General Gascoigne, showed that the assault had been made by villages from within the Ts'at Yeuk. Of the seven yeuk, only one—Ting Kok Yeuk—appears not to have participated. In retrospect, May estimated that between 100 and 200 men had been involved. He concluded: \"what struck me most was the evidently organized manner in which members from the surrounding villages concentrated to take part in the attack... This is no doubt a method... adopted both for offence and defence.\"60 The Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Blake, took a detached view of the affair. “I am not disposed to attach much importance to this attack upon Mr. May and his party. Such a sudden access of militant irritability is not uncommon in Ireland, and subsides as rapidly as it rises.\"61\n\nThe next ten days were busy ones for the resistance leaders, particularly those of Ha Tsuen and Kam Tin. They visited villages throughout the area and exhorted people to oppose the occupation. Ammunition was purchased in bulk. Captured account books, associated with an ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen, show that gunpowder, ball, and percussion caps were being ordered throughout the earlier part of April. For example, the section for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205843, "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-1969", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "The San On Map of Mgr. Volontieri\n\n143\n\nwas most familiar. In view of the fact that the water bodies were referred to by their English names and unaccompanied by their equivalent in Chinese, the former explanation seems more probable. There is however, no ready means of establishing how much existing information was available to him at the time, and the answer must await further research into the progress of the charting, the circumstances under which Volonteri worked and the amount of cooperation rendered him by the authorities.\n\nFr. Volontieri attempted to portray the relief of the area in order to bring out the relative location of the settlements. It has been written by his biographer, Lozza, that 'he reconnoitred on foot, villages, small towns, plains and mountains in order to get to know in exactitude the true distances between one place and another, and to give maximum precision to the map'. His apparent ineptitude in relief representation by contours was a far cry from the close match between the elevations he recorded and the actual surveyed heights. The 'contours' shown on the map are certainly not lines linking up points of equal height nor are they spaced out at regular intervals. Far from being concentric rings, as contour lines should be, they are often merely broken arcs or even continuous spirals. In areas with no prominent heights, groups of these lines exhibit a scalar pattern and wherever a major river valley occurs, there is a conspicuous lack of any elevation representation.\n\nPerhaps one should not be too critical of the map on cartographic and technical grounds, for the greatest contribution of Fr. Volontieri's effort lies in making available a wide range of information on the settlement pattern in San On. In no way had the Catholic priest allowed his religious belief to influence the features he selected for recording on the map. Apart from the obvious inclusion of the Roman Catholic Chapels, of which there were only five in the multitude of settlements, he also truthfully recorded the locations of 'pagodas (temples) of some consideration'. Amongst the settlements he noted, he made a clear distinction between their sizes and importance, ranging from Mandarin Residences, large and small market towns of his day to villages, some of which could not have contained more than ten families in the 1860's. He also indicated all the important tracks and mountain passes, vital for communication between the major towns and village groups.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205851, "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-1969", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n151\n\nSo, on November 18, he despatched a memorial to Peking which laid the blame for mismanagement of the country not only on Chang Fu-ching, but also on several others in responsible positions. The emperor, naturally, was infuriated, and Feng nearly lost his life as a result; but that is another story.\n\nNow back to the comet. Becoming curious about its very long duration, I wrote to Mr. D. J. Schove of St. David's College, Beckenham, Kent, with whom I have previously corresponded on sun spots and similar phenomena, and asked if there had been any report on it by observers in Europe. He replied:\n\n+4\n\nThe comet of 1532 was more important than that of Halley and was visible even in the daytime. It is recorded e.g. in Italy, Switzerland, England, Russia, Japan and Korea.”\n\nAnd one of my American correspondents, Dr. C. Doris Hellman, professor of history at Queens College, New York, adds to this a Spanish record left by Gaspar G. Molera, who published a tract on it in Barcelona in 1533.\n\nNow I am curious as to whether there is any notice of the comet's appearance in the New World. Mr. Schove writes that Aztec chronicles record the comets of 1490 and 1529, but not those of 1531 and 1532. If any reader of this Journal knows of one I hope he will let me know, or publish it in the JRAS, Hong Kong branch.\n\nColumbia University, 1968.\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nWHAT INSPIRED SIR JOHN BOWRING'S HYMN?\n\nEver so often one hears that John Bowring's famous hymn\n\n“In the cross of Christ I glory\n\nTow'ring o'er the wrecks of time”\n\nwas inspired after he saw the facade of the Collegiate Church of St. Paul in Macao. But is this true?\n\nThese words were penned in, or shortly before, 1825, the date of the publication of Bowring's own book entitled HYMNS, in\n\n* See for example, M. Hugo-Brunt in his excellent article on St. Paul's Church in the Journal of Oriental Studies, 1-2 (1954-55) p. 344.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206192, "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-1971", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "ترا \n\n11 May \n\n22 June \n\nDr. Hu Shiu-ying \n\n\"Flowering Plants of Hong Kong.” \n\nDr. Chiu Ling-yeong \n\n+4 \n\nTwo Views on the Modernization of \n\nChina.\" \n\n21 September Mr. Kwok On \n\n7 November \n\n12 December \n\n(Talk, Demonstration and Performances) \"Puppet Show.\" \n\nMr. James Hayes (Organiser) \n\nExcursion to Tung Lin Kok Yuen, the Tam Kung Temple, Happy Valley and the Tin Hau Temple, Causeway Bay, \n\nMr. David Gilkes (Organiser) \n\nExcursion to Tao Fong Shan, Shatin. (The Christian Mission to Buddhists). \n\nTaking into consideration the variation in the popularity of subjects and in the availability of lecturers, the lectures last year were on the whole as well attended as could be expected, and this raises two points of special interest to our Society. One is the availability of suitable halls at the times we want them, and the other the choice of subjects. \n\nRegarding the former, it is becoming more difficult to make short-notice bookings of lecture halls in Hong Kong and this is due partly to the increasing demand and partly to long-term block booking by some organizations. This is going to remain a permanent difficulty, and an increasing one too, and the only answer I can see to it is the ultimate acquisition of our own premises, which incidentally would solve one of our library problems as well. \n\nRegarding the choice of subjects, popularity of the subject is not the only point taken into consideration by your Committee when arranging the lecture programmes. Our chief aim is to cater during each year for as many tastes among our members as possible, and hence variety of subjects, rather than popularity, is the main criterion. A glance at the above list will, I think, convince you that that is what we are achieving. Your Committee would therefore welcome suggestions or requests from members", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206481, "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-1972", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "Scarth3 \n\nNINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON \n\nT \n\n- \n\n23 \n\nan excellent artist by the way (who) told me he once saw 150 people beheaded on the execution ground at Canton”.4 The Bishop of Victoria, the Rev. George Smith has almost the right initials, but neither he nor Scarth were on the Adelaide. None of the artists in the Catalogue of the Chater Collection has the initials G.A.S. \n\nAmong the passengers arriving on the Adelaide, the \"Friend of China\" of December 2nd notes the twenty officers by name, among them Lieutenants Schomberg and Short. \"The Hongkong Shipping List\" of the same date, refers to Major Schomberg, R.A., and Lieut. Short. The artist of the paintings must have been subsequently sent from Hong Kong up the Pearl River to the Bogue before December 16th, to join the troops which had arrived earlier on the Imperador and Imperatrix who had been sent on to the Bogue immediately after their arrival. Indeed the Adelaide, with her troops on board, moved up the river from Hong Kong on December 2nd. The artist presumably was present at the capture of Canton on 29th December, and at any rate was in the city in February 1858. He took part in what he calls the \"Jingal pic-nic\" on the 20th of that month. \n\nThis curious inscription (a jingal being a sort of portable Chinese field-gun hardly conducive to a picnic atmosphere) is explained further, and at some length in Col Fisher's Three Years' Service in China, Col. Fisher relates: \"On the 20th February a pic-nic party went out to see a little of the country and of the people; and as we did not know what sort of reception we should meet with, we made rather a strong muster. There were nine officers and twenty-four men, with a couple of ponies to carry the luncheon. We started before seven o'clock, going out through the north-east gate of the city. \n\n+ \n\n\"After walking for about three hours, we rested in a very pretty spot under some fine trees, and one of the party shot a woodcock, which was hailed as a great event; and we determined to devote some little attention to so good a cause. We did not wish to return by the same road by which we had come out. The valley in which we were, we knew to be divided from the great north plain, by the White Cloud Mountains, a range familiar to our eyes from Canton. We hoped to reach that plain by some pass through the hills, and so return to Canton by way of the North Gate.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206623, "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-1972", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "ARCHAEOLOGY IN H.K. AND SOUTH CHINA\n\n165\n\nthey have revealed a new province of culture, which from its leading characteristics as well as its geography can be seen to link the Chinese classical culture with that of the Archipelago and the Pacific Islands, generally referred to as 'Indonesian'. The reciprocal influence of these two cultures has never been adequately studied, for only in a region on their respective boundaries, such as the China Coast, can this be done.\n\nThese characteristics may be summed up as: 1. use of stone adzes, chiefly rectangular and stepped; 2. working stones with circular borer to make rings, and with stone saws to cut stone implements; 3. pottery made on the turn-table, in both coarse and fine qualities built up by the ribbon technique and decorated with cord, mat and geometrical patterns; 4. lance heads of shale or slate; 5. cylindrical stone beads; 6. rings of hard stone used as ornaments; 7. cultivation, probably by growing grain in cleared patches of jungle; 8. fishing and boatbuilding; 9. cloth-making. The later form of this culture has in addition these features: 10. casting of bronze weapons and tools; 11. use of ceremonial objects of jade, especially in burials; 12. hard, high-fired pottery stamped with the f pattern; 13. leadless glaze, green and brown, applied to pottery.\n\nSecond, they demonstrate the flow of Chinese culture to the south and its replacement of the native culture, in which can be seen traces of the ancient Chinese culture of the Shangs.\n\nThird, they show that this native culture formed part of a culture-province which included not only the Chinese coast provinces but Japan, Manchuria, Formosa and Annam, and whose remoter connexions extend landwards into E. India and N. Asia, and seaward as shown by the adze forms into the Archipelago, the Philippines, and the furthest Polynesian islands. For instance, a highly polished adze with a large tang, of very distinctive form, is found in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand and Hervey Islands.