[ { "id": 204235, "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-1961", "page_number": 3, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nFRONTISPIECE\n\nTHE HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1960\n\nPAGE\n\n1\n\n5\n\n10\n\nHON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1960\n\nTRANSACTIONS OF THE BRANCH, 1960-61:\n\nThe Study of Asia: a Heritage and a Task. F. S. Drake 11\n\nBirds of Hong Kong . . . A. M. Macfarlane 18\n\nFlowers of Hong Kong (with one coloured illustration) B. T. Chiu 27\n\nThe Knight Errant in Chinese Literature James J. Y. Liu 30\n\nTibet As It Was . . . Hugh Richardson 42\n\nARTICLES CONTRIBUTED:\n\nThe Morrison Library . . . Dorothea Scott 50\n\nBuddhist Sources of the Novel FENG-SHEN YEN-I Liu Tsun-yan 68\n\nBuddhist Organizations in Hong Kong Holmes Welch 98\n\nChinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong . . . B. D. Wilson 115\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES 124\n\nLIST OF Members 127\n\nx", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204241, "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-1961", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n6\n\nyear we had 182 of whom 20 were life members and who included several eminent scholars from overseas. But as Sir Robert Black said in his address last month, \"there must be many times 200 people in Hong Kong who are interested both in the cultural life and history of this part of the world which has great riches to offer to anybody interested in research or in studying and enquiring about the inheritance which we all enjoy who live here.\" While we can feel pride in having in our present membership a substantial nucleus not only of scholars but of members generally representative of the cosmopolitan community of the Colony who are keen and enthusiastic, we need more members and hope to appeal to a wider public. As this is a Royal Society, membership is not a matter of form only, and we do not go out into the highways and byways to recruit members, but we feel that the Society can enlarge its activities and membership if the present members will help by bringing within the fold those of their friends and acquaintances who are interested in its activities. There seems to be no reason why in time the membership should not equal that of the Shanghai Branch, which before the war was about 800.\n\nDuring the year the Society has held eight meetings at which addresses have been given, all of them by persons of outstanding eminence in their respective spheres. Most of them were very well attended. Good lecturers are a gift from heaven but so far we have been truly blessed.\n\nWe were particularly fortunate in starting the year with two outstanding meetings. For an opening meeting we had an intensely interesting talk by Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark on \"The Social and Economic Organisation of Tibet\", illustrated by a coloured film taken over a period of seven years during his exploration of Central Asia. The formal inaugural address was given by Professor F. S. Drake of the University of Hong Kong on \"The Study of Asia: a Heritage and a Task.\" It was a memorable address which gave the stamp of learning and authority on the Society's efforts and the text of which is printed in this volume.\n\nOf no less interest and merit were the addresses following:\n\nby the\n\nProfessor John K. Fairbank on \"Chinese Studies in the United States\",\n\nMr. A. C. Scott on \"The Chinese Theatre\" illustrated by Chinese actors in costumes and makeup,\n\nMr. G. B. Downer of the University of London on \"The Yao People of Laos.\"\n\nIn the summer months we followed the advice of the first President of the original Hong Kong Branch, Sir John Davis,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204247, "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-1961", "page_number": 15, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n12\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nOne by one successive tribes arose Huns, Avars, Turks, Mongols, Manchus-dashed themselves against the frontiers of the Empire, and sometimes recoiling proceeded through Central Asia to Europe, sometimes breaking through the Wall, submerged for a time the whole Empire.\n\nApart from some stone monuments found in Central Asia, few but of great importance, the record of these tribes is to be found in the Chinese Histories, with references in the Greek authors of the Byzantine Empire, whenever the tribes impinged upon the West.\n\nInterest in collecting the Scythian bronzes commenced with Peter the Great. It is natural that the Russians and the scholars of Eastern Europe should be the first to be interested in the history of the Central Asian tribes. To them is largely due the excavations in Southern Europe and Siberia, and also in Mongolia. But in English we have the massive work 'Scythians and Greeks' by E. H. Minns. The Turks also are particularly interested in these studies, which have thrown much light upon the origin of the Turkish peoples.\n\nOne outcome of the struggle of the Chinese Empire with the Huns was the first extension of Chinese power in Central Asia, through the Tarim Basin, the present Sinkiang, to the Pamirs. This chapter in world history includes the fascinating account of the journey of Chang Ch'ien to the West in the second century B.C., the exploits of Pan Ch'ao in the Tarim Basin in the first century A.D., and the despatch of a Chinese envoy, Kan Ying, to the shores of the Persian Gulf,\n\nDuring the first and second centuries the famous silk trade arose between China and Rome, recorded by Ptolemy and the Chinese histories. For a short time the land route between China and the West was open. The road passed through the Tarim Basin, between the northern grasslands and Tibet. It also became the great highway between India and China.\n\nThe Tarim Basin is one of the most remarkable geographical regions in the world, lying as it does between glaciated mountains on three sides, with a waterless desert in the centre. Around the desert, watered by streams from the mountains, are the oasis towns and villages, which form stepping stones as it were for travellers passing from east to west, or from west to east. By this thoroughfare have passed from time immemorial the travellers of Central Asia-merchants, soldiers, monks. And by this thoroughfare the great cultural influences-Indian, Persian, Greek-have passed with Buddhism from Western and Southern Asia to China. By this thoroughfare Chinese colonization spread to the Pamirs. By this route Marco Polo journeyed to China in the thirteenth century.\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204251, "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-1961", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n16\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nChristian centuries of the new states of South-east Asia, formed under Indian influence in Indo-China, Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula.\n\nDuring the Middle Ages the navigation of the Southern Seas was in the hands of the Arabs. But after the rounding of the Cape, direct contact between Europe and the East by sea was restored. It was mainly by the sea-route that India, China, and South-east Asia became known to modern Europe. In this the Portuguese navigators played an all-important part. Passing over the rivalries of the Western nations we come to the days of the East India Company.\n\nIn India the Moghul empire had reached its height, fine examples of its art remaining in the Moghul architecture of Pakistan and North-west India, and Moghul miniature painting. But with the Moghul Moslem law had come to India, and it was soon recognized by the East India Company that the study of Moslem languages was necessary for the government of India. So Islamics now became part of the study of India as of Persia.\n\nIn 1783 Sir William Jones, a brilliant linguist who had mastered Persian and Arabic during his student days in England, was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal. In 1784 he proposed the forming of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and became its first President. Becoming aware of the importance of Sanskrit, he became the founder of Sanskrit studies in the West. In accordance with Warren Hastings' decision in 1776 that Indians should be ruled by their own laws, he undertook the immense task of compiling a complete digest of Moslem and Hindu law, a task which he left unfinished at his death eleven years later.\n\nIt was from India that the Western study of Tibet commenced, initiated by Catholic missionaries, of whom the most eminent was Desideri who lived for many years in the great Sera monastery at Lhasa, and wrote the first comprehensive account of Tibet.\n\nMeantime the Jesuit missionaries had proceeded eastwards in the wake of the Portuguese to Malacca, Macau and Japan. It was from Macau that Matthew Ricci entered China in 1580 and in course of time reached Peking, where a beginning was made in the study of the Chinese Classics and Histories, which led to the first real knowledge of Chinese civilization in the West. It was now realized that the 'China' at the end of the sea-route was the same as Marco Polo's 'Cathay'.\n\nAt the beginning of the nineteenth century modern Sinology commenced with Robert Morrison at Canton, and continued with a number of able scholars, too numerous to mention here, of whom James Legge with his translation of the Chinese Classics into", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204278, "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-1961", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n42\n\nTIBET AS IT WAS\n\nA lecture delivered on February 9, 1961. HUGH RICHARDSON, C.I.E., O.B.E.\n\nTibet as it is is too\n\nI am going to talk about Tibet as it was. tragic, moving and lamentable a topic for a present talk. But I shall describe Tibet before its old civilisation and culture, its ancient form of government, its religion, its liberty and indeed its individuality were swept away. I must forget for the moment this outrage and try to recreate a little of the easy-going, friendly, contented country that I remember. Obviously I cannot cover the whole of Tibet's past in this very short time.\n\nYou may notice that I have not called it secret or mysterious Tibet. Of course there was plenty that was strange and little-known in the country; but to any foreigner who was living there it was hospitable and open. Many of the strange things became intelligible, and the mystery, although it was there, fell into its place.\n\nNow it is true that the idea of a rather baleful mystery was for quite a long time fostered by the policy of deliberate exclusion. But the latter is comparatively recent—it only began at the end of the eighteenth century. Before that foreigners were not specifically barred from Tibet. The occasional traveller or trader was kept out by the nature of the country, but anyone who was determined and courageous could find his way in. If the names of Antonio Daldarada, Stephen Caccella, Borazzio della Tenda and Ippolito Desideri as yet mean nothing to you, there is much enjoyment in store for you when you do make their acquaintance. They were missionaries in Tibet, mostly Jesuits, from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth. Their accounts are excellent reading, especially that of Desideri; and they all found a kindly welcome. Though they worked very hard, they made hardly any impact on the well-established Tibetan religion and on Tibetan conservatism.\n\nConservatism was the dominant characteristic of the country. It was largely due, I think, to its geographical situation and to its natural defences, of which the Tibetans have long been conscious and proud. A very old hymn in praise of their country, at least as old as the eighth century, describes it as \"in the centre of snowy mountains, the source of great rivers, a lofty country, a pure land.\" In that lofty country, behind the barrier of mountains, the Tibetans kept alive their peculiar civilisation, traceable in their own records from the seventh century. There were, of course, plenty of changes and developments in the course of thirteen hundred years, and some influences entered from outside. But every importation was assimilated and transmuted into a Tibetan form.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204279, "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-1961", "page_number": 47, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n43\n\nUntil the Tibetan form of government was abolished in 1959, it was possible to trace its ancestry back through thirteen centuries and to find there the seeds of institutions that one could see in operation with one's own eyes. The script and the language have changed very little in the course of these thirteen centuries. The script, which was borrowed from India in approximately 640 A.D., can still be seen in inscriptions of about a century later. Any literate Tibetan today can read those inscriptions and can understand them pretty well except for a few archaic words.\n\nBut I suppose the greatest example of conservatism and mystery in the eyes of the outside world is the supremacy of religion, as seen in the rule of the Dalai Lama. This, however, is a fairly recent development. Buddhism reached Tibet in the seventh century; as you know, it came both from China and India, but the Indian stream eventually proved the stronger. In less than two hundred years after its introduction, Buddhist monks were holding office as chief ministers of state. The kings, it is true, were laymen, but Buddhists were already powerful officials. Then there came a setback of two centuries, after which religion resumed its rise in importance. The great monasteries acquired larger and larger estates and more and more temporal influence. Indeed, for about seventy years, at the time of the Yuan dynasty, a religious leader was made viceroy of the country. This was never fully accepted by the lay princes and very soon there was a return of supreme power to secular hands. It was not until 1640 (a thousand years after Buddhist religion reached Tibet) that, with the help of the Mongol Khan in the Kokonor, the line of Dalai Lamas emerged as the actual rulers. Although their role as reformers of the church had begun two centuries earlier, other lines of incarnate Lamas in Tibet, which exercised great influence until they were suddenly swept away in 1640, could trace their ancestry to the early years of the twelfth century. That is why I have described the Dalai Lamas as relative newcomers.\n\nThe rule of the Dalai Lamas, after a first brilliant appearance in the hands of a figure known as the Great Fifth, faded out. There was a period of seventy years when the laymen resumed sway and there was even a lay king. Though religious power was restored in 1750, for a century Tibet was ruled not by Dalai Lamas but by monastic regents acting for minor Dalai Lamas who died at an early age four times in succession. The system of supreme personal rule by the Dalai Lama, both temporal and spiritual, was only firmly restored by the thirteenth incarnation—that is, the predecessor of the present Dalai Lama.\n\nSo you see there was nothing static about the Tibetan system, nor was it a simple one. There have been a whole series of adjustments and balances. The Dalai Lamas, for example, although they are in theory autocratic, are in fact the creation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204280, "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-1961", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n44\n\nof the religious system. They have always had to walk carefully in their relations with the vested interests of the orthodox church, represented principally by the abbots of the three great monasteries, Drebung, Sera and Ganden, which housed among them 25,000 monks and were known as the Three Great Pillars of the State.