[ { "id": 205187, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "OLD BRITISH KOWLOON\n\n137\n\n50 The Hong Kong Blue Books for 1904 onwards list Basel Mission out-stations at Shaukiwan on Hong Kong Island and at To Kwa Wan, Sham Shui Po and Kowloon Tong in Kowloon. It is not certain when the Sham Shui Po station was opened as The China Mission Hand Book p. 279 lists two out-stations from Hong Kong but does not give their names. The earlier Blue Books are not much help.\n\n51 Hung Hom, Tai Kok Tsui and Mong Kok Tsui had their docks and in Sessional Papers 1899, p. 482 Tai Kok Tsui is described as \"an industrial area\".\n\n52 This study was hampered by the fact that no early land records appear to have survived for the group of villages described in this article. The only information I have been able to obtain, besides evidence from maps, relates to squatter licenses. A list for 1896, which appears in Sessional Papers 1897, p. 203, includes Ho Man Tin (37), Tai Shik Kwu (1) and Mong Kok (57).\n\nL\n\n+\n\nAddenda\n\nI ought not to leave this subject without mentioning the bad feeling between Hakkas and Cantonese in British Hong Kong which was the legacy of the disturbed times during the Taiping rebellion. Mayers, Dennys and King, the authors of The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (London and Hong Kong, 1867) state that fights between Hakka and Punti were common in British Hong Kong and that many Hakka labourers had come to Hong Kong with vivid memories of ill-treatment in their native place. It seems that these fights were not confined to immigrant labourers with scores to settle. Eitel records that for several days in August 1862 \"the peninsula of Kowloon presented the novel aspect of an animated battle field, as the Punti inhabitants of the neighbouring villages were engaged in a bloody warfare with the Hakka settlers at Tsim Sha Tsui\". A previous engagement, presumably between the same people, occurred in the same place in August 1859 when hostilities lasted two days though \"little damage was done beyond a few knife wounds\". We are told that \"The Hakkas remained masters of the situation\" (Dennys etc. p. 84). At that time, according to this source, the Puntis \"have an intense antipathy to the Hakkas\" (p. 19). It is interesting that this is reflected in the fact that the Canton Coolie Corps which assisted our army in the Second Chinese War 1857-60 was recruited in Hong Kong entirely from among Hakkas. See W. Stanton The Triad Society, Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh 1900, p. 26.\n\nFurther to the early descriptions of Yau Ma Ti given in the text I have since come across another in Sessional Papers 1888, p. 103, in which it is stated that \"the boatmen and fishermen who have hitherto constituted the residents of Yau Ma Ti are gradually becoming outnumbered by town people and artizans (sic) from Hong Kong who are attracted to Yau Ma Ti by the lower rents charged them for house accommodation\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205328, "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": 90, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "THE CHINA COASTERS\n\n83\n\nessential; although there was a point beyond which these could be detrimental to the owner.\n\nThe rent which the compradore paid to the owners for the deck passenger space depended on the number of passengers usually carried in that particular trade. It was adjusted periodically according to fluctuations in trade and other factors, and was the subject of keen bargaining between owners and compradore — the latter naturally putting a much lower evaluation on the ship's passenger potentiality than the owners. At irregular intervals the owners sent someone to travel on the ship, and check the number of passengers and the amount of cargo carried. These men were known as 'pidgin snatchers' and were very unpopular with the floating staff. If the captain and compradore were good friends and either knew in advance of the 'pidgin snatcher's' movements, the other was warned, and co-operative counter measures instituted in good time.\n\nMost China coasters called at their home port of Hong Kong or Shanghai at least once a month, so that their officers were in much closer touch with life ashore than their contemporaries on overseas ships. During the inter-war period, normal tours of service on the coast were five years, in the course of which officers would serve in several of their company's ships. Many senior officers were married, and had wives and families in Hong Kong or Shanghai, or in a few cases Hankow. Long home leave was granted after a five years tour, but the attractions of life on the coast made many officers and their wives reluctant to go on leave. Captains and mates on ships where 'pidgin' were plentiful, were afraid they might be posted to less profitable ships on their return; while wives were loath to exchange their smoothly-run homes for the doubtful comforts of furnished rooms or boarding houses in Britain. European homes in Hong Kong, Shanghai, or the treaty ports, were sparsely staffed by African or Indian standards, but run much more efficiently. A cook and house boy, sometimes only a cook boy, sufficed for a small house or flat, supplemented by a baby amah or gardener if circumstance warranted this. A similar establishment in India would have been indifferently served by a staff twice as large. Although the taipans of the big foreign companies and senior customs commissioners lived in considerable style, life on the coast was in general much less ostentatious than in India, and much more pleasant.\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205953, "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-1970", "page_number": 33, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "28\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.\n\nhad not had sufficient time to inform Anking of his impending approach.18 Nevertheless, Elgin made no effort himself to notify the uninformed Taiping garrison. Instead, as soon as the Taipings opened fire at the head-on approach of the strange vessels it was returned with a vengeance. After the Taiping batteries had been quieted, the ships' cannons fired into the city itself. This was done even though the English observed the country people running into it for protection from the attacking Imperialists.19 The English did not stop at Anking, but continued upstream. On the way back from Hankow, when again approaching Anking Elgin took precautions, and \"thought it necessary to take a pretty high tone with the rebel authorities...