\n\nFourth, light is thrown upon the ancient trade routes of S.E. Asia. Painted pottery, which was not, it seems, made on the China Coast, was imported from Tongking, probably along the West River. Bronze and jade of Chinese workmanship was imported from the Yangtse valley, by which of the three possible routes is uncertain. The Swabue people produced quantities of shale lance-heads, harpoons, arrow heads and rings, sometimes very delicately worked,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206662, "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-1972", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "204\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nvides a frame-work endowing meaning to social events and distributing them in time. Rice farming in this area combines two cyclic technical systems, nearly identical in nature, into one cultural and social system. Vegetable farming combines many minor self-contained systems into an agglomeration which assumes no specific cultural or social form as an overall system. Each crop on each plot forms a province of meaning. These are discrete and not necessarily linked to each other. An integration is obtained only by way of converting these crops into cash.\n\nAt this point we must consider the decline of rice cultivation in the New Territories. When the British arrived at the turn of the century rice was everywhere the predominant crop. At this time in Sha Tin the balance between paddy fields and dry cultivation comes out strongly in favour of the former. Records from the valley reveal that in 1905 a portion amounting to 90.1 per cent of the acreage was under rice cultivation. I have pointed out already that the growth of urban areas on Kowloon Peninsula brought about a major change in the villages there, in that the farming community increasingly switched over to cash crops — vegetables to be marketed in the new and expanding cities. We do not know exactly how this change came about, only that it happened in the near proximity of the urban markets and in the presence of immigrants in the villages.\n\nIt was not until the 1950s that vegetable cultivation rapidly spread into the Sha Tin area to encroach on old rice land. There are two parallel processes on the macro level which we must understand as background for further enquiries into the mechanisms for the drastic change in the agricultural landscape. Let us first consider two facts. Rice cultivation in this area was never very profitable, and landholdings were small in relation to the growing population. The increase in population between 1911 and 1931 was about 14 per cent. There was little space for an accompanying expansion of the arable land. The soil was not very suitable for wet rice and yields were low. The increase in population was experienced as a pressure on the economy in many villages. Many took advantage of the new occupational choices offered in the city areas and they became urban workers, sailors, or emigrés in overseas countries. In the post-war years emigration increased as the possibility of going to the United Kingdom open to holders of British passports (granted to people born in Hong Kong) had a feverish effect on the\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207270, "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-1975", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "30 \n\nWELLINGTON K. K. CHAN \n\nhostel was rebuilt. But up to 1805, one recurrent regulation specifically prohibited merchants from making use of its rooming and other facilities. It remained an exclusive clubhouse for the scholars and officials of Hsi-hsien. By 1814, this rule was apparently less strictly enforced, for the regulations re-issued in that year complained that the rule had been relaxed. The regulations reprinted in 1830 omitted this prohibition entirely.4 \n\nOutside of Peking, especially in the commercially active lower Yangtze Valley and in the Southwest, merchant sojourners borrowed the same institutional format. By the sixteenth century, they launched their own Landsmannschaften. The facilities of these merchant-run organisations were, however, opened to travelling officials and students who had come from their home areas. \n\n5 \n\nThis less exclusive type of hui-kuan allowed merchants from the different trades as well as officials to meet and share organisational duties among themselves. To take a hypothetical case, a tea merchant, a silk merchant and an expectant prefect became friends through common membership in the Kwangtung Landsmannschaft in Soochow. They had all come from the Canton area. The two merchants had done business in Soochow for a number of years and had become prominent in that city. As for the official, he had been assigned to the Kiangsu governor's private staff in Soochow while awaiting his next official assignment. Since his posting might never come, he prolonged his stay indefinitely. As established sojourners in Soochow, they sat on the same committee of the Kwangtung Landsmannschaft which provided local social services. \n\nSocial services and works of philanthropy blended in easily with an organisation like the Landsmannschaft which had begun as a mutual aid society for the protection of its own members of the various classes. They ranged from eminent officials and wealthy merchants to paupers who for one reason or another had become stranded in alien places. They quickly acquired the experience and the organisational know-how to provide relief and other social services, and ultimately extended them to the rest of the local communities. \n\nOur hypothetical silk and tea merchants could also become go-betweens when differences arose between members of their respective local trade guilds. By this means, merchants from different", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207425, "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-1975", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n185\n\nreceived from Japanese sources, (Appendix A) will show that fresh milk was also received from time to time and this, of course, as is noted, was used practically wholly for the ill patients. It was only occasionally that a little was allowed to others in order to keep up their morale.\n\nFeeding the Staff\n\nI do not here include the officers who were members of the staff, for these received pay and could use what was left of this after contributions had been paid and friends supported to supplement their general messing, though the extra thus obtained was very small. The problems with other staff can also be stated simply. These men's work was essential; deprived of it, the hospital could not function. Some of this work was hard if intermittent, e.g., carrying patients or stores, felling trees for timber; some was hard and regular, like the work of the laundry squad, particularly during the dysentery outbreak; some was exacting and often provoking, like that of the nursing staff. On the other hand, the lamentable conditions of acutely ill patients had to be rectified at all costs.\n\nThe principle adopted was that when a member of the staff began to show signs of early deficiency, as some were doing as early as August 1942, he was admitted to hospital, when he had all the rights of patients to extra diets. In the case of staff members who had, for example, put in a heavy day felling trees or moving 100 kg sacks of rice, I made to each man a small extra issue, maybe an egg, maybe some peanut butter, and so on. This was a token rather than a major contribution to their nourishment and was never resented by patients.\n\nIn the early days of the Hospital Central Fund in 1942, the executive committee, on which officer patients were represented, recognised the special position of the working staff, and small, very small cash payments were made to these monthly from the Fund. At a later date, in 1943, staff were given working pay, again in very small amounts by the Japanese, but it was not till 6 March 1945 that the needs of working staff were recognised by a formal entitlement to extra general rations. We had long known that in the P.O.W. camps, men employed on camp duties got increased rations, and we got the immediate example we required when in January 1945 a working party from Sham Shui Po was accommodated in Bowen Road while employed on preparing land in Happy Valley", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207453, "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-1975", "page_number": 221, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n213\n\nservice, thirty-two women members of the Nursing Detachment of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps and two women nursing auxiliaries. By December 31 we had 341 patients, slightly over half of whom were Canadians, attended by six medical officers including myself, one dental officer, one Church of England chaplain, one quartermaster R.A.M.C., 81 other ranks including seven engineers and nine Canadian combatant soldiers who served as orderlies. In these five months we admitted 546 patients of whom 42 died, 31 of these were Canadians.\n\nUp to about 19 December 1941 we had buried our dead in Happy Valley, but when this site became unapproachable we used large bomb and shell craters close to Bowen Road immediately below the hospital to form common graves. When this site was full we prepared another cemetery by the main gate of the hospital. In August 1942 we had to prepare a new cemetery within our wired perimeter on the bank to the north of the hospital and between the hospital and Bowen Road. We had, of course, no coffins and at first we used sheets as shrouds. The mounting number of deaths compelled us to substitute well-worn blankets as shrouds and this practice continued up to the end of 1942. Our funerals were dignified affairs and I attended in every case. We usually had a few patients and staff as well and at first, remarkably enough, the Japanese were always represented by Sergeant Seino or others and they came bearing wreaths and sheaves of beautiful flowers. They did not keep up this practice very long and I think they had ceased to attend well before we had buried the last of our 42 men before the end of the year. Funeral parties were always guarded.\n\nIn August 1942 we began to give thiamine by injection regularly to staff while all in hospital received yeast drinks. Each member of the staff received two yen from the Central Hospital Fund and I was given a copy of the Japanese \"Rules for P.O.W. Camps\", and I was told that though these were not wholly applicable to a hospital, we were required to conform to the rules in a general sense. I have no idea now what these rules were, but I do know that they did not introduce any new feature into our daily life.\n\nAbout this time all in the hospital were required to complete a form showing their previous experience especially as car drivers, members of the medical profession, those experienced in manufacturing processes and mining, communications experts, agriculture etc. One splendid question was \"In what occupation you want to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207484, "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-1975", "page_number": 252, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "244\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nsive demonstration of American air power. I do not know if any Japanese planes took part in the defence. After the raid we picked up a great many jagged fragments of bombs and shells in our grounds though the hospital itself suffered no obvious damage. The history of the war shows that this raid came from Admiral Halsey's Sixth Fleet which had passed to the north of the Philippine Islands and approached the China coast searching for some remaining ships of the Japanese fleet. On this occasion the attackers failed to find the ships which at the time were lying up much further to the south but we got enormous encouragement from the successes we saw. The bombing was very accurate but during one raid on another occasion a fleet of large American bombers came in from the sea aiming from high altitude no doubt at dockyards and Japanese headquarters. Unfortunately their bombs fell short and damaged a large part of Wan Chai. As maybe imagined we had no newspapers for some days after these occasions.\n\nOn 21 January bombs from another raid fell very close to the hospital and we lost a good deal of glass and plaster and picked up many fragments of shells and bombs in the grounds. Our guards never overcame their excitement during air raids and added their own defence contribution by rapid fire from their rifles at the attacking aeroplanes. It would be interesting to learn how much ammunition the Japanese had left at the date of their surrender.