\n\nThen there were rivalries between one sect and another; there were rivalries between great monasteries of the same sect; there were even rivalries between colleges within the same monastery; and there was a subtle distinction between monks and abbots in the monasteries and the monastic administrative officials of the Tibetan Government, who were a sort of monk civil service. There was a parallel lay civil service, so that if there was, say, a Chief Secretary who was a monk, he was balanced by another who was a layman. Such civil monastic officials were rather a special breed and looked on with some suspicion by the people in the monasteries. There was also an undercurrent of jealousy of the monasteries' power on the part of the displaced lay nobles, who recalled quite clearly the tradition of their past greatness. They had still a leading part in the administration and in general they were more progressively minded than the monks; in fact, I should say that the monks usually lagged a generation behind the progressive laymen.\n\nYet in spite of all these factions and divergencies of feeling, there was remarkable agreement, really remarkable agreement, of the whole people in their complete devotion to their faith and in an affectionate veneration of their ruler. Religion quite simply was all in all to every Tibetan: there were no dissenters and no critics. Every Tibetan without complaining took his place in the social set-up. This was partly due to his acceptance of the teachings of Buddhism with its doctrine of karma and partly to his conviction that by doing so he was serving his Dalai Lama. All the actions and policies of people and government were viewed in the light of the effect that they would have on religion. Church and state really were interchangeable terms.\n\nThe monasteries and the monks played an important part in the social life of the country; they were bankers, landlords, and, to some extent, school-masters. It is of course quite easy for the Westerner to adopt an attitude of intellectual superiority and say that religion was the opiate of the people. It is possible to point to idle, worldly, and comparatively worthless individuals among the monks: so indeed it was possible during the Middle Ages in Europe. On the other hand, also as in the case of the Middle Ages, one can point in Tibet to churchmen who were sincere, devout, saintly, and profoundly learned. I am convinced that there was no conscious exploitation of religion by the Tibetan church.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204281, "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-1961", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n45\n\nThe geographical isolation of the country resulted in a peculiarly isolated culture. Government, religion, social customs all developed in their own secluded world. In that world many qualities which we are apt to describe and look on as primitive were present and survived until very recent times; I mean characteristics like simplicity, honesty, confirmed religious devotion, obedience, leisure, contentment, and kindness.\n\nNowadays it is a fairly common contention in certain circles that a feudal upper stratum oppressed the Tibetan populace. But that ignores, for one thing, the fact that there was a very considerable body of yeoman farmers who held land directly under the Tibetan Government and worked it themselves with their own families and with the help of their friends, in the good old English system of exchanging services. There were of course bad landlords as there are everywhere; bad landlords included monks and laymen. But the difference between rich and poor in Tibet really was a very small one; it was not a money economy at all, and the difference, either social or economic, between a rich man and a poor man was in no way comparable to what you may see in many of the world's great cities. Income from exports was more than enough to buy all essentials from the outside world. There was a three-year reserve of grain, sometimes more. The people ate a good deal of meat and their standard of living was certainly higher than what I have seen in any Indian village.\n\nOne of the most obvious products of oppression is discontent, and no traveller in Tibet before 1950 that I can think of has described the Tibetans as anything but cheerful and contented. Heinrich Harrer, whose name and book, Seven Years in Tibet, you doubtless know, is probably the only Westerner who has actually worked as a landless Tibetan labourer. He did it not as a social experiment, but from the sheer necessity of keeping alive. He has told me, and I think he may have written it in his book, that his life as a labourer was easy and he was treated extremely well. He has also given evidence of the touching kindness of the Tibetans, particularly of the poor, but of the rich as well. Now it is quite true that the Tibetans have from time to time been described as inhospitable in their dealings with large explorers' parties; but that was due to fear of such parties as a spearhead of Western penetration. To anyone in want they have the most wonderful warm-hearted generosity. In so many ways, certainly in their character, they really provide an example for the Western world.\n\nThese were some of the valuable assets that were swept away in Tibet as it was. There is a great deal more that could be said about the very pleasant peculiarities of living in that country, about the exhilaration and the occasional difficulties of travel in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204282, "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-1961", "page_number": 50, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n46\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nthe majestic highlands, where there were no motors, indeed no vehicles of any sort. There was the simple and quiet village life and the more sophisticated leisure and gaiety of society in Lhasa. I remember years of deliberate, protracted, shrewd but friendly business negotiations with the Tibetan Government. I remember very well their frequent and elaborate ceremonies, which were not just Lord Mayor shows, but were treated with grave attention as an essential part of the well-being of the State.\n\nQuestions and Answers:\n\nQ: How large was the population of Tibet when you were there? A: The population of Tibet has never been properly counted, but some people put it down at three million, some at one million, and some at a great many more. I think that three million is about right.\n\nQ: How many of those were in Lhasa?\n\nA: In Lhasa about 25,000 laymen and 25,000 monks.\n\nQ: Do all the monks believe in reincarnation or only some of them?\n\nA: It is an absolutely essential part of their faith.\n\nQ: Does the term \"monk\" have the same meaning as the term \"lama\"?\n\nA: Lama means a superior being and it is usually used as a term of politeness for a learned man and it is the essential title of an incarnate lama.\n\nQ: Was it prohibited for ordinary women to wear the skirts worn by noblewomen?\n\nA: No. All women wear the same kind of skirt. It's part of a tunic-like garment, which has no sleeves. A blouse is worn underneath. I don't know the proper description of a dress of that sort, but the skirt anybody may wear, and the apron any married woman may wear and usually does wear. Only on very terrible occasions like the death of a Dalai Lama do they do without their apron. Women's dress basically is all the same pattern. The materials differ with regard to workmanship.\n\nQ: Was it prohibited for women to wear the double apron, one in back and one in front?\n\nA: The Tibetans only wear one in front. Possibly it is a Mongol habit to wear two.\n\nQ: How do they choose their incarnations?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204284, "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-1961", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n48\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nand makes a kind of extract of tea. They put that into another mixer, added a good chunk of butter, some soda, and some salt, and go on pounding until they get a well-mixed soup. It is excellent provided that the butter was good to begin with.\n\nQ: Is it true that some monks can move objects by sheer thought?\n\nA: Marco Polo described a contest between various religious personages at the court of the Great Khan at which they were put through their paces to see who would be the best chaplain to the Crown. He chose the Tibetans because their representative could make a cup rise from the table to his mouth. That was quite a long time ago and I haven't seen it done myself, but that's the story.\n\nQ: Is there any truth in the story of an operation to open the \"third eye\"?\n\nA: None whatsoever. The book which describes it is an utter fraud. It was written by somebody who had never been out of England.\n\nQ: Are the roofs of the Kumbum Monastery really gold?\n\nA: Unfortunately I have never been there but I have read accounts of it, and quite obviously it is a little bit too modern. You can have dances put on for a sum of money. But I assure you that the golden roofs in Tibet proper, although they are not pure gold, are well-coated in the stuff.\n\nQ: Is it true that Tibetans place no importance on gold and jewels, despite an abundance of them underground?\n\nA: There are certainly some gold mines in Tibet, but nobody knows whether the resources are very great. It isn't quite true to say that they don't place any importance on gold and precious stones—they like them very much. They use them as the principal offerings in religious places. All the butter-lamps are made of gold in the holy places; the scene in the holy of holies, the cathedral in Lhasa, is quite fabulous. The main image, behind large iron-mesh curtains, is surrounded by huge gold butter lamps, all blazing with butter—a wonderful sight.\n\nAlthough Tibetans used to dig for gold, it became rather an imposition, because the peasant would dig it out and then the landlord would come and say \"This is my gold\", so in general they stopped digging. Tibetans did not use much money of any sort—it was mostly barter.\n\nQ: Is there capital punishment in Tibet?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204335, "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-1961", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n99\n\nIn general, lay Buddhists have been increasingly active here over the past twenty years, particularly in social welfare work. The Sangha, which had declined almost to the vanishing point by 1949, was restored in size and quality by an influx of refugee monks (estimated at 800-1,000) in the early 1950's. Most of these, however, gradually moved on to other areas. With one or two exceptions the monasteries now tend to be static and withdrawn. Though nunneries, like lay organizations, have taken an increasingly active role in social welfare, the initiative in many cases has come from laymen.\n\nThus we may say that Buddhism in Hong Kong fits into the pattern of Chinese Buddhism as a whole over the past hundred years; revitalization of faith and practice among laymen, sparked by a few really able monks, whose talents stand in all the greater contrast to those of most of their brethren.\n\nII. ORGANIZATION OF THE SANGHA\n\nThe monastic institutions of Hong Kong, like those of China proper, are individual entities, not subject to the authority of a patriarch or any other central organ of the school to which they belong. It is best, in fact, not to think of them as belonging to distinct and separate schools. In any given monastery one monk may \"study Ch'an\" while another \"studies Pure Land\". Monasteries are usually classified according to the school of the abbot and a change of abbot can mean a change of classification. Thus the Chuk Lam Monastery in Tsuen Wan was once Ch'an, is now Pure Land, but shelters monks of other schools, like the Esoteric disciple of the great T'aai Hui [T'ai Hsü], who was himself of the Idealist School. Generalizing, one might say that whereas religious tolerance in India and Tibet is usually based on an awareness of the difference between one's own doctrines and those of one's neighbour, tolerance in China is more often based on a desire to unify all religious doctrines and a belief that it can be done. That is why I spoke above of \"3,400 purportedly Buddhist laymen.\" Some of them may be equally interested in or influenced by Taoism or one of the popular syncretistic sects in Hong Kong. This is not to assert that there is no awareness in Hong Kong that Buddhism is divided into schools. At the Tung Wah Hospitals Prayer Meeting, last held September 6-13, 1958, there were separate altars for Wah Yim [Hua Yen]; Pure Land; Mat Tsung [Mi Tsung or Esoteric School]; Faat Wah [Fa Hua]; while monks of other schools participated in prayers at three common altars. The place of honour in the entire meeting was given to the venerable abbot T'aam Huilt [Tan Hsü], whose school is T'in T’oi [T'ien T’ai or Fa Hua].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204375, "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": 7, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "2\n\nflourished between 1858 and 1948 was more fortunate because it was able to draw on the services of a far wider group of people who came to work in China in the years after travel and residence there was no longer restricted. The present Society is luckier still because, thanks to air travel, we have been able to draw on an extremely wide range of contributors in the first two volumes of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nWhen examining the table of contents of the six volumes of Transactions published in Hong Kong between 1847 and 1859, one sees the titles of several articles which it would be most interesting to read if copies of these volumes were available in Hong Kong. For example, in Volume III Harry Parkes, at that time British Consul in Canton, and later British Minister at Peking, described proceedings in a criminal Court at Canton, while Dr. Bowring contributed an article “On the Character and Writings of Commissioner Lin Tsih-seu”, which at that time (1851) was still very recent history. In Volume VI (1859) Dr. D. J. Macgowan wrote on Chinese opium while the Rev. Krone contributed “A notice of the Sanon district *”. This is of particular interest since the Sanon district included all of what later became the New Territories. The full list of contents of each of these volumes can be found in Bibliotheca Sinica by Henri Cordier, Volume IV, columns 2401-2.\n\n44\n\nBy way of contrast it is interesting to consider the contents of the first two volumes of the Journal of the revived Hong Kong Branch of the R.A.S. published in 1961 and 1962. Perhaps the first point which strikes one is the wider range of subject matter covered by these two volumes. In Volume I, Mr. Hugh Richardson, the last head of the British mission at Lhasa wrote on Tibet as it was, and Professor Drake reviewed the whole field of Western contacts with Asia. In Volume II Mr. Evan Luard's newly published book Britain and China, which covers the story of recent Sino-British relations, is the subject of a review-article by Mrs. Colina Lupton. Another noteworthy point is the number of admirable contributions from Chinese scholars in these two volumes. The six volumes of Transactions published between\n\n* Although I have made extensive enquiries I have been unable to locate copies of the Transactions in Hong Kong. The City Hall Library ought to have a set. (Ed.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204379, "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": 11, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "Nevertheless the monthly meetings of the Society have been consistently well attended with audiences which often have more than filled this room and have averaged well over one hundred at each meeting. This regularity of attendance proves that there is in the Colony a reliable cross section of the community who appreciate what Professor Drake referred to in his inaugural lecture as the Study of Asia and our heritage.