[
    {
        "id": 205185,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1966",
        "page_number": 141,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "OLD BRITISH KOWLOON\n\n135\n\n24 With regard to the quantities of firewood brought on foot into Kowloon from as far afield as Sha Tin, see Sessional Papers 1903 p. 209 which list 66,521 loads of firewood, each estimated at 70 piculs (approx. 93 lbs.) as being carried over the hills in 1902. The Sham Shui Po Kaifong, through operating the Mo Tai (A†4) temple's public weighing scales, got its revenue from the vegetable and livestock market there. Much of the produce sold there crossed the harbour to Hong Kong. (See the Registrar General's Report for 1907 in Sessional Papers 1908, p. 194. Other information supplied by elders). I am also informed by Mr. WAI Tau Shue (b. 1885) that in his youth the Kowloon Lok Sin Tong levied a small weighing charge on each load of firewood sold in the Kowloon City market. In each case the proceeds were supposed to swell public funds for charitable work. For social advancement see the career of WONG Lan-shang described in this article.\n\n25 The Third or Kowloon Police Magistrate was not appointed until 1925 (Colonial Estimates 1924-1926). For an example of police assistance in an emergency see the press reports of the two big fires at Hung Hom village on 11 and 16 December 1884 (Hong Kong Daily Press).\n\n26 See Report from the Hong Kong Land Commission of 1886-87 on the History of the Sale, Tenure and Use of the Crown Land of the Colony published in Sessional Papers 1887 pp. XXVI-XXVII.\n\n27 Between 1853 and 1862 the Hong Kong government paid village elders as tepos (18) in an endeavour to enlist their services in the public interest. See G. B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong 1841-1962, Hong Kong; University of Hong Kong Press, 1964, pp. 37-38. The Colonial Estimates for the period, under Registrar General's department, show that payment was not extended to the elders of the Kowloon villages acquired in 1860.\n\n28 Eitel, p. 160.\n\n29 See, for instance, pp. 8 and 9 and note 40 of my typescript article \"Some villages in the North Western Part of the Kowloon Peninsula in 1898” presented to the International Conference on Asian History held at the University of Hong Kong, August 30-September 5, 1964. See also note 37 below.\n\n30 The temple was re-erected in Shantung Street Kowloon in 1927 on a site provided by Government which also gave a grant of $6,000 towards the reconstruction. The rest of the money required for the new building was supplied by the Kwong Wah (Tung Wah group) Hospital, to whom the management of the temple was entrusted.\n\n31 Shui Yuet Kung (KA) is an alternative name for a Kwan Yin temple. See S. Wells Williams, Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect, Canton; Office of the Chinese Repository, 1856, p. 650. See also E. T. C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, New York; The Julian Press, 1961, pp. 225-227.\n\n32 See E. T. C. Werner, China of the Chinese, London; Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1920, pp. 196-197, and S. Wells Williams, Tonic Dictionary under p. 308 and p. 581 under A.\n\n33) E. J. Hardy, John Chinaman at Home, London; T. Fisher Unwin, 1905, p. 86. See also W. Stanton, The Chinese Drama, Hong Kong; Kelly & Walsh, 1899, pp. 5-6 for a brief description of the position in \"China and in the villages of Hong Kong\".\n\n34 Robert Morrison, A View of China for Philological Purposes. Macao; Hon. E. I. C. Press, 1817, p. 105.",
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    {
        "id": 205186,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 142,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "136\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n35 The informants who assisted me with their recollections of the N.W. Kowloon villages in the article mentioned in note 29 above recalled that similar proceedings took place yearly at the Sham Tai Chi or Temple of the Third Prince on the beach at Law Uk, Cheung Sha Wan until it, too, was removed for redevelopment in the mid 1920s. Fights between the various participants, especially Hakkas with Hoklos, were quite common at festival times.\n\n36 See S. Wells Williams, Easy Lessons in Chinese, Macao; Chinese Repository Press, 1842, p. 127.\n\n37 This type of organisation is also common in the New Territories of Hong Kong. Indeed it was apparently found all over China: see Werner's China of the Chinese, pp. 163-165 for a good general description.\n\n38 In 1897 Yau Ma Tei had a population of 8051 (Sessional Papers 1897, p. 485) and by 1907 as much as 17,812 (Sessional Papers, p. 273). The name means Oil and Hemp Ground, though my informants tell me it has an older name Tai Shek Lat (私大石ᑟ) which may be translated as Row of Big Stones. \"Lat\" is a colloquial word.\n\n39 Hong Kong Government Gazette for 1877, p. 81.\n\n40 See Mr. Chadwick's Reports on the Sanitary Conditions of Hong Kong, Eastern No. 38, printed for the use of the Colonial Office in November 1882, pp. 42-43. Through a printer's error he calls Yau Ma Tei “Yan Ma Ti”.\n\nSee Sessional Papers 1899 p. 482 for another description of the adjoining area.\n\n41 No evidence of this particular type of activity survives from the Yau Ma Tei district. However a few examples can be cited from the Kowloon City area. Mr. W. Schofield has sent details of a tablet (1828) found pre-war beside a broken bridge near the former Kowloon City rifle range which records the names of officials, shops and passage boats contributing to the work; and a tablet dated December 1895/January 1896 recording the repair of \"Temple Road\" at Kowloon City is still in existence. A direction stone at the site gives left for Kowloon Tsai and Sham Shui Po and straight on for the Hau Wong Temple. The work was organised by sixteen directors (财事) who are listed on the tablet.