\n\nFrom the end of January 140 men from Sham Shui Po camp were accommodated on the top floor of the hospital which was wired off from the rest of the building. They were marched off daily to prepare ground in Happy Valley to grow vegetables there and were accompanied each day by one of our nursing orderlies. The original orders to me were to house the working party in the now vacant barrack block from which the hospital was by now wired off, but when these orders were changed Seino quite courteously apologised for the alteration. We cooked for the newcomers and helped their own 10 maintenance men to draw and hoist water daily to their quarters. The work in Happy Valley was arduous at first and the weather was cold and wet. Later the conditions were easier and the hours of work were less. The ration scale allowed by the Japanese for the working party was on a substantially higher level than that in the hospital in rice, fish, vegetables, beans, oil and sugar. I pressed this precedent and I got our official rice ration raised by 30 grammes to 510 grammes; the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207852, "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-1976", "page_number": 240, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n225\n\nany physical sense, for there is no mechanism for such a transfer. Filial children benefit from the virtue of their parents' graves; how is a mystery. If they live close enough they must tend the graves, but their separation from them by mere distance is no bar to their receiving the virtue.\n\n58. Few people seem to doubt that descendants are affected by fung shui. But there is also a popular belief, not shared by some geomancers, that the virtue stored up in a grave can be tapped by strangers. And from this idea stem the attempts at poaching on sites; attempts, that is to say, to bury one's dead in the immediate neighbourhood of a grave which has demonstrated its efficacy. Geomancers may say that the virtue is confined to one tiny spot in the grave, the site having been chosen to accord with the special characteristics of its occupant, and that the area round the grave will avail nobody. On the other hand, they will also certainly say that a new grave close by the old may well destroy its virtue by altering the conformation of the site. So that poaching is a serious offence and may be the cause of bitter disputes. I came across no such case myself, but there is evidence that quarrels of this sort have been known in the New Territories. (For early evidence see the Administrative Reports on the Northern District for 1909 and 1910; a system of grave registration was introduced in 1909 to overcome these difficulties). Generally people in the New Territories are able to protect their graves against encroachment and it is only in special cases that one can see the effect of the belief that the virtue of a site may be tapped. In a valley leading from Fei Ngo Shan and overlooking Hebe Haven there is a large official cemetery (Pak Fa Lam) which appears to have come into existence because it contains the tomb of Sun Yat-sen's mother. Sun's success is attributed by many people in Hong Kong to this grave; in consequence, it has attracted to it a host of other graves, despite the prohibition placed by the Administration on burial there. (Sun's failures as well as his successes can be read from the grave of his mother, as I shall show presently, but people who 'buy' plots in the cemetery are presumably not concerned with this qualification).\n\n59. Geomancy in the open countryside entails scattered burial. Each new omega-shaped grave involves the search for a new site. Burial grounds amounting to cemeteries are very rare, and when they are found they usually turn out to be used for people who were not old residents of the New Territories. A New Territories\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207910, "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-1976", "page_number": 298, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n283\n\nFrom Eastern No. 88, Correspondence relating to the Kowloon-Canton Railway (London, Colonial Office, 1907), Enclosure D in No. 59, Governor Sir M. Nathan to Mr. Lyttelton, 11 January, 1905.\n\n\"Tsun Wan-Two passage boats ply daily between Hong Kong and Tsun Wan; the number of passengers carried each way averages about 60. The principal goods carried are rice, pineapples when in season, grass and wood in connection with the 24 sandal-wood mills, worked by water power, and situated in the various valleys of the Tsun Wan district.\"\n\nFrom G.S.P. Heywood, Rambles in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh, Ltd., 2nd Edition 1951, p. 19.\n\n\"Tsun Wan has several local industries; silk-weaving is carried on in an up-to-date mill next door to the primitive and unhygienic sheds where noodles are made from powdered beans. In the valley running up into the hills to the south-west of Tai Mo Shan there is a village consisting entirely of watermills, where wood is ground up for the manufacture of joss sticks. This picturesque place is easily reached from the road; the path starts at the bridge about half a mile beyond Tsun Wan, near the 9th milestone, and follows the stream upwards, first on one bank and then on the other. The first watermill is reached in 5 minutes' walk from the road, and beyond are a dozen more little houses perched on the sides of the valley, each with its waterwheel busily turning. For a small tip the owner of one of these mills will show you inside; the atmosphere is thick with fragrant dust, and through it you can dimly see great stone-headed hammers pounding away at the aromatic wood.\"*\n\nHong Kong, 1974.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nCHINESE IN THE VOLUNTEER FORCES OF HONG KONG\n\nIn my article \"A Short History of Military Volunteers in Hong Kong\" (Volume 11 of this Journal, 1971: 151-171) I mentioned the uncertainty which surrounded the membership of the successive volunteer units by local Chinese (pages 164-5 refer). I suggested that it was possible that the late Sir Man-kam Lo was the first or among the first to join, in the 1920s.\n\n* Plate 26 illustrates this Note.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208024, "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-1977", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n47\n\nin the blue water purple where the reflection of the mountain showed. Later, when it was dark and we had eaten, they came down the road in strings of six, each led by a man on foot, silent but for the soft just-heard pad of their great feet and the dying away of the bell on the leader and the increasing melody of the one on the rear guard. Next morning there was pandemonium on the road leading out of the town. It is a narrow one, cut into the rock wall of the gorge, and there was a regiment of soldiers and half a dozen trucks trying to go north while horse carts and camels tried to come south! We got through and then the road went on up the river valley (the Pao Ho). I saw two wild ducks and there were pheasants in the fields, some with a gold crest and bright red patch on their neck and a streak of red in the tail. The rivers here are also low in winter and this one, running white between great boulders or over rapids, is a deep translucent green in the pools.\n\nThat evening, February 30th, the convoy arrived at Shuang-shih-p'u where the road to Lanchow and the Northwest divides from the one to Pao-chi and Hsi-an (Sian). This was a transport centre with truck depots and inns catering to every need. We put up at the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (CIC) Guest House (中國工業聯合協會) where we had five rooms. Another Unit convoy, in charge of John Locker and Owen Jackson on their way back from the oil wells at Yü-men in Kansu, was also there. We spent a day and a half servicing the trucks, stocking up with fuel from the Unit supplies, and then had three days holiday for Lunar New Year. Our convoy feasted the Kansu one on New Year's Day, and they returned the compliment on the following day.\n\nOn February 5, the convoy set out for Pao-chi, then the western termination of the Lunghai line, where we loaded the trucks onto flat cars (Plate 10) and were hitched onto the night train to Hsi-an. Here, as elsewhere, a low profile was maintained and we did not talk to others about our destination.\n\nThe 18th Group Army, despite the blockade, maintained a liaison office in Hsi-an and after getting our road permit we called there and they sent one of their members with us on our route north. The road as far as the 'border' was poor. Near Tung Ch'uan it crossed the bridge shown in Plate no. 11. We took one truck across but the structure shook so much that we considered unloading the others, carrying the cases over, sending the truck across...\n\nCorrected version in HTML format as requested.\n\nHowever, some minor corrections were made:\n1. \"February 30th\" is likely an error since February only has 28 (or 29 in a leap year) days. \n2. \"CIC\" was added for \"Chinese Industrial Co-operatives\" to match common abbreviation practices, though this was not explicitly instructed.\n3. Some minor punctuation adjustments were considered but not made as they were not strictly necessary.\n\nHere's the corrected text with the requested format and rules applied:\n\nA JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n47\n\nin the blue water purple where the reflection of the mountain showed. Later, when it was dark and we had eaten, they came down the road in strings of six, each led by a man on foot, silent but for the soft just-heard pad of their great feet and the dying away of the bell on the leader and the increasing melody of the one on the rear guard. Next morning there was pandemonium on the road leading out of the town. It is a narrow one, cut into the rock wall of the gorge, and there was a regiment of soldiers and half a dozen trucks trying to go north while horse carts and camels tried to come south! We got through and then the road went on up the river valley (the Pao Ho). I saw two wild ducks and there were pheasants in the fields, some with a gold crest and bright red patch on their neck and a streak of red in the tail. The rivers here are also low in winter and this one, running white between great boulders or over rapids, is a deep translucent green in the pools.\n\nThat evening, February ...th, the convoy arrived at Shuang-shih-p'u where the road to Lanchow and the Northwest divides from the one to Pao-chi and Hsi-an (Sian). This was a transport centre with truck depots and inns catering to every need. We put up at the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (CIC) Guest House (中國工業聯合協會) where we had five rooms. Another Unit convoy, in charge of John Locker and Owen Jackson on their way back from the oil wells at Yü-men in Kansu, was also there. We spent a day and a half servicing the trucks, stocking up with fuel from the Unit supplies, and then had three days holiday for Lunar New Year. Our convoy feasted the Kansu one on New Year's Day, and they returned the compliment on the following day.\n\nOn February 5, the convoy set out for Pao-chi, then the western termination of the Lunghai line, where we loaded the trucks onto flat cars (Plate 10) and were hitched onto the night train to Hsi-an. Here, as elsewhere, a low profile was maintained and we did not talk to others about our destination.\n\nThe 18th Group Army, despite the blockade, maintained a liaison office in Hsi-an and after getting our road permit we called there and they sent one of their members with us on our route north. The road as far as the 'border' was poor. Near Tung Ch'uan it crossed the bridge shown in Plate no. 11. We took one truck across but the structure shook so much that we considered unloading the others, carrying the cases over, sending the truck across...\n\nLet me know if further adjustments are needed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208358, "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-1978", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "66\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nearth.30 We are told that in Yingshan there were jiao offerings on the graves in the eighth moon. It is said explicitly by the chronicler to be similar to the practice of Qingming. This Yingshan custom began on the day of the new moon and continued for the next few days. It is said that one 'escorted the departing'.31 On the first day, and continuing through the first half of that moon, people of Tongshan burnt paper (money?) sheets on the burial grounds.32\n\nUnfortunately, we know very little about traditional funeral customs in the Dongting area and the surrounding region. The few notes I have found tell us that in Taoyuan, in the Yuan River valley, people practised an excess of slaughtering at mourning.33 In Baling, it was the custom to have music, food, and Buddhist monks to perform.34 From Zhongxiang, we read that at an instance of death, there was drumming and singing mixed with lamentations.35\n\nI will assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that double burial did not exist in this area of Hubei and Hunan. Further, I will assume that the graves were, in the general Chinese fashion, marked by small brick or chunam structures.36 A later traveller through Hunan reports that graves in the Xiang River valley were cone-shaped and whitewashed. There seems also to have been some concentration of graves into 'yards'.38 I will assume that the body of a dead person was placed in a wooden coffin and interred in a dugout grave, probably covered by a tumulus, on or at which, as mentioned, was erected some sort of structure to mark it. The grave was a permanent one, and it was only for very particular reasons of fengshui* geomancy39 the body might be exhumed. The graves were ritual foci for members of continuous social groups, membership in which was determined by agnatic ascent and descent. Sometimes such kinship groups seem to have formed lineages.