\n\nIn the earlier days of the Society up to 1859 when the Government of the Colony provided a home for the Society and its library it was honoured with the presence on its Council of the Governor, the Commander of the British Forces, the Chief Justice, the Bishop of Victoria, the Colonial Secretary, the Colonial Treasurer and the Attorney General, and it had the active support of the heads of the great merchant houses like Jardine, Matheson and Co. and Dent and Co. Although in these busier days we miss the successors of some of these eminent personages we are still honoured today by the patronage of His Excellency the Governor and the support of leading members of a more cosmopolitan community than in the earlier days. We particularly appreciate the keenness of the Hon. W. C. G. Knowles, who has recently joined the Council, and of the Honourable the Chief Justice whose athletic figure some of us recall striding along the slithery slopes of Lantao on the occasion of our archaeological excursion last year. We hope that this year we may provide a further opportunity for members who do not perhaps know one another as well as it might be desired, to join in a combined social and study expedition either to Lantao or elsewhere in the New Territories.\n\nDuring the year 1961 nine public meetings were held at which unusually interesting lectures were given, most of them illustrated with colour slides-\n\nJanuary 23rd\n\nJames Liu\n\n\"The Knight Errant in Chinese Literature\"\n\n\"Tibet As It Was (1936-1950)”\n\nFebruary 10th\n\nHugh Richardson\n\nApril 10th\n\nMay 13th\n\nMiss Mary Tregear\n\n\"Chinese Paintings in Formosa and America\"\n\nExpedition to Lantao to visit archaeological sites", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204397, "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": 29, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "20 \n\nF. S. DRAKE \n\nof prime importance for information upon the Mongols and Central Asia in Mediaeval times.1 \n\nHalf a century later a solitary and apparently illiterate Friar from a Franciscan house in Italy, Odoric of Pordenone, set out on his own charges as a traveller for 'Jesus Christ' and performed one of the most remarkable of the journeys of his time. Travelling via India to China he landed at Ch'üan-chou on the Fukien coast, where two houses of Franciscans were already established, and proceeded to Kambaluc (Peking), where he remained for three years. On the return journey he travelled first to what he called mistakenly 'Prester John's country', but which can be identified with the region north of the Yellow River bend, the home of the Christian Onguts, and then by Tibet, which he names and describes briefly and accurately, but he gives no further identifiable details for the remainder of the journey home in 1330 after an absence of twelve years. \n\n* \n\n18 \n\nThese travellers all make mention of the Nestorians—priests, laymen, members of the nobility, and even of the Royal House, whom they came across in their journeys through Central Asia or in China. Sometimes it was a solitary priest with a shrine near the Royal tent, sometimes a group officiating at a Royal procession, sometimes a Nestorian village in the wilds of Mongolia, sometimes a Nestorian church in a Chinese city, as at Yangchou on the Yangtse; these all testify to the widespread character of their mission. William of Rubruck gives the fullest details, combining with them sharp criticism of the conduct of the Nestorians and disapproval of their methods, which suggest considerable deterioration in their religious life during their sojourn in Central Asia; unless indeed his criticism is sometimes prompted by ecclesiastical rivalry. It has already been pointed out that some of the ladies of the Royal House were Nestorian Christians; and there were even hopes of an Imperial convert. \n\nBut of chief interest for our present purpose is Odoric's mention of the Christian Mongol tribe settled at the northern bend of the Yellow River, for this is the region from which our Bronze Crosses come. John of Montecorvino, the Franciscan Bishop who resided in China from 1288 to 1329, and who became the first Catholic Archbishop of China, also speaks of this \n\n15 Rockhill, op. cit. \n\n16 Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, revised Cordier, Hakluyt Society (4 vols.), 1914.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204404, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "44 \n\nCURRENCY PROBLEMS \n\n27 \n\nconsideration. Though the official rate of exchange was issued by the Chamber of Commerce, considerable manipulation was possible on fluctuation, scale, and the grading of the cash. For instance, it was a foregone conclusion that the weight of the piece of silver you offered for exchange, would not agree on the shop scales with your own scales. For the law allowed the exchange shop to weight their scales up to 2% against the customer to defray \"exchange expenses\". Anything over 2% was an infraction of the law and punishable by such. Therefore the exchange transaction was always preceded by a long wrangle on the question of weight. A very good story is related by Abbé Huc in his \"Travels in Tartary & Thibet\" in which he tells of the \"guileless\" Mongol who visited a cash shop in the big city in order to exchange a large \"shoe\" of silver. The \"shoe\" had been doctored but this was not apparent to the smart young shop assistant who served him. The assistant took care to effect a considerable discrepancy in weight in favour of the shop. Finally the Mongol professed himself as satisfied but asked for a written statement of the weight and exchange rate so that he would be able to clear himself with his master. The assistant complied and the Tartar returned to his camp with his camels laden down with cash, the proceeds of the deal. When the accounts were made up at the end of the day the assistant presented his returns with considerable pride expecting fulsome commendation from his master for the amount he had been able to fleece the innocent Mongol. What was his surprise, then, to be met with a storm of abuse at his denseness in having failed to detect the adulteration. The following morning the assistant rode out to the Mongol camp and haled the offending Tartar to the court of the district magistrate where he was charged with having circulated spurious currency. When the shoe of silver was produced in court the wily Mongol asked that it might be weighed on the official scales. When this was done he produced the cash shop's own receipt and claimed that the shoe produced could not possibly be the one he had exchanged as the discrepancy in weight far exceeded the 2% allowed by law. The Magistrate was forced to dismiss the case and the exchange shop was only too glad to drop the matter before they attracted further unwelcome publicity.\n\n44", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204449, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "70\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS\n\nbut their main concentration in a solid bloc is in the Ta-liang mountains southwest of I-pin district of Szechwan.\n\nMore closely related to the Tibetans, the Ch'iang live in the west fringes of the Szechwan basin east of K'ang-ting city. The chief areas of Tibetan settlement are almost all in the Tibetan plateaus, though politically the areas are divided among five provinces in addition to Tibet proper and not counting now-abolished Sikang province. These are Kansu, Chinghai, Yunnan, Szechwan and Kweichow. Since Sikang has largely been incorporated into Szechwan, the latter now contains over 700,000 Tibetans, whereas Yunnan has some 67,000,\n\nAside from the Chuang who constitute about seventy per cent of the total population in what is called the Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region, other T'ai-related groups are widespread especially in Yunnan and Kweichow. The T'ung occupy a solid bloc of territory joining three provinces: southeast Kweichow, northern Kwangsi, and western Hunan. They are related to the Shui who live in the southeast corner of Kweichow. The Pu-yi (also called Chung-chia) are a T'ai-related group in southwest Kweichow. In central Kweichow they live intermingled with the Miao, and they constitute the majority of the country people around the provincial capital of Kuei-yang. The T'ai proper have settled in the southern half of Yunnan where they are divided into two branches: the Hsi-shuang pan-na T'ai and the Te-hung T'ai. The former of these branches constitute \"Twelve pan-na or basin 'states'\", whence their name. The latter are close relatives of the Burma Shan people. Also related to the T'ai more distantly are the Li people of Hainan Island, with their heartland in the Li-mu (\"mother of the Li\") mountains that dominate the southern half of the island. Some Miao also are found on Hainan, having been imported during the Ch'ing dynasty to make poison arrows in the campaigns against the Li.20\n\nThe Miao are a very scattered group and only in two regions do they form compact settlements: eastern Kweichow and southwest Hunan. In Szechwan they live along the Kweichow borderlands. In Kwangsi they have settled in small groups in the centre of the province. In almost all regions the Miao have\n\n20 Hsu Sung-shih, Yueh-chiang liu-yü jen-min, 122-123.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204453, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "74\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS\n\nTABLE II\n\n(Population in 000's) Provincial distribution of South China peoples\n\n \n \n Szechwan\n Kwangsi\n Kweichow\n Yunnan\n Hupei\n Chekiang\n Fukien\n Kiangsi\n Kwangtung\n Hunan\n \n \n Chuang\n \n 6,445\n 43\n 1\n \n \n \n \n 18\n \n \n \n Molao\n \n 116\n 14\n \n \n \n \n \n 1\n \n \n \n Maonan\n \n 14\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Pu-yi\n \n 1,233\n 479\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n T'ai\n \n \n 439\n 1,333\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n T'ung\n \n 360\n 1,425\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Shui\n \n 84\n 204\n \n \n \n \n \n \n 378\n \n \n Li\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 469\n \n \n \n Miao\n 453\n 150\n 1,233\n 70\n \n \n \n \n 21\n 72\n \n \n K'e-lao\n \n \n 41\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Yao\n \n 358\n 14\n 1\n \n \n \n 14\n 28\n 14\n \n \n She\n \n \n \n \n \n 25\n 96\n 52\n \n 2\n \n \n Tibetan*\n \n \n \n 713\n 67\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Ch'iang\n 36\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Nu\n \n \n \n 13\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Tu-lung\n \n \n \n 2\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Ching-p'o\n \n \n \n 102\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Yi\n \n \n 275\n 1,852\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Ha-ni\n \n \n \n 481\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Li-su\n \n \n \n 317\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Nakhi\n \n \n \n 143\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n La-hu\n \n \n \n 139\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Achang\n \n \n \n 18\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Pai\n \n \n \n 567\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n T'u-chia\n 549\n \n \n \n 1,123\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n K'a-wa or Wa\n \n \n \n 286\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Peng-lung\n \n \n \n 3\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Pa-lang\n \n \n \n 35\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Kao-shan\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n (found only in Taiwan 200,000)\n \n \n \n Ching\n \n 4\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n (Vietnamese)\n \n \n \n 2\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n* In Tibet proper and in the Chamdo region there is an additional Tibetan population of about 1,274,000.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204518, "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": 150, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CONTENTS OF VOL. I (1960/61)\n\nThe Study of Asia: a Heritage and a Task, F. S. Drake; Birds of Hong Kong, A. M. Macfarlane; Flowers of Hong Kong (with one coloured illustration), B. T. Chiu; The Knight Errant in Chinese Literature, James J. Y. Liu; Tibet As It Was, Hugh Richardson; The Morrison Library, Dorothea Scott; Buddhist Sources of the Novel Feng-Shen Yen-I, Liu Tsun-yan; Buddhist Organizations in Hong Kong, Holmes Welch; Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong, B. D. Wilson; Notes and Queries.\n\nPage 150\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204561, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "PRINTING IN CHINA\n\n37\n\nin the desert beyond Tun-huang, which Lao Kan subsequently dated around A.D. 98 or a little later. This confirms the date of 105 given for the announcement of the invention to the throne in the biography of Ts'ai Lun in the Hou Han shu. The technical processes included:\n\n(a) the fashioning of seals out of metal, stone, and clay;\n\n(b) the taking of rubbings (or inked squeezes) of inscriptions on bronze and stone.\n\nSeveral bronze seals have been found in Shang sites, and many later ones made of bronze, ivory, horn, stone, pottery, jade, and iron. They were cut both in relief and in intaglio. Known as yin, the seals were generally small; their purpose was a proof of genuineness. (The woodblock, yet to appear, was large and its purpose was reduplication.)\n\nAs to inked rubbings, these make their appearance during the 5th and 6th centuries; by 649 three professionals were appointed to the T'ang court. They were called T'a shu shou. Chinese scholars love to own copies of prized inscriptions; so the making of rubbings became a popular pastime.\n\nBy the year 640, after the T'ang had consolidated the empire, and achieved victories everywhere, except in Korea, China entered upon a period of material prosperity and cultural advance. It is small wonder that in the ensuing century printing should have developed. The demand must have been very great for elementary texts, dictionaries, copies of the canon, histories, Buddhist sutras, almanacs, etc.\n\nOne must mention here the interesting hypothesis of Robert Shafer [Journal of the Oriental Society, v. 80, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1960), pp. 328-329] that the printing block originated in Tibet. This may be true; but was it first used for literature, or for some other purpose, such as textiles? The authors of both the Chiu T'ang shu (196 A/la) and the Hsin T'ang shu (216 A/lb), writing of the early years of the Tang dynasty, state categorically that the Tibetans had no writing. So do the writers of the Tibetan annals, covering the years 650-747, found by Pelliot at Tunhuang. (Cf. the translation of J. Bacot and Ch. Toussaint in Documents de Touen-Houang relatifs à l'histoire du Tibet.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204562, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "38 \n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH \n\nTibet, Paris, 1940, p. 161.) Actually from the last named (see p. 129, n. 5) and from other sources (such as S. Lévi, Le Népal, II, Paris, 1905, p. 148), we learn that writing was just then being introduced to Tibet. This is a far cry from China's experience of two millennia of writing (before A.D. 600), and the great urge for multiple copies of texts on the part of all sections of the literate community. \n\nThe first known example of wood-block printing came from Japan during the years 764-770. This is explained by the constant coming and going of Japanese students to T’ang China, and some scholars and Buddhist priests from the mainland to Japan. We learn, for example, of one Chinese scholar becoming head of the new University at Nara in 735, and of one Japanese who, after 19 years in the Chinese capital, returned to Nara, and in 735 became tutor to the empress Shotoku. It was she who ordered the production of one million three storey stupas, in each of which were to be placed six charms. (Only last spring I saw at Horyuji # 96 of these reliquaries, together with six copies of the printed dharani.) \n\nThe first recorded notice in China is dated 835. It tells of a memorial to the throne suggesting an edict forbidding the printing of calendars from wood-blocks. After this the notices and dated materials recently discovered multiply. I list some of these: \n\n1. Under the date of 839 Ennin mentions seeing one thousand copies of the Nirvana Sutra at Mount Wu-t'ai § J. This is so large a figure one may well wonder if they were printed. 