[ { "id": 205824, "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-1969", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "124\n\nSOME NOTES ON ETHNO-BOTANY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONGKONG\n\nARMANDO DA SILVA*\n\nThere is an old Cantonese proverb that goes \"Kau shan yak shan, kau shui yak shui, (*****). When translated it means \"When in the hills, live off the hills, when on water, live off the water\". In many of the smaller villages of the New Territories, and especially among the more isolated coastal ones, this maxim is still practised to some extent in everyday life. Most of the older villagers possess an intimate knowledge of various qualities of common plants. Many plants that thrive in the neighbourhood of settlements owe their survival because they have some useful or medicinal qualities to offer, which distinguish them from mere brushwood destined for the kitchen stove.\n\nA source of income for coastal settlements derives from economic activities related to the use of beaches by Tanka and Hoklo fishermen for careening their boats. These fishermen also use the beaches to dry and mend their nets. As these tasks must be done frequently to prevent rot and tear, many villagers often find it profitable to provide services for the fishermen. Large vats are installed so that salt can be boiled out of the nets. Other vats are used for dyeing and for applying net preservatives. Most nets are made from imported ramie or coconut coir fibers. However, a plant common to many coastal villages is often used to make fibers for fishing nets. This is the Agave, called by Tanka and Hoklo fishermen poh lo ma (\"pineapple hemp\"). It is also known by its other Chinese name of lung sit lan (⃧ \"dragon tongue orchid\") because of its high flowering stamen. The Agave thrives on drier sandy soils near beaches and does not seem to be affected by salt water spray. After the spines are removed from the plant, fiber is extracted by pounding and retting. The juice is often used as an insecticide and the saponin content as a form of soap for washing clothes.\n\n* Mr. da Silva has a Master's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and is presently with the Department of Geography, University of Hawaii. His article \"Fan Lau and its Fort: an Historical Perspective\" appeared at pp. 82-95 of last year's Journal. Mr. da Silva states that the present article refers, in particular, to some coastal settlements in Lantau and the Saikung Peninsula where he spent much time visiting and observing people and things from October 1962 to September 1963, and again in the summer of 1964.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205829, "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-1969", "page_number": 135, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "NOTES ON ETHNO-BOTANY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n129\n\nGlochidion eriocarpum (tsat tai koo ✯✯★★) is a hillside plant. The leaves are first boiled and then applied to sores to relieve irritation.\n\nHydrocotyle asiatica (pang tai woon). A tonic drink is made from this plant as a yuet hei reliever. It is considered especially good for nursing mothers. The leaves and stalks may be eaten as a vegetable with rice, and an excellent soup can be made from it.\n\nHedyotis uncinella (po chau tsai). The plants are dried in the sun and used in making a tonic drink to relieve yuet hei and to offset general debility.\n\nThese are only ten of many economic simples with reputed curative or medicinal qualities. As already suggested, some of them may have been emergency famine food at one time or another, particularly those that also serve as vegetables or as soup stock.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 In 1962-63, most of the nets in small sampans appeared to have been made from commercial natural fibres (abaca, ramie or coconut coir fibers). However, Agave fiber was still used for making twine. Fishermen then were readily accepting synthetic nets. Some fishermen I talked to believed that synthetic nets were too expensive for small craft as snagged nets meant costly losses because it is harder to salvage nets of synthetic fiber than those of natural fiber, so I was told.\n\n2 I haven't seen cochineal insects used for dye myself and the information given me was essentially \"before the use of chemical dyes, in olden days, this kind of cactus (Opuntia) harboured yin chi insects that were used for a red dye.