[ { "id": 206947, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 18, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "THE PAPER CHASE—ARCHIVES AND\n\nTHE PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE OF HONG KONG\n\n[“It is to be noted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it”— The Tatler]\n\nA. I. DIAMOND *\n\nThis evening I propose to tell you something about the development of the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, and about the role which it can or should play in the conservation and use of Hong Kong’s archival resources. But before doing this I think that it may be worthwhile to spend some time talking about archives as such—about what archives are and how modern archive institutions operate.\n\nMany of you may be quite knowledgeable on this subject already, and if you are I apologise for seeming to assume otherwise. But some quite astonishing misconceptions exist about archivists and their profession, as all archivists know, and when we are asked to address a general audience few of us can quell the thought that at least some present may be harbouring what we have come to recognise as the classic delusions about us. And what are these:\n\nWell, the other evening, for example, my hostess at a dinner party said to me “What a wonderful job you must have. Fancy being able to sit all day reading through all those fascinating old papers”. There it is, you see, one of the archivist’s main preoccupations, apparently, is reading through all the documents in his care—and mark you, they’re bound to be old and fascinating. She was just being polite of course, but I realised at once that here was someone with a full quiver of misconceptions about us. I could guess that in a moment she would tell me that I do not really look like her idea of an archivist. She would not have had to explain what she meant by that. I know already. I should be old and leathery looking with a beard and long grey hair and wearing steel-rimmed bi-focals. In fact I should look like a cross between Charles Darwin and Karl Marx in their old age. And what else do I do? Well, when I am not poring over fascinating old documents in my\n\n* Mr. Diamond is Government Archivist, Hong Kong. He is also the Hon. Secretary of the Hong Kong Branch, R.A.S. This paper was delivered to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society on Monday, 7th January, 1974,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207781, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "154\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nAll hospitals and medical services in China were very short of medical supplies both in terms of medicines, anaesthetics, equipment and everyday requirements such as bandages and sheets. In addition, in a time of inflation, assets were put into easily saleable form of which medicine, such as quinine, was a favourite. This meant that there was little western medicine for sale in the open market and supplies of such materials, whether in store or in transit, were a favourite target for thieves. However the greatest losses in the Nationalist armies were undoubtedly from the malnutrition/dysentery cycle from which, beyond a certain point, there was no recovery.\n\n3 The daily routine on the road varied with the fuel used, but there were common features. The driver and mechanic (or assistant if carried) slept on the truck, the shorter in the cab and the taller on top of the cargo. This helped to prevent theft of cargo and removal of parts such as headlamps and half-shafts which were in great demand. Passengers slept in the nearest inn, or perhaps mission station. Techniques for an undisturbed and loss-free night in an inn included an oiled sheet (p.8) sewn into the bottom of the mosquito net which was then slit at one end and fastened with clips, and placing the bed or table legs into shoes to make unauthorized removal of them difficult.\n\nActivity started at dawn and after refuelling and a check on wheels and springs a quick breakfast of ji dan dou jiang (p.8) taken from a travelling salesman, the truck would get under way. There would normally be a stop at a convenient fandian (p.8) between 10.30 and 12 noon- refuelling, wheel and spring checks and away again until late afternoon and a stop for the day.\n\nLiquid fuel was carried in 50 (US) gallon drums and was siphoned out into 5 gallon cans for transfer to the truck tank. A skilled man, using a rubber hose, can induce a siphon by sucking at the end and avoid getting his mouth full of raw alcohol, rape seed oil or whatever the fuel might be. Operation and refuelling of the charcoal burning trucks was a much longer and dirtier procedure and is described in the section devoted to them.