[ { "id": 204431, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "52 \n\nT. Y. LI \n\nSung (907-1280 A.D.) and Yuan (1280-1368 A.D.) periods. The size of official seals became very big, over three inches square, and the writing became most unconventional. \n\nThe only interesting point during the Sung and Yuan periods is the development of signature seals 私印 and commercial seals 商業印. \n\nThe signature seals of the Sung Dynasty consisted of only one signature, but that of the Yuan Dynasty consisted of a surname with a signature below it; apparently this type of personal seal was very popular during the Yuan period. Occasionally Mongolian characters were found on these seals. At about the same time there was a considerable intercourse on the Chinese North-western border with foreign traders. It is obvious that these people were not well versed in Chinese writing, and even less so in Chinese seal characters. A peculiar type of seal came into existence. Each seal was made with an individual picture design incorporated with Chinese or Mongolian characters. These picture designs were most artistic. I have been able to collect about fifty of these specimens from different books on seals. It is a type of seal which so far has escaped the attention of seal engravers. I believe they were used by illiterate tradesmen who could recognize a picture design better than the different characters. Pure pictorial seals without any writing at all were found even as early as the Chou and Chin periods. These seals had no writing and their pictorial designs are most simple but beautiful. \n\nTwo new developments that took place in the Sung Dynasty (907-1280 A.D.) are worth mentioning. One is the publication of books on seal impressions 印譜, the other is the introduction of porcelain seals, \n\nDuring the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.) many scholars became interested in seal carving. They studied the Han seals and ancient calligraphy, and there was a renaissance in the art of seals. The reason for this advancement was caused by a great discovery made by a seal engraver by the name of Wong Mien who lived at the end of Yuan and the beginning of Ming Dynasty. He introduced soft stone to make seals. This method soon became very popular because the texture of soft stone makes cutting very easy. From that time scholars were able to engrave their own seals and the art of seal-making was revolutionized.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204524, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 5, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1962\n\nHON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1962\n\nTRANSACTIONS OF THE BRANCH, 1962-1963:\n\nThe Old Protestant Cemetery in Macau\n\nThe Development of Printing in China and its Effects on the Renaissance under the Sung Dynasty\n\nFlowers of Hong Kong (with six coloured illustrations)\n\nRecent Changes in the Chinese Language\n\nThe Old British Legation at Peking, 1860-1959\n\nARTICLES CONTRIBUTED:\n\nCheung Chau 1850-1898: Information from Commemorative Tablets - LINDSAY RIDE - PAGE 1\n\n- L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH 7\n\n- B. T. CHIU - 36\n\n- MA MENG - 44\n\n- J. L. CRANMER-BYNG - 51\n\n- J. W. HAYES - 60\n\nEuropean Navigation on the Yangtze - A. D. BLUE - 88\n\nKashmir Holiday - CLIVE ROBINSON - 107\n\nBOOK REVIEWS - 131\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES - 136\n\nLIST OF MEMBERS - 149\n\nResponsibility for opinions expressed in articles published in this Journal rests with the individual contributors and not with the Editorial Committee.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204527, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 8, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "2\n\nmarvels of the life under the waters around us in the brilliant colours of Mr. Bromhall's underwater photography could not have been revealed to us a quarter of a century ago.\n\nThe lectures last year covered a wide variety of subjects, following the policy advised by the first President of this Society in Hong Kong, Sir John Davis, who stressed the importance of directing the attention of the Society to practical projects and to natural history, ethnology and botany as well as to linguistic and literary pursuits. The wealth of our local talent was strikingly shown by the fact that half of the lectures were given by scholars and experts from amongst our own members. The lectures given during the year were:\n\nJanuary 15th\nFebruary 26th\nDr. Herold J. Wiens* \"Some of China's 35 Million Non-Chinese\"\nMr. J. D. Pearson \"Recent Development in Oriental Studies in Great Britain\"\n\"Buddhism in Modern Life\"\nSir Lindsay Ride \"The Old Protestant Cemetery in Macao\"\nMr. Ma Meng \"Recent Changes in the Chinese Language\"\nApril 2nd\nVen. Khema \"Hong Kong Flowers\"\nMay 7th\nMiss B. T. Chiu\nJune 18th\nMr. J. L. Cranmer-Byng \"The Old British Legation at Peking 1860-1959\"\nJuly 16th\nProfessor L. C. Goodrich \"The Development of Printing in China and Its Effect on the Renaissance under the Sung (960-1279)\"\nAugust 20th\nSeptember 3rd\n\n* Printed in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2, 1962,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204560, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "36\n\nTHE DEVELOPMENT OF PRINTING IN CHINA and its effects on the renaissance under the Sung dynasty (960-1279) A lecture delivered on 3 September, 1962\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH,* PH.D.\n\nThe art of printing took a long time to develop. It came into being when the demand was urgent for multiple copies, and when the Chinese had both the essential materials and the technical processes. This seems to have happened some time after the year A.D. 700.\n\nLet us consider first the demand. It came in all circles where reading was essential. The Buddhists at this time were extremely active in their work of propaganda. For example, in 581 the emperor Kao-tsu4 of the Sui ordered the copying of Buddhist texts at state expense; this involved 46 collections in 132,086 rolls. In Taoist circles there was need for large numbers of charms to ward off evils. The Confucians, again coming into their own with the re-introduction of the system of civil service examinations, needed hundreds of thousands of text books for students, and copies of the Confucian canon for the scholar class. We read that at the capital alone, for instance, the emperor Yang (605-616) ordered the making of fifty duplicate sets of the imperial library. This involved the copying of 3,127 works in 36,708 rolls.\n\nLet us consider next the main ingredients and technical processes. The first were ink and paper. We know now that red ink was known to the Chinese at least by the 13th century B.C. (A) and black ink about the same time. For writing surfaces the Chinese experimented with wood, bamboo, silk, and harder materials. Then at the end of the 1st century A.D. paper came into being. At this time the dynastic history drily relates: \"Silk was too expensive and bamboo too heavy.