2. It has been suggested that the Vinaya was first printed before 845. We know that the wood-blocks were burned in a fire at Ching-ai ssu in Loyang. So the poet Ssu-k’ung T'u (837-908) proposed the preparation of a fresh edition. \n\n3. Fan Shu, who flourished during the years 860-874, is authority for the statement that Ho-kan Chi T✯ who was active in Kiangsi ⇓ in 846-851, printed several thousand copies of a book concerned with alchemy. \n\n5 \n\n4. A beautiful copy of the Diamond Sutra &♬Į✯, printed 868 (it is 174 feet long and 10 inches wide) on white buff paper, was discovered in 1907 at Tunhuang and is now in the British Museum.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204651, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "118\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nthe Yangtse was now open to foreign trade and navigation for almost 1,400 miles from the sea, and access had been gained to the rich and populous province of Szechuen, of which Chungking was the chief port.\n\nThe section of the river between Ichang and Chungking was known as the Upper River, and the first steamer to navigate this section belonged to Archibald Little, whose Y-Ling had been the first steamer to navigate the Middle River. Little was a member of a well-known Shanghai family, and he was the real pioneer of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtse. He had commenced his career as a tea taster for a German firm in Kiukiang in 1859, but soon went into business on his own and was one of the first to appreciate the possibility of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He settled in Chungking soon after it became a treaty port, and started up several industries connected with wool, bristles, and coal—to mention some of the more prominent, and also engaged in marine insurance, specialising in covering cargoes on the Upper Yangtse.1 The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce had sent two prominent British merchants—Alexander Michie and Robert Francis—up the Yangtse to Chungking as early as 1869, to investigate trade prospects there, but no important developments followed. In 1887 Little made a much more intensive trip from Ichang to Chungking by junk, and formed the opinion that there were great possibilities for trade in Szechuen Province and beyond. The following year he attempted to run a steamer service between Ichang and Chungking with a stern wheeler specially built on the Clyde called the Kuling. Because of a clause in the Chefoo Convention stipulating that foreign steamers could only go to Chungking after Chinese steamers had gone there, the Kuling was not allowed to go beyond Ichang. Little then sold her to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, who employed her on the Hankow-Ichang service.\n\nOne of his brothers was a famous editor of the North China Daily News, and another a well-known doctor in Shanghai.\n\n[Robert Swinhoe, British Consul at Amoy was sent up the Yangtse by Sir Rutherford Alcock, British Minister at Peking, in March 1869 to enquire into the trade of the Upper River. He reached Chungking in May of the same year. His account of this journey was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society Vol. XL (1870), pp. 268-85. It is accompanied by a folding map of the Upper River from the Tungting Lake to Chungking compiled from the charts made by two survey officers specially sent up the Yangtse for this purpose. Ed.]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204652, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE \n\n119 \n\nThe restriction about navigation beyond Ichang was abolished after the Sino-Japanese War by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, and three years later the indefatigable Little had the satisfaction of taking his Leechuan from Ichang up to Chungking, the first steamer to navigate the Upper Yangtse. The Leechuan was a twin screw, wooden, steam launch only fifty-five feet long, and too small to carry any cargo. Little acted as his own captain and chief engineer, and the Leechuan had to be pulled up the strongest of the rapids by trackers. Two years later, however, a larger paddle steamer Pioneer, built by Little and a group of associates, made the first commercial passage to Chungking. The Pioneer was built by Denny of Dumbarton, and was 180 feet long, 60 feet beam over the paddle boxes, and had a draft of 6 feet. She carried 150 tons of cargo and many deck passengers, and took seven days between Ichang and Chungking on her first trip. There is a photograph of her in Gleanings from Fifty Years in China by Archibald Little (Philadelphia, 1908), p. 141. Shortly afterwards the Pioneer was commandeered by the British government to bring British subjects down the Yangtse during the Boxer troubles, and she finished her career as H.M.S. Kinshi, the headquarters ship of the Senior British Naval Officer on the Yangtse.\n\nIn that same year of 1900 the British river gunboat Woodlark, which was 145 feet long, by 23 feet beam, but had a draft of only 3 feet, also reached Chungking, and in the following year Woodlark and her sister ship Woodcock reached Sui Fu, 100 miles beyond Chungking. It was in the December of that year that the first of many serious accidents occurred on the Upper Yangtse, when the German steamer Suichsiang went on the rocks at the Tungling Rapids, 36 miles above Ichang, and was a total loss.\n\nThe Yangtse has its source in Tibet, not far from the headwaters of the Yellow, Mekong, Salween, and Irawaddy Rivers. When this became known to Europeans it became the ambition of many travellers to go up the Yangtse as far as possible, and then to cross over the Himalayas into Burma or India. This journey had a fascination for Europeans very similar to that exercised by the Nile and Niger over their fathers and grandfathers. The naval expedition of 1861, which went up the river as far as Yochow, landed three Englishmen there who intended to follow the river to its source in Tibet, and then cross over the Himalayas into India. Captain Blakiston, Lieutenant Saral, and Doctor Barton of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204655, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "122\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nChungking. Junks which sailed on the Middle River and above were designed for shoal water, and were lighter in construction as well as smaller than the Lower River junks, but still strong enough to withstand constant grounding. Naturally the largest type of junk was found on the Lower River, and this was as big as ocean-going junks. Such junks rarely went above Nanking. River junks were not usually painted like sea-going junks, but were coated with wood oil instead.\n\nOn the Upper River there were many types of junks, such as only the ingenuity of Chinese could devise. Among the more exotic types designed to cope with the peculiar and exacting conditions found on certain stretches of the Upper River were junks with crooked bows and others with crooked sterns. The largest junks on the Upper River were 120 feet long and carried 60 tons of cargo up river and about 90 tons down river, and took 25 to 60 days between Ichang and Chungking, depending on the season and state of the river. These large junks had a crew of about 100 men, of whom three-quarters were trackers.\n\nThe Yangtse is subject to remarkable changes in level, caused by the melting snows in Tibet, and by the time taken by these to reach the Lower River. In the high water season of summer the level in the Middle and Lower River is as much as 35 feet above the winter level. In August 1866 the rise at Hankow was 50 feet, and it has been twice as much in the Upper River. During floods great stretches of the Lower River become immense lakes, exceeding 20 miles in width at places between Nanking and Hankow. At such time no land can be seen between the deck of a river steamer and the distant foothills. Thousands of villages may be inundated during such a flood, and every few years when flooding is more than usually severe, hundreds of thousands of lives are lost. The greatest floods on record were those of the summer of 1931, when 25 million people in an area of 700,000 square miles were affected, and 140,000 were drowned. On this occasion the streets in the Wuhan cities were flooded to a depth of 9 feet, and the surrounding country to 35 feet. The Yangtse Valley is so fertile, however, and the pressure on the land so great, that the inhabitants always return when the river falls, after encamping in the hills during the floods.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204657, "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "124\n\nA. D. BLUB\n\nwith the Middle River steamers for the next stage of Ichang. At Ichang another change was made into the Upper River steamers for the journey through the Gorges to Chungking, where motor launches took over for the final stages to Sui Fu and Chengtu. In the high water season some of the Lower River steamers extended their run to Ichang, and some of the Upper River steamers extended their run to Sui Fu, but Chungking was usually regarded as the upper limit of navigation for all practical purposes.\n\nChungking became internationally famous when it became China's war time capital. Before that it was comparatively unknown to the outside world, although, under various names, a city has occupied the site for some 4,000 years. It is a unique site, a high, rocky bluff on the peninsula formed by the junction of the Yangtse and the Kialing Rivers, nearly 1,400 miles from the mouth of the Yangtse, and in the very heart of China. At this point the normal variation between high and low water seasons is 75 feet, and has been known to reach 100 feet. In the low water season the city is reached by innumerable broad flights of steps leading up from the river, most flights having 240 steps. The transport of goods from the river to the city provided work for an army of porters and ponies. Until 1934 all the water for the city was carried up those steps by coolies who earned the equivalent of a farthing for a load of two heavy wooden buckets.\n\nWhen A. G. Morrison passed through the city in 1894 he estimated the population to be about 200,000. He described the coolies as being hungry and wretched in the midst of plenty, and riddled with malaria and phthisis. Although he estimated that about 40% of the men and 5% of the women were opium smokers, he thought it a law-abiding city. Szechuen is one of the richest provinces in China, and Chungking's exports included silk, hides and skins, bristles, tung oil, musk, rhubarb, and wool, some of these things coming from Tibet.\n\nThe loss of the German steamer Suichsiang in 1900 and a narrow escape of H.M.S. Woodlark in the same year, coupled with the Boxer troubles, postponed the establishment of a regular steamer service between Ichang and Chungking for several years. When this was eventually established in 1908 the honour belonged to a Chinese company, the Szechuen Steam Navigation Company. The formation of this company was largely due to the inspiration", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204696, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "CONTENTS OF VOL. 1 (1960/61)\n\nThe Study of Asia: a Heritage and a Task, F. S. Drake; Birds of Hong Kong, A. M. Macfarlane; Flowers of Hong Kong (with one coloured illustration), B. T. Chiu; The Knight Errant in Chinese Literature, James J. Y. Liu; Tibet As It Was, Hugh Richardson; The Morrison Library, Dorothea Scott; Buddhist Sources of the Novel Feng-Shen Yen-I, Liu Tsun-yan; Buddhist Organizations in Hong Kong, Holmes Welch; Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong, B. D. Wilson; Notes and Queries.\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. 2 (1962)\n\nNestorian Crosses and Nestorian Christians in China under the Mongols (illustrated), F. S. Drake; Currency Problems in a Cycle of Cathay, G. Findlay Andrew; The Buddhist Career, Holmes Welch; Chinese Seals, T. Y. Li (illustrated); Some of China's Thirty-five Million non-Chinese, Herold J. Wiens; The Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898, J. W. Hayes; Excavations at Man Kok Tsui on Lantau Island (illustrated), Elspeth Maneely; A New Archaeological Site in Hong Kong (illustrated), M. W. Welch; Review Article: Britain and China, Colina Lupton; Notes and Queries.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204701, "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-1964", "page_number": 4, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JHKBRAS\n\nLIST OF REPRINTS AVAILABLE\n\nMail orders to: Hon. Librarian, Box 13864, Hong Kong\n\nVolume I\n\n(Prices are in Hong Kong Dollars)\n\n \n F. S. DRAKE. The Study of Asia: a Heritage and a Task.\n 7 pp.\n $1.40\n \n No. of copies in stock\n \n \n A. M. MACFARLANE. Birds of Hong Kong.\n 9 pp.\n $1.80\n \n 10\n \n \n B. T. CHIU. Flowers of Hong Kong.\n 3 pp.\n $0.60\n \n 7\n \n \n JAMES J. Y. Liu. The Knight Errant in Chinese Literature.\n 12 pp.\n $2.40\n \n 10\n \n \n HUGH RICHARDSON. Tibet as it was.\n 8 pp.\n $1.60\n \n 10\n \n \n DOROTHEA SCOTT. The Morrison Library.\n 18 pp.\n $3.60\n \n 999\n \n \n LIU TSUN-YAN. Buddhist Sources of the Novel Feng-Shen Yen-I.\n 30 pp.\n $6.00\n \n 10\n \n \n HOLMES Welch. Buddhist Organizations in Hong Kong.\n 17 pp.\n $3.40\n \n 9\n \n \n B. D. WILSON, Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong.\n 9 pp.\n $1.80\n \n 7\n \n \n Notes and Queries.\n 3 pp.\n $0.60\n \n 10\n \n\nVolume II\n\n \n F. S. DRAKE. Nestorian Crosses and Nestorian Christians in China under the Mongols.\n 15 pp. 4 plates (2 color).\n $4.60\n \n 11\n \n \n G. FINDLAY ANDREW. Currency Problems in a Cycle of Cathay.\n 11 pp.\n $2.20\n \n 11\n \n \n T. Y. LI. Chinese Seals.\n 5 pp. 2 col. plates.\n $2.00\n \n \n \n \n HEROLD J. WIENS. Some of China's Thirty-five Million Non-Chinese.\n 21 pp.\n $4.20\n \n 15\n \n \n JAMES HAYES. The Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898.\n 28 pp.\n $5.60\n \n 11\n \n \n Elspeth MANEELY. Excavations at Man Kok Tsui on Lantau Island.\n 6 pp. 2 plates.\n $1.80\n \n \n \n \n COLINA LUPTON. Review article: Britain and China.\n 7 pp.\n $1.40\n \n 3\n \n \n \n \n \n \n 11\n \n \n \n \n \n \n 11\n \n\nVolume III\n\n \n B. T. CHIU. Flowers of Hong Kong.\n 7 pp. 6 col. plates.\n $4.40\n \n 25\n \n \n MA MENG. Recent Changes in the Chinese Language.\n 9 pp.\n $1.80\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 26", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204931, "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-1965", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "32 \n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING \n\nrace is thus augmenting, the causes which lead to the destruction of food, — such as the overflow of rivers, fires, ravages of locusts, bad seasons, and other calamities, — are to a great extent beyond the control of human prudence or human exertion. It would be difficult to show what new element could be introduced which would raise up the native supply of food beyond its present productiveness, considering that hand husbandry has given to cultivation more of a horticultural than an agricultural character.\n\nThe constant flow of emigration from China, contrasted with the complete absence of emigration into China, is striking evidence of the redundancy of the population; for though that emigration is almost wholly confined to two provinces, namely, Kwangtung and Fookien, representing together a population of probably from 34,000,000 to 35,000,000, I am disposed to think that a number nearer 3,000,000 than 2,000,000 from these provinces alone are located in foreign countries. In the kingdom of Siam, it is estimated that there are at least a Million and a Half of Chinese, of which 200,000 are in the capital (Bangkok). They crowd all the islands of the Indian Archipelago. In Java, we know by a correct census there are 136,000. Cochin China teems with Chinese. In this colony we are seldom without one, two, or three vessels taking Chinese emigrants to California and other places. Multitudes go to Australia, to the Philippines, to the Sandwich Islands, to the western coast of Central and Southern America: some have made their way to British India. The emigration to the British West Indies has been considerable; to the Havana greater still. The annual arrivals in Singapore are estimated at an average of 10,000, and 2,000 is the number that are said annually to return to China.