\n\n42 For a description of one of these processions see Hardy, p. 280.\n\n43 The inscription above the main entrance also records reconstruction (equivalent of) November/December 1878.\n\n44 The tablet is dated the equivalent of November/December 1894.\n\n45 I am indebted to Messrs. Patrick Wong and Dicken Yang of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs for part of this information.\n\n46 See, for instance, G. T. Lay's account of missionary visits to Hong Kong and Kowloon in 1839 between pp. 279-300 of his The Chinese as they are, London; William Ball & Co., 1841. Rev. George Smith's visits to Kowloon in 1844/45 are described in his A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to Each of the Consular Cities of China and to the Islands of Hong Kong and Chusan, London, Seeley, Burnside and Seeley, 2nd edition, 1847, pp. 72 seq.; and Rev. William Burns' visits from Hong Kong in 1848 are mentioned in James Johnston, pp. 71-74.\n\n47 Impressions of China and the Present Revolution: its Progress and Prospects, London; Seeley, Jackson and Halliday, 1855, p. 24.\n\n48 See James Johnston, p. 71.\n\n49 See The China Mission Hand Book, Shanghai; American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1896, pp. 272-280 for an account, with statistics of the Basel Mission's work in South China for 1893.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206624,
        "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": 172,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "166\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nand exported them to Hong Kong. Even a scrap of tin, perhaps smelted from ore obtained on the Kwangtung coast, was found during excavation at one site where bronze axes were cast. At the same time, the bead trade, so active in Malaya and the great islands, and even in the Philippines, appears to have passed South China by, for the only beads found are either of jade or of soft greenish local stone used as a substitute. This bead trade is in fact coextensive with Indian influence in the Archipelago.\n\nFifth, these finds raise the vast question of the immigrations of the Polynesians and Indonesians from Asia into the Pacific, and the routes they followed. Having regard to the distribution of anthropological types today, we cannot suppose that any large number of Polynesians ever visited the China coast; but there is the strongest probability that tribes of the types of those inhabiting Hainan, Formosa, the Philippines and Borneo frequented the coast, and perhaps started from it to their present seats. It may be possible eventually to prove that survivors of these peoples still live on the coast; personally, I am disposed to regard the Tan Ka or boatpeople of the Kwangtung coast as such survivors. Certain tribes of the interior, the Yui or Yao, and the Siapo of Foochow, may be similar remnants.\n\nThe archaeology of the historic periods has, inevitably, been comparatively neglected in the attractions of unearthing ancient and unknown cultures. Pottery of types familiar to archaeologists in Canton, and attributed to the Han and the Six Dynasties period (100 B.C. to 600 A.D.), has been found at several Hong Kong sites: urns probably of pre-T'ang date (615 A.D. or earlier) have been unearthed at Sheung Shui near the border and elsewhere; and pottery and porcelain of Sung, Yuan and later dynasties can be found everywhere, especially near villages. Forts and watch-posts are to be seen on islands and promontories, and walled towns and villages are frequent inland; such fortifications are, however, post-mediaeval, and the oldest are late Ming, designed for coast defence against Japanese pirates. Of megalithic remains, such as are known as near as the Laos country in Indo-China, no trace exists. No ancient porcelain kilns, such as exist in North and Central China, were ever started within the Colony, though one small establishment for making rice bowls and cooking pots has been found. In one road cutting a mass of broken porcelain of early Ming date, much",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206843,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1973",
        "page_number": 120,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "114 \n\nSUNG HOK-P’ANG \n\nto Kam T'in he was much taken by it, considering the people were more friendly and honest than those of his own country, and it was said that he came to live there in the 6th year of Hoi Po (HT) A.D. 973 of Sung dynasty. During the 8th year of Shing Fa (APC) A.D. 1472 of Ming dynasty when the Kam T'in people revised their family tree, they added a note which cast doubt on the veracity of this, and instead they were inclined to believe that Tang Foo (#) the great grandson of Tang Hon Fat was really the first to come to Kam Tin, and that he transferred the bones of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather to Kwangtung from Kiangsi. Be that as it may, and although there is no actual proof that one or other was the original Tang to settle in Kwangtung, Tang Hon Fat remains a \"first ancestor\" as his is the oldest Tang grave near Kam T'in. It can be found at Ah Kai Shaan (Y), Waang Chau (H) village.