\" In 1931 the Swedish member of the Sino-Swedish Expedition in Central Asia, Folke Bergman, discovered some paper in a lonely site called Chü-yen\n\n* Dr. Goodrich is Professor Emeritus of Chinese at Columbia University. He is well known as the author of A Short History of the Chinese People, and for his revised edition of T. F. Carter's The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205058, "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": 14, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "A PLEA FOR A REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY:\n\nTHE CASE OF THE SOUTH CHINA COAST Based on A Lecture Delivered on 4th April, 1966\n\nJOHN J. NOLDE\n\nEver since men such as Thucydides, or Ssu-ma Ch'ien, began to collect, analyze, and interpret historical documents, they have been, from time to time, vexed by a series of nagging questions: How valid and authentic are the documents I have used? How closely does the portrait I have painted of the past correspond to the real world of the people who lived in that past? Have I, in fact, really described what was \"going on\"?\n\nOr to put the question the other way: Is there not always a danger that the historian may be led by his documents to create a picture of the past that is far too broad and general to have any relevance for the people living at that place and at that time? I wonder, for example, whether the studies of the coming of the Varangians to Russia in the ninth century have much to do with the lives and loves of the people then living along the Russian river system; or whether detailed analyses of the political structure of Renaissance Italy have much to do with the way the average Italian really lived. In short, if \"history is man's memory of what men have said and done\", to use Carl Becker's phrase, with what accuracy does the historian's tale reflect what was actually said and done? Is not the historian's view of the past not always in danger of being distorted by the zeitgeist of his own era (as Becker again would have it), and that what he may think important was of little consequence to those living at the time?\n\nI don't doubt that the certain Big Events are important, especially in terms of the extent to which they explain the general course of history, why the stream of history seemed to run in one direction and not another. Furthermore, I would be the first to agree that such events as the Pelopponesian Wars or the French Revolution did dominate the life and thoughts of the peoples living in those places at that time. But is this always, or even usually, the case?\n\nThe author is Dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Maine.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205284, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "39\n\nPRINTING - A NEW DISCOVERY\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nIn 1963 the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society published a paper of mine entitled \"The development of printing in China and its effect on the renaissance under the Sung dynasty (960 - 1279).\" Recently a new find was made which, if confirmed, pushes back the history of block printing some fifteen years, possibly more. The discovery occurred last October when certain Korean scholars noticed that a stone stupa known as Sokka Tap 釋迦塔, at Pulguk sa 佛國寺, had been damaged. On investigation they found a printed Buddhist sutra hidden in its interior. (See plates 5 and 6) It was in the form of a scroll made of thick mulberry paper, mounted on a piece of bamboo, lacquered at each end. The text is some 630 cm. long and 6 cm. wide, the printed portion being 5.3 cm. in width. The exact length cannot be determined as the scroll has not been fully unrolled due to its poor condition. In fact, about one third has suffered serious damage from worms; the rest of it, however, is in fair condition. Later examination revealed that the printing had been executed by means of a series of woodblocks, twelve in number, each about 20 or 21 inches in length. Then the separate pieces of paper had been joined together to form a continuous scroll, just as was the text of the famous Diamond Sutra of 868, discovered in 1907 at the cave library of Ch'ien-fo-tung near Tun-huang (west China) by Sir Aurel Stein, now at the British Museum. The scholars who have pronounced this an authentic piece of printing are Professors Kim Sanggi and Yi Hongjik, members of the Cultural Assets Preservation Committee, Ministry of Education, Seoul.\n\nIn the cavity of the stupa there were, besides the scroll, reliquary vessels, Buddhist images, tiny pagodas, incense sticks, pieces of silk, etc. (See plate 7). They seem to be typical of the period not only in Korea, but also in China and in Japan. These items are important discoveries in themselves, and deserve further study.\n\nThe text is well known. Its title in Chinese is Wu kou ching kuang ta to-lo-ni ching (in Sanskrit: Raśmivimalavaviśuddhaprabhā dhāranī). It was first rendered into", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206421, "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": 238, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "212\n\n \nBOOK REVIEWS\n\n \nin China.\" As events have turned out, this work is of more use to us now, during the renaissance of interest in the study of the law of the mainland of China than it was in the education of practising lawyers. It came at an interesting period in Chinese legal history, at a time when the lawyers and politicians of the Republic were busy throwing off the shackles of the old imperial law and searching for new, modern concepts and a viable way in which to express them. Jamieson's work may, therefore, be viewed to a certain extent in the same light as the great pioneering textbooks on Anglo-American law of the nineteenth century in that the mode of classification and presentation might have influenced the thinking of generations of lawyers. But the history of China in the years following publication of his book excluded that possibility and we now approach it, not as a work of reference, but as a source of information on historical attitudes towards the modernisation of Chinese Law during the nineteenth century and on the fruits of the cultural interchange between Chinese and western law which occurred in Shanghai.