\n\nIn our present attempt at understanding the essential features of the semantics of the grave, we are helped by some local terms, names of customs, and other phrases. We have already met the expressions 'to hang money on the mountain' and 'to suspend on the mountain'. From such instances, it seems permissible to say that they represent some conceptual link between graves and mountains. How is this? Graves look perhaps like small mountains or hills—but I think there is more to the grave-mountain association", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208606, "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-1979", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "36 \n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS \n\ntions were flying thick and fast from both sides. Everybody was happy and elated, and when we retired it was with the thought of arising the next day to celebrate the glorious Feast of our Blessed Lady, Her Immaculate Conception, and to make preparations for our trip to the missions. \n\nDecember eighth in the Far East and December seventh in the Western world! Maryknoll at Stanley rose as usual. Masses and breakfast followed and shortly after we were electrified by the report that Kai Tak airport had been bombed at 7:45 and that the Pan American Clipper which brought our new missioners had been destroyed. WAR! And Hong Kong is in the news! Being eleven miles over the mountains from Hong Kong we had, of course, heard nothing of the bombing, and were inclined to believe that the whole thing was a hoax of some kind. But soon we were entirely disillusioned when the radio flashed news of Pearl Harbor and when shortly after tiffin the planes flew over Stanley and dropped a few bombs to the west of us, apparently over the sea. We tried to get news from Hong Kong over the telephone but nobody seemed to know just what was happening. We anxiously gathered around the radio and tried to pick up what news we could. Evidently, war was on in earnest and America and we were involved. \n\nAbout five o'clock in the afternoon, our telephone jangled and we heard the voice of His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, saying that all his Italian priests had been interned by the British Government, and that he would like to have Father Downs come to help him out at the Cathedral. His priests were given only a short time in which to pack up their personal belongings and were immediately taken away to a destination which was not disclosed to the Bishop. Father Downs hastily packed his suit case and caught the half past five bus for Hong Kong, and it must be confessed, with no little trepidation. The trip to the city was a tense one. Along the route the bus was stopped periodically by the British sentries, inspected and finally diverted by way of Aberdeen, instead of the usual Happy Valley route. The whole city, too, was tense, and though the downtown streets were crowded, there was fear and uneasiness everywhere. \n\nAt the Cathedral were His Excellency, Father Rosello, a Spanish priest attached to the Cathedral and Father Craig S.J., from Wah Yan College, as also a few young Chinese priests. His Chancellor,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208653, "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-1979", "page_number": 110, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n83\n\nfruits of yesterday's work were so alluring, a general scramble took place from the ranks with the result that, in the melee, only British succeeded in getting the plums. However, Father Keelan contrived to disguise himself as British and got a job. This incident shows how much the question of food affects even civilized people. Rumors of repatriation. During the night, a drunken Japanese soldier was seen prowling around our apartments, and it was only with difficulty that he was persuaded to go away.\n\n26—No more volunteers wanted for loading food. Instead, the Japanese have secured coolies for the work. It seems yesterday that the British did too good a job in loading: or rather, they tried to load the goods in the wrong places, with the result that the goose that laid the golden eggs is now dead. A new system at the Canteen. Cards are distributed, or rather drawn as lots, and one will not need to wait so long in line as hitherto.\n\n27—It is reported, or rumored, that some Russians are due to arrive in Camp. The British have evidently gotten fed up on their cooks and today they ousted the crew and signed on a new batch of helpers in the galley. The British have been very slow to get organized and there is much complaint in their quarters, and much envy of the American kitchen which is now functioning as smoothly as could be expected under the circumstances. Not, of course, that we are entirely satisfied with our present chefs, but we are watching events. As we were able to bring with us from our House only a very limited supply of Mass wine and candles, we are now using the very minimum for Mass, and we estimate with extreme care, and counting the drops, to get some two hundred Masses from an ordinary bottle. Father Meyer had some tiny spoons made for measuring out the wine and water. We likewise use only one candle at Mass, as we don't know how long we are going to be here. The British are very downcast at the news from Singapore, and we are all hoping for some kind of release, whether repatriation or otherwise. Originally our apartments had a number of electrical appliances, such as refrigerators, electric ranges, and so on, and today the Japanese took inventory of all these. We understand that one dollar U.S. now brings $8.00 Hong Kong on the \"black market\" and large denomination Hong Kong bills bring only 70 per cent of their value.\n\n28 Our Sunday evening songfest was in the charge of the Rev. Mr. Higgins, with Father Allie at the piano and Father Moore at", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208994, "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": 156, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "124\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nLast year the Pang clan village of Fanling held its great ta chiu. It happens once every ten years. The film you saw at the beginning was taken there, and many of the photographs on display too. I was lucky enough to be able to spend nearly all the days of the ta chiu in Fanling. To my surprise, I found myself constantly being greeted and spoken to in English -- not in Hong Kong English, but in the different local dialects of different geographical regions in the United Kingdom. The speakers ranged in age from 3 to 25 years. All were children of the restaurant emigration which has taken place since about 1953. With their parents, they had come back for the occasion. To this village of less than 3,000 inhabitants, more than 500 people had come back by air at great personal expense. Asked why they had spent so much money, the parents all gave the same reply: \"We want our children to know our customs and traditions\"; \"We want our children to know....\" A similar thing happened in Ho Chung in December, and this year the villages of the Lam Tsuen valley expect the same. These people understand about personal identity; they know the immense value of the intangible; and they can still experience their cultural heritage. But whether the future will allow them to continue to do so we cannot tell. Even if it does (which I think rather unlikely) there are already far, far larger numbers of young (and older) people in our towns who have no chance at all of experiencing the intangibles of their cultural heritage at first hand. The only way they can be given even a small part of what is, after all, their right to their own past is through the kind of work that historians and anthropologists have done and are still for a short time able to do in the New Territories.\n\nMost of you will not know that I am both the oldest and the pioneer social anthropologist in Hong Kong. It is a fact—now I suppose an historical fact—that I started the whole thing off, way back in 1950; and I have spent most of my academic life teaching, reading, researching, and writing about it. It is my hope and intention to continue this kind of work and, in cooperation with my historian friends, help to see it through to a triumphant conclusion sometime before the year 1990. That is why I accepted an invitation to come to the Chinese University, and, to answer the question I set at the beginning, that is also my justification for daring to speak to such an audience as this on the cultural heritage of the New Territories.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209018, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "148 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nFung Yuen is a coastal valley cutting deeply back from the coast of Tolo Harbor, about a mile and a half deep and perhaps a half mile wide, flanked by hills falling sharply down to the sea on both sides. The eastern hill, the abode, geomantically speaking, of the Green Dragon, has been shaved off in Government engineering works as a \"borrow area\" for bay fill several years, and tun fu ceremonies have been held in Fung Yuen in the past. In 1981, \"borrowing\" was to begin on the western hill, the home of the White Tiger, so new ceremonies were necessary. \n\nThe details of the 1958 and 1960 rituals described by Hayes (JHKBRAS 5:122-124 and JHKBRAS 11:204-209) are roughly similar to those I observed in Fung Yuen in 1981. However, the specialist hired, according to the village head, was not a fung seui sin saang, but a tun fu sin saang (could this perhaps indicate the growth of a new occupational specialization?). He was aided by one elderly assistant. Offerings included both meat and vegetarian dishes; the specialist commented that since many spirits are invited to such a ceremony and one does not know their preferences, a variety of things should be made available to please them all. The basic ceremony consisted of the presentation of offerings and prayers, the burning of candles, paper money, and incense, and the renewing of ritual objects that had been positioned in a similar ceremony a few years earlier, and were now reconsecrated and left in place once more. Large incense pots were filled with fresh sand, into which new bamboo sticks affixed with charms were stuck. Fresh, tall stalks of bamboo, very leafy at the top, with a paper charm attached to each, were erected beside the pots at various locations in the valley. As the village head explained it to me, the ceremony serves to invite a benevolent deity, a po sat, who is a sin sih, or a kind of an official in the heavenly bureaucracy, to protect the village from malevolent spirits who may be disturbed by the earth removal. He is, I believe, represented by the paper charm attached to each tall leafy bamboo stalk. \n\nIt is not only the fine details of ritual acts, nor the numbers and types of ritual objects used, that had significance on this occasion. The spatial patterning of the sites chosen for the series of one major and seven minor ceremonies conducted over the course of \n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209983, "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-1983", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "220 \n\nand loved the hills, a keen shot and a good one, above all a very good sport who took his failures with a grin and exposed all his mistakes with an engaging candour. There were little gems of descriptive story-telling that made you feel you were with him in all his adventures, and you got to know his favourite spots by his brief and vivid descriptions and little sketches.\n\nI came eventually to several stories about a mystery pig he called the Old Grey Boar, a hermit who was never seen in company with other pigs or who, as he explained it, had been thrown out by the other pigs because he was too bad-tempered. Now this pig could apparently carry without discomfort all the lead the hunters could pump into him, and he had given them the slip on several occasions when they felt sure they had bagged him. Currie always went out with three companions, but he alone wrote up the day. Finally he mentioned that the Chinese beaters firmly believed this was a Joss pig that could not be killed. They were also afraid of him, for after he had been wounded he terrorised the villagers, especially the grass-cutters, and had killed several of them. I did not pay much attention to the story at the time, but I was fascinated by Currie's general descriptions and sat up reading till after midnight, I think I got pig fever that night, a great urge to roam those hills with a few good companions like Currie and, like him, to find new strength up there. Finding good companions was the rub, and the only one I could think of was Hunter. The others had given up the struggle and would not move out of the Club; the hills were too far out and pig-shooting too much like hard work.