\n\nSix generations after Tang Hon Fat there were two brothers, Kwai (3) and Sui (). Kwai had two sons called Yuen Ying (* ) and Yuen Hei (†), both of whom left Kam T’in and founded branches of the family elsewhere. Sui had three sons, Yuen Ching (元祯), Yuen Leung (元亮) and Yuen Woh (元和). The first and last of these also left for other districts but Yuen Leung remained behind, and the Tangs in Kam T’in to-day are his direct descendants. These five cousins were known as the \"Five Yuens\", and after their death their descendants who by then were scattered in various parts of China built an Ancestral Hall, common to all the Yuens, called To Hing T'ong (*). It is at the South gate of the district city of Tung Koon (✯✯), on the Kowloon-Canton railway not far from Sheklung (). In the hall Tang Hon Fat has been given premier place, but the \"Five Yuens\" are venerated in the same way as he and Tang Yue are, as being \"first ancestors”.\n\nAs mentioned before, Tang Foo, the great grandson of Tang Hon Fat is said to have found the sites for the graves of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, himself. They were all acknowledged as being lucky places by the \"fung shui\" men, who were, of course, consulted. That of Tang Hon Fat is called Yuk Nui Paai T'ong (£#*) jade girl reverence; and his son's grave which is on Yuen Long Hill (₪), is called Kam Chung Fau Tei () gold bell cover ground. The grave of Tang Foo's father is called Poon Yuet Chiu T'aam (#AM) half moon shine lake,\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207101,
        "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-1974",
        "page_number": 172,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "166\n\nSUNG HOK-PANG\n\nyear a certain woman of Shui Mei Ts'uen (A#) had gone to play cards with a cousin in a neighbouring house. In the middle of the afternoon they heard a sound like that of a house falling down. The woman ran outside, as all the other villagers did, and saw that the roof of her house was broken and a stream of silver coins was flying out through the hole. The cloud of coins moved away into the distance and eventually disappeared into the sea. When the woman entered her house she found the hole in the roof was directly above a well in her kitchen and the tiles were all scattered round the well, while the stones inside the well were all loosened and some were floating in the water. This story seems incredible but there are many people in Kam T'in to-day who declare they witnessed this occurrence. The writer has even gone to the trouble of questioning four villagers from different houses and at different times but each adhered to the same story and were emphatic in their having been present at the incident.\n\nTang Hei Sui (##), who was born in the 54th year of K'ien Lung A.D. 1788, of Ts'ing Dynasty, is still spoken of in Kam T'in to-day with appreciation and respect of his charitable nature. He was a farmer and lived in Wing Lung Wai ✯ but when twenty-eight years of age he became very rich and employed more than a hundred labourers to work for him in his fields. In the 21st year of Ka Hing, A.D. 1816, of Ts'ing Dynasty he received the official title of Kung Sheng (†) and from that time onwards he did a lot of charitable work in Kam T'in. He had a very peaceable disposition, and disliked seeing or hearing people quarrel, which meant that he was very much imposed on by the loafers and idlers of the village. Two of them would pretend to have a fight outside his house and on hearing it going on Hei Sui would come out and ask the cause of the quarrel. One would declare that the other owed him a certain sum of money, the other would deny it, and in distress, Hei Sui would cry, \"Cousins, do not quarrel over money,” and he would bring out his purse, and generously pay off the imaginary debt, which the two rascals divided between them. Hei Sui was much laughed at behind his back for this, and eventually some of his near relatives told him the truth and begged him not to let himself be taken in again. His answer was, “I was poor at first. Now I am rich, and because my cousins are poor I should help them. When I have used up all my money and become poor again they will stop all this nonsense and won't bother me any more.”",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207120,
        "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-1974",
        "page_number": 191,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n185\n\nLei King T'ong (A) is another ancestral hall, and can be found by the side of the main road through Kam T'in. It was built for Tang Ng Shaang (£) (see H.K.N. VII, p. 36).\n\nI Tai Shue Yuen (**) is the new school building built instead of the Man Ch'eung Kok (M) (see H.K.N. VII, p. 256) and is situated in Shui T'au village.\n\nChau Wong Yee Kung Ts'z (M), (=214) (plate 20) is a hall that was built to record the merit of Viceroy Châu Yau Tak (♬) and Governor Wong Loi Yam (*). After the Ming emperors were expelled from China, an officer of the Ming army named Cheng Shing Kung (4) attacked the coast of South China, using Formosa as his base. All the people in sympathy with the Ming dynasty, along the coast helped him, so as the Manchu government had no navy to send against him, an order was made that all the inhabitants of the coast were to be moved inland for 50 Chinese miles. Later they were moved again for another 30 miles and for seven years, A.D. 1661-1668, the New Territories were deserted. The fields were unattended and allowed to lie fallow, and the buildings fell into disrepair. At the end of that time the people made representations to the Governor and Viceroy, and it was through the mediation of these two men, with the Emperor that the people were allowed to go back to their own land. The full account of this story is very long, but it is hoped to devote an article to it later on.\n\nI have to thank Mr. Tang Paak K'au (1) and Mr. Tang Wai T'ong (**), both elders of Kam T'in, for their co-operation and help in obtaining access to the numerous documents that it has been necessary to consult before this series of articles could be attempted. Also Mr. Tang Ch'ong Yip (##) a teacher in Kam T'in, who gave invaluable assistance in searching out references, copying out paragraphs from books in the possession of various villagers, and deciphering inscriptions from stone tablets. Unfortunately Mr. Tang Wai Man (✯) another elder who showed great interest in these articles and helped considerably, died a few months ago, and is unable to see them completed. Lastly, I am much indebted to Mrs. Herklots for her help in writing these articles in readable English.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207492,