\n\n \nGeorge Jamieson's career followed a well-known late nineteenth century pattern and his educational and intellectual limitations are apparent in his approach to his subject. Chinese Family and Commercial Law is, to our eyes, old-fashioned and didactic. He was a \"scholar\" of the old school and, though he acquired his knowledge and experience of Chinese law from the 'inside' in his involvement in dispute-settling processes, he followed the convention of nineteenth century jurisprudential thought in that he cast his work in a pre-conceived mould. Since the great Maine himself showed great skill in analysing legal systems in terms of concepts which enabled him to demonstrate similarities between those systems rather than to build up a set of concepts which worked adequately within any one system, we can scarcely criticise Jamieson when, in his introductory chapter, he sets out to discover to which legal system familiar in the west is the Chinese legal system most similar. That he should inevitably draw comparisons with the Roman legal system is both a commentary on the extent to which formal Legal education in the past depended overly on Roman Law and on the extent to which our approach to the comparative study of law has changed. Thus, by trying to be \"scholarly,\" he appears to have eschewed the practicality which must have been familiar to him after a lifetime of activity in China. In consequence,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208959, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI: ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T.\n\n89\n\nfor defensive purpose, it is my firm belief that careful planning was previously done in order to make possible the coherent relationship that I have mentioned. If original planning was not enhanced, then what had prompted the builders 200 years later to know where and how to trim off excess settlements in order to build the orthogonal wais? Above all, compared to the Hakka walled village in Sheung Shui, the enclosing wall which was also built during the same period and also for the same protective reasons as Kat Hing Wai, is of much more irregular shape. This further reinforces my assumption.\n\nNone of the four wais coincides in size and proportion. This variation is partly due to the size of the extended family, but most importantly, such adjustments are essential to achieve the subtle relationships after each hamlet's position and orientation have been determined. Thus, a square is not a perfect square, but an idealised (or symbolised) square. The dependency of geometrical configuration and proportion in physical forms in China is not so rigid as that of the Western counterpart of the Renaissance period (incidentally concurrent with Ming Peking and Kat Hing Wai): As Joseph Needham points out in his work Science and Civilisation in China, \"the Chinese did not feel the need for [geometrical] forms of explanation — the component organism in the universal organism followed their Tao [way] each according to its own nature.”21 Compared to the T'ang Dynasty capital Ch'angan, one that has been designed most closely with the canonical prescription, Kat Hing Wai is the epitome of the cosmic archetype, the most fundamental stratum of agricultural China. The organic expression of wall and moat architecture is symbolic of Heaven and Earth. The palace in the north in the capital can be seen to parallel the shrine of the Earth God in Kat Hing Wai in which both are protective powers guarding their respective territories. The orientation to the four quadrants, the representational north-south axis, and the division of the compound into smaller living units are all too profound for the sinologist and missionary Arthur H. Smith to grasp the intricacy. In Village Life in China, he writes:\n\nIt is customary in Western lands to speak of ‘laying out' a city or a town. As applied to a Chinese village, such an expression would be most inappropriate, for it would imply that there have been some traces of design in the arrangement of the parts, whereas the reverse is the truth. A Chinese village, like Topsy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209157, "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-1981", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "46\n\nHUMIRT SI IWART\n\nese society. We can, therefore, say that religious changes which run parallel with modernization are to be characterized as a kind of secularization, if by secularization we mean that formerly existing religious beliefs and practices are abandoned. However, there is a danger that by linking modernization and secularization one is stimulating the idea of a general decrease and a final extinction of religion. This idea is fostered by some evolutionary schemes suggesting that the intellectual progress which is supposed to be implied by modernization will finally lead to the adoption of a \"scientific\" world-view in which there is no more place for religion. In other words, this theory would not be content to define modernization as the formation of new social structures and cultural values but would try to indicate the direction of this development. As usual in such cases the direction of progress leads to the position of the \"enlightened\" observer.\n\nOn the other hand, as we have seen, there is strong empirical evidence for secularizing tendencies in present day Taiwan. What is more, it can be shown that these tendencies are directly connected with certain aspects of modernization, i.e. industrialization, urbanization and westernization. In the light of these facts it might seem as if the various forms of religion which can still be observed in Taiwan are just survivals of the traditional culture. To the same degree that modernization turns the traditional society into a new, \"modern\" society, one could argue, the remaining forms of traditional religion will also disappear.\n\nIn the following parts of this paper I shall try to show that this conception results from a one-sided view of the religious changes which are actually going on in Taiwan. To do this I first give a short description of a religious movement that enjoys much popularity among the lower and middle classes. I hope to show that the teachings of this movement, though it certainly is part of the Chinese religious tradition, contain elements which reflect the changing social and cultural conditions of the present time. My argument is that the process of modernization, which unquestionably entails secularizing tendencies, also leads in another direction, i.e. to the renaissance of institutional religions and popular religious movements. In the last two parts of the paper a few suggestions will be made about the possible relationship of this renaissance to the modernization process.\n\nRenaissance of institutional religions\n\nAs has been mentioned above, social changes in China affected\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209159, "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-1981", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "48\n\nHUBERT SEIWART\n\nreligion. The Taoism of the elite, lacking the Buddhist idea of the sangha, was much more a private affair of the individual, while the Buddhist conception of meritorious deeds stimulated the propagation of the faith.