\"20 He sent Wade ashore with a message of warning, reflecting that \"to menace with capture by two small gun-boats a great city, walled and garrisoned, might have been in bad taste elsewhere, but in China it was the thing to do.”21 On shore, Wade found out that the Taipings had since been informed of what had happened at Nanking and that they were highly apologetic for making the same mistake at Anking. Wade refused a present of oxen and other provisions. An invitation to visit the Taiping commander at Anking was similarly rejected. Wade departed with a final verbal warning indicating \"how simple a matter it would be for us to sweep them away utterly, were we provoked to do it.”22\n\nOn this return trip, Elgin decided to stop by at Nanking once again, this time to acknowledge receipt of a formal written apology which had been sent from the Taipings soon after the first visit, but which, because of the speed of the English ascent and the presence of the Imperialist fleet on the river, had failed to reach Elgin. The apology awaited, therefore, the return of the English and was delivered to them when they again passed by Wu-hu.23\n\nAs one of the few visits by Western officials to Nanking, this event deserves more attention than has been accorded by historians. The handling of the story of this visit is of interest in itself, for it sheds some light on how easily misunderstanding of the Taipings grew, as a result of both conscious prejudice and improper reporting. One contemporary writer, Commander Lindsay Brine, for example, who has a general reputation among historians for his relative objectivity in writing on the Taipings, gives three pages to the visit,24 His account gives details of the conversation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205956, "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-1970", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS\n\n31\n\nChinese interior of the treatment they had experienced. He admitted that \"almost invariably\" the answer was \"that at points remote from those to which foreigners have access, there was no diminution, but on the contrary, rather an enhancement of the courtesy exhibited towards them by the natives.\"32 While these visitors all need not have been referring to Taiping areas, it is a fact that the only exception to this apparent rule during Elgin's own trip on the Yangtze was at Hankow, which was under Ch'ing control. Elgin noted that in this city \"we thought we detected symptoms of the old disease of antipathy to foreigners, though of a very mitigated type.\"33 The English encountered objections to their entering the walled city of Wu-ch'ang,34 and when they walked about Hankow, were treated to the spectacle of having their Chinese official companions \"severely bamboo\" anyone who came near the foreigners, even if only to gratify understandable curiosity.35 Effort was made to prevent the mission from making purchases of local products of any kind.36\n\nElgin's general conclusions as the result of this trip were that there was \"little or nothing of popular sympathy\" for the Taipings, and that the majority of the population was desirous of peace and commerce. The first conclusion is obviously based upon the flimsiest and most suspect evidence, while the latter is merely a gratuitous observation. Our evaluation is harsh, but is based squarely upon a consideration of the motives and circumstances of the expedition, and on reflection upon the composition of the mission itself, with its heavy anti-Taiping bias (there was even a Ch'ing official accompanying the mission). With this background understood, it is a wonder indeed that Elgin himself would not have been more critical of the testimony garnered along the way, for Elgin had pondered the problem of the credibility of such information. His reflection on one aspect of the subject, some present-day interviewers on the China scene might agree, has a certain timeless applicability:\n\nChinamen of the humbler class are not much addicted to reflection, and when subjected to cross-examination by persons greedy of information, they are apt to consider the proceeding a strange one, and to suspect that it must be prompted by some exceedingly bad motive. Moreover, having been civilized for many generations, they carry politeness so far, that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206215, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "26\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.\n\nabout in the preceding three days, beginning with a request apparently from the Ch'ing tao-t'ai of Ningpo for British and French naval support for his impending attack on the city. Consul Harvey noted that this was \"an extraordinary coincidence,\" and one that \"was far too good an opportunity to be thrown aside and lost.\" The attack was to consist primarily of the vessels of a famous pirate of the region by the name of Apak who had gone over to the Manchus. Some effort was made to conceal the joint nature of the attack at the outset, for Captain Dew wrote for the record that he told his Ch'ing collaborators that since the rebels had refused his demands he had no objection to their fleet passing up river, \"but that they were not to open fire till well clear of our men of war.\"28 The fiction of this position was made clear by subsequent events, and by other evidence. The ultimatum of May 8, stated that had the demands been agreed to, the English and French should have felt bound in honour to prevent an attack on the Taipings from the settlement side by approaching Ch'ing forces \"which in countless numbers and heavily armed ships advance to attack you.\" The ultimatum proclaimed neutrality unless fire came from the battery or walls opposite the settlement on the advancing Ch'ing forces \"(thereby endangering the lives of our men and people in the foreign settlement).\"29\n\nIt is of interest to note how this exchange of correspondence was characterized by Consul Harvey and Captain Dew. Harvey said that \"... the whole tenour of their letters was as bad and sarcastic as it was defiant,” and he assured his respondent “that nothing could have been more friendly, reasonable, and patient than the tone of our letters, as well as of all our demands on the Taipings.