        "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": 260,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "252\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nMay 1942. Each page bore many signatures and Saito now wanted a similar undertaking to be given but with only one signature on each page. The original undertaking as presented to us in Bowen Road read \"I hereby swear that I shall not make any attempt to escape whilst I am a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army. Dated this day 17th year of Showa”. In 1942 we had had much debate with the Japanese over the text of this declaration and eventually the staff signed the following version, “I hereby swear that I shall not make any attempt to escape, and understand that I am on parole and may not leave the hospital precincts without permission from the Commandant\". In 1945 Saito insisted upon the first version given above. I had a long argument with him saying that we had signed the alternative version in 1942 since we did not regard ourselves as prisoners, to which Saito retorted that in fact we had been and were being treated differently from other prisoners. All members of the staff signed the new undertaking, but the old date of 26 May 1942 was used in the 1945 form.\n\nOn 31 May the guard sergeant told me at 4 p.m. that a working party of 40 men was coming from Sham Shui Po and were to be accommodated in the church. We put up beds with mattresses and two pillows each, the beds being so closely placed as to touch each other and shortly afterwards 40 Canadians arrived with a sergeant in charge. Next day the working party went off early to Kowloon Hospital to heap earth round air-raid shelters, but they were not pressed too hard there.\n\nOn 1 June the parcels that came from our visitors included 250 eggs which we set aside for patients only. From the working party the hospital got a rumour that Sham Shui Po was sending a concert party the next day, a Saturday, and sure enough on 2 June a band and concert party numbering 41 came from camp by lorry and by march route. My diary records that we had music, both classical and Japanese, as well as dance music and variety acts. Tokunaga was present and the concert was good, but I was not allowed to do any more than provide the performers with sweet tea. On June 2 and subsequently we had no newspapers and Saito told me that none were being received in the camps either. Though our church was being used as a barrack room, services continued to be held and at this time we were again having to use ingenuity to avoid having to serve boiled rice only at meals. For example,",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207832,
        "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": 220,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 205\n\ngreatly in importance in recent times, but it is now, as far as I can see, a large-scale charitable organisation of business men which, while it rests in theory on the representation of villages falling within the area once covered by the old yeuk-complexes, is in fact essentially both city-based and city-run. (At the present eighteen villages appear to be represented in the Lok Sin Tong: one in Sha Tin, one in Tsuen Wan, and eight each in Sai Kung and New Kowloon. But I am not sure that the representatives are members of the villages they represent).\n\n25. Yeuk existed also in the Sha Tau Kok area (note the Nam Yeuk mentioned in the early British records) and in the area of Ho Sheung Heung (Hau Yeuk). It will be seen, therefore, that at the time of the advent of British rule many central, southern, and eastern areas of the mainland part of the New Territories were covered by a network of yeuk which, while certainly not including every village, nevertheless generally affected the political organisation of these areas. The striking omission is the west, that is to say, roughly the modern Yuen Long District. As far as I have been able to discover (my enquiries in this area were cut short by my premature departure from the Colony), the term yeuk has no traditional meaning here. (I stress 'traditional'. The British used the word for their own purposes; demarcation districts for land and the broader administrative districts were called yeuk after the new regime was established; and, as a result, by hearing the word used today one may be misled into thinking that it has a longer local history than it in fact has). Similarly, I know of no evidence that there were yeuk in the islands. Groupings of villages there certainly were in the Yuen Long area, under the names of heung (although I am not sure how old this usage is) kung shoh, just as these groupings sometimes appear in the areas where yeuk also existed; but the absence of yeuk seems to call for comment.\n\n26. If we look again at the evidence on yeuk-complexes, we may perhaps conclude that they were formed to protect the interests of the weak against the strong. The powerful Liu of Sheung Shui were never members of a yeuk. Indeed, on their own they were the enemies of the Luk Yeuk of Ta Kwu Ling. Similarly, the Tang of Lung Yeuk Tau (in which name, incidentally, the character for Yeuk is not the one we are concerned with here) and Tai Po Tau stood aloof from yeuk. It is probably significant that the Man of Tai Hang formed a yeuk on their own when they assumed leader-",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207846,