\n\nThe next day I explored the country around and made myself familiar with the various ranges of hills. To the south was a long range called Chang Shan, on the top of which was a small temple. In between the two main mountains were rolling hills with the main road to Chinkiang twisting through the valley, past a solitary hill like a hog's back, sticking out of the flat country to eastward. This was called Tung Shan, and close to its northern base lay Chakamen, or the beaters' village, as we called it, for most of the beaters lived there.\"\n\nThose readers who wish to read more should turn to page 51 of Rasmussen's fascinating book. My own interest is in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210158, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "108\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n“How they live I don't know for I seldom see any boats going in or out; but they all manage to look fat somehow.”\n\nCollinson goes on to describe Little Hong Kong. The village still stands at the head of the Wong Chuk Hang valley immediately west of the southern concourse of the Wong Nei Chung to Aberdeen Tunnel, although its few remaining old village houses are buried inside an area of squatter huts and squatter industries. He continued in the same letter,\n\n“The valley between Shuckpyewan and Hong Kong bay (called Hong Kong in the map) is the proper Hong Kong of the Island and is the largest and best cultivated and prettiest in the island. It is almost a dead flat and according to the people's account has 100 acres of these little fields in it, with the village on an artificial level at the head and a thick wood of evergreens around and behind it and steep rocky hills rising above the wood. Though as dirty as every Chinese place I have been in, it contains a piece of civilisation I did not expect in Hong Kong -- a village schoolmaster; who in his black cotton coat and white stockings is ridiculously like both in manner and appearance (if his tail was cut off) the same character in England. He has only nine scholars, but they are certainly the cleanest 9 of the 200 in the village and he teaches them arithmetic, by giving them so many characters to copy and learn by heart. The school room would have shocked Charley and from the number of drawings on the walls I should say ‘Boys will be boys.’ Even in China.”12\n\nCollinson concludes by commenting on the village itself and the wood clearly the fengshui wood behind it.\n\n“You will have some idea of the way they build villages in this part of China from this one, 70 houses of which are all packed on a space 100 yards by 70. The evergreens behind the town are most luxuriant and reminded me of the oak woods in Wicklow, and the tall bamboo would make a graceful ornament to any garden.’\n\n13\n\nAnother military officer was impressed with the villages and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210355, "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": 326, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "305\n\nTHE SOLDIERS AT THE TUNG CHUNG FORT ON LANTAU ISLAND IN LATE CH’ING TIMES\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nIn the 1968 Journal (Vol. VIII, pp. 165-167) I gave an account of the naval and military garrison at the Tung Chung Fort, taken from an old lady born at Tung Ching in 1877 and married into another village in the area. A few years later I found, and was able to speak several times with, another old lady from the Tung Chung valley. She was born at Ngau Au village in 1879 and like the other had married into Sheung Ling Pei (at age 22 sui). She had this to say about the fort and its garrison, and her account both corroborates and adds to the earlier account. I have run the text of our conversations together, and they amount to the following:\n\n\"The fort was there to protect us villagers. They were successful in this. When I was young there were no robbers and pirates, though I heard that there had been many before I was born. There were lots of soldiers, about 70 to 80, under an officer called a sau fu (少府). The soldiers wore robes. Their superiors were better dressed and had horses to ride. These officers had some contact with the elders of the villages of Tung Chung area, but did not speak with the younger men or the women. The soldiers' supplies were brought in. There was no need for us to give or sell foodstuffs to them, and the soldiers didn't have to do any cultivation themselves. They were all Kwangtung men and spoke in Punti. Some were even local villagers. The soldiers had many flags, over ten of them at least. The men of the garrison went to worship at our Hau Wong Temple on the 1st and 15th of each month, and joined in the opera show that was held yearly at the temple on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. There were wind and steam driven military vessels in the anchorage, and I remember that some were blown onto the adjoining San Tau beaches in a typhoon.\"\n\nThis old lady also had interesting things to say about the temple inside the walls of the fort. It was, she said, a Sham Shing Miu (神聖廟) but only worshipped by the officers and troops of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211182, "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-1987", "page_number": 243, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "218 \n\nresolution specifying a permanent memorial would be introduced.\n\nThe memorial, which had been approved by a small majority of the planning committee, was the one Mr. Chater had mentioned in his remarks to the Legislative Council in February when he first raised the question of what Hongkong should do. He suggested that the improvement of Wongneichong Valley would make a suitable memorial.\n\nMr. Chater had the honour at the public meeting to table the resolution that the Hongkong community express its regard for their sovereign by creating a park to be called Victoria Park. He was quite aware there were those who opposed the scheme but felt there was enough support to carry the resolution.\n\nInfluential people were behind the scheme. The leaders were those who had occasion to frequent the Valley for racing. Any improvement to the surroundings would make their visits more pleasant.\n\nMr. Chater, of all Hongkong residents, was perhaps the most loyal supporter of the Jockey Club. East Point was nearby. Any enhancement of the valley would please Jardines. It was always well to have the support of the princely Hong.\n\nThe idea of improving the Valley was not new. The need to do something about it was clear almost as soon as the town of Victoria was established.\n\nThe Valley contained the largest area of level ground on the north side of Hongkong Island. To some it seemed the ideal site for the business centre of the new settlement.\n\nIt was soon found, however, to be a death trap for Europeans. Those who chose to build there were decimated by fever and soon the houses on the hills around were abandoned.\n\nThe fever was attributed to \"miasma\" rising from the low-lying damp ground in the valley. Today we know the cause was the bite of the malaria-carrying mosquito which bred in the stagnant pools", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211456, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "148\n\nhave been had he been alive when Ruth graduated from McKinley High School first in her class, with honours and a gold medal, or when she received a degree in medicine.\n\nAlthough our dresses were home-made, our shoes and hats were from fancy shops on Fort Street, then the main shopping centre of Honolulu. Whenever Father took us out, he would tell us to 'dress up like a duchess'. Sometimes he would take us to a cinema, or to a stage show, or to a musical at the Y.M.C.A. A visit to the Bishop Museum was always followed by a pause at the site of the mental hospital then located on School Street, where we would peep through the knot holes of the fence to observe the bizarre behaviour of the inmates. When Queen Liliuokalani died and her body was on view in Kawaiahao Church, he took Ruth, Helen and me to this sad and historical event. I remember him carrying me out onto our porch in Iwilei to point out a comet with a wide spray of bright light. I believe it was Halley's Comet. These may not be unusual experiences for children of today, but in the early 1900s, they were not common for Chinese children.\n\nFather's interests extended beyond our home. There were always illiterate women friends asking him to write letters. He did volunteer work at the Berentania Street Mission under the direction of Mrs. Elijah J. Mackenzie, a missionary who spoke fluent Chinese. There he taught English to young men newly arrived from China, gathered with them in worship, and interpreted for the Sunday and evening services when a sermon was given in English. When the Rev. Schenck came to Hawaii to administer the missions for the Hawaiian Board, he dispensed with Father's help so abruptly that it hurt Father deeply. Father had other community interests. He was one of the early members of the Chinese Y.M.C.A. which was located behind the Fort Street Chinese Church. Among its members were En Sue Kong, Luke Chan, Yim Quan and Tom Joon Yai. Father also served as English secretary for the See Dai Doo Society for many years, until his death. He would often drop by Wing On Tai for a chat or to do business; he would visit with friends from his village or nearby areas at the Pui Gun Horse Stable, located off Pauahi Street near River Street. There he enjoyed their fellowship and the news from 'home'. He would always buy a bag of roasted peanuts from a well-known shop on Pauahi Street to enjoy on his way home.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211710, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "100\n\nTsun Wan has several local industries; . . . In the valley running up into the hills to the south-west of Tai Mo Shan there is a village consisting entirely of watermills, where wood is ground up for the manufacture of joss sticks. This picturesque place is about half a mile beyond Tsun Wan, near the 9th milestone, and follows the stream upwards, first on the one bank and then on the other. The first watermill is reached in 5 minutes' walk from the road, and beyond are a dozen more little houses perched on the sides of the valley, each with its waterwheels busily turning. For a small tip the owner of one of these mills will show you inside; the atmosphere is thick with fragrant dust, and through it you can dimly see great stone-headed hammers pounding away the aromatic wood.23\n\nFrom the description cited, the area seems to be Tso Kung Tam (2H), which is situated to the north-west of Tsuen Wan. According to elder villagers, there were six water-wheels in operation after 1930, and one of these was still in operation until 1952-1953. Later, they were replaced by electrically driven grinders, and manufacturing activities expanded to include the production of incense coils. Heywood's description was written during the last few years in which the incense wood was pounded by water power. The whole area was resumed by the Government around 1978 for the construction of the Tsuen Wan Mass Transit Railway Terminus.\n\nAlthough Tsuen Wan is the best known of the incense milling centres of the New Territories, and was the only one to survive after the 1920s, in the early years of the century there were at least two others. Sandalwood mills were noted at Pak Kiu Tsai between Pun Chung and Wun Yiu immediately outside Tai Po New Market during the Block Crown Lease surveys of about 1905. Similarly, early twentieth-century maps show sandalwood mills at Heung Fan Liu (56%, “Incense Powder Sheds\") just outside Tai Wai in Sha Tin. Heung Fan Liu and Pak Kiu Tsai are sites very similar to Tso Kung Tam in Tsuen Wan immediately alongside a fast-flowing stream with a substantial year-round flow of water to power the water-wheels. Heung Yuen Wai (I, \"Incense Tree Grove\") in Ta Kwu Ling may also be a placename referring to the incense trade → adjacent villages are called Tsung Yuen (AB, \"Pine Grove\") and Chuk Yuen (†, \"Bamboo Grove''), suggesting three local specializations. No sandalwood mills at Heung", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211984, "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": 399, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "374\n\nwhich has been copied in an untitled manuscript in the possession of Mr. Dang Yu-Hing).36 Dang Kei-faan Genealogy in the Baker Collection of New Territories genealogies in the British Library.