\n\nThese might be some of the reasons for the poor state which Taoism was in at the end of the imperial era, and which did not improve much during the first half of this century. Although the starting position was rather poor, today there are signs of a renaissance of religious Taoism in Taiwan8, even if it is much less obvious than in the case of Buddhism. Significantly, the recovery of religious Taoism is promoted not only by the Taoist clergy, whose intellectual standard in general is still rather low, but also by laymen. It is not easy to assess exactly the scope of this Taoist renaissance, but we can say that the position of Taoism as an institutional religion is probably not weaker than in the last century. That means that here, too, no secularizing influence of modernization can be ascertained.\n\nApart from Buddhism and Taoism there is a third major form of institutional religion which played an important though less recognized role in traditional China: popular lay-communities of a more or less syncretic character. Most of these communities call themselves Buddhist or, less often, Taoist and indeed can be regarded as popular forms of these religions. From the observer's point of view, however, many of them are clearly distinguishable from the \"orthodox\" forms of Buddhism and Taoism. Not only do we make this distinction, the Chinese authorities also regarded some of these societies as heterodox and proscribed them. The best-known examples of this are the communities related to the White Lotus tradition. It would, however, probably be a mistake to believe that the majority of popular lay-communities belonged to this class of secret sects.\n\nIn contrast to orthodox Buddhism and Taoism these communities do not seem to have suffered from a significant decline during the last phase of traditional China. Quite the contrary, one gets the impression that in a certain way their strength corresponded to the weakness of the orthodox religions during the final years of the empire. Many people found relief from political and economic pressures by turning to the various popular forms of religion, ranging from consulting witch-doctors and spirit-mediums to joining one of the many smaller or larger sects which offered the hope of deliverance of the faithful or even an impending end to the present misery and the coming of a new era10.\n\n10", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209161, "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-1981", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "50\n\nLUBLRT SI IWART\n\nheterodox by the government, they often had to operate secretly. This was the case with the sects which belonged to the White Lotus tradition.\n\nAll three types of popular religious community have to be considered institutional forms of religions since it is primarily out of religious motives that people join these communities. Membership is not a matter of birth or belonging to a certain village or profession but demands the personal decision of each believer. In contrast to orthodox Buddhism and Taoism these popular movements as a rule have no ordained priesthood but are lay-communities1.\n\nWhile the above-mentioned renaissance of Buddhism and Taoism in Taiwan has been widely noted, these popular lay-movements have been somewhat neglected. One reason for this is probably that most of these popular religious communities operate only on a local or regional level. It is therefore very difficult to gain a comprehensive picture. We can be sure, however, that taken together the importance of these organizations in the religious life of present-day Taiwan is very great indeed15.\n\nIn the following I shall confine myself to one of the most interesting examples of such popular movements, the I-kuan Tao sect and cults with strong ideological connections with it. In the analysis I shall concentrate on those aspects which show the religious responses to modernization, rather than try to give an overall picture.\n\nI-Kuan Tao - a popular religious movement\n\nI-Kuan TaoT, which can be translated as \"the Way of the One that penetrates everything\", is the official name17 of a secret religious sect which is one of the offshoots of the well-known White Lotus sect Pai-lien chiao. Although officially prohibited by the government this sect flourishes under several other names everywhere in Taiwan. There is probably no place in Taiwan where I-kuan Tao groups cannot be found18. The success of this sect is really striking, taking into account that it was brought to Taiwan from the Chinese mainland only after the Second World War. On the mainland it was popular especially in the northern provinces during the time of the Japanese occupation19. But as late as the fifties the Communist government undertook several campaigns to fight this secret sect. It is not known to me whether it still exists on the mainland today20.\n\nOnly a few elements of the teachings and practices of I-kuan Tao", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209165, "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-1981", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "54\n\nHUBERT SEIWART\n\nsuperiors and inferiors are without righteousness, there is no faithfulness between friends. What a talk of liberalism! People get married and they get divorced again; if such conditions are common everywhere, how then can the orthodox tradition of the Tao be restored? Look at the following examples: In the European and American nations it is such that, when people are old and approach the end of their life, one is only waiting until they close the eyes and die. This is called the New Culture! Continually new weapons are being developed to destroy the human race. This is called the New Morality! How terrible it is! And we Chinese, we are giving up our own culture and our own morality, which we have inherited from our ancestors, in order to adopt the so-called New Culture and New Morality of other people. If one continues in this way, then our Chinese nation will soon have perished!\n\nIn the first section the present time has been pictured as one of utmost danger, threatened by an impending catastrophe. The second passage exposes the roots of this crisis, i.e. the general moral decline which can be stopped only by reviving the traditional virtues. In the above section the explanation again goes one step further. The moral decay, i.e. the extinction of traditional Chinese morality, is seen in relation to the influence of Western civilization. The westernization of Chinese society is regarded as promoting licence and demoralization. By implication, westernization is a major obstacle to the restoration of the orthodox tradition and will finally result in the perishing of the Chinese nation.\n\nThis pessimistic and critical picture of the present forms the background to the final revelations of the deity, which show the way to deliverance leading to a bright future:\n\nIf my heavenly Tao can be spread all over the world, the multitudes will not know any more suffering caused by weapons nor will there be malefactors or criminals. This is called to regulate without acting purposely (wu wei). Even if one does not plan for peace, peace will occur without doubt; even if one does not plan for a renaissance, a renaissance will come by itself. Then, what need will there be for rules and regulations, what need for severe laws and heavy punishments? And yet the days of Yao and Shun can come again and there can be a perfect world for men to live in.