        "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": 234,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n219\n\nof disbelief is other than what might be called purely contextual. Let me illustrate. Early in my study I found myself, during a visit to a remote coastal village, a fellow guest at lunch with two building contractors engaged in some local works. The conversation between my hosts and me turned to fung shui. One of the contractors spoke fluent English, as I discovered when he addressed me across the table to lament the nuisance caused by geomantic beliefs. I concluded that he had had trouble at some time with geomantic obstructions, and I read into his final remark on the subject an envy for a world where people would not be allowed to raise fung shui against builders; the talk had turned to how the authorities across the border in China had cast out geomancy along with the rest of traditional religion, and the contractor cried: 'Yes, they have cancelled all that bloody nonsense'. (If the others at the table had understood what he had said they would have been very shocked, for they had been giving me an enthusiastic account of fung shui and its benefits). Some weeks later I came across the contractor again, this time in the area where he lives, and, since I was already on good terms with members of the circle within which he moves, I was able to discuss many aspects of Chinese religion with him. I discovered in him a passionate interest in and devotion to fung shui. It is not necessary to conclude that he had been deceiving me on the first occasion. He had perhaps been irritated by the consequences of the fung shui beliefs of others; his own beliefs, bound up with his own interests and those of his close associates, were another matter. Again, I am acquainted with a man in the New Territories whom I may fairly describe as a devotee of geomancy and a constant client of geomancers who, quite sincerely and without any sense of strain, condemns the foolishness of people who raise fung shui objections to government works designed to benefit them. What one believes and how and in what circumstances one chooses to express and implement one's beliefs are two different things.\n\n49. The Administration is often forced to pay for geomancy; it is not alone. People make real economic sacrifices for their fung shui beliefs. Graves and dwellings are moved and altered, often at great expense. How are we to define and account for the nature of this faith? Fung shui is in fact a complex of beliefs concerned with a central theme in Chinese metaphysics: man's place in nature and the universe. But the last few words are a Western way of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207850,
        "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": 238,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 223\n\nscientists or technicians. From this view of fung shui there follow two consequences. One is that geomancers are held in an esteem not shared by other practitioners of Chinese religion. They are gentlemen, unlike priests (naam moh lo), spirit mediums, and Buddhists who perform ordinary rites for laymen, for these, whatever the need for their services, are looked down upon as being, in a sense, unclean. Some geomancers are in fact gentlemen in a very specific sense: they do not make their living by their craft, but practice it as a learned hobby (albeit a rewarded one on occasion). The Colony is the home of many weekend geomancers. It is highly respectable to be a fung shui sin shaang and it is a matter for pride to be known to seek their company and profit by their learning. The second consequence is that a Chinese may cease to believe in and practise his traditional religion without abandoning his faith in geomancy. Be he Christian or atheist, fung shui retains for him its meaning and its appeal. (I am not asserting, of course, that geomancy is in fact compatible with Christianity or atheism; my point is that many Chinese Christians think that their religion does not bar faith in fung shui; and I daresay, although I have not discussed the matter with one of them, that Chinese atheists would deny that geomancy is anything with which their lack of religion could conflict). Geomancy is 'science' for those who would have it so. The Administration, to my knowledge, has had to contend with fung shui objections by Christians and presumably also by atheists.\n\n55. Fung shui is primarily concerned with siting graves and houses. But not all graves and houses are geomantically placed. Fung shui is a preoccupation with success, and since an appetite for success must be stimulated by a taste of it, those who lack hope are not involved in geomantic striving. Fung shui is not for the very poor. It is when a man begins to think of the possibility of increased success for himself and his issue, a measure of prosperity already having been achieved, that he takes to a concern with geomancy. And those who are fully successful cannot afford to ignore the need to ensure their continuing prosperity by taking geomantic precautions. Underlying fung shui is a fundamental assumption of Chinese society: all men (that is, all Chinese who are fully accepted within society) are in principle equal and may legitimately strive to improve their station in life. The peasant in his cottage has as much right to hope for advancement as the mandarin in his yamen or, to take a more contemporary example.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207858,