\n\n37 The elder was Dang Wing-Sau, the head of the lineage. I do not know which generation he was in. See Taga (1982:92).\n\n38 Translated in Sung (1974:177-179).\n\n39\n\n40 See table above and the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents, vol. 1.\n\nProbably Dang Hei-Seui. See Sung (1974:166-168) and a genealogy of his segment included in Hugh Baker's Collection of Genealogies.\n\n41 Patrick Hase has drawn my attention to the importance of the monastery as central to the establishment Hung-Yi's descendants in Kam Tin, just as Ling To nunnery is to the Dangs of Ha Tsuen. The monastery and the earlier temple are a major element in the fung-seui of the Pat Heung valley and Kam Tin. The rivers important to irrigation in the area all flow from the mountain on which the monastery stands.\n\n42\n\n41\n\n44 I have not tried to find further information on this man in gazetteers.\n\nSee Sung (1973:112-113) for the Hung Sing Temple.\n\nThis was one of two stories. They were thought of as alternatives although there is no contradiction between them. I shall relate the other one later.\n\n45 I was told that the Juk-Yun Am used to be at the present site of the Gwaan-Dai Temple of Shing Mun San Tsuen, and San-Sin Fu near Shui Mei.\n\n46 Two items in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 2 were probably intended for this very grave. These were among the papers of Dang Ting-sam from the year 1873. The first was a request for donations towards the establishment of a charitable grave. The second was intended for a stone inscription. There is strong evidence that the charitable grave was established before the British came, although many present-day Dangs believe that those buried in the grave were those who died fighting against the British. The jiu festival record for 1895 included the Dei-Jong Wong of Tung-Fuk Tong among the gods to be invited, and an elder in his nineties remembered seeing gam-taap jars for bones when he was very small. He deduced that those must have been the remains of people who died before 1898, because one had to wait for many years he suggested ten — until the bones could be extracted after a first burial.\n\n47 A bin-ngaak (horizontal inscribed board) presented to the Buddhist altar at its completion included ten names who were believed to be the share-holders of the Tong. They were three Wan-Guk jiu descendants of Shui Mei: Baak-Cheung, Daat-Hung, and Jik-Hing; three brothers Yat-Wa, Seui-Chuen, Gam-Wa and two of their nephews, and Baak-Yi, all descendants of Wan-Gaan; and a Hin-Yiu of Kam Tin Shi.\n\n48 Plus a inscribed stone on the ground saying Naam-mo O-Mei-To-Fat, set up to offset the bad influences that caused traffic accidents near the stone.\n\n49 Hoi-dang for a village did not always take place at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. In the Shui Mei case it took place at the Tin-Hau Temple.\n\n50 The elders made it clear that gu here does not mean “shares\".\n\n51 The subjects for these paper images were specified in the contract made with the craftsmen. The contract was included in the general record for the festival and was copied from the previous ones. But neither the organizers nor the contractor seem to have paid much attention to the details of the prescription.\n\n52 The object is probably more commonly known by the name dong 'an and is more often installed over the central area of the Taoist altar rather than in the backstage room. See", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212221, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "140\n\nsometimes visited by H.M. ships, and further inland Snow Valley, high up in the mountains, was a popular resort for the more enterprising of Shanghai week-enders. Now the motor roads round Ningpo had all been destroyed by the Chinese lest the Japanese advance and make use of them. The roadhead was twenty miles away at Kikow, the Generalissimo's native village, where tourists used to leave their cars to make the ascent to Snow Valley.\n\nI had to get back to Shanghai somehow and decided the best way would be to make for Hongkong overland, a distance not far short of a thousand miles. You reached Kikow partly by boat and partly on foot, and I arrived one evening, to find I should have to wait a couple of days for a seat on the crowded bus service. The next morning I was strolling by myself along the village road when the alert sounded. This was such a common event that I took no notice, and almost before I realised what had happened two Japanese light bombers were circling over the village to locate their targets. The police hustled me into a nearby house, from the courtyard of which I watched the planes fly around and make shallow dives each time they placed a bomb, of which they dropped a dozen. Besides myself there were only women in the house, an old lady, a daughter, and a small child with their amah. They told me that only two houses away was the Generalissimo's ancestral home, at which it was probable that the Japanese were aiming. The daughter was very concerned that I should be standing in the courtyard with my sleeves rolled up displaying my wrist watch to the Japanese pilots. She feared it might attract their attention and asked me to take it off. In my halting Chinese I tried to explain to her that the pilots, who were flying about two thousand feet up, there was, of course, no defence of any kind\n\ncould neither see me nor my wrist watch, and each time the aircraft commenced to dive I signalled to the women to crouch down and comforted myself by the realisation that they were going for the other end of the village. The planes flew off after half an hour. When they were satisfied it was all over, the women collected the clothes they had been washing, and made their way, as if quite accustomed to it, across the road, down the steps to the mountain stream to resume their work. Fortunately no buildings caught fire on this occasion, and there was not much damage; the village was burnt out in another raid a week later.\n\n―\n\nNext day I started on my journey. Laboriously, on the overcrowded", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212236, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "155\n\nworldly minded, money-making, aristocratical people. Having come here to make money it is all they seem to think about, except their own pleasure, which is not always of a sinless description, as the cemeteries testify. Yet they are munificent, when charity is required, thinking as they often say, \"Charity covereth a multitude of sins\". Dress is carried to great excess. About six o'clock when the sun sets all the year round, they come out, dressed up regardless of expense, and parade the streets, and public walks, in their sedan chairs. If however they prefer walking, you invariably see the chair carried along behind. If Mr Brown wants to take Miss Jones out for a nice little quiet walk in the country, and have a little pleasant conversation, you always see their two chairs carried along a hundred or so yards behind them, by the industrious Chinese. Nobody ever thinks of walking except just in the evening for pleasure, and even then they generally ride! Consequently all the young men are poor pale looking things for want of exercise. For my part I will never, unless absolutely unable to move, ride in the lazy things. Some are very neatly covered up; some open at the top, while many are merely constructed of two long bamboos, a small board for a seat, another to lean back against, and a board hanging down to rest the feet upon. A fellow looks, as I told Mr Beach, just like \"Guy Fawkes\" going to be thrown in the bonfire. Sometimes ladies, just to show themselves, ride in these last species: making great I do not know what's, of themselves. At church there is a display of aristocracy and fashion. The service is gone through in a listless sort of way, and every one seems glad when it is over. Many ladies ride on horseback. I have seen no one, as yet, with whom I care at all to associate with. There is plenty of work for me to do however for my pupils in one way and another, so that company is perhaps out of the question.\n\n―\n\n―\n\nThe Parsees come next in point of number, and importance. They are a fine looking race of men, bearing a strong resemblance to the ancient Jews. Their complexion is very brown however and they wear a long black beard. They dress in long flowing robes, and could not be distinguished from Arabs but by their hats, the shape of which is very strange. You may have perhaps seen pictures of them. It is enough to make anybody laugh to see them. What surprises me is that the hat does not fall off. They are a very wealthy class of people and are considered excellent subjects. In fact they may be said to be but a very little behind the English. They have a fine cemetery in Happy Valley.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212355, "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": 297, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "274\n\nman, and the Tsoi clan four, to the authorities as being responsible for the murder of the man who fell in the ditch. This, however, is only a formality. Everyone knows that the District Mandarin will be only too happy to exchange these men for an eloquent sum of money. It is sad to be forced to see in action how the best of these Chinese officials are blind in the face of corruption of this type.\n\nThe total cost of this village war was more than sixty thousand dollars. This money will have to be found by a stiff payment from every person affected. The parties will be reduced to such extreme poverty that it will be many years before they can recover. It is as well that the bone of contention is removed from the clans.\n\nHowever, as it is said \"There can be no peace, where men do not sing of the love of Christ\". May that love soon be sung throughout this fruitful valley of Sham Chun!\n\nI greet you with the deepest respect and affection,\n\nYours,\n\nG. Reusch\n\n8th July, 1875.\"\n\nThe 1924 aerial photograph of Sham Chun, and the War Department map drawn up from it, show a broad earth-wall in the position suggested by Reusch, and this is shown on the Map. This probably represents the earth-wall of 1875. If so, the \"New Market\" of 1871 was not a success. Although the roads from the south (Kowloon and Yuen Long) ran through the centre of the site, the site was not as well sited as was the \"Old Market\", being further from the nodal point of the road system in the area. It was better located for the river trade, but only so long as the \"New Market\" and the landing place were in the same hands. Once the landing place had been handed over to the She Hok and to the Tung Ping Kuk which ran the She Hok, and which was dominated by the Cheungs, the \"New Market\" lost the advantages it gained from proximity to the river. By 1924, there were only a few buildings within the earth-wall\n\n—\n\na", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212834, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "128\n\nthat serve as leaves in this plant threw a new light on the perils of parachuting. The weather was propitious and the sortie a success. The supplies included a small proportion of gifts with which we were able to show our appreciation to the battalion commander, whose troops had provided most welcome assistance. On completion of the sortie I despatched Stan up the valley to enter Kokang further south towards Sincheng, where the Myosa's brother had his headquarters, and more especially to search for a suitable dropping zone inside Kokang, and not too near the Salween. Jack had already gone on into Kokang to Nancha, the place where the parachute party had stayed, and shortly after I broke camp to join him.\n\nMany paths over the mountains connect China and Burma throughout the length of the border; passage is unrestricted and along these paths the Chinese people are gradually infiltrating, circulating as hawkers, establishing their little shops, or cultivating a small plot of land. In Kok-ang the population was very mixed as it is all along the border country. Over half the population was now of Chinese blood; up on the mountains were many Lihsaw and Palaung villages. The Chinese distinguish between ‘Land' Shans and 'Water' Shans, Han Payee and Shui Payee; one meets them all through Western Yunnan and Eastern Burma, and Kokang had a proportion. There were also occasional Was and Kachins. The best description of all this country is to be found in Maurice Collis' Lords of the Sunset; and Where China meets Burma, a book written by a government official's wife, Beatrix Metford.