* \n\nThere is not only this enormous maritime emigration, but a considerable inland efflux of Chinese towards Manchuria and Tibet; and it may be added, that the large and fertile islands of Formosa and Hainan have been to a great extent won from the aborigines by successive inroads of Chinese settlers. Now these are all males — there is not a woman to 10,000 men: hence perhaps the small social value of the female infant. Yet this perpetual out-flowing of people seems in no respect to diminish the number of those who are left behind. Few Chinamen leave \n\n* Journal of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii, p. 286,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205108, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n59\n\nand that the foreign country of Fu-lang itself did not arouse any curiosity among the writers. Europe, in any case during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, remained unknown to the Chinese. It was not until the arrival of the Portuguese, and, a little later, of the Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century that the two worlds were brought into closer contact. This relative disinterest in foreign countries is paralleled 100 years earlier by the poems of Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai. He had been in Khwarezmia (today Russian Turkestan) with Chingis Khan's armies and wrote a number of poems on Western subjects. If one would put it in a flippant way, one would have to say that Yeh-lü in his poems seems to have been impressed not by the proud mosques and the ancient culture of that region but mostly by the grape wine and the water melons that were grown in Khwarezmia.\n\nIf we take the word Western in a broader sense than just European and include the Near East, then we find for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries much more detailed information on \"Westerners\" and their influence on activities in China. Islamic civilization had some impact on China under the Mongols, and we have seen that certainly geography in China was flourishing, incorporating data on the non-Chinese world taken from Arab sources. The geographical interest of the Mongol court is also reflected in Kublai Khan's attempts to discover the sources of the Yellow River. Expeditions were sent and the reports that can be found in the dynastic history and also in another, private source the Cho-keng lu, printed in 1366 are a valuable source for the historical geography of the Ch'ing-hai region and Eastern Tibet. Islam had, of course, reached China much earlier, that is, under the T'ang in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., but it was under the Mongol rulers that Muslims began to take part in Chinese life to a greater extent. The Muslim contribution to Chinese civilization under the Yüan seems to have been chiefly in the fields of science. Astronomy was highly developed in the Islamic countries. After the Mongols had conquered Iraq and Persia, not a few Muslim scholars went to China. A center for astronomy was the observatory in Maraghah (Azerbaijan) founded in or about 1258. Under the Ilkhan Hulagu or his successor a Marāghah astronomer, Jamal ad-Din, was dispatched to China with what may be called blue-prints for astronomical instruments. We find their Persian-Arabic names and a short description of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205129, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "80\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nFederation. In April 1941 the Alliance helped arrange an East Asian Buddhist conference in Nanking, and then tried to reactivate the Chinese Buddhist Association (Shanghai, 1929) — apparently without success. It also sponsored some of the Chinese who went to Japan for study.\n\nJapanese-Chinese Buddhist associations set up by the Alliance were to be found in Nanking, Shanghai, Hangchow, Wusih, Soochow, Chen-chiang, Changshu, Pengpu, Nantung, Wuhu, Hofei, and Kiukiang. They were staffed by three categories of personnel: Chinese monks, Japanese priests, and local Chinese officials. If the head was in one category, his deputies would be in the other two. Among the membership the sangha (mostly Chinese) generally outnumbered the laity. The work of these associations is variously described as relief, arranging lectures, and providing guidance for seminaries and devotees' clubs.22 The real work, of course, was mobilizing China's Buddhists in support of Japanese policy.\n\nAlthough the membership included the Panchen Lama from Tibet and the Living Buddha Chang-chia from Mongolia, only a few well-known Chinese monks appear to have been involved. Among them was Shuang-t'ing, the abbot of Chin Shan, who headed the Japanese-Chinese Buddhist Association in Chen-chiang.23 According to one of his disciples the Japanese authorities told him quite frankly that if he refused this post, there would be \"very serious consequences.\" Shuang-t'ing felt that his first duty was to protect Chin Shan, doubly vulnerable since Nationalist officers had been hidden in a cave there during the Japanese attack. Hence he accepted.\n\nOne reason for his decision was that the parent body, the Great Harmony Alliance, was committed to \"do its best when Chinese monasteries and temples applied for protection.\" According to several informants, it generally succeeded. Well-known Buddhist institutions that cooperated with the Japanese encountered few difficulties. Some of the occupation forces behaved badly (one soldier killed a monk at Chin Shan, for example, \"because of a language difficulty\"), but most of those who visited the immense shrines seem to have treated them with respect or reverence.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205130, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\nRelations with Tibet\n\n81\n\nJust as Buddhism was used by the Japanese to serve political ends in China, so it was used by the Chinese to serve political ends in Tibet. After the collapse of the Ch'ing Dynasty the Tibetans considered themselves to be an independent nation. Successive Republican governments therefore endeavoured to persuade them that they were one of the five races of China and that Tibet was Chinese territory. In a rather poor hand Buddhism was one of the better cards. That is, the Chinese could argue that Tibet was bound to China by a common religion. This was not altogether factitious. For example, one of the rites for the dead most commonly performed by Chinese monks, the fang yen-k'ou, was partly of Tibetan origin. Mountains like Omei and Wu-t'ai Shan had long been equally sacred to Chinese and Tibetan pilgrims, and had provided the venue for a Sino-Tibetan syncretism. A visitor to Wu-t'ai Shan in 1911 wrote: \"The most curious feature of Buddhism on the Wutaishan is the amalgamating of Chinese Buddhism and Lamaism... doctrines borrow from one another in habits and arrangements... The structure of the temple is, for the greater part Chinese, but the form of the pagodas is mostly Indo-Tibetan. The interior, too, forms a mixture of Chinese and Tibetan. Chinese and Tibetan idols stand side by side, Tibeto-Mongolian inscriptions are next to Chinese ones, Tibetan butter lamps, praying cylinders, also boards on which the monks throw themselves for prayers, all such things are seen here in Chinese temples. In their services, too, one style blends with another.\"24\n\nBoth\n\nAlthough lama temples enjoying Manchu patronage were to be found in Peking and a few other Chinese cities, the indigenous Chinese Tantric sect had been suppressed in the Ming Dynasty. During the Republican period some Buddhist devotees became interested in reviving it, or rather in reintroducing Tantrism from Tibet and Japan, where it had been preserved intact. To them, as to some Europeans of that time, Tibet was a land of precious secrets, which they resolved to learn. It is difficult to ascertain the relationship between this personal interest and government policy. Which came first? How did each stimulate the other?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205131, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "82\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nThe earliest manifestation of the Tantric revival was perhaps a school of Tibetan studies that operated in Peking 1924-1925. Founded by T'ai-hsü and headed by his disciple Ta-yung, its purpose was to prepare people for further study in Tibet. Only a single class was graduated, most members of which got no further than the Tibetan borderlands, but at least three reached Lhasa: Fa-tsun, Neng-hai, and Ch'ao-i. They returned to China in the early 1930's.25\n\nFa-tsun became the principal of the Sino-Tibetan Institute outside Chungking. This had also been established by T'ai-hsü (in 1931) and had the same goal as his school in Peking — to prepare people for study in Tibetan monasteries but unlike the earlier school it received a government subsidy. It was perhaps the only Buddhist institution to enjoy this privilege during the Republican period.\n\nThe government displayed an even more open concern when in December 1936 the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission inaugurated a program for the exchange of Chinese and Tibetan monks. Two of the former were to be selected annually by the Chinese Buddhist Association and sent to Lhasa for five years' study, while two Tibetan monks were to be chosen by \"the local government of Tibet\" for study in China. Tibetans were brought not only to study, but to teach. Early in 1937 the Nationalists invited Shirob Jaltso, an eminent Tibetan scholar who was persona non grata in Lhasa, to deliver a series of lectures at five Chinese universities. \"This was the first time a Tibetan instructor had been provided for Chinese university students.\"26 Shirob, the Panchen Lama (also persona non grata in Lhasa), and several other Tibetan monks who resided in China at this period were accorded every courtesy (and presumably ample subsidies) by the Chinese Government. Some received official posts.27\n\nLhasa did not reciprocate. Rather naturally, it gave no political role to the Chinese who had been sent to strengthen its ties with the \"motherland.\" Nonetheless they were able to pursue their religious studies and to carry on other activities agreeable to all concerned. One of my informants, for example, had become interested in Buddhism as a young man. Although he came from a poor family in Nanking, he got to know Lü Ch'eng at the Metaphysical Institute (Nei-hsü Yuan). Lü urged him to go to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205132, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\nL\n\n83\n\nTibet so that he could learn the language and some day return to translate Tibetan books. In 1933 he was given a scholarship at the Chinese Tibetan Language School, which moved in January 1934 to Chungking. There he became the disciple of a lama on the faculty. After completing the two-year course, he entered the Central Political University, which had been set up by the Kuomintang to train cadres. After a year and a half the government selected him to go to Tibet for further training.28 He lived for eight years at the Drebung Monastery outside Lhasa—the largest monastery in Tibet and probably in the world—and received a high ecclesiastical degree. His final years in Lhasa were spent running a school for Tibetan children and working in the Tibetan office of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, so that he kept his dual role of monk and political agent. This is not to imply that there was anything sinister in what he was doing. It was simply that the Chinese Government had enabled him to pursue his interest in Buddhism for their own purposes, which he naturally expected to serve.\n\nThe presence in China of an increasing number of Tibetan lamas2 and monks returned from Lhasa further stimulated interest in Tantrism among the Chinese laity. In November 1935 a group of devotees set up the Bodhi Society in Shanghai to promote the translation and study of Tantric texts. The Panchen Lama was president and the members included some high-ranking ex-officials.30 This society was one of the regular stops on the lecture tours of the lamas and Lhasa-trained monks.\n\nAmong the most active of the latter was Neng-hai (see p. 11) who had been a Nationalist general before he had taken the robe. About 1938 he became the abbot of the Chin-tz'u Ssu in Chen-tu, which until then had been a typically Chinese monastery. Neng-hai changed the daily ritual and routine to incorporate Tibetan elements. He also started a scriptural translation institute that published Tibetan books in Chinese. Since some 250 monks were usually in residence, this monastery might have exerted a wide influence towards the \"Tantrification\" of Chinese Buddhism if it had been able to carry on after 1950.\n\nRelations with Theravada Buddhists\n\nThe Japanese and Tibetans were Mahayana Buddhists with whom it would be natural for Buddhists in China, who were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205141, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "92\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\ngeneration by generation, they became lavish patrons of Buddhism, both where they lived and when they returned home. Monks from China therefore made fund-raising tours of the overseas Chinese communities, while monasteries in certain parts of China received much of their income from overseas Chinese pilgrims.\n\nMonks traveled not only to raise funds, but to spread the dharma and to visit the holy places of Buddhism. One of the most inveterate travelers of the past century was Hsü-yün. In 1889 he visited the holy places of Tibet, India, Ceylon, and Burma.48 In 1905 he went to spread the dharma in Burma, Malaya, and Taiwan. In Malaya alone 10,000 persons became his disciples after hearing him preach.49 Here and elsewhere, almost all of his audience was overseas Chinese, since he spoke no foreign language—this was not the beginning of a dialogue with the Theravadins. On a tour in 1907, however, he won a foreign disciple no less a person than the King of Siam! Interested to hear that Hsü-yün had been in trance for nine days, the King came to see him, invited him to the royal palace, took the Refuges with him, and gave him a large tract of land, which Hsü-yün allocated to the use of the Chi-le Ssu in Penang.50\n\nSometimes he did not get so royal a welcome. In 1916 he was on his way back from Rangoon, where he had gone to get a Buddha image (another common motive for trips abroad51). When he reached Singapore, he was taken off the boat on the suspicion of being a revolutionary. Along with five other monks, he was hustled to the police station, cross-questioned, bound, beaten with fists, put out in the hot sun, and not allowed to move. \"If we moved, we were beaten. They gave us nothing to eat or drink and would not allow us to go to the latrine. This went on from six in the morning to eight at night.\" Finally, some of his disciples heard of his plight and got him released on bail. The reason for this treatment was said to have been a desire on the part of the Singapore police to please their \"good friend\" Yüan Shih-k'ai.52\n\nHsü-yün was not the only monk who went on pilgrimages and lecture tours overseas. In 1902-1906 Yüeh-hsia visited Japan, Southeast Asia, India, and Europe (sic).53 Before 1924 Wan-hui had studied in India and Ceylon.54 Overseas travel became commoner as ships and trains made it more convenient, as Chinese abroad became increasingly able to finance it, and as certain...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205145, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "96\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nvisory Committee (1945-1949); and a vice-chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (1947-1949).\n\n28 Probably he was not one of the two monks sent to Tibet for study earlier in 1937 (see p. 11).\n\n29 An interesting account of one such, Dorje Rimpoche, from Chamdo, who visited Hong Kong in 1935, is given in J. Blofeld, The Wheel of Life, London, 1959, pp. 40-56.\n\n30 The leading spirit of the society was Ch'ü Yang-kuang, formerly governor of Shantung and Chekiang and Minister of the Interior. This Bodhi Society (P'u-ti hsüeh-hui) had no connection with the Bodhi Society (P'u-ti She) established by T'ai-hsü in 1918.