        "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": 246,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n231\n\ninhabiting the village point to the ruined ancestral halls of their late rivals and ascribe their own fortune to the cunning of their ancestor who, at the time when all the ancestral halls were being built in a line, surreptitiously made a slight alteration to the direction in which his own hall was to face. If ever there was such an incident, which I take leave to doubt, the alignment now to be seen bears no trace of it. The jubilant survivors cannot detect it either; they merely assume it to be there.\n\n64. Just as the fung shui (and in consequence the status) of people may be attacked by poaching on grave-sites, so conflict can arise over buildings. X's attempt to build higher than my house is an affront. I say he is ruining my fung shui. I am implying that he has no right to put himself above me. Y has pierced his wall to make a new window. It has caused sickness in the village. We protest against his lack of consideration; he should have taken precautions. Perhaps we are also saying that he should not have done what others do not do. And fung shui objections become intensified when those who have been held to be at fault are outsiders: strangers or the government. For then the community as a whole can be united in its determination to defend its interests.\n\n65. A village is not just the ground on which its fields are made and its houses stand. It is the whole area which, by custom, falls within the control of the community. When the British arrived they acknowledged rights not only to building sites and cultivations, registering these rights in the land records, but also to a wider village territory within which the local population had certain privileges, especially for burying their dead, grazing their beasts, and collecting fuel. Villagers stand by these rights in the sense that intrusion is resented and attempts made to force trespassers to pay for their boldness if they cannot, or it is not desirable that they be, excluded. The immigrant vegetable-grower or poultry-farmer may think that he has acquired the right to put up a shack but he may find himself the centre of a dispute from which he can extricate himself only by paying a sum of money. An industrialist may have all the necessary permits but he may be forced to come to terms with the people in whose area he wishes to operate. The wise immigrant and the wise industrialist make their terms before they begin to build. Similarly, the government undertaking public works may fall foul of objections which are phrased in fung shui language. A hole is being drilled; a child falls sick; the work must stop.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207862,
        "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": 250,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n235\n\nwho have been held to have spoilt a fung shui may be asked to pay for a tun fu. Some people suspect that the sums of money handed over in payment cover more than the fees of the ritual expert, but I doubt whether any great fraudulent profits are made. The victory scored over the 'intruders' by the very fact that they have been forced to acknowledge their 'trespass' and make it ritually good is a big enough compensation. A vital claim has been vindicated.\n\n70. Will fung shui last? I suspect that from the very beginning officers of the Administration have detected signs of growing scepticism and confidently awaited the spread of modern enlightenment. Contemporary administrators are probably less tempted to the facile optimism of their predecessors of a generation or so ago, but one can hear it asserted that the young people of the New Territories today no longer believe in fung shui. If this were so the Administration could look forward to an imminent surcease of its anxiety. But I am not convinced that modern education by itself deals fung shui a deadly blow. Metaphysical beliefs supported by social props are not easily wafted away by the book learning of schools. There are unbelievers in the New Territories, but I suspect that scepticism, if it is at all thorough, stems from their having been prised loose from the grip of their society. Urban Chinese can easily stop paying attention to fung shui if they choose because they are free from the social pressures which, in a rural community, they would be forced to take into account. Living in the city they are not so closely dependent on one another that the actions of one can be held to affect the lives of the others, and they can more easily escape the consequences of neighbourly disapproval. In a village which is still a self-contained community people are tied to one another in a complex web of relationships. Conformity is produced as a response to a multitude of obligations and sanctions; it is not the result of a mere mechanical uniformity. One has to live fully within a village or get out. If, therefore, I am accused of harming my neighbour's fung shui and he is supported by others in his contention I must give way. If my village thinks generally that some outsiders have encroached upon its geomantic privileges, I must join in the reaction. And every response of this kind reinforces my neighbours and me in our faith. (I may believe that in my own case I have been hard done by, but this does not undermine my belief in the assumptions from which my neighbours are",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208058,