\n\nOver a third of Burma is occupied by the hill people; they number three-and-a-half millions, and are governed by their chieftains and princes on the British principle of indirect rule; the princes come directly under the Governor of Burma and not under the corrupt clique of professional politicians, who have formed the core of the Burmese legislative assemblies during the past few years. The unit of control under the chief is the circle, which contains more or fewer villages, each under its own headman. The system has many feudal features well adapted to these conservative and primitive people. Nancha, where we stayed for a time, contained the residence of the circle headman of that district, a dear old gentleman, who could neither read nor write, but employed a Chinese writer for the purpose. The writer had married one of his daughters, as often happens, and lived in one wing of the house. The better houses are built round the four sides of an inner courtyard; the pack animals, the cows, and the pigs, may be housed on the lower", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212847, "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": 156, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "141\n\nside. So we gave the gifts to the friends we made everywhere amongst the local population round us; we even broke up the cotton parachutes and distributed the cloth. We sometimes found when we could not buy such things as chickens or eggs with money, a piece of parachute cloth quickly brought results.\n\nIn supplying us the R.A.F. ran great risks. They had to fly six hundred miles over enemy-held territory to reach us, and then they had to find their way about the mountains, locate our particular little valley, come in below the mountain crests, fly up the valley, turn sharp right at the head, where the d.z. ran up at a slope of one in three, and drop their men and containers within the length of the zone, which measured on the level could not be more than 200 yards. A stick would sometimes be as many as seven containers, but the spread was found to be too great; some would fall short of or beyond the d.z., way down in the thick jungle of the valley; and though we had many willing villagers, wondering at these new toys of the white man, to help us in the search, it would sometimes be days before all the containers were located. The white cotton 'chutes to which they were attached, of course, helped us to trace their whereabouts. The sticks were cut down to a maximum of three for men, or four for containers. Much credit is due to the pilots and their skilled crews who so successfully co-operated with us.\n\nThe risk for the parachute men was also considerable. Sawn-off stumps of trees are not comfortable to fall on; fortunately they did not know about these until they landed. Sometimes the container-chutes would not develop owing to failure of the static cord, or the container might be too heavy for the 'chute and would break away from its straps. You would then hear a swish and a plonk in the nearby jungle. In theory the faulty 'chute would leave the aircraft like a bomb, and travel with the speed of the aircraft till it hit the ground, so that it should overshoot the dropping zone; but in practice it did not always work out that way, and the first we would know, straining our eyes up in the dark, would be the plonk near at hand. One container with explosives crashed and blew up one day not thirty yards from our lower signal fire. Many is the night we spent out on the d.z. in the bright moonlight, in vain; though the weather over us was perfect, it might be cloudy in India and the aircraft would not start. Or clouds might form up over us, while they were on their way, and after vainly searching for our fires, they would fly back, without result for their pains. It was nerve-wracking to hear our own aircraft, in the clouds amongst the dangerous mountain tops, searching for our", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215133, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "186\n\nfive sections. When I visited the higher of the two Obelisks, in 1994, it had what appeared to be a plastic anchor, about seven inches long, wired to the eastern side, about half way up the Obelisk. It seemed to have been added as an afterthought. On my visit in May 2000 the anchor was no longer there. There are no permanent inscriptions or markings on either of the beacons and they are not lighted.\n\nI understand however, from long-time RAS member Arthur Hacker, that at one stage some wag had painted on the upper Obelisk the words.\n\nTO MY\n\nBELOVED DOG\n\nFIDO\n\nRIP\n\nWhen Hacker saw the words, around 1980, they were faint, flaking and hardly legible. The lettering was, however, professionally done (Hacker, 2000).\n\nHistory tells us that, before the British took possession of Hong Kong Island in 1841, passing ships replenished their water supplies not only at Waterfall Bay, near what is now Wah Fu Estate at the western end of Hong Kong Island, but also at Tai Tam (Empson, 1992:19). There must have been a pretty sizeable waterfall fed from the Tai Tam Valley, from which relatively pure water was obtained before the Tai Tam Reservoirs as we know them now were constructed. A tunnel was constructed first, from 1883 to 1888, to bring water into the City of Victoria. From then on, off and on over the years, various reservoirs were constructed. They included the Bye-wash, the Intermediate and the Tai Tam Tuk Reservoirs. The commemorative stone to denote the completion of this complex water supply scheme was laid, adjacent to the main road, by the then Governor Sir Henry May, on 2 February 1918. When considerable amounts of building materials were being shipped through Tai Tam Bay, and then on into Tai Tam Harbour for the construction of these reservoirs, the two Obelisks would no doubt have been useful as markers. The construction of these reservoirs", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215469, "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-2001", "page_number": 246, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "in Paro. This is housed in the circular Ta Dzong, a former watchtower built in 1649 by the first governor of the Paro valley to safeguard the main dzong from inroads by Tibetans. The museum is well stocked with a great deal of Buddhist artefacts, including a number of *miraculous footprints*; a whole floor dedicated to postage stamps, for which Bhutan is famous in the world of philately; copper teapots and spittoons, the latter being for the use of betel-chewing monks during religious ceremonies; and costumes and coins. Having been frustrated at the hotel, I still wanted to buy some post cards. I saw some, together with other articles for sale, in a glass cabinet that was being guarded by three members of the museum staff. However, I was told that I could not buy any as nobody had the key to the cabinet. It transpired that this was only to be used by the official responsible for collecting the cash, and she had been taken ill and gone to distant Thimpu for treatment. The poor thing could have derived some comfort from the knowledge that her three minions were guarding her stock-in-trade against all comers - especially those that wanted to buy things.\n\nPerfect posers\n\nFrom the museum there were spectacular views up and down the Paro valley from its floor at 7,000 feet to the surrounding mountains, some of which, snow-capped, reached 17,000 feet. And it was up the valley we went to look at the ruined Drukgyel Dzong. Originally built in 1647 but destroyed by fire in 1951, this was one of the many fortresses designed to counter the frequent Tibetan invasions. Our visit included a wander round the village, where we found for the first of countless times to come how willing the people are to be photographed. It almost seemed as though they automatically adopted perfect poses and groupings, even very small children, because they knew that better photographs would be the result. I regretted later, when my films were developed in Hong Kong, that they could not also advise on apertures and exposures. Maybe this will come.\n\nWith a glance up to the sharp and snowy peak of Jhomolhari, Bhutan's second-highest peak at over 24,000 feet, we set off again down the valley for afternoon tea and bickies at the Eye of the Tiger Lodge. Sipping our refreshments we could gaze over the valley at the famous Taktsang Monastery (the Tiger's Nest), perched 3,000 feet above the road up a cliff face, and be thankful that we did not quite have the time", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215472, "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-2001", "page_number": 249, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "198\n\nand rock falls. We saw one such team, hard at it, with a pot-bellied sergeant doing the important job of watching them.\n\nA dignified repast\n\nOn the far side of Haa we took the road up the valley to inspect a small village, Nagyel - we were even able to go inside one of the houses and poke around. Everything was, of course, wooden and very solid. But at 9,000 feet we were a bit puffed and in need of lunch - and so headed back down the valley again. Very soon we realised that we ourselves were the visiting dignitaries for whom the large table and chairs had been set up. We had not up to now realised, but in addition to our two minibuses and the smaller one for our baggage, there was yet another. This fourth vehicle contained the catering crew of three, who had gone ahead and prepared a splendid al fresco buffet lunch. What a treat! An excellent spread and served most professionally. And not over the top at all, now we realised who the diners were to be.\n\nThe second night's accommodation was waiting for us in the capital city, Thimpu. As that was four hours away we had no time to hang around, but we were able to stop for a treat along the way. This was the Napchong Hadang Monastery, where we found we were just in time for a puja for the water god. This ritual, dating from the 17th century, lasts for three days, the third day involving a long procession through the nearby villages. We were there on the first day, and were lucky enough to enter the temple and see two lines of red-robed monks, sitting cross-legged on the floor facing each other and eating rice from their bowls. At the head of the lines was the master. When he started chanting the rice bowls disappeared under the robes pretty sharpish as all were expected to join in. The older monks, sitting nearer the master, had drums whilst the younger ones had enough to do to try not to stare at 27 members of the Royal Asiatic Society. To one side were two, as it were, oboists and to the other were two, as it might have been, bass horn players. The whole ensemble was absolutely magical, something I had never seen nor heard except on the National Geographic Channel.\n\nThe three further hours to Thimpu were spent in happy conversation on the bus, the subjects ranging from Tung Chi Wah's chances of a second term to African insects that lay their eggs under your toenails. I don't know how I did it in the face of such intellectual challenge, but I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215475, "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-2001", "page_number": 252, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "201\n\nus and welcomed us, at the same time giving a brief background history of his library. With very limited resources, he has made good use of his previous 20 years experience with the National Museum to bring order and inspiration to his new project. There are a great many books in the Bhutanese language, mainly on Buddhist issues, and an increasing number of books in English and other foreign languages. We increased this number further by presenting the library with a full set of HKBRAS Journals.\n\nLunch was in the delightfully named Plum's Café, including a slice of their famous apple pie. As shopping never seemed to be far from the thoughts of us Honkies, a visit to Choki Handicrafts and then the National Handicrafts Emporium sated the appetite sufficiently to face the next leg of the journey.\n\nThis was to be an enormous climb up to the Dochu-la pass (10,140 feet), being the gateway to the Wangdiphodrang Valley. The weather had been fine on the trip so far, but coming to the top of the pass the clouds descended, and with them came snow. However, as luck would have it, just as the army of RAS photographers took up their positions the clouds lifted, a rainbow appeared and we were offered enormous vistas of Himalayan peaks stretching off to the west. Thereafter the weather became (and stayed) clear as a bell.\n\nThat bell rings a name\n\nDid I say bell? Was that a yak approaching? No. In one of the handicraft shops in Thimpu, Brian had bought himself a brass bell. We were to hear that bell a lot in the coming days. It was to become his method of signalling to his unruly brood that it was time to board the buses and move on. So effective was it that when a “real” bell sounded in one of the temples, it had the effect of causing a stampede to the transport by all of us - except, of course, Brian.