\"30 Dew was a bit more candid, for as he reported later: \"I now commenced a lengthy correspondence with the Taiping chiefs, which was met on their side by the most subtle reasoning and arguments soon convincing me that but one argument, viz: that of cannon balls would avail with them....\" The two men substantiated their interpretation of events and attitude in the correspondence with two memoranda written by an interpreter. The first, based upon \"information supplied by certain respectable natives,\" claimed that General Fan had been sent from Nanking “to turn the foreigners out of Ningpo.\"32 The second memorandum purported to be extracts of a speech made by General Huang\n\n31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206218, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO\n\n29\n\nNingpo, for a long time had been a difficult city to administer, but the Taiping occupation seems in retrospect to have been an exceptional period. To better appreciate this it is worth considering Ningpo in a somewhat broader perspective. For example, a year and a half before the Taipings took the city, a Jardine Matheson Company agent reported that the Ch'ing officials were unable to control the pirate-infested countryside.41 Three months after the Taipings left Ningpo, the Jardine agent gloomily reported that trade was bad and would remain so until \"a stop was put to the squeezing on the part of the Imperial Authorities.\"42 Six months after the departure of the Taipings, the agent revealed that Ningpo was in the throes of civil chaos. The unpopular tao-t'ai had been forced into hiding following a dispute with men from Frederick Townsend Ward's so-called Ever Victorious Army. The situation was resolved by Captain Dew who actually had to reoccupy the city. Dew and Harvey ignominiously had to search long and hard to find the affrighted Ch'ing official.43 Small wonder then, that the Jardine agent's report of January 1863, speaks of how the country people of Ningpo are now fondly recalling that the Taipings had always paid for what they took.44\n\nJudgment on the victorious expulsion of the Taipings from Ningpo has been varied. Consul Harvey congratulated himself:\n\nFor my part, let me state that it will be a source of great satisfaction and I may add, of pride, in after time to think that I have been placed in a position to use my feeble pen, and to have exercised my humble powers (always within the limits of my official duties) in weakening and undermining, as perseveringly and indefatigably as I have been able, the most gigantic imposture and the most blasphemous structure that ever disgraced ancient or modern pages.45\n\nForeign Secretary Russell, from London, also congratulated Harvey for the \"judgment, courage, and temper, which he displayed on all occasions....\"46 Another influential writer on these events termed Dew's accomplishment \"a brilliant feat of arms.\"47 But the Hong Kong Daily Press, for one, expressed the view of many contemporaries: \"There never was a falser, more unprovoked, or more unjustifiable act than the taking of Ningpo by the allies from the Taipings. It should, in fairness, be recorded to the eternal disgrace of Captain Roderick Dew, of HMS En-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207552, "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": 320, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "312\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe Deputy Commander at Taipang was the highest ranking officer in the locality of Kowloon during the Ch'ing Dynasty. At that time, the headquarters was set up within the Kowloon Walled City. This office, which also served as a garrison, still existed before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, but had been converted into a Home for the Aged run by a Catholic Mission. In accordance with the [Kwangtung] military system adopted in Ch'ing Dynasty, there were altogether 6 battalions of armed forces under the Kowloon garrison commander. The reason why the Kowloon headquarters was named the Taipang Garrison is that the geographical name of Kowloon was once alternatively called Taipang Shan (⚟) and was politically under the sovereignty of Po On (then San On) District Magistracy.* Besides, there is also a very good harbour by the name of Taipang Bay located at the southeastern part of Po On District and east of Kowloon. In Taipang harbour the water runs to 5-10 fathoms deep where large warships can cast anchor. It was partly due to the importance of local coastal defence and partly due to the necessity of civil administration that such a garrison was established at Taipang Bay. The post of Deputy Commander was normally held in a 3 years' term; and among all the previous commanders, General Cheung was the most important in terms of historical significance.\n\nCheung Yuk-tong, alias Hon-sang,† was born in Wei Yeung District, Kwangtung, and for many generations the Cheung's family lived in the Peach Garden in the capital town of the Wai Yeung District. In the 4th year of Hsien Feng (A.D.) (1853) he was appointed as Deputy Commander at Taipang, being promoted from staff officer at the Chin Shan Checkpoint [near Macao]. For four successive tours of service, in all a total of 13 years Gen. Cheung had been holding this post, and in those days the local inhabitants enjoyed a very peaceful time.\n\nIt was not until the 5th year of Tung-chih reign (1866) that General Cheung retired from the military service at the age of 72. When the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula was ceded to Britain as a consequence of the signing of the Peking Treaty he was still in office. As the Treaty was signed by the Imperial Court,\n\n*This is not so, but the Taipang garrison force served in and controlled Kowloon and district. Except where stated footnotes are supplied by James Hayes.\n\n†", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209861, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "98\n\ncave with a low pass behind it across to the other side of the island.\n\nFurther west, Tai Ho (\"Big Ditch\") and some other villages lie in a small plain with a bad harbour.\n\nNear the middle of the north coast is Tung Chung (\"East Creek\") which was once the most important place in Lantau; it has the biggest plains, the most villages, and the best harbour for small boats in the island. The harbour is, however, too shallow for anything bigger than a launch, and is silting up with hill wash and river muds from the Delta.