\n\n31 Chinese Year Book 1935-36, Shanghai, 1935, p. 1514, Huang was the editor of the Chinese Buddhist, \"an English magazine which was to link up China with foreign Buddhists.\" It ceased publication before he died in 1933.\n\n12 It was a common practice for Chinese monks to take their ordination vows a second or third time in order to strengthen their commitment to follow them, or in order to draw inspiration from an eminent ordaining monk. Hence, from the Chinese point of view, receiving the Theravada ordination meant supplementing, not replacing the Mahayana ordination.\n\n33 Their names were Pei-kuan, Teng-tz'u, Hsing-chiao and Chüeh-yuan. They were supposed to remain in Thailand four years. See Chinese Year Book 1936-37, Shanghai, 1936, p. 1446.\n\n34 Their Chinese religious names, followed by their Theravada names, were: Hsiu-lu (Kondanna), Wei-chih (Bhaddiya), Hui-sung (Vappa), Fa-chou (Mahanama), and Wei-huan (Assaji). Their later histories would make an interesting study in acculturation. Wei-huan disrobed within a few months and returned to China where he married. Eventually he became the principal English interpreter for the Chinese Buddhist Association established in Peking in 1953. Fa-chou married a girl of Dutch descent and eventually became a lecturer at the University of Ceylon. Hui-sung, who stayed longest, became mentally deranged. Wei-chih, after disrobing, went to Singapore, where he died during the war. Hsiu-lu, after disrobing, went to India where he pursued his studies at Santiniketan and/or Nalanda. Only the information about the first two is reliable. Another moot question is who sent them to Ceylon in the first place. Their Sinhalese hosts believed that they had been selected and sent by T'ai-hsü; and it is true that he acted as their guarantor (see Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 404). But another Chinese source states that their group was \"formed by the Chinese Buddhist Association in accordance with the proposal made by the Pure Karma Buddhist Association,\" both of which were housed in the same building in Shanghai. See Chinese Year Book 1936-37, p. 1446.\n\n35 Liao-ts'an (Dhammakiti) who went to Ceylon in 1945 returned to China about 1953 with Fa-fang's ashes, disrobed and became an instructor in Pali at the Chinese Buddhist Institute in Peking.\n\n36 Today many Theravada Buddhists have a very different attitude and publicly advocate tolerance and respect for Mahayana Buddhism. In 1956 the fourth Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists voted to abolish even the use of the terms \"Theravada\" and \"Mahayana\" (see Report of the 4th World Buddhist Conference, Kathmandu, no date, p. 2). There are some Theravadins, however, who even today believe that the world would be a better place if Mahayana was removed from it.\n\n37 He had gotten the information at first hand from Liao-ts'an (Dhamma-kiti) who had heard the complaints of members of the 1936 group. They are stated to have been novices (sha-mi) when they left China and the Theravada ordination they received on May 6, 1936 was also, apparently, the novice's ordination. Hence there would have been more justification for withholding the respect due to bhikkhus than in the case of Liao-ts'an and his fellow monk, who came in 1945. More information is needed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205423, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "178\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nmeaning in Chinese because they are Chinese transliterations of foreign names of musical tunes.\n\nThis book helps to dispel this illusory legend. Chinese have not been impervious to foreign culture but have been inclined to digest and modify it to suit their own needs. Buddhism was at first studied under the aegis of Taoism; but when Buddhism was domesticated, then it started not only to influence Taoism but even Confucianism. Chinese culture is not so monolithic and static as many think or wish it to be.\n\nAnother significant point is that the Chinese know how and what to introduce, adopt and develop. Both Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism were introduced. But Mahayana had a greater appeal to the Chinese mentality and the Chinese developed the Mahayana, almost to the exclusion of Hinayana. Hence Mahayana has been best and most brilliantly developed in China, of all the Buddhistic countries. Tantrayana was introduced but it never flourished and, being frowned upon, soon died out. We can say that the Chinese developed Buddhism along the philosophical and intellectual line and kept to its 'sound and pristine health' without aberrations. Of course, there are ignorant, superstitious believers, and unscrupulous, crafty superstition-mongers who exploit the stupid and credulous, but they are not true Buddhists and even they never degenerate into Sivaism.\n\nChina in this discussion refers, of course, to China Proper. Our author, using China to mean the Chinese Empire (and later, Republic), includes an account of Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia where Tantrism and even Sivaism flourished and Mahayana was non-existent.\n\nThe book is specially recommended to all cultured readers who wish to get acquainted with a fascinating subject and the interesting and instructive cultural and historical phenomena of an extensive area over a period of 2000 years.\n\nTSUNG-HAN YANG\n\nANNUAL CUSTOMS AND FESTIVALS IN PEKING as recorded in the Yen-ching Sui-shih-chi, by TUN LI-CHEN, translated and annotated by Derk Bodde (Professor of Chinese, University of Pennsylvania). Second Edition (revised) of the first edition published by Henri Vetch, Peiping 1936. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong 1965, pp. xxviii, 147, HK$35.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205649, "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-1968", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "186\n\nGILES, Herbert A.\n\nTHE LIBRARY\n\nChina and the Manchus. Cambridge, University Press, 1912. (Cambridge manuals of science and literature).\n\nGILES, Lionel.\n\nA gallery of Chinese immortals; selected biographies translated from Chinese sources. London, Murray, 1948.\n\nGODMAN, A., ed.\n\nThe attainment and ability of Hong Kong primary IV pupils: a first study. Hong Kong, University Press, 1964.\n\nGOODRICH, L. Carrington.\n\nA short history of the Chinese people. 2nd ed. London, Allen & Unwin, 1957 reprinted 1962.\n\nGRAHAM, Dorothy.\n\nThrough the moon door: the experiences of an American resident in Peking. New York, Sears, 1926.\n\nGRATTON, Henry Pearson, ed.\n\nAs a Chinaman saw us: passages from his letters to a friend at home. New York, Appleton, 1904 reprinted 1916.\n\nGRAY, Terence James Standus.\n\nAll else is bondage: non-volitional living [by] Wei Wu Wei [pseud.] Hong Kong, University Press, 1964.\n\nGRAY, Terence James Stannus.\n\nOpen secret [by] Wei Wu Wei [pseud.] Hong Kong, University Press, 1965.\n\nGRAY, Terence John Stannus.\n\nThe tenth man: the great joke (which made Lazarus laugh) [by] Wei Wu Wei [pseud.] Hong Kong, University Press, 1966.\n\nGRIFFIS, William Elliot.\n\nChina's story, in myth, legend, art and annals. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1901.\n\nGRUNWEDEL, Albert.\n\nMythologie du Buddhisme au Tibet et en Mongolie, basée sur la collection lamaïque du Prince Oukhtomsky. Traduit de l'allemand par Ivan Goldschmidt. Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1900.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205660, "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-1968", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "The Library\n\n197\n\nWADDELL, L. Austine.\n\nThe Buddhism of Tibet; or, Lamaism, with its mystic cults, symbolism and mythology, and in its relation to Indian Buddhism. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Heffer, 1934.\n\nWALKER, Egbert H.\n\nFifty-one common ornamental trees of the Lingnam University campus: a guide to the more important local trees. Canton, Lingnam University, 1930.\n\nWANG, Ch'ung (1)\n\nLun-hêng (3) Tr. from the Chinese and annotated by Alfred Forke. 2nd ed. New York, Paragon Book Gallery, 1962.\n\nReprint of previous ed., Leipzig, 1907-11.\n\nWEALE, B. L. Putnam, pseud.\n\nIndiscreet letters from Peking; being the notes of an eye-witness [to] the siege and sack of a distressed capital in 1900. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1907 reprinted 1919.\n\nWELCH, Holmes.\n\nThe parting of the way: Lao Tzu and the Taoist movement. Boston, Beacon Press, 1957.\n\nWERNER, E. T. C.\n\nMyths & legends of China. New York, Brentano, 1922.\n\nWHITAKER, K. P. K.\n\nTsaur Jyr's “Luohshern fuh\". London, Taylor's Foreign P., 1954.\n\nReprint from Asia major: a British journal of Far Eastern studies, new series, v. 4, pp. 36-56.\n\nWIEGER, L.\n\nRudiments [de parler et de style chinois] 2e éd. Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, 1905. vol. 4: Morale et usages only.\n\nWILKINSON, H. P.\n\nThe family in classical China. Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1926.\n\nWILLETTS, William.\n\nChinese art. Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1958.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205929, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "# PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1969\n\nThis is the tenth statutory Annual General Meeting of the Society but as the First Annual Meeting was held in April 1961 more than a year after its revival in December 1959 the Society is well on its eleventh year of its renewed existence. This is therefore an important milestone in its history. It had been contemplated that it would be fitting to hold a Society dinner to mark the occasion but it has been decided to postpone this celebration until the autumn. Nevertheless I feel happy to present to you to-day the report which shows that the Society is flourishing, is very active and is in a sound financial position. It had, at the end of 1969, 462 members including 69 life members more than 25 over last year in spite of the loss of 28.\n\nThe membership of the Society has changed considerably in ten years. In the Council, for instance, there are only two of the original members left - Dr. Marjorie Topley and myself. Together with Mr. (now Professor) Cranmer-Byng we planned in 1959 to revive the Society after an interval of a century. A meeting of thirty interested members was convened at the British Council Centre on 28th December, 1959. The Meeting was a success; the Society was duly constituted, the Rules were approved and an opening meeting was held at the Hong Kong Club when Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark gave a talk illustrated with a colour film on \"The Social and Economic Organisation of Tibet\". A formal inaugural meeting was held on 7th April, 1960 when Professor F. S. Drake of the University of Hong Kong delivered an address on \"The Study of Asia: a Heritage and a Task\". It was a memorable address which gave the stamp of learning and authority and set an objective ideal for our efforts.\n\nI may perhaps be forgiven on this tenth anniversary to indulge in a little of the history of the Society for the information of members who have joined since 1959. We have a tradition, and in the words of Professor Drake \"a heritage and a task”.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society is not a new body. Its roots go back to the middle of the 19th Century, especially in India, when societies were formed for the study of the East under the impetus of a greater British interest which was a corollary of expanding", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206018, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 93\n\nislands of Nauru and Ocean Island; and the other is the Pilgrim Trade from Malaya to the Red Sea Port of Jeddah. The passengers in this latter trade are mainly Malays, who travel in near-luxury conditions comparable with European tourist class. Food and accommodation are suited to Moslem tastes and prejudices, an Iman travels on the ship, and there is a mosque provided in the accommodation.\n\nLater Chinese emigration to South-east Asia was largely the result of the economies imposed on the region by the European colonial powers, and the agricultural and industrial development which these powers initiated. On achieving independence at various times after 1945 each country has attempted with varying degrees of success - to weaken the economic and political position of their Chinese populations, and in the early 1960s Indonesia even attempted their repatriation on a substantial scale. It is in this country that the Chinese have been subjected to the harshest and most cruel treatment, with thousands being killed in pogroms reminiscent of the worst years in Indonesia and the Philippines in the earlier period. It may be that the contribution of the overseas Chinese to the economic development of South-east Asia, has in these latter years at least been counter-balanced by the political instability caused by their presence, but for this they are not wholly to blame.\n\nNOTE\n\nAn account of the Ch'ing government's attitude towards the emigration of its subjects is given at pp. 26-29 of Victor Purcell's The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1965).\n\nIn his well-known work, The Middle Kingdom (London, W. H. Allen & Co., revised edition, 1883) vol. 1, pp. 278-9 S. Wells Williams states that \"The obstacles put in the way of emigrating beyond sea, both in law and prejudice, operate to deter respectable persons from leaving their native land. Necessity has made the law a dead letter, and thousands annually leave their homes.\" He then quotes the following striking passage from W. H. Medhurst's China: Its State and Prospects (1838). \"Emigration is going on in spite of restrictions and disabilities, from a country where learning and civilization reign, and where all the dearest interests and prejudices of the emigrants are found, to lands like Burmah, Siam, Cambodia, Tibet, Manchuria, and the Indian Archipelago, where comparative ignorance and barbarity prevail, and where the extremes of a tropical or frozen region are to be exchanged for a mild and temperate climate.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206074, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH\n\n149\n\nalso wear headdresses and tails to resemble dogs and they have a legend about their descent from a dog. This legend, as reproduced in the later Han history, is as follows. An emperor who wished to subjugate a certain chieftain offered his youngest daughter in marriage to anyone who would bring him his head. After this proclamation one of his pet dogs brought a man's head and laid it in front of the throne. It proved to be the head of the enemy. The princess then insisted that she should be married to the dog and the Emperor was forced to comply. The princess was taken by the dog to a stone fortress in a mountain in Hunan. There she changed her mode of living, discarded her Chinese clothes and wore a strange head-dress. She bore six children. They made bark clothes which they dyed with various grass juices. They cut them with a tail behind. They lived in the mountains. Their descendants multiplied and are known as the Man I\n\nMan and I are Chinese terms for barbarians. Man, as we have seen, is applied locally to the Hoklo, but it can represent a barbarian of South China in general. It generally represents Tibetan or western barbarians. When Chao T'o, one of the chiefs of the Canton estuary, made himself independent in the Han dynasty, he called himself \"King of the Man and I\". Since the Yao have the same dog myth as the Man I, there is a likelihood that this people were partly composed of Yao and partly of Indonesian stock.\n\nIt is only possible to take such broad distinctions as the Chinese historians allow. There were in ancient South China two types. One the \"dragon myth\" peoples, primarily in Fukien, using boats with eyes painted on the bows, and designated by many names Min Man Tan and so on with the radical for serpent or dragon. The other a mountain people with a \"dog myth\" stretched from the confines of Tibet to South China and included the Yao. The former may be of Indonesian and the latter of Tibetan stock.