\n\n4 The Sentinel/HSG trucks had an interesting history. With the loss of the coastal region and the main railway lines, China had not only lost the possibility of importing diesel fuel and petrol but had gained a number of experienced, but unemployed, steam railway engine drivers and firemen. The IRC decided to enquire into the possibility of steam road transport and got in touch with the Sentinel Steam Carriage and Wagon Co. Ltd. at Shrewsbury, England, the major manufacturer in the past of steam road engines. The transport would use local coal or charcoal fuel and the available engine drivers and firemen. However, the tare weight of steam wagons is high and the gross weight would have been greater than the bridges would have stood. The Sentinel company suggested an alternative. They had recently taken up the designs of the High Speed Gas engine and offered a 5 ton capacity truck fitted with a 4 cylinder horizontal HSG engine with a 12:1 compression ratio. This burnt producer gas made from charcoal in a gas generator of the cross-draught type. Four of these Sentinel/HSG were purchased and may have been the first (and possibly only) ones built. One of these had been lost on the Burma Road and the remaining three contributed to the death of one man, resignation of another, and almost broke the hearts of several other Unit members. It should be a cardinal point never to introduce any equipment, mechanical or electrical, into a tough environment lacking supporting services, unless it has been in series production and has been thoroughly tested in similar conditions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207813, "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "186\n\nMICHAEL SMITHIES\n\nWith Pegu one is back to the culture of the early inhabitants of Burma, the Mons. Their original centre was around Thaton, further east than Pegu and this was certainly in existence by the 5th century AD. It was a Mon monk who had converted the Burmese King Anawrahta in the middle of the 11th century to Buddhism, and the king had requested certain relics and texts from king Manuha, who had refused. The result of the refusal was the destruction of the Mon kingdom but its cultural preeminence was recognised in the religion, architecture and art of early Pagan. After the fall of Pagan the Mons reestablished their kingdom, first at Mataram, and then, from 1369 at Pegu (Hanthawaddy or Hamsavati). They were temporarily ruled by the Burmese from 1539-1550 and again from 1551-1740; but Mon independence was due to be short-lived and the last king Binnya Dala was killed in 1747 by Alaungpaya and the Mons, like the Chams in Vietnam, then became a people without a country, though they still exist in large numbers in lower Burma near Moulmein and also in scattered villages in central Thailand.\n\nPegu is a day trip out of Rangoon, but as much as the present capital now reflects the condition of contemporary Burma, so Pegu is lost in its past. Its most famous sight is the Shwemawdaw pagoda, centred round a stupa with a broad stepped octagonal base and which is still taller than the Shwedagon in Rangoon. It is in many ways the palladium of Mon culture. Its foundation date is not known, but it was already raised in height by the Mon king Thamala in 825. In the twentieth century it suffered three severe earthquakes, and the present spire effectively dates from 1954 when restoration was completed. A number of ancient Buddha images was found when much of the stupa collapsed in the 1930 earthquake. Not very far from the Shwemawdaw is the spot where the two Hamsa birds alighted, one on the other's back, on a shallow spot in what was then the sea. The Hamsa is the symbol of the Mons and is also of course the mount of Brahma. This site is the Hinthagone, which now boasts a rather horrible modern shrine with vulgar paintings of hamsas but with a good view towards the Shwemawdaw. Hardly less vulgar is the reclining Buddha, the Shwethalyaung, reputed to be largest such image and certainly one of the ugliest. It was originally built in 994 but fell into disrepair and was restored in the 15th century. It was neglected again and became overgrown, to be rediscovered by a railway engineer at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208029, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "52\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nMethodist missionaries travelled with us to Pao-chi and we sat together against the front of one truck singing quietly as the train rumbled onwards through a star-lit night.\n\nSo we travelled through Shensi into Szechuan, our passengers making themselves comfortable with bedding rolls in the back of the trucks (Plate no. 18). Both girls had learnt English at University but considered my Chinese needed improving. Plate no. 19 shows Comrade Hu-nan at a roadside stop cuddling a small child who had been frightened. Interestingly the other, Comrade Yang, turned up in Chengtu a week after we reached Chungking and spoke to a left-wing group meeting in the dark in the Women's Dormitory of West China Union University of which my future wife was then Warden.\n\nTravelling Arrangements\n\nAt meal times we distributed ourselves among the different fan tien at our stopping place. Our passengers slept at inns or in the back of the trucks while the crew slept in or on top of the cab. This latter was the best position.