        "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": 97,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN\n\n81\n\nbuyers and sellers of commodities and to effect a transaction between them.” By the late 1920's, \"its importance to the Hopei provincial finance was only second to that of the land tax.\" It is difficult to weigh the relative importances of the various taxes in Hsin-An, but we do have figures on the revenue collected on trade between local markets in November 1911, which indicate a relatively low volume of local trade (see Imperial Maritime Customs, 1902-1911, Volume II, p.156). Also, refer to Appendix II, which Lockhart credits as a reliable source. The Tangs of Kam Tin and Lung Kwat Tau (A) were apparently farmed the monopolies of collecting market taxes in Un Long Kau Hui (±##4) and Tai Po Kau Hui (£# #). The Tongs who oversaw the markets in turn \"sub-leased\" the brokerages to traders, merchants, and shop-owners.\n\n4 The CSO files held in the Government Archives of Hong Kong constitute one of the richest stores of first-hand knowledge about local political economy and society in Hsin-An during the period 1890-1910. I am very grateful to Mr. Ian Diamond, Government Archivist, and his staff for their assistance in helping with my research.\n\n5 C. M. Chang, op. cit., pp. 826-828.\n\n6 Lien-sheng Yang, \"Buddhist Monasteries and Four Money-Raising Institutions in Chinese History,\" in his Studies in Chinese Institutional History, pp. 198-199n.\n\n7 Yeh-chien Wang draws heavily on the Ts'ai-cheng Shuo-ming-shu for his research on the land tax in China (Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1750-1911). On the basis of the material presented in this paper, Hsin-An conforms to his general thesis of the declining relative importance of the land tax throughout late Ch'ing.\n\n8 Correspondence Respecting the Extension of the Boundaries of the Colony (hereafter Extension Papers), p. 60.\n\n9 For a fuller discussion of li-chia, see Kung-chuan Hsiao's Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 84-143.\n\n10 The annual rotation of these positions (44) constituted the primary mechanism whereby the local magistrate attempted to maintain some measure of centralized power by restricting the excesses of local magnates.\n\n11 Hsiang-kang Teng-ch'u-shui-mau Ts'ung-ch'eng (44¥Æ#*# Z), p. 2: \"All together the cultivated land measured 8 ch'ing 3 mau 6 fen 1 li 9 hau 2 ssu 5 hu (i.e., 803.61925 mau) and was registered under the name of Tang Tin-luk, 6th tu, 7th p'i, 2nd chia. In addition, Tang Chi-cheung and others had purchased from Ho Ch'iu-ping and others plots of land at Wong Nei Chung... having a total area of 1 ch'ing 89 mau registered in Tung-Kuan under the name of Tang Chi-fu of the 2nd tụ, 18th p'i, last chia.\" The formula is often repeated in the land memorials held at the Land Office of the Registrar General in Hong Kong.\n\n12 Kwangchow Fu-chih (1759), ch'uan 4: 43a-b, 46b.\n\n13 Hsin-An Hsien-chih (1819), ch'uan 2.\n\n14 Kwangtung T'u-shuo, Hsin-An Hsien-t'u.\n\n15 Krone, \"A Notice of the Sunon District\", originally published in the Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 6:5, 41-105. This quote, as all the others, is from the reprinted copy in the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society V: p. 119.\n\n16 Tung-Kuan Hsien-chih (1797), 10:10b-11.\n\n17 Lockhart, in the Correspondence Respecting the Affairs in China, writes: \"Small villages and hamlets often place themselves under the protection of large and influential clans to which they refer all complaints and from which they expect assistance in case of attack, robbery, and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
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    {
        "id": 208279,
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        "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": 3,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "182\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nwas uncommon, though, for women to go to school, and the only schools the boat-people went to were the \"winter schools\" that operated only in the winter months.56\n\nPupils who did well in the village schools could enter Sung Chen School in Sai Kung Market, but better off families preferred to send their children to Nam T'au, or even Canton. Graduates of Sung Chen could try to enter the Government schools in Kowloon, or the Tai Po Teachers Training School. A minority went on to the Roman Catholic school in T'am Shui, and it was possible to go from there to Roman Catholic schools in Canton.57\n\nSchools were locally organized, but from 1913, the Hong Kong Government gave a selected few a subsidy. By 1922, seventeen schools were subsidized in Sai Kung. From the wide selection of people who graduated from the Sung Chen School, it is clear that the contribution of the Roman Catholic Church to the education of the pre-war Sai Kung population was notable.\n\nMedical facilities\n\nAt Sai Kung Market, traditional doctors and herbal medicines were available, and some western medicines too, from the Government Medical Officer who came here regularly. In 1934, a Government dispensary was established, where a midwife was permanently stationed. Nonetheless, for most illnesses, villagers relied on treatments that were available closer to home. Some villagers had studied traditional medical texts and could offer treatments. \"Old ladies\" who served as midwives could readily be found. Medicinal herbs were gathered from the hillsides as alternatives or supplements to what could be bought in the market. Religious cures were not infrequently resorted to.58\n\nWritten literature\n\nMost villages had written lineage genealogies, handbooks for various purposes (medicine, etiquette, village regulations, fung shui, fortune telling, worship), written land deeds, account books both in connection with ancestral land and of individual household expenses, and occasionally books of songs to be sung on various occasions. Novels were uncommon, but the more literate read printed texts of the Cantonese songs known as the naam yam. Many villagers would not have been sufficiently literate to understand all of these texts, but in almost all villages",