\n\nOne problem must still be mentioned. The presence of a very early Negrito population in South China is suspected. Negrito dwarfs are still found in Cochin China, the Malay States, the Philippine Islands, and Formosa and in the history of the Liang dynasty occurs the following text:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207000, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "DOGS AND HORSES IN ANCIENT CHINA\n\n65\n\nOn the other hand the large number of terms such as “hsing” ( ) “han” (*) “wei” (*) “nao” (闹) “hsiao” (咲) and “fei” (吠)52 to denote a dog's bark are apparently attempts to reproduce phonetically the barking sounds of various breeds of dogs.53\n\nPossibly the first reference to a dog in Chinese literature is to the Ao (獒) a dog supposedly sent as tribute to Chou Hsun (1154-1122 B.C.) by a tribe called the Western Liu of whom nothing else is known.54 This was a very large dog which could “know a man's mind”. The size of the Ao always intrigued Chinese authors and one commentator, Kuo Po (502-556 A.D.) claimed that the Ao was a red dog as large as a donkey.55 A statement which may possibly have been known to Marco Polo and caused him to write when speaking of Tibet: \"The people of Tibet are an ill-conditioned race. They have mastiffs as big as donkeys.\"\n\nThis short paper has attempted to show some pre-Han attitudes towards dogs and horses, but it cannot be concluded without referring to another point. It was not until Buddhism had become firmly implanted in China that we find stories celebrating canine loyalty and devotion to man. Until then, classical literature usually qualified dogs as hui (狡), treacherous, chiao (狡) crafty and ssu (思) restless.\n\n1 Anderson, p. 102.\n\n2 Erkes(1), pp. 186-187.\n\n3 Anderson, pp. 120-121.\n\n4 Erkes(2), pp. 27-28.\n\n5 Anderson, p. 29; Yetts, p. 237.\n\n6 Creel, p. 210.\n\n7 Cheng, Vol. 11, p. 55.\n\n8 Cheng, Vol. 11, p. 90.\n\n9 Schindler(2), pp. 631-632.\n\nNOTES\n\n10 Couvreur, Vol. 1, pp. 352, 405, 406.\n\n11 Biot, Vol. 11, p. 259; Chou Li, 8/22b.\n\n12 Biot, Vol. 11, p. 364; Chou Li, 9/30b.\n\n13 Schindler(1), pp. 356, 359, 364.\n\n14 Creel, p. 142/43; Couvreur I, 235.\n\n15 Erkes(2), p. 59.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207241, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1975 (Covering the period March 25, 1974-April 7, 1975)\n\nI am pleased to report to you this evening on this very active past year of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society. Increases in activity bring with it increases in preparations and paperwork, and so we might be forgiven for being slightly behind time with this Annual General Meeting.\n\nTHE PROGRAMME\n\nLet me start with a review of our regular programme. When the Society was resuscitated in 1959 the details are laid out in the brochure we send to new members—our only major activity besides publishing a journal were occasional lectures. Our lectures have steadily increased in number over the years and have been gradually augmented with other activities: firstly symposia—the first was in 1964 then excursions to places of historical or cultural interest within Hong Kong and later also abroad, and most recently with film shows.\n\nIn the programme period running from our last A.G.M., March 25, 1974 to March 28 this year, we have independently organised eight lectures, jointly organised a further lecture with the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, and have been invited to two others. Thus there have been eleven lectures in all. We also organised, were invited to, or jointly organised five film shows and arranged nine local excursions and one overseas.\n\nOur talks covered the regions of Japan, China, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and included a wide range of topics. Starting with April 1974, we had a talk from Dr. K. K. Whitaker, Reader in Chinese at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, on Japanese temples and shrines. One of our highlights of the year followed, also in April: a lecture from Professor Joseph Needham, well-known for his monumental series of published works on Chinese Science and Civilization. This was organised jointly with the Archaeological Society. Professor Needham, who has been Master of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge since 1966, spoke on the Chinese theory of Immortality and the Origins of Alchemy. He drew a large audience and dealt skilfully with the many questions", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207716, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "\"PATTERNED BANDS\" IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG\n\n89\n\ntinued to wear the style of dress and patterned bands of their own native areas.\n\nMore broadly speaking, these aspects of women's dress and adornment serve as an assertion of Hakka identity. It is primarily Hakka women in the New Territories who wear patterned bands, the black-fringed hat, and small ornamental aprons. They also use distinctive forms of jewellery. There may be some use of these forms by other groups and individuals, including speakers of some variants of Cantonese, but they are most generally characteristic of the Hakka.\n\nWith the modern development of Hong Kong and heavy immigration, regional and ethnic distinctions are breaking down, so that these differences in dress are now less significant, and indeed are unrecognized by many people. In Tsuen Wan, only the most elderly of the indigenous Hakka people still wear traditional clothing. Virtually all can speak Cantonese, and intermarriage with Cantonese people is common. Patterned bands are rarely worn, and many of the young people know nothing about their existence, much less the technique of their manufacture. They are astonished to find that their mothers have this skill. The middle-aged and elderly women still have some treasured bands secreted away in their dowry chests, however, and the way in which they show them and talk about them demonstrates the significance they had until two or three decades ago.\n\nThis is not yet true of the more rural areas of the New Territories. A visit to the market towns of Tai Po, Yuen Long, or Sai Kung will show these traditional forms to be still in use among older women, with some available for sale, although it is unlikely that they will remain as these areas develop into urban centres like Tsuen Wan. Patterned bands are also still being made and worn in Tung-kuan County, Kwangtung, not very far from Hong Kong, according to visitors to a Hakka brigade of a commune there.12 Another visitor saw a different variety still in use in T'ai-shan county, in another part of Kwangtung.13\n\nA large collection of these bands exists at the National Minorities Institute in Peking, according to the anthropologist Fei Hsiao-t'ung.14 However, they are kept there as examples of minority handicrafts, specifically from the Yao, Miao, and Tung peoples. Dr. Fei said that they are also known in Tibet. As the backstrap", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207724, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "A HAWAIIAN KING VISITS HONG KONG, 1881\n\n97\n\nPeking. The China Merchants Steam Navigation Company had been doing business with Hawaii. Their two steamers, the Ho-Chung ** and Mei-Foo, ✯✯ were used to transport Chinese laborers to Hawaii in 1879 and 1880.*\n\nIn Tientsin, King Kalakaua was received by Viceroy Li Hung-chang ✶ who asked penetrating questions about Hawaii: \"How many islands are there in your Kingdom? Do you have a Parliament? You have many Chinese in your country. Do you treat them well?\" The secretary and interpreter for the Viceroy was Li Sun (Tsang Lai-sun, a graduate of Hamilton College in New York.)\n\nThe King wrote back on April 6, 1881 to William L. Green, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, that he went to North China to see Li Hung-chang \"for the purposes I had in view: First, of stopping, if possible, further immigration of Chinese to the Islands [who came alone] without carrying their wives, and Secondly:--to secure for our government the same privileges as granted to the United States Government, the right at any time to restrict, return, or remove, the large influx of Chinese to our islands. On these two subjects our mission has been successful.”\n\nThe Royal party returned to Shanghai and embarked on the S. S. Thibet for Hong Kong, arriving on April 12, 1881. Already Hong Kong officials had been informed of the King's coming and were ready to extend a royal welcome. Owing to the considerable commerce between Hong Kong and Hawaii, the King was represented as Consul General by a British merchant of high standing William Keswick of Jardine, Matheson and Co. The twelve-oared barge of Sir John Pope Hennessy, the Colonial Governor, also appeared alongside with an invitation asking the King, in the name of Queen Victoria, to be his guest. The Hawaiian King had to adjust his schedule to accept the Governor's invitation for a royal reception at the Government House. As Armstrong recorded in his book, \"While we were taking coffee, the next morning, the forts, with seven warships, fired the usual salute of twenty-one guns. From the balcony of the Government House, high above the city, we looked down on a dense mass of smoke, rolling away to the mainland, pierced with the flashing of the guns, the Hawaiian flag", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207792, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA\n\n165\n\nboats as far as Bhamo, and then partly by land and partly by water into China. Other exports were amber, ivory, precious stones, betel nuts, and edible birds' nests; while in return Burma got raw and wrought silk, velvet, gold leaf, preserves, and chinaware. Similar reports came from other sources. By 1850, the possibility of extending trade from Yunnan into Szechwan was envisaged, and the glowing prospect of an extensive market for British goods in West China became an obsession among many British officials and merchants in Burma and India.\n\nCaptain McLeod's mission of 1836 is the first official British attempt to find an overland route to China. McLeod went from Moulmein, the port in the newly acquired province of Tenasserim, via Kungtang to Kenghang, a Shan state on the border of China. Here he failed to get permission to enter Yunnan, being told that if the British wanted to trade with China they should go to Canton, and that if he still persisted in wanting to enter Yunnan he would require official permission from Peking. McLeod had to admit defeat, and turned back.\n\nAfter this came a succession of other ventures from Assam and Burma, all—for one reason or another—failures. These culminated in the famous and ill-fated Dual Mission of 1874-75, which led to the Margary Affair.* This was a joint attempt to explore West China from the Burmese and Chinese sides. Previous to this the only important attempts to find a route between Burma and China from the eastern side had been Captain Blakiston's in 1861 and T. T. Cooper's in 1868.\n\nThe Royal Navy's expedition of 1861 which went up the Yangtze to establish the first treaty ports on the great river—Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow—continued 153 miles beyond Hankow to Yochow. Here they transferred Blakiston's party to junks in which they continued for another 1050 miles to Pingshan, nearly 1800 miles from the sea and 400 miles above Chungking. It had been intended to follow the Yangtze to its source in Tibet, and then cross the Himalayas into India. Because of unsettled political conditions at Pingshan and beyond, however, they were forced to turn back; but they had obtained valuable information about the Middle and Upper Yangtze.\n\nSee pp. 169-170 below.\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207793, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "166 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nIn 1868 T. T. Cooper, a British merchant in Burma, came to Shanghai and attempted to improve on Blakiston's feat. His venture was partly financed by the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce. Cooper went up the Yangtze to Chungking, and then overland to Chengtu, the capital of Szechwan. Here he received permission from the Governor General to travel on through Szechwan and Tibet to India; but he met such determined opposition and hostility from the lamas on the Tibetan border, where he was imprisoned for five weeks, that he was forced to turn back. \n\nIn the following year, Sir Rutherford Alcock, British Minister at Peking, sent Robert Swinhoe of the China Consular Service to investigate trade prospects on the Upper Yangtze. Vice-Admiral Keppel, R.N. was making a survey of the river, and Swinhoe's party, which included Alexander Michie and Robert Francis of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and two naval surveyors, travelled to Ichang on H.M.S. Opussum. This was the first time a steamship had reached Ichang, and the Chinese pilot refused to go any further. A junk was hired for the passage through the Gorges to Chungking, and soundings and surveys taken en route. The surveyors, however, gave an unfavourable report on the feasibility of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze. They particularly commented on the force of the current, lack of suitable anchorages, intricacy of navigation because of the changeable channel, and so on. They also thought descent would be even more difficult than ascent. The chief engineer of Opossum described a sample of coal obtained half way between Ichang and Chungking as resembling good anthracite in appearance, but requiring large furnaces and a long time for combustion. \n\nThis was the most thorough navigational survey of the Upper Yangtze, and many of the factors militating against steam navigation between Ichang and Chungking were investigated and made known. The bed of the river falls 470 feet in the 360 miles between the two places, and this fall of one and a third feet per mile is the cause of the strong currents and rapids in this section of the river. The most difficult stretch is the first half of the Upper River between Ichang and Wanhsien, where the most difficult rapids and gorges are encountered. The Ichang Gorge begins five miles above Ichang, and then come the Ox Liver and Horse's Lung Gorges, and the Hsintan Rapid immediately after the latter. The most spectacular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207805, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "178\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nParliamentary Papers — Reports from the British Consuls at the Treaty Ports of China (various dates)\n\nUnpublished Theses for Degree of Master of Arts at London University\n\na) British Interests in Trans-Burma Trade Route to China 1826-76 by MA THAUNG 1956\n\nb) Anglo-Chinese Relations in the Provinces of the West River and the Yangtze River Basin between 1889-1900 by L. R. MARCHANT, 1965\n\nFive Months on the Yangtze T. W. BLAKISTON\n\nThe Royal Navy and the Sino-Japanese Incident M. BRYCE\n\nChina in Turmoil G. H. GOMPERTZ\n\nThe Irrawaddy Flotilla Company M. J. GRUBB and G. L. D. DUCKWORTH\n\nGleanings from Fifty Years in China A. LITTLE\n\nThe Yangtze Gorges A. LITTLE\n\nRiver Road to China\n\nGlimpses of the Yangtze Gorges\n\nTo the Snows of Tibet through China\n\nYangtze Reminiscences\n\nThe Making of Modern Burma D. WOODMAN\n\nSpecial Mission up the Yangtze Kiang R. SWINHOE\n\nM. OSBORNE\n\nC. PLANT\n\nA. E. PRATT\n\nG. R. TORRIBLE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207934, "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": 322, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "In Tibet \n\nKidling \n\nChength \n\nZE – CHUAN \n\nMin \n\nSulfu \n\n1 \n\nNAUTICAL MILES \n\n50 \n\nWANHSIEN \n\n100 \n\n150 \n\n\"wanting \n\nWind box Gorge B.B \n\nDasually. \n\nFam \n\n(Rapid) \n\n \n |chaug sh \n \n\nCHUNG KING \n\nTOP RIVER. \n\n105* \n\n \n t \n K WEI \n \n \n CHAU \n F \n 1 \n \n\nNote: \n\n \n CHANG \n 1 \n \n \n T \n 1 \n \n\nHU - P \n\nICHANG $7 \n\nShast gl \n\nHANKOW 18t2 \n\nYoshow 1896! \n\nTungling LAKE \n\nANHUI \n\n-Maturg Bluff. \n\nTRIANG \n\nPOYANG LAKE \n\n \n I \n Hu- \n \n \n NAN \n F \n \n \n CHANGSHA 17H \n KIA \n \n \n Siantan \n \n\nWPPER \n\nRIVER \n\n \n 1 \n Кал \n \n\nNanchang \n\n \n SI \n \n\nMIDDLE RIVER. \n\nYANGTZE RIVER \n\nLOWER RIVER \n\nKiangsu \n\nCANAL \n\n \n 122 \n 35 \n \n\nYELLOW \n\nSEA \n\n1899/NANKING \n\n•Chanklang isiz \n\nWUHU 1877 \n\nTAI \n\n \n Hu \n \n\nSoochun \n\n \n | SHANGHA \n \n\nHangchun 1897 \n\n \n 181 \n 30 \n \n\nNINGPO \n\nCHEH XIANG \n\n \n 120* \n 115* \n \n\nThis and the other sketch-map/chart overleaf supplied by Mr. A. D. Blue and original sources are gratefully acknowledged \n\nEASTERN \n\nSEA", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208459, "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-1978", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "VILLAGE GOVERNMENT IN CHINA, 1933\n\n167\n\nHuc, M.; The Chinese Empire: Forming a Sequel to the Work Entitled \"Recollections of a Journey Through Tartary and Tibet\". 