\" Whether the cochineal insect was used or not in the lifetime of the older villagers I talked with, I do not know. Personally I suspect it was used extensively in the past and the dyeing technique diffused through the Philippines to the China coast from Acapulco, Mexico in the days of the Manila Galleon (i.e., Acapulco to Manila to Macau and thence along the South Chinese coast).\n\n3 Kong Nim and Pei Kwan Kong terms for Rhodomyrtus tomentosa berry, are used interchangeably at Fan Lau. Fan Lau as well as most of the other Lantau villages were, I suspect, pirate hideouts and it may well be that Pei Kwan Kong may have been a term derived from the time of the Great Evacuation, 1662-1669. For details of the latter see Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its Communications before 1842. (Hong Kong 1963, Chinese version 1960) chapter VI,\n\n4 Tuk yuc tung (\"fish poison vine\"). Many cultivators buy an insecticide powder called tuk yue fun (fish poison powder). This powder is usually first mixed with sawdust before application. It is the same powder used by gardeners to rid the lawn of white grubs! This powder too is dusted on the heads of children suspected of having lice in their hair.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210532, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "120 \n\nJOHN KARL EVANS \n\nThe lettering suggests that this inscription should be dated to the second century A.D. This was, however, a century of notorious religiosity. In the course of his sixth satire, a prolonged diatribe against married women published in or shortly after A.D. 116, Juvenal vividly describes how penitent followers of the goddess Isis atoned for their transgressions by plunging into the freezing waters of the Tiber and then crawling across Rome on blood-stained knees (Juv. 6.522-541). Some fifty years later, in A.D. 177, there occurred at Lyons one of the most terrible of the Christian persecutions, recounted at length by Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica. One brief excerpt will serve to give a sense of the whole:\n\n7 \n\nThen Maturus, Sanctus, Blandina, and Attalus were brought forth to face the beasts brought forth for a public exhibition of the inhumanity of the heathen, since the day for combat with wild animals had been specially set aside for our people. There in the amphitheatre, Maturus and Sanctus once again passed through every conceivable torture just as if they had suffered nothing at all before, or rather as if, having already overcome their opponent in the several preliminary bouts, they were now competing for the victor's crown. Once more they ran the gauntlet of the whips, in accordance with the local custom; once more they were mauled by the beasts; once more they suffered everything which the maddened populace, seated on one side or the other, howled for and cheered on, culminating with the iron chair that roasted their bodies and suffocated them with the stench. Even at this point their tormentors did not cease, but became more and more frenzied in their desire to overcome their resistance. Nevertheless, they heard nothing from Sanctus beyond the confession of faith that he had been accustomed to make from the outset (5.1.37-39).\n\nA large body of comparable evidence for the heterogeneous religious attitudes to be found within the Roman Empire could be amassed without difficulty, but it would be pointless to do so. These few examples should serve to demonstrate just how wide the parameters of belief really were. Whether in Rome or a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211813, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "203\n\n21.1.1858 (Thur)\n\nEntertainment by Mr. George Henri.\n\nR: As there appeared no review of Mr. George HENRI's miracles on December 29 there is some doubt as to whether they were indeed performed on that date: perhaps they were postponed to January 21. Then the Herald showed itself “so astonished that had he asked us what we wished him to do next we should have requested him to produce Yeh before our eyes\". This alluded to Yeh Ming-ch'en, the Chinese Imperial Commissioner for Foreign Affairs who had played a major role in the second Anglo-Chinese war. He had been captured on January 5 1858 and taken to Calcutta by the British. (NCH 23.1.1858).