[ { "id": 204465, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "86 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nDespite the presence of troops, military posts and police of two types in the Territory, besides the assistance of the local kuk, the magistrate's power to prevent crime appears to have been limited. Piracy, in particular, was rampant at different times, and ranged from the anti-dynastic activities of Koxinga in the mid-seventeenth century on behalf of his former masters the Great Ming, (which occasioned the removal from the coast) through the widespread depredations of large pirate bands at the beginning of the nineteenth, to the milder but still disconcerting activities of the period under review. \n\nIt is necessary to emphasise the prevailing unrest, since until quite recently the only striking difference between the New Territory in 1898 and the territory we know to-day was the imposition of the pax britannica. Until the British Government got into the saddle and established its police stations and patrolling launches, the people were subject to piracy, robbery and other forms of violence as from time immemorial. The Governor mentioned specifically in a despatch to the Secretary of State in April 1899 that “the (Tai Po) district is well known in Canton (i.e. to the Viceroy) to be turbulent, that to the N.E. of Mirs Bay being noted for piracy, and so ill-disposed that I am informed no Customs Official dares to land there except with the support of a revenue cruiser”.30 He probably had this from \n\nLockhart, his main source of reliable information at this time. Of course, the local population were sometimes not averse to such efforts themselves, and as a British Consul wrote at the time \"The old free-booting spirit still survives among many who are now apparently peaceful traders and fishermen [of which] we occasionally get startling proofs in some unexpected daring act of piracy on the high seas or along the coast\".31 Smuggling was also common, whether of salt or opium.** \n\nLooking outside the district to the province and its capital city Canton, the political scene, as revealed by the Trade Reports to the Foreign Office of consuls in the several British treaty ports of Canton, Amoy, Samshui and Pakhoi was the reverse of satisfactory. Though written by a succession of men of obviously varying temperament and outlook they reveal a sad state of affairs. Everywhere there were disturbances which the civil authorities were slow, or incapable to correct, and clear signs that the dynasty was held to have exhausted its mandate from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207922, "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": 310, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n295\n\nThere was a 'fleshy body' in Anking in Central China. It had been placed in a large earthenware k'ang filled with willow charcoal and left for three to four years. The corpse was then gilded and set up beside an image of the Buddha, Sakyamuni7.\n\nThe shrivelled and varnished body of a Taoist priest named Sun (), who died in 1703 aged 94, was enshrined in a glass case in the Grotto of the Immortals in the east side of the lower Court of the Temple of either the Jade Emperor or, as stories vary, of the Three Sovereigns on T'ai Shan in Shantung. He had lived in the temple nearby for some sixty years under the religious title of Chen Ch'ing and was known as \"the Immortal\". Apparently he felt divinely inspired, and slowly starved himself to death; he became just skin and bone sitting cross-legged. He had requested his fellow priests not to inter him but instead to leave him in a vacant room. This they did, and he remained withered but not decayed as a relic for future generations of believers. One could see, apparently, only the bare bones of his arms and legs. His face had been replaced by a mask in his likeness and all that remained on his hands was skin and nails.\n\nIt was not only monks who had their bodies preserved. In 1878 Reverend MacKay, a missionary in Taiwan, wrote of a Chinese girl who died of consumption not far from Tamshui, North of Taipei. Someone in the neighbourhood more gifted than the rest announced that a goddess was present, and her wasted body immediately became famous. She was given the title of the Virgin Goddess, (Sien Lu Niu in Fukienese) and a small temple was erected and dedicated to her. Her body was immersed in salt and water for some time, and then placed in a sitting position in an armchair with a red cloth around her shoulders and a wedding cap on her head. Seen through the glass of the case in which she was placed she looked to MacKay, with her black face and teeth exposed, very much like an Egyptian mummy. Before many weeks had passed, hundreds of sedan chairs were to be seen bringing worshippers, especially women, to her shrine, and rich men sent presents to adorn the temple. Another preserved body of a female was exhibited in a temple near Fenchow in Szechuan. She was a Buddhist devotee who died there in a sitting position: being Tibetan she was particularly worshipped by the local aborigines?.