\n\n31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209173, "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-1981", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "62\n\nHUBERT SEIWART\n\nthe prospects of an ideal new world for the faithful are dealt with. For deliverance is not confined to the Chinese followers of the Tao; who cultivates his spiritual life and follows the true Tao can be saved. As has been noted above, this means that the spiritual tradition of the Tao, which originated in China and today still exists in Taiwan, contains the key to salvation for all mankind. Since the spiritual renewal of the world has to start from China, this universalism is in harmony with the traditionalism which asserts the superiority of the Chinese cultural tradition.\n\nModernization and the problem of cultural identity\n\nIn the last part of this paper I would like to make a few remarks which may contribute something to a better understanding of the intricate relationship between modernization and religious change. To formulate this as a question: can the renaissance of institutional religions in Taiwan be explained, taking into account the secularizing tendencies normally connected with modernization?\n\nLet us first recall that secularization and religious renaissance obviously do not exclude each other. Many forms of diffused religion are continuously disappearing along with the decline of traditional social institutions they were related to. At the same time the symbol system by which the social and natural world is conceptualized in many cases loses its religious coloration. In this process religious legitimations of reality are replaced by more “rational\" or \"scientific\" ones.\n\nAnother development which has to be taken into account is the differentiation of the cultural system into more or less distinct spheres, such as politics, economics, science, philosophy, religion, which traditionally were intimately interwoven and integrated into a single legitimation system. The growing importance of institutional religions — as compared with diffused religion — is partly a result of this general process of differentiation, as religion becomes more and more distinct from other social institutions.\n\nAs a matter of fact, in the West institutional differentiation of religion went hand in hand with secularization. The relative importance of Christianity as an institutional religion has diminished. The assertion that in Taiwan there has been a decline in traditional institutional religions cannot be accepted without reserve, however, since we are witness to a renaissance of Buddhism, Taoism and popular forms of institutional religions. We may ask, therefore, whether reasons", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209505, "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-1982", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "140\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\n**Sax Rohmer, pseudonym of A.S. Ward (1886-1959). Rohmer's Chinese master-villain first appeared in Dr. Fu Manchu (1913), the start of a series of thrillers about Fu.\n\n27 His real name was Chang Wan but he was known as Brilliant Chang to police and public.\n\n**The Times for April 10 and 11, 1924. See also Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Week-end (London: Faber, 1941). One of Chang's clients was Brenda Dean Paul, a notorious upper-class drug-addict, daughter of Sir Aubrey Dean Paul, a former Lord Mayor of London.\n\n\"Some information about Miss Siu is given in the South China Morning Post on October 26, 1928. See also the Hongkong Telegraph for June 23, 1928.\n\n**Travers Humphreys, op. cit., p. 163.\n\n\"1 South China Morning Post, December 7, 1928.\n\nNecrophiliacs are rare but not unknown. The most famous was surely Sergent (Sergeant) Bertrand, whose activities are discussed in Marcel Montarron, Histoire des crimes sexuels (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1971) 113-13. Another extraordinary necrophiliac Henri Blot, 'Le vampire de Saint-Ouen'—is discussed in Daniel Riche, Histoires criminelles de Paris/Ile-de-France (Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1980) 407-416.\n\n**The case is examined in Sir Travers Humphreys' A Book of Trials, op. cit. But see also Christmas Humphreys, Seven Murders (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1946); E. Spencer Shew, A Companion to Murder (London: Cassell, 1960); and C.E. Bechhofer-Roberts, Sir Travers Humphreys: His Career and Cases (London: John Lane, 1936).\n\n*Sir Travers Humphreys (1867-1956). Called to the Bar, 1889. He was a distinguished criminal lawyer before becoming a Judge of the King's Bench Division of the High Court, 1928-1951.\n\n*Joseph Cooksey Jackson K.C. (1879-1938) of the Northern Circuit. **Criminal Appeal Reports, vol. 21, 1930.\n\n**Travers Humphreys, op. cit, 162-163.\n\n06\n\n18 Ibid. 167.\n\n*Ibid, 168.\n\n40 J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese; or, Notes Connected With China (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1925, fifth edition). Dyer Ball writes: \"The Chinese are not only remote from us as regards position on the globe, but they are our opposites in almost every action and thought\" (668).\n\n\"The late Victorians were much amused by Pidgin English. See Charles Godfrey Leland, Pidgin-English Sing-Song; or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect (London: Trubner, 1876).\n\n42 Op. cit., 164.\n\n\"Herbert John Bennett was accused of strangling his wife on Yarmouth Beach. The body was left in such a position as to suggest attempted rape. See Julian Symons, A Reasonable Doubt (London: Cresset Press, 1962).\n\n**Op. cit., 168.\n\n*A son and a daughter (Wai-sheung) were born to his primary wife. His other wives produced over ten children, two of whom were later returned students from the United States. See the South China Morning Post, June 25, 1928.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211267, "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": 328, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "303\n\ncultivation of controlled accidents, synthesis of East and West: \"Chinese brushwork is really individual, like Western color. Good brushwork is so beautiful. It can make you look at it many times... It's just like with voice when I hear one song, if the voice is good I want to hear another song. It's the same voice, but each time it's a little bit different: that attracts me so much. . . .” (p. 42).\n\nOther notable scholars and critics who have written about artist-collector-connoisseur Wang have also been allowed to speak with their own voices, which gives the story a clarity and authenticity rarely achieved in a scholarly book. Moreover, the book is lavishly illustrated not only with Mr. Wang's works of all periods but also with the paintings that were most influential in building his style.