\n\nAfter some years of experience as a transport organization the Unit had developed a relative sophistication in sleeping arrangements. The trucks used on this trip were, as mentioned, Canadian WD Dodges. These were adapted from commercial models and had heavier springs and bumpers and towing hooks. They were equipped with a steel and timber body with three-foot high sides, steel hoops and canvas cover. We fitted a wide board hinged to the front of the body which was kept in an upright position during the day and covered by the tarpaulin to which it formed a solid back. At night the front of the cover was cast loose and the board folded down on to the top of the cab forming a flat platform. There were also three or four loose boards laid along the hoops and these helped to support the canvas. When the front board had been folded down these roof boards were pulled forward three or four feet and a canvas roof was formed over the platform. There was thus a flat floor, two foot by six foot six, with two feet six of headroom above it and something to hang a mosquito net from. Here the taller members of the crew slept at night. The shorter members usually slept in the cab or found a reasonably flat place on top of the cargo. Sleeping on the truck was standard procedure for crew;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208065, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "88 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\nof a better place. In most temples he stands slightly off to one side from the middle of the Under Altar behind the incense pot. The same God Carver explained that the other, similar image in the Under Altar, is the Black and White Demon (). He too is standing, dressed in sackcloth and has his tongue protruding. He has a black face, the same four characters down the front of his dunce's cap. He too, holds the wand with its tattered decoration which he uses to lead souls safely into the Afterworld and before the Judges of Purgatory. He is sometimes known as \"The one who leads the souls\" (). The usual image, the Local Wealth God who is occasionally known as the Filial son (#7) according to the Macanese carver, is taller, stands in sackcloth, but with a white face and wearing a dunce's cap without characters.\n\nThis statement by a man who is at the heart of image making and whose other statements have been well borne out by temple keepers in both Hong Kong and Macau, has thrown a cat amongst the pigeons, as a careful examination of Under Altars reveals that very few images have black faces or characterless caps. All, with and without characters and with black or white faces, are referred to without exception by the individual temple keepers as the Local Wealth God. They added, however, that they may also be called by the less polite and now old-fashioned title of Wu Ch'ang Kuei, the \"Unpredictable Demon\" (), a term Burkhardt1 consistently used for the demonic policeman who arrests souls.\n\nThe same God Carver also explained that the Wu Ch'ang Kuei quite frequently has red tears running down his face because, apparently, as a youth he so got on his Mother's nerves that she cried herself to death. Covered by remorse and crying until he drew blood, he set himself the task of guiding first her soul, and then souls of others, safely into the through the Underworld.\n\nThe primary function of the Local Wealth God, according to the majority of temple keepers concerned, is to provide unexpected money (always in small quantities), and particularly for luck in gambling, especially horse racing. He is prayed to by gamblers who are going through a lengthy and damaging run of bad luck. In addition to this well-known ability to provide small quantities of unexpected money, a few temple keepers understand that, dressed in hemp, he has the power to drive away sickness demons and, if \n\n(1) V. R. Burkhardt: Chinese Creeds and Customs: Vols. 1-3. 1952-5 Hong Kong (SCMP).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210448, "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-1985", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "36 \n\nBARBARA E. WARD \n\nthan cubicles, were furnished with wooden beds, mosquito nets and chests for clothes and so on, while the \"cockloft” (gok tzae) upstairs was used for storage and might contain another sleeping cubicle (often used especially for the unmarried daughters of the house). The wooden partition facing the entrance in the front room downstairs was usually decorated with family photographs and carried also a small shelf with ritual paraphernalia and red paper hangings. In 1970 every house contained at least one radio (normally pouring forth a steady stream of Cantonese opera at full pitch) and an electric fan, all had electric light, most had an electric rice cooker or two, and two had refrigerators. \n\nIn 1950 no house had glazed windows, and most of the unceiled pitched tile roofs dripped muddy patches on the earthen floors on rainy days. The old houses covered a somewhat larger area than the present ones, and were taller. They were divided internally in a somewhat similar way, but were far less comfortably furnished. They were used differently, too. Women, children, and sometimes pigs, were the normal inhabitants. Pigs scavenged the paths by day, and were shut up in the pig-sties at night. Children went to school a little, played a little, helped their mothers. Women cared for pigs and babies, and cultivated sweet potatoes and occasionally ground-nuts on small patches of hillside, chopping and boiling the leaves for pig fodder. They also cut wood and grass for sale as fuel to the Boat People. They cooked, with wood and sometimes charcoal, in great flattish iron bowls set into stone-built stoves on the right-hand side of their front doors. They bought their rice and most other