\n\nThe most recent example of a 'fleshy body' has been the mummification of the corpse of the Buddhist monk, Yueh Chi Fa Shih", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212160, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "79\n\nHe repeated that his shrine catered for believers from all religions and added that his spirit medium is a Roman Catholic religious novice. Wu T'ien-chu, whose festival is celebrated annually on the 13th day of the ninth lunar month, is portrayed by an image of a seated mandarin with a red and a blue demon, one under each of his feet.\n\nExamination of the legends surrounding local deities who lived or died in the vicinity of present-day cult temples, or who are worshipped in one of their branch temples, reveals that they can be either distinguished citizens or ordinary people, often nonentities, but all now characterised as shen (spirits).\n\nA great many heroes and worthies, and tens of millions of ordinary people, live and die and are never deified, and those who are have been identified as such by their possession of ‘ling' (supernatural power) which can increase or wane depending upon a number of circumstances. 'Ling' can fade until the deity is deemed powerless by devotees and ignored or deposed, or the 'ling' can be renewed by ritual means.\n\nIt is readily understandable that major heroes of antiquity, revered nationwide for many centuries, are now worshipped for their accumulated power. They were powerful in life and since death their ability to protect and guide devotees has been well authenticated to the satisfaction of devotees. However, lesser deities, local heroes and worthies and especially the spirits of ordinary people, have to ‘earn' their deified status by result, and cults grow, wither and disappear entirely depending upon their ability to provide an adequate response to devotees' pleas and requirements. Some have become major deities within comparatively large communities; in Taiwan, for example, several have become the patron deities of immigrant groups from an individual county back on the mainland.\n\nWhereas it is reasonably clear why charismatic local heroes and worthies came to be deified, usually by public acclaim (though some have achieved sanctification by wealthy families pushing their ancestor's case) it is less simple to understand why some ordinary people and not others have been deified. It is even more perplexing why a few local thugs who originally had nothing going for them have also been deified. An excellent example of this is the cult of Liao Tien-ting in Pa Li, across the Tanshui River from Tanshui town in northern Taiwan. Liao, who was killed in about 1920, is now honoured with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212199, "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "118\n\n1 left by steamer for Canton, the great southern Chinese town, which sprawls along the shore of the Pearl River; and spent a few days on the Shameen mud-bank, just off the city, where the small British and French Concessions are. The Concessions were untouched; but, across the narrow creek that separates them from the shore, the city had suffered heavily from bombing, and from the fires which raged furiously in the congested native districts after each raid. One morning I crossed to the South bank and took the branch line to Samshui on the West river, where I caught the steamer for Wuchow in Kwangsi province.\n\nAlthough owned by a Chinese company, the small river steamer flew the British flag. That was a phenomenon common enough on the inland waters of China. The foreign flag protected the ship from being commandeered by the local war lord. Sometimes for months on end steam traffic, on this water-way or that, would be completely disorganised. The Chinese ships would be impressed to carry the troops of the various armies contending for power. It was only under a foreign flag that they could find the security which would justify their remaining in operation at all. The British government did not welcome this use of the British flag, and introduced regulations to control abuse of the privilege. In order to qualify for British registry a ship must at least carry a British captain and a British chief engineer, and must comply with the Board of Trade regulations in regard to safety measures. But even so, the Chinese owners would make every effort to obtain British registry for their ships, thus in one direction taking advantage of the treaties between Britain and China while, in the other, probably contributing to the Kuo Min Tang party funds, which were used to denounce the iniquities of those very same treaties. In order to comply with the letter of the regulations, the particular ship I now found myself on carried three British officers, whose aggregate age exceeded 200 years. They were, of course, mere figure-heads, the actual work being done by the Chinese officers and crew. These river-boats kept communications open and provided a measure of security for travellers - owing to the presence of British gunboats these small ships moving on inland waters were seldom attacked by bandits which otherwise would have been lacking.