\n\n9.2.1858 (Tue)\n\nT.J. DIBDIN: \"The Birthday” (1799)\n\nT: Comedy (3 acts)\n\nC. DANCE: \"The Dustman's Belle\" (1846)\n\nT: Comedy (2 acts)\n\nJ. KENNEY: \"Raising the Wind\" (1803)\n\nT: Farce (2 acts)\n\nC: Officers of H.M.S. Pique\n\nTh: On board ship\n\nR: The description of the circumstances under which the Herald's reporter was drawn to the \"Pique\" (a British frigate with crew of 350) is too vivid for the reader to forgo: Tuesday last was a depressing day for a melancholic tempered man, and even we, not constitutionally sad, felt its influence. The morning dawned through an atmosphere in which rain and mist were struggling to see which should do its worst to make everything look disagreeable. As the day moved on, the rain gained the ascendancy and pelted down most pitilessly; overhead the sky looked dull and murky; underfoot the soil of Shanghai, mingling lovingly with the weeping clouds, produced a mixture as tenacious as the grasp of a miser, and dirty as the soul of a time-serving parasite. The mail, with the usual fatality which crowds one mishap upon another, though overdue, had not arrived. To take the gun was simply to commit a felo de se in a sea of mud; and to hum a snatch of a tune was as great an exertion as to dance an Irish jig in fetters, or laugh at the present Sir R. Peel's facetiousness.* In this desolate mood we were plunged, when suddenly a bright recollection flashed upon us. We rose hastily from our chair and consulted a paper which had been lying neglected in a corner: it was the Pique's playbill. The sight of the 'Birthday', the 'Dustman's Belle' and 'Raising the Wind' acted like a charm upon us, and a few minutes afterwards we had crossed the Bund, escaped the insidious dangers of those man-traps of jetties which the Municipal Council are daily suffering to grow more and more like that bridge with many pitfalls invented in the vision of Mirza (this is a reference to \"The Vision of Mirza\" by Joseph Addison, first published in \"The Spectator\" in 1711 and reprinted in 1856 – JH); and committed the safety of our person to a China-boatman and his magnified eggshell. The rain pelted, but we laughed at it; the gusts blew spitefully, but we clutched the tighter and defied them; the darkness did its best to mislead us, but the bright glow from a sailor's pipe guided us with more trustworthiness and safety than a beacon light under certain auspices could have done, and we reached the Pique in safety. Here we found all light, bustle and tiptoe expectation. The main deck had been cleared of its grim everyday tenants - the cold frowning implements of old Mars and their room occupied by the flimsy, but joy-inspiring fripperies of Thespis. We passed along row after row of happy, eager faces and took our seat in front, amongst the guests whom the ship's company of the\n\n* Sir Robert Peel (1822-1895), diplomat and politician; popular in social life and gifted with \"rare powers of irony, but also \"absence of dignity\" and a \"want of moral fiber in his volatile character\" (Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 44, p. 223-224).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212427, "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": 369, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "346\n\nDIALOGUE IN FIVE STAGES. Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1988. 160 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. This series of five Edwin O. Reishauer lectures delivered by the doyen of 20th century China scholars covers the five stages of the development of the great East Asian civilization: the classical legacy, the Buddhist age, the Neo-Confucian stage, East Asia's modern transformation, and the post-Confucian era, with a chapter on East Asia and the West. The book should be in the library of every individual seriously interested in China past and present.\n\nO'Brien, Kevin J, REFORM WITHOUT LIBERALIZATION: CHINA'S NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS AND THE POLITICS OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 263 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. This is a pioneer work in which the author traces the development of the National People's Congress in the context of political and institutional changes in contemporary China.\n\nEndicott-West, Elizabeth, MONGOLIAN RULE IN CHINA: LOCAL ADMINISTRATION IN THE YUAN DYNASTY, Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press, 1989. 217 pp. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. This enlightening work examines the local government in China before the rule of the Mongols, and what changes and developments there were during the Yuan dynasty. The discourse on the issue of centralization should provide informative reading, especially in conjunction with Dardess' work noted above, and with Tung-tsu Ch'u's Local Government in China Under the Ch'ing.