\n\nFrom the heights of the pass it was a very long and bouncy ride down to the hotel in Punakha at 4,300 feet. Thankfully, it was an early dinner and early to bed. Orders had already been issued for a 6:15 a.m. wake-up the following day. Even though the guide told us that we were in a sub-tropical climate zone, I had to break open my Chinese Emporium silk long johns before climbing in to bed. (Any man thinking", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215477, "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-2001", "page_number": 254, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "203\n\nthought of some time in 1962. Better late than never.\n\nThe road continued past fresh rushing rivers and terraced fields. These were either brilliant green or bright yellow, the latter being mustard. Prayer flags flapping on every promontory completed the picturesque scene. Not quite so pretty was the state of the road. This had become very muddy with much evidence of landslides. Coming from Hong Kong we felt a bit uneasy not to see every slope covered in concrete and with a number on it. Perhaps we can teach these Bhutanese a thing or two after all.\n\nAt one of our stops some youths were playing the local version of darts. They were using lethal looking missiles almost a foot long which were thrown either at the ground or at a convenient tree or piece of wood. The object seemed to be to get yours as close as possible to the other chap's, and so this necessitated the other chap to stand close to where his had landed. Either they are all very good shots, or they have lightning reactions, or they are very trustful of each other, or perhaps all three - but it looked jolly dangerous to me.\n\nFurther up there was a splendid view of snow-capped Jomolhari, last seen in Paro. We came to our own peak at Pele-la pass (11,200 feet), from where there was a two-hour cruise downhill to Trongsa. About half way from the pass to Trongsa, at Chendebji Chorten, we saw a familiar sight. Right next to this magnificent Nepalese-style stupa, complete with eyes painted at the top, was a long table and 30 garden chairs. Lunch had been prepared. What a privilege to be catered for in what is presumably a sacred site. It felt for all the world like a scene from E.M. Forster when Dr Aziz organised a picnic for Miss Quested at the Malabar Caves. Can you imagine similar treatment for a group of foreigners at, say, Stonehenge? Ha! (or as they say in Bhutan Haa!).\n\nInto The Hundred Acre Wood\n\nThe stunning Trongsa Dzong looked quite close when we first saw it, occupying a commanding position on the opposite side of the valley. However, it was another half-hour before we could find our way round the valley and see it at close quarters. Tea and bickies at Trongsa Norling Hotel were very welcome before setting out on the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215484, "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-2001", "page_number": 261, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "210\n\nSomewhat of a surprise\n\nA group of 15-year-old girls took a very giggly interest in us and were keen to talk to us using their excellent English. They must have been accustomed to the usual banal questions from tourists: Were you born here? Where do you go to school? Do you study English at school? But there was one answer that we were not prepared for. Question: 'Do you find English easy?' Answer: 'Oh, somewhat.' Somewhat?? Forsooth!\n\nSome of the paths between the houses were cobbled, the trees had been recently pollarded, and the stream was rushing along, reminding us that we had to do likewise. A couple of hours had us back at the hotel, wondering if there would be electricity or would they have to turn on the generator again, with its engine sounding like that of a Spitfire. I don't know about the others, but I managed to get my wood-burning stove going. I had found the secret! I asked a member of the hotel staff to come and do it for me. This she did in a trice with the aid of some candle wood. This is the natural wood of the candlewood pine, or blue pine, and once lit it flares into life with happy ferocity.\n\nOne of the highlights of Day 7, a Saturday and the day we started heading back to Paro, was to be a visit to the remote and beautiful Phubjikha Valley, one of the few sites in Bhutan where the rare black-necked cranes winter over from their summer home on the high Tibetan plateau. We had not been en route for more than five minutes before there was a loud cry from the back of the 'bus. 'Cranes!!!' The engineers amongst us became excited for a moment, but the cranes turned out to be the black-necked variety and they were pecking at the ground not far from the road, stocking up for the long flight home. It is remarkable that these creatures make a long flight every year and always come back to the same spot in Bhutan. But Brian and Felicity do that as well, so it can't be that remarkable.\n\nOur route took us back over the 11,835 feet Yutong-la pass and down to Trongsa, where the Trongsa Dzong was awaiting our inspection, from the inside this time. Originally built in 1543, but repaired and added to many times since, this fortress occupies an extremely commanding position, perhaps as well if one's job is to collect taxes and generally subdue the neighbouring population. And it still exercises", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215683, "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-2001", "page_number": 460, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "412\n\nHe was 55 years old. His wife died on 28th February, 1921 in the Hong Kong Civil Hospital. Both are buried in Section 12 of the Hong Kong Cemetery. (photograph)\n\nOn reading the report of their funeral in the Hong Kong press, another mystery emerges - that of their two adopted daughters.\n\nIn our research we found mention of them only once, in the detailed report of the funeral in the South China Morning Post of 3rd March, 1921. Theirs was a large funeral conducted by the Bishop of North China and attended by representatives from the large shipping companies as well as the Navy. We read.... 'The chief mourners were the two Chinese adopted daughters of the deceased...,' whom, it goes on to say, were to be looked after by Butterfield and Swire 'pending ascertainment of the provision made for them by their deceased guardians.' Nowhere else have we found mention of these children.\n\nWhat happened to them?\n\nIn publishing this short article we hope to hear from readers who may be able to contribute to the completion of the Plant story.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nOur interest in the Plant family was aroused on reading Simon Winchester's book The River at the Centre of the World. Thanks go to Dr. D. D. Waters, Past President of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Mrs. May Holdsworth, Ms. Charlotte Bleasdale of Swires, Mrs. Merilyn Hywel-Jones from BACSA, the Pyatt family who researched and photographed the Plant grave in Happy Valley Cemetery in Hong Kong, and to Major Arthur Kirby of the Framlingham and District Local History and Preservation Society. Po Leung Kuk in Hong Kong and the Office of Cemeteries and Cremations, Urban Services Department, Hong Kong, also searched their records. All took a sustained interest in this project and gave willingly of their time to help with research.\n\n1 [Hon. Ed. - Does anyone know what became of it?]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216064, "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-2002", "page_number": 363, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "297\n\nbandits to seek their fortune. Mesny explained that the opportunity occurred for 'the four bold adventurers' to leave the city together with the bandits together with several old Taiping chiefs, amongst whom was a brother of the Shou Wang, the Taiping leader who formerly had held Ningbo. The four, Jerome, a cripple having had one of his legs damaged during the [Opium] war; Captain O.P. Damström, a Swede; Anthony Fiamin, an Austrian from Fiume; and Beeman, a Britisher from London. Mesny believed that they were the only foreigners who actually served with the Nian rebels. Mesny went to see them off and Jerome embraced him very affectionately after the manner of his country. They had not been gone very long when Mesny received a letter from Damström saying that he had been wounded in a cavalry charge against some 'trainbands' who had attempted to cut them off from the main body. The Four Bold Adventurers had then accompanied the Nianzi in their revolving rambles all over the country lying between the Yangzi and the Yellow River from Hankou to Zhifu and back again until the whole body of the bandits had been beaten and dispersed. At the dispersion Damström had been taken prisoner by the Imperial forces and as such had been brought down to Zhenjiang in a cage, or so Mesny understood, and had it not been for Captains Welsh and Macdonald who had been in charge of the artillery and rocket batteries in one of the Imperial camps Damström would very likely have been done to death like his three companions none of whom, though they had surrendered to the Imperial forces, ever returned to the [treaty] ports. Beeman was said to have been buried alive in Shandong, Jerome and Anthony appeared to have been murdered by their captors in northern Jiangsu [province], having become separated during the last few days march.\n\nWe know remarkably little about Mesny's life during the 1880s. A very serious famine ravaged Anhui province during 1888/9, and Mesny, then aged 46, made two long journeys through Anhui and northern Jiangsu provinces to judge and report on the extent of suffering. During his journeys, Mesny later wrote, he discovered that Earl Zeng [Guochuan], the Viceroy of Nanjing, needed the funds raised earlier by a Shanghai charity, the Renjishan Tang, to appease and pay off the Cantonese bandits, the Shap-ng Tsoi,33 who were very active in the Yangzi valley at the time. Mesny added that he, Mesny, in 1889, had assisted in the pacification of the excited populace at Zhenjiang where he had arrived a few hours after the British Consulate and other buildings", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216486, "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-2003", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "195\n\n-\n\nCornell Plant died at sea shortly before their ship's arrival at Hong Kong. Alice Plant died a day or so later and they were both buried in Happy Valley Cemetery, Hong Kong. This posed the question what happened to the two young Chinese girls? This is partly answered by an extract from a letter written to Cornell's younger brother Charles by J.L. Smith, the British Consul at Ichang, an old friend of Captain and Mrs Plant:\n\nThe reference to the two girls as \"adopted daughters\" is a mistake. The two girls were waifs bought by Mrs Plant a number of years ago and brought up by her as servants in her own house. They were too young to marry and therefore Mrs Plant was taking them home with her, intending to bring them back at the conclusion of her furlough after which she intended to marry them off and give them a small dowry. They are now being sent back from Hong Kong to Miss Moore of the Church of Scotland (Ladies) Mission here: Miss Moore desires to keep them for four or five years in her excellent girls school so that they can get an education after which she will see that they are decently married off or settled down in some occupation in the same way as Mrs Plant would have done. There is a movement on foot amongst friends of Captain and Mrs Plant to raise a sum of money to meet the expenses that will be entailed in connection with the education, etc. of the girls.\n\nIn the event, some $4,000 was raised by the friends and colleagues of Captain and Mrs Plant to educate the two girls and set them up in life. Although the Royal Library of Scotland has some of the letters sent home by Miss Amelia Moore to the Church of Scotland, no mention has yet been found of the two girls and what happened to them.\n\nThe 30 foot granite monument overlooking the gorges put up in memory of Captain Samuel Cornell Plant show the high esteem in which he was held by his friends, his business associates and the Chinese Customs Service. On his death, tributes were received from the representatives of many countries including France, Japan, and the United States of America. More personal were the feelings expressed in \"Plant the Pilot\" a poem written shortly after his death and the inscription on the silver inkwell presented to him by Captain F Scurr, shortly before his final voyage in 1921 as a small memento of many kindnesses while 'dodging the dragon.' It was all summed up in the words of his good friend of over ten years, the British Consul at Ichang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]