\n\nTung Chung was the administrative centre of the island, and a station of the Taipang coast defence force was built here. This was the only Chinese yamen in the islands, and a library building still exists, showing the place was once, and perhaps still is, a scholastic centre. It was fortified, and the headquarters of a squadron of war junks: the guns of some of its batteries were dug out of the sand by my predecessor in office and mounted on the yamen wall on cement carriages.\n\nThese guns may be connected with a naval action in 1857. H.M.S. Auckland, with the steam tender Eaglet, saw five mandarin junks in the harbour as they sailed north from Tai O to Namtau. They returned and attacked them. The captain of the Auckland goes on:\n\nOwing to the shallowness of the water I had to anchor in three fathoms, the ship grounding as the tide fell, otherwise we should not have been within range.\n\nThe Eaglet, on taking up a position near the junks received the fire of five batteries in addition to that of the junks, and soon expended her ammunition, having received three or four shots in her hull, Mr. Ellis (her commander) coming for ammunition, I sent the Auckland's boats to tow the Eaglet, to destroy the junks, the Auckland attacking the batteries and junks with shell and round shot at the same time.\n\nA smart fire was kept up on both sides for a short time; the boats of both vessels then charged and fired the junks;\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210839, "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-1986", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "173\n\nmisdeeds and asking to be received back. He was not immediately reinstated as a member in good standing by the church, but the missionary committee permitted him to teach again. His salary, however, was reduced from $20 to $15 a month, until he was granted full fellowship in the church.\n\nIn reporting this, Dr. Legge says: \"He continues to exhibit a humble and subdued deportment.” Some time after he was restored by the church, he was described as “a wiser and seemingly better man.\"\n\n**\n\nIn 1853 he was sent by Dr. Legge to Shanghai to investigate the possibility of missionaries taking up residence at Nanking, the capital of the Taiping Kingdom.\n\nThe missionaries hoped to influence the Taiping movement and correct some of its mistaken views of Christianity which formed a part of its ideology.\n\nAs a companion on the trip A-sow had another Hongkong mission worker, Keuh Agong, sometimes also called Wat Angong. He was the same man who years earlier had called Dr. Legge's attention to the boy A-sow as a possible object of Dr. Legge's benevolence.\n\nThe investigatory trip of the two men from Hongkong was unsuccessful. Conditions created by the conflict between the Taiping and the Imperialist armies prevented their making the necessary contacts at Nanking.\n\nAfter his return to Hongkong, A-sow taught English to advanced students at a day school opened by the London Missionary Society in their rebuilt Bazaar Chapel. He also began to do some preaching, but not for long.\n\nTowards the close of 1855, Dr. Legge had this to report: \"The young man A-sow, who had received so many advantages, turned aside in the course of the year to the world, and we had to declare his separation from the church.” He was again associating with bad companions and his conduct violated the standards of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211213, "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": 274, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "249\n\nMr. Crow did not qualify. He was young. His position as a Government pharmacist did not put him in the same circle as the business taipans and senior government officials. The letter writer, in advocating a committee and the consideration of only written proposals, remarked: “It will never do to let any boy in the place get up at every meeting and have his crow.”\n\nThe writer himself had his own favourite scheme, but he modestly poses as one who knew his proper station. He said he would like to have spoken at the meeting on behalf of a girls' school, but had not because, “although an old resident, I am not a person of enough influence to put myself forward as its advocate at a public meeting, nor do I happen to be a ‘cocky' individual anxious to make my voice heard.”\n\nHe intimated that unless a proposer was a man of influence his proposal was unlikely to receive support: \"My idea may be good or bad in itself, but I do not wish to weaken it through its being advocated in a public meeting by a (signed) 'Nobody'.”\n\nWith such sentiment being expressed, it was unlikely the next meeting would be able to rise above snobbery, personal feelings and petty animosities.\n\nMUDDLED THINKING CLOUDS\n\nJUBILEE MEMORIAL ISSUE AND PUBLIC HAS TO DECIDE\n\nA meeting held on April 16, 1887 made no further progress towards reaching a decision on a suitable memorial for the Queen's jubilee than the meeting held four days earlier. At the conclusion of the meeting matters were still at a stalemate, even though there had been long speeches in support of the various proposals and the usual involved debate over procedure.\n\nThere was fear that this example of poor management, divided public opinion and display of petty feeling would be used as an argument against granting Hongkong citizens the privilege of more direct participation in the Government. There were demands being made at the time to allow the residents to elect a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211785, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "175\n\nwas enough to account for that. In addition quite a few women were the wives of missionaries, and in religious circles suspicions about the theatre in general and the role of females in particular often still lingered on. This was indeed so conspicuous that the list of \"contributors\" in the first issue of \"Puck\" (April 1, 1871!) mockingly included: “Our Dramatic Critiques will be undertaken by the Missionary Body who are so frequently absent from the Performances and will therefore be impartial judges of the merits of the Performances\". And then, of course, it may just have been possible that the taipans did not like to see their wives before the footlights with other men.\n\nReading about the early Thespian evenings one may nonetheless be fooled into thinking that women had in fact taken their place on the stage. In the circumstances it was only natural that the \"actresses” should be called \"Miss\" or \"Mrs.