\n\nIn addition, Professor Silbergeld recounts the long history of C. C. Wang as collector, and how he has been a central figure in influencing the growth of major collections of Chinese art in the West, notably that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, through the sale of his own collections.\n\nMind Landscapes has been laid out with great beauty and intelligence. It would have been impossible to produce such an outstanding volume without financial support. This was provided through grants from the Henry Art Gallery Association, PONCHO, the University of Washington Press, and the J. Paul Getty Trust. Yet it is rare to have such a thoughtful and handsome product even if one has the resources. Kudos are also due to the designer, Douglas Wadden.\n\nThe publication of Mind Landscapes coincides with a major retrospective of C. C. Wang's work and serves as a catalogue to it. This book is a fitting climax to Mr. Wang's career and sets a standard of excellence in its field. Let us hope that young scholars in Asia and the West will take note.\n\nJOAN LEBOLD COHEN*\n\n* Joan Lebold Cohen, art historian and photographer, is a lecturer at Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her most recent books discuss various aspects of contemporary Chinese painting: The New Chinese Painting, 1949-1986 (1987) and Yunnan School, a Renaissance in Chinese Painting (1988).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212272, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "191\n\nSeveral levels of influence on Legge's approach to the Chinese classics can be associated with his intimate knowledge of Buchanan's History of Scotland.\n\nIt is, for instance, possible to identify in Legge a particular view of history, which he had received from Buchanan's portrayal of Scottish history. Buchanan was aware of both the tenuous nature of the Scottish monarchy and the military might of the English. He searched through the most ancient Latin texts in order to identify sources for facts and issues almost completely lost by his contemporaries. In doing so, he set standards for the critical assessment of ancient manuscripts, consequently creating a chronological reconstruction of Scottish history. In Legge's scholarly reconstruction of the dynastic histories of China we find the same concern for reliability of texts, long prolegomena which attempt to splice together the missing pieces, and a relentless standard which distinguished myth from historical event.\n\nStill there was more than this in The History of Scotland: it is full of the accounts of clan wars, the complexities of international politics, and the heroes of the nation. Could it be that these were reflected in Legge's approach to Chinese history as he was drawn into the ducal duels and internecine warfare of The Spring and Autumn Annals (IBPA) and its commentaries? There is a remarkable concurrence between the Warring States period of China and the battles of Scottish patriots in the formative years before union with England.\n\nTwo further dimensions of Buchanan's life and efforts are of interest: first, Buchanan's concern to revitalize the old medieval Latin tradition by an intimate knowledge of the classics and to apply lessons learned from the classics to his own time; secondly, the fact that this Catholic scholar later converted to Calvinism. Cherishing the classics was, for both Christian Latinists and Confucians, a means of gaining wisdom to live in a dynamically changing world. At Oxford Legge would reveal his great admiration and interest in the Tang dynasty scholar, Han Yu (768-824), having recognized in Han Yu this same concern to cherish \"old\" knowledge in order to acquire new knowledge. Furthermore, Han Yu was a kind of Confucian fundamentalist, using his renaissance of past wisdom to effect direct intellectual and political renewal.\n\nTT\n\nProtestant conversion in the sixteenth century demanded as drastic", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212328, "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": 270, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "247\n\n―\n\nand Godown Company. 'Monuments' still standing include the Helena May Institute (completed 1916), Saint Andrew's Church (foundation stone laid 1904) and Church Hall, and the Peninsula Hotel (official opening 1928) which — along with the Taj Mahal in Bombay, Raffles in Singapore and a few others was classified, before World War II, as one of the 'great hotels of the East'. Another of Leigh and Orange's edifices is the main, 'Renaissance' style, building at Hong Kong University which was completed in 1912 and extended in 1952. It has been gazetted as an historical monument. The now demolished Sir Paul Chater's 'Marble Hall', generally accepted as the most luxurious residence in Hong Kong before World War II, was another example.\n\nThe Colony's first, full-time, chartered accountant was Arthur Lowe, who came to Hong Kong in 1902. Joseph Bingham became his partner in 1905, and Frederick Mathews (Lowe, Bingham and Mathews) in 1909. There were other accountants in the Territory before 1902, but few had professional qualifications and auditing was usually a subsidiary activity to their main lines of business. For instance, Linstead and Davis were mainly property agents, but they also sold bicycles, and, up to 1926, they had an agency for Manila cigars. The partners audited the accounts of various companies. The senior partner of Gibb Livingston was one of the two Hong Kong Bank auditors, and so on.\n\nLowe Bingham (Lo Bing Ham in Chinese) became part of the international firm of Price Waterhouse in 1974,\n\nHong Kong and China Gas Company\n\nWilliam Glen, who had no knowledge of the gas industry in 1861, obtained from the then Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson (when the population was 123,281), a concession to supply gas to the city of Victoria. The company was incorporated on May 31st 1862: most of the shareholders lived in the United Kingdom, although 500 shares were offered locally.\n\nThen, on December 3rd 1864, Hong Kong was lit with gas for the first time by about 15 miles of mains and 500 lamps, in Queen's Road extending up the hill to Upper Albert Road. Previously, the only street lights had been installed voluntarily by residents, and burned peanut oil. The residents of Caine Road complained that they\n\n---\n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213550, "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-1995", "page_number": 146, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "115\n\nIn the early seventeenth century, according to Dr Batalha, Portuguese had attained the status of a lingua-franca around the coasts of Africa and southern Asia, including Malacca. The resident population of Macau in 1563, according to Montalto de Jesus, comprised some 900 Portuguese, excluding children, with some thousands of Malays, Indians and Africans mostly domestic slaves. A creole dialect was already established among these groups, based on pre-renaissance Portuguese. This dialect was spoken by the Portuguese residents of Macau in addition to native \"metropolitan\" Portuguese.