\n\n―\n\nIn Kwangsi the road system had been extended to connect Wuchow with the other large towns of the province and I left by car for Kweilin, the capital. An American aviator, who had been down to Hongkong on a shopping expedition, travelled with me as far as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214237, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "58\n\nseen in a comparatively modern temple near Taipei. A lengthy tunnel connects the main part of the Kuan Tu temple complex, to the North-west of Taipei, with the front entrance overlooking the Tamshui River. Some twenty-eight images stand in glass-fronted niches carved into the rock down the sides of the tunnel. These large individual images are of the Early Buddhas, the Ku Fo; the Buddhas of pre-history, the Buddhas who came before Sakyamuni, The Buddha. They have no altars and as there is an altar dedicated to the Thousand-arm and Thousand-Eye Kuan Yin P'u-sa at the river end of the tunnel they are not offered incense individually.\n\nSeveral aspects of the hagiography of the images in the cave/tunnel are intriguing. First of all, those holding weapons have them in their left hand. They are mostly dressed in gilded armour, and finally, their titles in Chinese, though Sinicised Sanskrit, have proved impossible to translate into the original Sanskrit and are therefore unidentified. Several of these unidentified deities have been depicted in Taiwanese religious literature but without any explanation apart from being listed under a general title of Supportive Incantations to Buddha, Ta Pei Chou Fo 大悲咒佛.\n\nThe following Vedic deities who have been noted in one or both of the temples in the Western Hills would seem not to be present in the cave/tunnel:\n\nMarici, Pancika, Hariti, Pippala [Bodhidruma], Laksmi, Prthivi, Surya, Candra, Vimalakirti, Nanda Upananda and Skanda/Veda.\n\nOf the scores of books, both the popular illustrated and monastic academic, produced over the last half century in Taiwan describing the Buddhas, bodhisattvas and the hundreds of minor deities of Buddhism, one at least has listed what they have called The Celestial Guardians Division. This list includes not only the Four Diamond Kings, the T'ien Wang, [Vaisravana, Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka and Virupaksa] but nine of the Deva seen in the Western Hills. These are Indra [Sakra-devanam], Brahma [Maha-Brahman], Marici, Laksmi [Sri-maha-devi], Sarasvati, Yamaraja, Guhyapati, Skanda [Wei T'o] and Gandharva.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216183, "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": 482, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "416\n\nThere is one further chapter to the Assam tea story. In 1907 the Japanese introduced Assam tea to their colony of Taiwan in an effort to protect the Japanese green tea industry. This concern was justified; since the first shipment of oolong from Taiwan to the USA in 1869 Formosa's tea industry grew rapidly. (Zeng interview) Assam tea is still grown in northern Taiwan and consumed in the Chinese manner and has become a connoisseur's item for the modern Taiwanese Epicurean item with Fine Aged Assam Tea from Danshui [Tamshui] fetching high prices. (Ho interview)\n\nREFERENCES\n\nKit Chow and Ione Kramer, All the Tea in China, San Francisco, China Books and Periodicals, 1990. (Excellent reference with bilingual compendiums available at the Flagstaff Tea Museum)\n\nJason Goodwin, The Gunpowder Gardens; Travels through India and China in Search of Tea, Penguin, 2003 (Originally published in 1990 this entertaining and well researched travel book lacks end notes and an index)\n\nHo Chien, Ye Tang Tea Culture Research Institute, interview 8 Sept 03\n\nCharles Gutzlaff, China Opened; or, a display of the topography, history, customs, manners, arts, manufactures, commerce, literature, religion, jurisprudence, etc. of the Chinese Empire, London, Smith, Elder, 1838. (The Reverend Karl Frederick August Gutzlaff, for whom a street is named in Hong Kong, acted as a translator for Jardine's opium transactions up and down the China coast in exchange for being permitted to proselytize after hours.)\n\nSusan Leiper, Precious Cargo. Scots and the China trade, National Museums of Scotland Publishing, Edinburgh, 1997. (A beautifully illustrated panegyric)\n\nAnthony Wild, The East India Company, trade and conquest from 1600, London, HarperCollins illustrated, 1999\n\nZeng Zhixian, author and China Times tea correspondent, interview 8 Sept 03", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]