\", but what should we think about the glowing term in which one of them, a “Mrs Nesbit” (was this stage name a pun on the rather well-known British actress Louisa Nisbett?) was described on more than one occasion:\n\n“The acting of our charming favourite Mrs. Nesbit, as Mrs. Lullaby [in Henry Danvers' A Conjugal Lesson, on March 26, 1857 – JH] left nothing to be desired. It was perfect of its kind and were it not that she gave a too vivid, and, it may be, truthful portrait of that dread of club-haunting bachelors like ourselves, the matrimonial chamber, we could on the instant have made Mrs. Nesbit the offer of our hand”.* Stronger even, on February 16, 1859:\n\n#\n\n\"But where shall we find words to express our admiration of Mrs. Nesbit, that beautiful Nesbit, who, blessed with an incomparable modiste, displayed so many feminine graces, such latent charms, as effectually to revive the enthusiasm of our younger days and cause us to run round the stage door in the hope of once more beholding so fair a 'genius of the lamps'.\n\n* 34\n\nAnd in an epilogue to the evening of May 26, 1864, the ladies were again put under the spotlight:\n\n\"But stay! The Ladies' praises must be sung. These Belles were surely meant to be well rung. There's Wiggins, Lizzie, Baby, only choose.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212123, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "42\n\ndisasters. the second is for those who died because of plague. The final reason is to thank the benevolent governors Wang Lai-ren and Zhou You-de of the beginning of the Qing dynasty. In my opinion, all these reasons can be integrated into the first one.\n\n(d) Chan Wing-hoi \"The Tangs of Kam Tin and their Jiu festival\", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29 (1989) 302-375, a rich and detailed account of the lineage, its temples and villages, and the festival which draws them together.\n\nDr. Faure gradually switched his interest to the Pearl River Delta while Prof. Tanaka, as I was told, is now looking at Sichuan province. Talk on publishing a book on Hong Kong Jiao festivals has been going on for years by members of the \"Research Circle of the Regional Society of Southern China''. In 1990, the editorial board of the society set up a schedule to compile a book focusing on the Jiao festival. It is expected that papers on various aspects will be completed by the end of April 1991. (Correspondence from the society dated 28.12.1990)\n\nSchipper, Kristofer M., \"The Written Memorial in Taoist Ceremonies\" in Wolf, Arthur P. (ed.) Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 324,\n\nFor example, according to Chan Wing-hoi, villagers of Shek O celebrated their 16th Jiao in 1986 (Chan, 78). The Dengs in Kam Tin claimed to have celebrated their Jiao since 1684 (Tanaka, 918).\n\nSee for instance Basel Mission Archives, doct. Al-6, No. 51 (1869), and doct. Al-7, No. 51 (1870) and Der Evangelische Heidenbote, July 1867, in which a missionary describes how he was forced to go to the Magistrate to get his support before he could avoid having to pay his share of the Jiao expenses. All these cases are from Hsin An County. The Sha Tin poem will, it is hoped, shortly be published by Dr. P.H. Hase.\n\nThese two series are part of the 15 series of historical documents collected by Dr. D. Faure and others in the New Territories. Copies of the collections are kept in the libraries of CUHK, Hong Kong University, Sha Tin Regional Council Library, and Institute of Oriental Culture, Tokyo University.\n\n31\n\nTanaka Chugoku no Sozoku to Engeki [Lineage and Theatre in China] (Tokyo Univ. Press 1985), 608. Jiao festivals celebrated by the powerful communities in Hong Kong like Kam Tin, Ha Tsuen, Lung Yeuk Tau etc., were all performed by the Zhengyi Taoist group, led first by the late Master Lin Pei and now by Master Chan Kau. Another Zhengyi Taoist group is led by Master Chan Wah. However, many Taoist priests work for both groups. There are also other Taoist groups who performed for the Jiao festivals, like a Cantonese group which performed for Ho Chung and a Heklo group for Cheung Chau. In 1983, four out of five Jiao festivals were performed by monastery Taoists. It is not clear whether it was because of tradition or out of economic reasons. A comparison of the two Taoist groups has yet to be made.\n\n14 Choi Chi-cheung **Sho matsuri no jinmei risuto ni mirareru shinzoku ban'i” [Kinship as seen in the name lists of Jiao festival] Bunka Jinnú Gaku 5 (1988): 131, table L. 35 **Shinshi men\" [Section of Believers] in Fanling Wenxian (Historical Literature of Fanling) vol. 8. This brief account records details of the arrangement of the Jiao area, including the contents of couplets, names of deities invited, location and direction of matshed stages, and the sacrifices prepared etc.. See n. 32 for the depositories of Fanling Wenxian.\n\n36 See (1972) Lin Chuan [Lam Tsuen] Xiang Taiping Qingjiao huiyi jilubu in Dapu [Tai Po] Wenzian [Historical Literature of Tai Po] vol. 1. (see n. 32 for depositories)\n\n37 Tanaka Issei's three books, all published by the Tokyo Univ. Press are: Chugoku Saishi Engeki Kenkyu [Ritual Theatres in China] (1981), Chugoku no Sozoku to Engeki [Lineage and Theatre in China) (1985), and Chugoku Kyoson Saishi Kenkyu: Chihogeki", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212192, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "transferred their activities elsewhere: the evil reputation of Bias Bay nearby is well known. But British influence made itself felt in other ways, too. The \"foreign devils\" not only brought security; they built houses, roads and dockyards, so that a very large number of Chinese found Hongkong preferable to their native districts and came there to live. By 1938 the population was over two millions, including twenty-four thousand foreigners. It is true, of the Chinese no less than one million were only transient inhabitants, refugees from the Japanese wrath which was spreading over China. To these wretched thousands, Hongkong, for a time, was a sanctuary: as later in another part of the world, was England to the French, Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian refugees, who were to escape from German occupied territory.