\n\nIn the period from 1550 to 1650, xenophobia among Chinese officialdom was very gradually overcome by a desire to import foreign goods and to exploit the market for Chinese silk, spices, porcelain and decorative articles. In the early days of Macau, Chinese who wished to work or carry on business there had to enter in the morning and leave the enclave through the border gate before sun-down. (Whether this requirement was laid down by the Chinese or the Portuguese is not clear.)\n\nDuring this period of Portuguese-Chinese trade, we speculate that the existence of an Indo-Portuguese creole spoken among a population, many of whom would have had long contact with Chinese settlers in south-east Asia, would have allowed ample opportunities for translation between Chinese and Portuguese traders. Demands on the Chinese traders to learn Portuguese would have been minimal.\n\nThe Honourable East India Company was founded in 1600, and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. In the 1650s, the first vessels of the United East India Company were coming to Canton to do trade. These fundamentally English-speaking traders were faced with a different order of problems.\n\nTheir exposure to the Far East at that time had not been long enough to permit the establishment of a lingua-franca. The low volume of trade between China and the North European traders up until the early eighteenth century was no doubt supported by translation services by Malays who had had exposure to the Chinese language.\n\nHowever, in the early seventeen hundreds, the demand for China trade rose dramatically, and this laid the ground for the development", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214102, "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-1997", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "139\n\nsame pattern, nothing has disturbed it in three hundred years. Reclamation can be observed. The harbour front has been increased, a natural act of a trading station investing in improved trans-shipment facilities. Quays have replaced shallow waterfront. This also opens up the northern edge of the city to fulfil a function similar to the Praia Grande, the place to stroll and be seen, the place to meet and conduct business and exchanges. Waterfront edges such as the Praia in Macau or Shanghai's Bund are important in coastal trading towns throughout the world and common in colonial developments in Asia.\n\nFigure 2: 1898\n\nAlthough we are examining patterns of urban development, we should note that the houses along the Praia Grande are an ingenious and significant assimilation of two cultures, echoing the underlying dual nature of Macau. The facades are purely European reconstituted renaissance style using columns of the grand orders. These facades, however, hide buildings of purely Chinese plan internally, consisting of central courtyards flanked by buildings axially and symmetrically. The central position is occupied by the main hall, the parent's quarters and the elder son's quarters. As you penetrate further back, you reach lesser members of the family. To the sides lie the service spaces. The public face, however, reflects the European order - the organic walled city, not the highly ordered Chinese walled city.\n\nTwentieth Century\n\nIt is in this century that significant and substantial changes begin to be made to Macau. By 1912 (Brito 1962), we see further expansion of the harbour. By this time, Hong Kong had been established and was a serious rival for the coastal trade in southern China. The harbour facilities in Hong Kong were better - a deeper draught, a more sheltered harbour. Major trading houses had started to establish their headquarters in Hong Kong and Macau was in need of better facilities to compete. Macau's first venture into heavy industry can be seen on Ilha Verde (Green Island) which was connected to the shore by a causeway and on which a cement production plant was established in 1889.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214815, "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-1999", "page_number": 230, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "196\n\nand teachings of an extraordinary man. Accounts of the origins, development and principal characteristics of the Three Religions are superfluous here, as they can be found in both current and older standard works on the subject.\n\nIn regard to any comparisons with religion as understood in the West, the celebrated American missionary scholar Dr. Arthur Smith had this to say of Chinese religion:\n\n\"There is no word in Chinese embodying this concept, its place having been taken by a character denoting Instruction, which embodies quite a different idea; or by the phrase bai shen, signifying \"to worship\" (or to pay one's respects to) gods and spirits.\"\n\n\"Bai,\" he added, \"can also denote 'to pay one's respects to' in ordinary human intercourse.\" \"These terms show what is the substitute in the Chinese mind for that which we mean by religion.\"\n\nDr. Smith's dictum was endorsed by one of the best-known Chinese scholars of the Republican era, Dr. Hu Shih, writing a generation later on \"Religion in Chinese Life\" in his book The Chinese Renaissance (1934):\n\n\"The Chinese word for 'religion' is chiao which means teaching or a system of teaching. To teach people to believe in a particular deity is a chiao; but to teach them how to behave toward other men is also a chiao. The term chiao is applied to Buddhism, Taoism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, as well as Confucianism.\"\n\nTeaching, as \"Instruction,\" was common to all of China's Three Religions, and as Dr. Hu went on to explain, the intention was to inculcate moral virtue:\n\n\"Teaching a moral life is the essential thing: and 'the ways of the gods' are merely one of the possible means of sanctioning that teaching. That is in substance the Chinese conception of religion.\"\n\nWith these few words, the two scholars have brought out the two", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214824, "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-1999", "page_number": 239, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "205\n\nphilosophy and ethics among the Chinese\", p.298.\n\n2 A convenient modern summary of all Chinese religions, past and present, is provided by D. Howard Smith in his Chinese Religions (London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1968). Useful summaries are also contained in the relevant sections of Trevor Ling's A History of Religion: East and West; An Introduction and Interpretation (London, Macmillan, 1968).\n\n3 Arthur H. Smith, The Uplift of China (London, Church Missionary Society, 1908 and revised new edition 1914). Both are used in this paragraph, pp.83-4 and 41 respectively.