dry goods from one of the village shops, begged or took fish from the drying grounds, and ate (rather shamefacedly) their own sweet-potato leaves and tubers. The little money they made from the sale of fuel was augmented from the wages of their menfolk and the sale of pigs, which was also usually conducted by men. But husbands and sons came home only intermittently from their wage employment in Kowloon, stayed for a few days and then returned. The only permanent male residents on land were the senile and the very young, the shopkeepers and the old man who looked after the temple, where the school teacher also lodged during term time.14 \n\n13", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213995, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "30 \n\non the 18th day of the Ninth Moon. \n\nBamboo scaffolders seldom use a rule. They set the spacing of the bamboo members by their eye, without the use of blueprints or plans. To do this, so many believe, they are assisted by Wah Kwong's third eye. Scaffolders, however, will usually submit a sketch to a client if they are going to erect, say, a matshed to house opera performances. \n\nIn the past, incense, fruit and pork were offered up to both Wah Kwong and Lu Pan on an altar at the time of starting work (hoi kung) on a building project. Such rituals are frequently still carried out today. When the author asked the mature scaffolder mentioned earlier, who said scaffolders had three masters, whether he would be going to the Lu Pan Temple in Kennedy Town on the Sage's birthday (the 13th day of the Sixth Moon), which was due to be held the following day, he replied that he would not. But his employer would be going. The old scaffolder said, however, that he would be attending a dinner to honour Lu Pan, when everyone would pay their respects. The author recalls attending these annual dinners, from 1955 to 1972, on a regular basis.37 \n\nConclusions \n\n36 \n\nSome people prophesied, in the 1950s, that the end had come for scaffolding and that western style metal scaffolding would take over. Although there has been a move in that direction metal has by no means taken over. In fact, the switch to metal scaffolding has been faster in places like China and Singapore than in Hong Kong. Bamboo is light and flexible and has many advantages, especially for smaller jobs. These include 'Cantilevering out', from high up on a building, to erect, say, a signboard. \n\nIn addition to the trade having its ups and downs, and being on the slow decline, bamboo is significantly cheaper. At mid-1997 prices single-layer bamboo scaffolding costs about HK$20 per square metre, double-layer bamboo scaffolding HK$36 per square metre and metal scaffolding HK$80 per square metre. Such figures are given only as a rough comparison. Prices vary, to some degree, depending on the job in question. For example, especially with metal scaffolding, the taller the scaffold the more expensive it will be.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215960, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "193\n\nruling authorities, including the emperor in the temples of the imperial college. Then very solemn ceremonies of reverence and adoration were performed, marking the Sage as the ultimate exemplar for all who aspired to any level of leadership within Chinese society.1\n\n18\n\nThe Poklo temple to Master Kong was, indeed, more impressive than those in nearby villages, such as the one at Lung Ch'un (literally, the \"River of the Dragon,\" M. Lóngchuān) also visited by Legge and others in 1861. There the temple had no images at all, but only the spirit tablet (shénpái) of the Sage along with a large plaque citing the sixteen maxims of the Sacred Edict (Shèngyù) of the Kangxi emperor (ruling from 1662-1722).19 Both temples at Poklo and Lung Ch'un were dwarfed by the massive grounds set aside to honour the sage in the capital city of Canton. There the image of the Sage was in a hall elevated from the grounds six to eight feet above the preceding courtyards, the roof made of \"those splendid burnished tiles\" constituting imperially-sponsored buildings, garnished with mystical beasts balancing on the upper beams. Seated on a large rock dais, the thick paper-maché-like image of Master Kong was taller and larger than life. Postured as if leaning over a tablet in his hands, the Sage appeared immersed in the study of the text before him.20\n\nHow Ch'ea came to take his place in this Confucian institutional and ritual system is never explained. Whether he had been a student at one time or not is also not made explicit, but he was able to read, and so had probably spent at least part of his youth as a student, one of large majority who had obviously not been elevated by successful results in the examination system. When the two colporteurs from Hong Kong met him, Ch'ea was already in his fifties, had been married, and had at least one son.21 Because no direct mention is made of Ch'ea's wife in any of the documentation after his conversion, there is the possibility that Ch'ea had become a widower even before the pair of colporteurs met him in Poklo.\n\nIf conversion is a multiform and processural event,22 then all of the above cultural, social, personal and religious factors have a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]