\n\nBehind Victoria, the cramped commercial hub of the island, a funicular Peak Tramway rises steeply to serve the numerous mansions, erected at varying levels, for taipans, who hope vainly to avoid the moist clinging heat of the long Hongkong summer. Some of the mansions look out over Victoria at the twin city of Kowloon on the mainland across the harbour: others, on the reverse slope, look out to sea, to Lantao island, still barren, to Lamma, in the foreground, and to Cheung Chau in the middle distance.\n\nHongkong was crowded. The hotels were full and so when we arrived, some weeks after leaving Nanking, my wife and I took rooms at the small hotel which an enterprising English couple had opened on Cheung Chau island. A special ferry from Victoria did the trip several times a day in about half an hour. There was quite a large fishing village, the rendezvous for many of the junks that frequent these waters. We lived on fish and strolled amongst the stunted pines and the empty bungalows of the summer visitors waiting until we could find more convenient accommodation. It was a pleasant change from the vicissitudes of Nanking.\n\nEventually we were able to get rooms in the Repulse Bay Hotel, famous as a honeymoon resort. It is on the side of Hongkong facing the open sea, near what is perhaps the best known bathing beach. A winding road over the hill through the Wong Nei Chong gap leads to Victoria, and in Deepwater Bay round the point there is a small nine-hole golf course.\n\nI remember one day we took the bus up to the Gap and got out", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212303, "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": 245, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "222 \n\nand Jardine's Crescent, both in Causeway Bay, and Jardine's Corner on the Peak. Bulkeley Street market, and streets named Perceval, Irving, Anton, Landale, Matheson, Paterson, Johnstone and Keswick are named after Jardine taipans.\n\nThere is also Jardine's Lookout. It was from this 433 metre high vantage point that observers galloped down by 'pony express' to head office, in the days before modern communications, with the news that a Jardine ship was approaching. In early Hong Kong the company is said to have had a fleet of 12 ships which were faster than those of rival firms,\n\nThe late Richard Hughes, wrote that, of the two founders, Jardine was the older and tougher, and the planner. He was respected and even feared, and nicknamed 'Iron-headed Old Rat', in Chinese, because of his insouciant attitude when attacked and hit over the head with a club in Canton (Hunter, 1844). Except for the one on which he sat, there were no chairs in his office. Visitors were not encouraged to dally.\n\nMatheson was more genteel, although not of exalted stock, and some of his family had been clergy and others army officers. He was more liberal, suave and affable, and even, so it is believed, regarded with some affection. Unlike most businessmen at the time, he was a person of some taste and culture. In 1827, he supplied a small hand printing press so the Canton Register, an English newspaper, could be published. He owned the only piano in Canton or Macau. But as Hughes writes, no one laughed when he sat down to play'. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) on the 19th February 1846.\n\nMatheson was a good organiser and administrator. He could draft a dry, caustic minute as the following illustrates:\n\n\"The 'Gazelle' was unnecessarily delayed at Hong Kong in consequence of Captain Crocker's repugnance to receiving opium on the Sabbath. We have every respect for persons entertaining strict religious principles, but we fear that very godly people are not suited for the drug trade. Perhaps it would be better that the Captain should resign.\"\n\nIncidentally David Matheson, a member of the 'clan', did resign some years later to become chairman of the executive committee of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213105, "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-1993", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "155\n\nto the front of the school building, to double the defences of the bridge, probably some time in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.\n\n27\n\nThe building of the gun-towers, the school, the Man Mo Temple and Meeting Hall, and the communal grave, is evidence for the prosperity and vitality of the town, and the village society in which it was set, in the later nineteenth century. By 1904, the market had about doubled in size, and in the number of shops operating, from its situation fifty years earlier. From its foundation in 1830-1835, in fact, the prosperity of the town seems to have increased steadily until 1898, with the only check being the very temporary set-back of the Taiping attack.\n\nThe Market and the New Frontier\n\nThe leasing of the New Territories to Great Britain in 1898 was traumatic for the villagers of the Sha Tau Kok area. The line originally proposed for the new frontier would have run along the Sha Tau Kok River from source to sea. This would have put two of the eleven village alliance areas of the Shap Yeuk into China, the market and the other village alliance areas into the New Territories. This was unacceptable to the Chinese authorities, who were unwilling to allow so significant a place as Sha Tau Kok to become part of the area administered by Britain. Eventually it was agreed that the frontier should run along the Sha Tau Kok River from the source down to the Sha Tau Kok bridge, and then be diverted from the bridge down the centre of the bridge access road to the sluice at Yim Liu Ha, then in a straight line to the sea, and thence east along the high-water mark to the mouth of Mirs Bay.* This line was drawn very close to the northern and western edges of the market. As such it isolated the market from the rest of Chinese territory; its only access was either over the bridge, which was half in Hong Kong, or through Hong Kong territory, or by sea through Hong Kong waters.\n\nIn the late nineteenth century, China controlled imports and exports through customs regulations, enforced by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. By the drawing of the frontier where it eventually was, the normal, day-to-day trade of Sha Tau Kok market suddenly found itself\n\n* See Map 4.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213778, "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-1996", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "101\n\nSouthern China, as the Liannan document saying the Lü Shan Jiu Lang (written Lu Shan Jiu Lang) buried his father on a mountain in Gaozhou.