\n\n4 Hu Shih, The Chinese Renaissance (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1934), p.79.\n\n5 Smith, op.cit., 1908, p.84. Professor Latourette adds one more element: \"The average Chinese has long been and still is an animist, a Buddhist, a Confucianist and a Taoist with no sense of incongruity or inconsistency\", he wrote, in the first edition of his survey The Chinese, Their History and Culture (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1934), Vol.II, p.125.\n\n6 However, this \"intertwining\", as Smith called it, did not extend to the temples and monasteries of the three religions. As the 19th century English missionary cleric Archdeacon Moule observed, they were each characterized by a different atmosphere and possessed a different significance, which he summarized as follows: \"Confucian and ancestral temples generally are for the commemoration and reverence and cultus of the great departed. Buddhist and Taoist temples and monasteries are open for the worship singly or in company of the people generally, addressed to images representing deities of living and present power\". Ven. Arthur Evans Moule, The Chinese People, A Handbook on China (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1914), p.212. Rev. F.W.S. O'Neill, The Quest for God in China (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1925), p.33.\n\n7 This was a truly enormous field of endeavour, as practically every woman in every household in China and its Dependencies would have recourse to Taoist magic in one form or another to ward off evil from the home. The propensity was so marked that it could extend to converts to Christianity who, used to pasting up protective words and phrases, could include “Emmanuel” and “Trust in God” above the doorways and windows where hitherto Taoist charms had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215421, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "147\n\nWork on it could only have started after the beatification of St. Francis Borgia at the end of 1624. His statue and that of St. Luís Gonzaga appear in niches on the second storey of the façade with pedestals only bearing the title beatus, not saints. Francis Borgia was only canonised in 1670 but had been beatified by Pope Urban VIII on the 23rd November 1624. Luis Gonzaga had already been beatified in 1605 (Figs 14.15).\n\nThe statues of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier also appear in the second storey and on their pedestals are given the correct title of saints. Both had been declared saints in 1622 with spectacular canonisation ceremonies in Rome, Spain and Portugal. We know from a 1644 Annual Letter written from the college in Macao that the façade was completed the year that this letter was dated. It seems therefore very probable that the frontispiece was constructed between 1625 and 1644 and that the impulse for its construction or reconstruction was very likely the canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier.\n\nThe initiative for founding the Macao College as the seat of the Japan missions, later expanded to include China, was due to Alessandro Valignano, the Father Superior and Father Visitor of the Jesuits in the East. As stated, the architect of the church was Father Carlo Spinola, an Italian from Naples. The reputed decoration of the façade at the hands of Chinese and Christian Japanese craftsmen was very likely carried out under the direction of Giovanni Nicolao, an Italian Jesuit painter from Nola. From this it is only too obvious that Italian Jesuits with a Late Renaissance mentality were highly influential in its creation, something characteristic of the historical period in question.\n\nJ.E. McCall, whose pioneering research is fundamental to the subject, has studied the activities of Giovanni Nicolao. Yoshitomo Okamoto, in his Namban Bijutsu, also gives important insights on Father Nicolao, who had actually opened a school of fine arts for young Japanese seminarians as apprentices in Western painting, printmaking and sculpture in various missionary colleges in Japan.19 But apart from Giacomo Niva, a Chinese-Japanese painter and the most brilliant of Nicolao's pupils, we hardly know the names of the other Chinese and Japanese artists who may have formed Nicolao's team in Macao. Unfortunately, this was apparently Jesuit practice at the time. Their famous annual letters sent from China or their Macao College, today", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215426, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 203, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "152\n\npair emerges at the back of the fourth storey. These six lions obviously served the same purpose as the gargoyles of Gothic churches, and may be void of iconographic meaning. In this case more important than classical orthodoxy for the Jesuits was evidently the incorporation and integration of Chinese and Japanese decorative motifs.\n\nPurpose of Decoration\n\nOne of the most striking features betraying the influence of retables is the profusion of religious symbols adorning the walls of the frontispiece, an esoteric hieroglyphic language growing in iconographic intensity as it moves towards the top. In purely architectural terms this richness of imagery appears to be mainly artistic and non-functional, and is not found to this extent in the decoration of more conventional church façades. However, it is something typical of Counter-Reformation altarpieces, one of its main purposes being a didactic one. Not only the structure, but also the decorative dialogue of the façade also reveals it to be a mixture of medieval scholasticism and Renaissance classicism.\n\nAnother characteristic of retables found in the façade is the hierarchy and progression of symbols and sculptured images that goes from bottom to top. For example, instead of the geometric decoration of the first storey, the second storey's bays display naturalistic bas-reliefs of palm trees. The bronzes themselves start with images of blessed and saints, above which appear those of the Virgin and Jesus.\n\nThe upper half of the façade consists of a third storey united to those below by carved volutes, and a fourth storey or attic joined to it by segmental brackets and crowned by a large pediment displaying the dove of the Holy Spirit.\n\nIn this upper half there are several Chinese inscriptions, further attesting to the didactic purpose of the decoration. Although these apparently were not the work of Chinese artists knowledgeable of calligraphy,25 they are quite legible and visible from the upper steps and the entrance courtyard below. There can be little doubt that their main purpose was to make the iconographic and calligraphic messages of the frontispiece, largely concentrated in the upper half of the façade, clear to the Chinese population and to potential Chinese converts.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]