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    {
        "id": 208989,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1980",
        "page_number": 151,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "SOCIAL & CULTURAL HERITAGE IN N.T.\n\n119\n\nchau community in Tsuen Wan; another on Tsuen Wan's political structure; an exceedingly painstaking and careful study of the Ta Chiu in Kam Tin in 1975; an enlightening analysis of the societal roles of women based on a study in Ha Tsuen; two complementary studies of land tenure before and after the arrival of the British, and, hopefully before too long, my own work on the so-called Tanka communities in and around the eastern side of the Territories.\n\nBut all that is only a small part of the published record. A really very large number of articles and papers has appeared in many different places. Some of them, in particular Marjorie Topley's brilliant work on aspects of the economics of rice and vegetable farming, Maurice Freedman's seminal papers on kinship, clan organisation, ancestor worship, and fung shui, and perhaps one or two of my own, are and will be of lasting importance for theoretical as well as descriptive reasons.\n\nThat point brings me to the third matter I want to make clear to you tonight, which is that it is not widely enough known that a great deal of the anthropological work that has been done in the New Territories is immensely valuable not only because of its unique contribution to the descriptive record of this local area but also for the light it has helped to throw on Chinese society in general in the so-called traditional and transitional periods and, even more widely, for its contribution to the growing pool of understanding about human social life (and that means all human life) in general. That is a proud claim, but I can assure you that it can be made with complete confidence. The social anthropological work that has been done in the New Territories and in Taiwan since 1950 is some of the most important that has been done anywhere, and I am not alone in thinking that its importance will increase and be increasingly recognised in the future.\n\n——\n\nThis is not the place to discuss social science theory, but it is (I think) relevant to mention here as my fourth point of significance - some of the more practical reasons why the work done in the New Territories has been, is, and will be so significant. They are these:\n\nBefore about 1920, studies of Chinese society (like the studies of most other societies) were mainly concerned with the elite -- the so-called gentry or literati - or as some anthropologists have named it the Great Tradition of the society as a whole. Neither",
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    {
        "id": 214783,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1999",
        "page_number": 198,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "163\n\nhe put a box around every 34th letter rather than every 33rd, he clearly could not quite remember exactly how to translate it. The two names which make up the keyword are of course his own name and the name of his then fiancée Pamela.\n\nWhat Did It Say? The diary told the story of the battle for Hong Kong and of life in the Sham Shui Po camp during the period December 7 1941 to March 31 1942. Some extracts are as follows.\n\nDecember 23rd. Up early, lucky for me, as a bomb lands on my bed just as I leave the room wrecking everything including my kit.\n\nDecember 25th. What a Christmas day, empty stomachs, tired out, and heaven knows what is going on. At ten am a message arrives saying there is a truce until midday. This news is immediately followed by a terrific bombardment of our positions. Not my idea of a truce.\n\nDecember 26th. Several (Japanese) officers started arguing and kept pointing at me and looking aggressive. Suddenly one of the officers whipped out his sword and I thought they had decided to bump me off but to my amazement he produced a bottle of beer, nipped the top off with his sword, and handed me the bottle. I was then given a loaf of bread. Two officers decide to drive me back in a Ford Ten. They don't use any lights and we have several narrow escapes from hitting lamp posts. Suddenly I see we are heading for one of the islands in the middle of the road and shout a warning. Too late and there's a terrific crash and we finish up on our backs. By now I am fed up so, bowing politely, I leave them and walk the two miles to China Command.\n\nDecember 30th. It would appear that we are going to Sham Shui Po. The whole camp has been stripped of every useful article by looters and had also been bombed. All doors, windows, furniture, and fittings had been taken leaving just hulks of buildings. Even in peace time it was an awful dump, but now it looked as if a typhoon had hit it.\n\nDecember 31st. There are over six thousand men in the camp with no sanitation and rotten food. We have no lights and go to bed soon after dusk. We have one meal at nine and another at five consisting of soggy rice and are permanently hungry. And so ended nineteen forty-one.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
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