\n\nOne major source of information of religious practice during the Song is the Southern Song work of anecdotal literature, the Yi Jian Zhi. It made frequent mentions of the well-known styles of Daoist magic such as the Thunder Magic and the Tian Xin Zheng Fa, the Buddhist Weize spell related to the Yujia style of exorcism, as well as various popular gods, and magicians who were neither Daoist or Buddhist. Some of these lay magicians practiced magic of the Daoist and Buddhist varieties mentioned above. Noticeably some of those lay magicians blew the horns [of animals] in their rites, and some were practicing what is called Mao Shan magic. It curiously made no mention of Lú Shan Jiu Lang or his immediate disciples found in Bar's passage.\n\nBut as I have mentioned, sources on Chinese religion of ancient times do have many examples of divinities with names of the same form as the Lú Shan Jiu Lang and his colleagues. The latter appear to be part of the trend between Tang and the Five Dynasties during which many of these other divinities are recorded. Some of the popular gods mentioned in Yi Jian Zhi do bear four character names ending with a numeric character and lang, resembling the names of Lü Shan Jiu Lang. Earlier examples include the Zhu Wang San Lang shen mentioned during the Southern Dynasties, which the book alleges to be the name in use at its time of writing in Yielang county in the present Sichuan Province, although in this example San Lang referred to three people rather than one. During the Tang, a work of anecdotal literature recorded that during the Emperor's visit to the mountain god of Huayue, he was told about a San Lang, who appeared to be a son of the god. Another work of anecdotal literature of about the same time recorded a female shaman(?) who specialized in communicating with the Jin Tian Wang (God of Hua Shan) and his son Hua Yue San Lang. This name, and many others, which are closer to Lu Shan Jiu Lang in form, is also found in Tang stories included in the Song compilation Taiping Guang Ji. During the Five Dynasties the Lu Yi Ji recorded a Pan Gu San Lang temple in a Guangdu county of the present Sichuan Province. An early Song work on the history of the Five Dynasties mentioned that in the year 932 the Emperor of Hou Tang conferred a title (styled \"General\") to a Tai Shan San Lang. Early during the Song it is reported\n\n41", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216025, "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": 324, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "258\n\nShanghai did not possess, and were undoubtedly conducive to health by promoting exercise. In winter the climate is bracing and healthy though fever and dysentery were to be dreaded in summer'.\n\nThere are a number of highlights for foreign visitors beginning, perhaps, with the former foreign concession, though nowadays more than seventy years on, it is difficult to discern. Outside the Chinese old city with its modern main roads, cobbled side streets and a stone pagoda said to be 13th century Yuan dynasty, though its present condition suggests that it has either been well restored or completely remade within the last century, there are the fourth century Jin Shan temple and pagoda; the Grand Canal; the former British Consulate; the home of Pearl Buck, as well as the sites of the storming of the town by a British brigade on 21st July 1842 during the First China War [commonly referred to as the Opium War]. There are also the remains of the lengthy trench dug by the Taiping rebels to protect the city from recapture by Imperial forces as well as the ruins left after the destruction of the city by the Taipings during the 1850s. And for those who have read a little Chinese literature or attended Chinese opera the widely-known tale of the White Snake Lady is also part of the story of the Jin Shan temple.\n\nBefore waxing too lyrically about its glories let us remember that Zhenjiang is the vinegar capital of China, with, if the wind is in the wrong direction, an evocative sour tang forewarning approaching visitors long before they are anywhere near to the city. The majority of Chinese when confronted with the name of the city almost to a man voice the single word 'vinegar' or to the connoisseur 'brown rice vinegar'.\n\nZhenjiang was a treaty port with a foreign concession for sixty-eight years, from the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin in 1860 until 1928, one of the minor footholds foreigners had obtained from China in one of the 'unequal treaties' and the base for numerous foreign interests. There were great hopes for the place and Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, even anticipated that eventually it would eclipse Shanghai as a commercial centre. Despite numerous westerners passing through the place down the years only a few spent full tours of duty there. Many of the temporary visitors were the lesser employees of major western companies such as BAT and Butterfield and Swire, whose regular tours to the many small", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216309, "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": 68, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "17\n\nIn the early Qing Dynasty Longhua Temple received considerable attention in the form of repairs to the existing buildings and construction of new ones. A major construction project started in 1647 resulted in the completion of the Abbot or Temple Master's Room (Fang Zhang Shi) and the Wei Tuo Hall (Wei Tuo Dian), as well as the repair of the Scripture Storage Pavilion (Cang Jing Ge).\n\nIt will be recalled that during the Yuan Dynasty the temple experienced a massive expansion in the size of its territory, if not its actual structures. In 1672 the Qing authorities measured the size of the immediate area around the temple halls as occupying 93 mu of land, plus an additional 74 mu of open land in the surrounding area which was used to plant vegetables. It was this later open space which gradually evolved into first Longhua Park, and then the present day Martyr's Cemetery.\n\nDuring a 155 year period in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, from 1672 to 1827, no new construction, reconstruction or repairs were recorded. This begs the question as to why the temple was dormant during such a long period of time. Was it lack of imperial sympathy for Buddhism in general, or simply the absence of wars and destruction requiring later rehabilitation during this relatively peaceful time?