\n\nKao, Charles K, A CHOICE FULFILLED: THE BUSINESS OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1991. 203 pp. Glossary. Written with the interested general reading public in mind, this book traces the development of intricate technologies for the age of information in comprehensible language. Professor Kao, a highly respected electrical engineer who has made valuable contributions in transferring scientific and technological knowledge to everyday use, is renowned as the 'Father of Fiber Optics'. He concludes with great optimism that science and technology will provide the world's population with great opportunities for exploiting the world's resources to their fullest extent. Each essay in the book is introduced with a witty drawing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212501, "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-1991", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "35\n\nFaure, David W. 1990. The Rice Trade in Hong Kong Before the Second World War. In Between East and West Aspects of Social and Political Development 216-25. Edited by Elizabeth Sinn. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.\n\nFok, Kai-cheong. 1988. Wanqing qijian Xianggang dui neidi jingji fazhan zhi yingxiang (The influences of Hong Kong on the economic development of mainland during the late Qing period). In Xueshu Yanjiu 1988/2 70-4.\n\n1989. Xianggang huaren zai jindaishi shang dui Zhongguo de gongxian shixi (A preliminary study on the contributions of Hong Kong Chinese to China in modern history). In Huaren Yanjiu | 81-8.\n\n1990a. Lectures on Hong Kong History Hong Kong's Role in Modern Chinese History. Hong Kong: Commercial Press.\n\n1990b. Private Chinese Business Letters and the Study of Hong Kong Industry: A Preliminary Report. In Collected Essays on Various Historical Materials for Hong Kong Studies. Edited by Hong Kong Museum of History. Hong Kong: Urban Council.\n\n1992. Xianggang yu Jindai Zhongguo (Hong Kong and modern China). Hong Kong: Commercial Press.\n\n1993. Nineteenth Century Hong Kong: China's Gateway to the Western World of Business - themes and sources. Unpublished paper presented at the 34th International Congress on Asian and North African Studies. Hong Kong.\n\nGaw, Kenneth. 1988. Superior Servants: the Legendary Cantonese Amahs of the Far East. Singapore and New York: Oxford University Press.\n\nGodley, Michael R. 1981. The Treaty Port Connection: An Essay. In Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12/1 248-59.\n\nHamashita, Takeshi. 1991. Higashi Ajiashi ni okeru Honkon no ichi (The role of Hong Kong in East Asian history). In Sōbun 320 1-8.\n\nHamilton, Gary Glen. 1991. Edited Business Networks and Economic Development in East and Southeast Asia. Hong Kong: University Press.\n\nHao, Yen-p'ing. 1969. Cheng Kuan-ying: The Comprador as Reformer. In Journal of Asian Studies 29/1 15-22.\n\n1970a. The Comprador in Nineteenth-Century China: Bridge Between East and West. Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.\n\n1970b. A New Class in China's Treaty Ports: The Rise of the Comprador-Merchants. In Business History Review 44/4 446-59.\n\n1970c. Maiban shangren wanqing tongshang kouan yi xinxing jieceng (Comprador-merchants: \"new class\" in late Qing treaty ports). In Gugong Wenxian 2/1 35-44.\n\n1977. Zhongguo jindai yanhai shangye de buwenling-sheng (Commercial uncertainties along modern China's Coast). In Shihuo Yuekan 7/8-9 1-11.\n\n1979. Commercial Capitalism along the China Coast during the Late Qing Period. In Proceedings of the Conference on Modern Chinese Economic History 303-27. Edited by Chi-ming Hou and Trong-shian Yu. Taiber: Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica.\n\n1982a. Entrepreneurship and the West in East Asian Economic and Business History. In Business History Review 56/2 149-67.\n\n1982b. The Compradors. In Maggie Keswick (edited) 85-102.\n\n1986. The Commercial Revolution in Nineteenth-Century China: The Rise of Sino-Western Mercantile Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.\n\nHayes, James. 1979. The Nam Pak Hong Commercial Association of Hong Kong. In Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 19/2 16-26.\n\n1984. Collecting Business Papers of Chinese Enterprises in Hong Kong. In Research Materials for Hong Kong Studies 47-55. Edited by Alan Birch. Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.\n\nHe, Wenxiang. 1989. Xianggang Jiezushi (History of Hong Kong's big families). Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 } ]