\n\nAfter a century and a half of dormancy, the Taiping Rebellion finally provided the opportunity or the need for new construction and repairs. Between 1860 and 1862 the Taiping rebels attacked Shanghai three times, during which records say vaguely that most of the Longhua Temple buildings were destroyed. On August 18, 1860 the Taipings captured Xu Jia Hui, and it was probably then when the nearby Longhua Temple was destroyed. Although no list is provided of exactly which buildings were destroyed, we can infer from later lists of the structures rebuilt afterwards that this included the Great Sadness Hall (Da Bei Dian), the Precious Hall of the Great Hero (Da Xiong Bao Dian), the Heavenly Kings Hall (Tian Wang Dian), the Three Gods Hall (San Sheng Dian), the Maitreya Buddha Hall (Mi Le Fo Dian), the Drum Tower (Gu Lou), the Bell Tower (Zhong Lou), and the Big Buddha Hall (Da Fo Dian). Basically every previously existing key structure is mentioned as having been rebuilt after this period of destruction, with the exception of the die-hard Precious Pagoda (Bao Ta) and the Master's Room (Fang Zhang Shi), raising the possibility that the two structures which stand today are both authentic originals.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216310, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "18\n\nRestoring the damage done by the three years of Taiping destruction required a massive reconstruction project which lasted for nearly 30 years from 1871 to 1899. In addition to rebuilding the previous structures, several new halls which had not existed before were added during this time, including the Guest House (Ke Tang) and the Dining Hall (Zhai Tang) in 1887; the Goddess of Mercy Hall (Guan Yin Dian), Ancestors Hall (Zu Shi Dian), and the Kshitigarbha Hall (Di Zang Dian) in 1890; and finally the 500 Arhats Hall (Wu Bai Luohan Tang) in 1896.\n\nThe Republican era, 1911-1949\n\nAt the beginning of the Min Guo Republic (1912), all the monks were forced to move out by armed soldiers who moved in and used the temple as a barracks. The soldiers looted the golden statues from the temple, and wooden parts of the temple such as window frames were used by the soldiers to make cooking fires. However, in 1920 the temple and the pagoda were both repaired, and after being closed for a whole decade the temple finally officially reopened in 1922 when all the monks came back. Holmes Welch's otherwise authoritative 1967 study of Buddhism in China mistakenly stated that Longhua Temple was occupied by the Chinese military for the entire Min Guo period. Photos from D. C. Burn's brief 1926 study of the temple show that the Qing Dynasty 500 Arhat Hall (Wu Bai Luohan Tang) was still intact then, although it no longer exists now.\n\nLonghua Temple enjoyed 15 years of peace and tranquility until September 11, 1937 when the temple was badly damaged during the Japanese attack on Shanghai. Nine Japanese airplanes dropped 30 bombs on the Longhua area. Most likely they were targeting the nearby Longhua Airport and the Guomindang's Longhua Garrison military camp next door, but they accidentally caused severe damage to the temple. Before the attack there had been 80 monks living in the temple, but afterward there were only 7 monks remaining.\n\nDuring the first five years of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1942, the internal affairs of the temple were confused and disorganized, with rival masters claiming the post of Abbot, and unqualified persons claiming to be Buddhist monks for the sake of seeking safe haven in the temple. On September 9, 1942 a reorganization committee was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216316, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "24\n\nas seated, holding a long-stemmed lotus flower with a small temple perched on the blossom, and has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. Wei Tuo Pusa is represented by a golden statue in which he poses wearing armor and holding a drawn sword. Wei Tuo is the protector of all Buddhist temples.\n\nOn the other side of the Tian Wang Dian is the third courtyard, on the far side of which is the Hall of the Great Hero (Da Xiong Bao Dian). This hall's origins date to an 1878-1879 reconstruction, when it was rebuilt to replace an earlier structure destroyed during the Taiping rebels' attacks on Shanghai in 1860-1862. The hall was closed for a massive reconstruction and renovation in November 2002, but had been reopened by January 2004. The interior is now nothing less than spectacular. Three large Buddhas (San Fo) are placed in the centre. Sakyamuni Buddha stands in the centre, flanked on the left by the bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Pu Xian) seated on an elephant, and on the right by the bodhisattva Manjusri (Wen Shu) seated on a blue lion. Overhead the hall's ceiling is pierced by a massive wooden dome that spirals upward, looking much like the wooden domes (Zao Jing) often found over traditional Peking Opera stages (Xiju Wutai). Behind the San Fo facing out the rear exit is a large Guanyin statue in front of a floor-to-ceiling landscaped rockery covered with smaller figurines depicting the Buddhist heaven and hell. Along the side walls stand 36 quite expressive human statues of the Buddhist saints, 18 on each side of the hall. This is an unusual number, which seems to include 16 Arhats (Luohan) and 20 Devas (Zhu Tian), and an assortment that includes such non-Buddhist figures from Chinese tradition as Confucius (Kong Fu Zi), the War God (Guan Di), the God of Literature (Wen Chang), and the Kitchen God; Hindu gods such as Brahma, Indra, and Yama (Yen Lo); as well as Buddhist deities such as the Four Heavenly Kings (Si Tian Wang) and the bodhisattva Wei Tuo as well. The hall also houses one of Longhua's three bronze bells, this one dating from 1586.\n\nOn the other side of the Da Xiong Bao Dian is a fourth courtyard. On the far side of this fourth courtyard is the Hall of the Three Gods (San Sheng Dian). This hall is dominated by enormous floor-to-ceiling golden statues of three Buddhas (San Fo) who appear side by side in an unusual standing position with golden flames rising up behind them. In the centre is Amitabha Buddha (O Mi Tuo Fo), to your left is the bodhisattva Da Shi Zhi, and on your right is the bodhisattva Guan Shi Yin.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]