2nd ed., 2 vols.; London, Longman, 1855.\n\nHuc, M.; L'Empire Chinois: Faisant Suite à L'Ouvrage Intitulé \"Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet\". 2nd ed., 2 vols.; Paris, Gaume Frères, 1855.\n\nHummel, Arthur W.; \"The Case Against Force in Chinese Philosophy\" (Chinese Social and Political Science Review, vol. 9, 1925, p. 334-350).\n\nJamieson, G.; Chinese Family and Commercial Law. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1921.\n\nKulp, Daniel H.; Country Life in South China: The Sociology of Familism. Vol. 1: Phenix Village, Kwantung, China. New York, Columbia, 1925.\n\nLee, Mabel Ping-Hua; The Economic History of China, with Special Reference to Agriculture. New York, Columbia, 1921.\n\nLeong, Y.K., and Tao, L.K.; Village and Town Life in China. London, Allen and Unwin, 1915.\n\nLi, Chi; The Formation of the Chinese People; an Anthropological Inquiry. Cambridge, Harvard, 1928.\n\nMallory, Walter H.; China: Land of Famine. New York, American Geographical Society, 1926. (American Geographical Society, Special Publication no. 6.)\n\nMalone, C.B., and Tayler, J.B.; The Study of Chinese Rural Economy. Peking, China International Famine Relief Commission, Series B, no. 10, 1924. (Reprinted from: Chinese Social and Political Science Review, vol. 7, no. 4, 1923, p. 88-101; and vol. 8, no. 1, 1924, p. 196-226.)\n\nMartin, W.A.P.; \"The Worship of Ancestors a Plea for Toleration\" (Records of the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China. 1890. Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1890. p. 619-631).\n\nMaspero, Henri; La Chine Antique. Paris, Boccard, 1927.\n\nMaspero, Henri; \"La Vie Privée en Chine à l'Epoque des Han.\" (Revue des Arts Asiatiques, vol. 7, 1931-1932, p. 185-201).\n\nMaybon, B.; Essai sur les Associations en Chine. Paris, Plon-Nourrit et Cie, 1925.\n\nMeadows, Thomas T.; Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China. London, Allen, 1847.\n\nMorse, Hosea B.; The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1908.\n\nShryock, John; The Temples of Anking and Their Cults: a Study of Modern Chinese Religion. Paris, Geuthner, 1931.\n\nSmith, Arthur H.; Village Life in China; a Study in Sociology. New York, Revel, 1898.\n\nStaunton, George T. (translator); Ta Tsing Leu Lee, Being the Fundamental Laws, and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes of the Penal Code of China. London, Cadell and Davies, 1810.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208562, "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-1979", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "which drew a great deal of stimulating discussion: Leadership and Ideas in Singapore since 1945. Altogether then, there were twelve lectures during the year.\n\nExcursions\n\nDuring June, Dr. James Hayes, the very busy Town Manager of Tsuen Wan, and editor of your Journal, organised an excursion to his district. During preparatory work for the redevelopment of Northern Tsuen Wan various religious institutions came to the notice of his department, which was also able to discover more information about others. The group attending the excursion visited a Buddhist monastery, where they had a vegetarian lunch; another religious establishment for the so-called \"Three religions\"; the Holy Mother Yiu temple, in a squatter area; and a temple to a sect established to help opium addicts and which has branches also in Singapore. Another local excursion is planned for March 29 to Macao, with the help of Dr. Leigh Wright of your Council. It plans to take in visits to places not on the usual itinerary of tourist visits, such as the Theatro Pedro V. There will be a Portuguese lunch and information on the places visited will be given by Father Texeira who has helped us on past occasions. I would like to take this opportunity of thanking him for his generous help to the Society. This visit should be a 'must' for those who like old architecture, churches, cobblestone streets as well as archives and libraries.\n\nExcursions to neighbouring territories and states also remain an important part of the Society's activities each year. Some twenty-two members visited Kashmir and Kathmandu (with an unscheduled but very interesting overnight stop at Amritsar) during last Easter, under the leadership of your Hon. Secretary, Dr. Brian Shaw; and it was possible to make a refund to each participant of over two hundred dollars as a result of various economies. A further group of twenty will be leaving this Easter for Darjeeling and Sikkim; and in July a smaller number will go to Ladakh (“Little Tibet”). Some members expressed interest in proposed visits to Central Java and to sites in Thailand, but the numbers were not sufficient to make the trips feasible last year.\n\nOur requests to Peking concerning visits to cultural sites in Central China have unfortunately not yet received a favourable response, but our efforts will continue during the coming year. For\n\nix", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208859, "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": 21, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "been teaching at Wah Yan since 1960. The other was given by myself, and I spoke on “Chinese and Western medicine: compatible or antagonistic?\" My data was gathered during a three-year research project into the medical system of Hong Kong conducted at Hong Kong University's Centre of Asian Studies. In February Mr. Patrick Lau spoke on \"Rural Architecture in Hong Kong\". He is the author of a book on the subject, based on a series of survey studies and published jointly by the Government Information Services and the Hong Kong Tourist Association.\n\nIn February Dr. Norman Ko, Reader in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hong Kong, gave a talk on \"Underwater Photography and some Observations of Marine Life in Hong Kong\". Finally, in March, there were two talks: one given by Mr. Nigel Cameron, a well-known locally-based historian and art critic, and author of many books and essays, on \"The K'ang-Hsi Emperor (1662-1722)\". The other was given by Professor Winston Wan Lo on the work of his late father, Lo Hsiang-lin, who was Professor of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. Winston Lo is himself a professor of History at Florida State University. Future talks are in the process of being arranged, and you will already have received advanced notice of two, possibly three talks for April.\n\nTours Abroad\n\nIn April 1979 Dr. Shaw led a trip to Darjeeling and Sikkim, and in July another to Srinagar and Ladakh or “Little Tibet\". Members on the latter trip were particularly fortunate in that, by a harsh 3 a.m. start, they were able to witness and record the most interesting part of the final day's ceremonies in the annual masked dance festival at Hemis Monastery near Leh. Our Society is, of course, a non-profit-making organization, and Dr. Shaw was able to make a refund of $240 to each participant on the Sikkim trip, although a nominal loss was made on that to Srinagar and Ladakh. At the end of this week, a group of 19 members will leave for the Kingdom of Bhutan, the last of the forbidden kingdoms opening its doors to a select group of visitors. Again, they will be led by Dr. Shaw. In the absence of any response from China International Travel Service in Peking concerning our proposals for visits to China by groups of members of the Society, no further representations were made during the past year. Members will, of course, know they can now, as individuals, join a number of tours operating from Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208876, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "10\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nInside the library large cases of books cover the walls and some books, used more frequently, are individually wrapped in cloth and lie on tables and altars. The larger monasteries have rooms for the aged, and most have halls where ashes of devotees may be deposited.\n\nIn general, a visit to a Buddhist monastery would take you first past the shrine of the folk religion tutelary deity of the neighbourhood, the Earth God (1✯✯). (Illustration 3) Once through the gates and the entrance hall with its six \"guardians” (Mi Luo Fu, Wei Tuo and the Four Heavenly Kings) the layout follows a fairly standard pattern. The main altar will be straight ahead in the Great Hall which houses the main Buddhas. The main altar may be occupied by a single image, a group of three, or an array of a dozen or so. On and along the secondary altars, altars down the side walls and side halls there are images of other lesser deities. These, in twelve monasteries and temples in Hong Kong and Macau, include the well-known groups of eighteen or five hundred Luohan. Frequently, immediately behind the main altar and back to back with the main deity, stands the most popular and honoured of the Bodhisattvas, Guan Yin, with her two assistants.\n\nMahayana Buddhist temples contain a large number of images of Buddhas and major Bodhisattvas, some of which are considered to be more important than the image of Sakyamuni Buddha himself, unlike the Theravada Buddhist temples of Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and Srilanka in which Sakyamuni is the most important.\n\nThere appears to be only one temple in Hong Kong in which Lamaist images are worshipped, although there is one other, above Tsuen Wan, where in a private room, some forty or so Lamaist bronze images are on display.* The temple in which the Lamaist images appear on its altars is a shoddy, fairly modern concrete and corrugated iron construction above a new estate in North Point, where an elderly and now deceased Cantonese gentleman settled after spending some years in Tibet. Most devotees appear to have little idea of the style or origins of imagery, and the rituals and ceremonies performed in the temple by the widow of the founder are identical with those in other temples in Hong Kong.\n\n* Guan Yin temple in Fu Yung Shan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208999, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\nCHINA AND THE BEHOLDER \n\n129 \n\nBeing on the spot in China does not mean that one knows what is taking place on the spot. I learned this in May. I arrived in Peking on May 6, 1980. Both then and on the day of my departure, May 19, my host was informative, helpful and kind to me. We said goodbye only after he had helped me through exit formalities with the passport control officers. \n\nMy host is in charge of foreign relations at the Institute for Research on World Religions in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His name is Kao Wang-chih; he teaches Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other subjects. Although we tacitly avoided discussing Tibet, we discussed everything else, particularly coöperation between his institute and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard, with which I have long been connected. \n\nMr. Kao knew of my work on Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. In Peking he took me to see two Buddhist monasteries: the Ta-yüan Ssu which I found crowded with Chinese and the Kuang-chi Ssu, which was closed to the public for renovation. At the latter he introduced me to its abbot, Ming-chen, who was seventy-nine years old and as fine a Buddhist monk as I have ever met. \n\nMr. Kao told me about his institute's plans for research on Taoism. What he did not tell me was that on May 6—the day of my arrival—a weeklong conference of the Chinese Taoist Association, its third conference in twenty-three years, had opened in Peking. I did not learn about this until June 30, a month after my return to Boston from China. A friend sent me the FBIS report about an English-language broadcast from Peking on May 13, the day the Taoist conference ended. This broadcast means that there was nothing in the least secret about the conference. I could have heard about it by listening to Peking radio when I was in Loyang. But I did not bother to listen to the radio. Therefore I was on the spot but did not know about what was happening on the spot. \n\nThis reminds me of the experiences of a close friend and colleague. He lived in Peking and Shanghai 1974-76 as a Canadian student. In 1979 he made three trips to China, first as an interpreter for the Toronto Symphony, second as the interpreter for a China Friendship tour-group, and third on his honeymoon. In July and August 1979 he travelled in China with his wife. He went to places", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209272, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826 161\n\nMeanwhile, the Tao-kuang Emperor felt keenly British challenges to traditional Chinese foreign policy. Juan Yüan was summoned to Peking. One topic of their discussions was Sino-British relations at Canton. But these discussions must be interpreted in the light of another pressing development.\n\nPage 162\n\nIn 1821, the Tao-kuang Emperor, newly on the throne, adopted a policy that was closer to Juan Yüan's point of view. A more stringent anti-opium policy was enforced at Canton, leading to closer monitoring of activities and movements of foreigners in port. The following year, a new situation developed in the northwest, giving further evidence that the British were challenging the Canton system by trying to open new trading frontiers in China. The combination of these factors led to toughened measures to control Westerners in Canton. That year, Wu-lung-a, assistant military governor for administration (ts'an-chan ta-ch'en) in Kashgar, reported to the Emperor the presence of two British traders near Yarkand in western Sinkiang. These traders had entered the Chinese Empire from Kashmir and Tibet, and had travelled by camel across the Sinkiang desert, but had sent the camels back when they were no longer suitable for the terrain. These traders and the remainder of their caravan had been prevented by the local chieftain of Yarkand, Akim Beg Mohamet, from buying horses, blankets and other provisions. Wu-lung-a, whose responsibilities included Yarkand, had ascertained that these traders were indeed British, and had indeed come from Kashmir. He enclosed with the memorial a letter from a British official in India which gave in considerable detail the route taken by the two traders from Kashmir to Sinkiang, as well as their intention to travel through the Chinese Northwest to Bukhara, north of Afghanistan, hence their need for horses. This letter to the Akim Beg identified the writer and the traders, then continued:\n\nThese traders and their retinue would like to go to Bukhara, taking any road that was safe for them, ... It is their understanding that the road through Yarkand is good and safe. They also heard that his Imperial Majesty is kind and fair to strangers, therefore, they have come to discuss with me the possibility of taking this road. They have asked me to certify their need to purchase horses, blankets and stockings. As it is the British practice for the chief in each city to write a letter to the chief of the next city on the traveller's route on behalf of the traveller, I am writing this letter to the Akim Beg of Yarkand. Wu-lung-a, maintaining the traditional Ch'ing policy that the only\n\nPage 163", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209699, "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": 356, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "334\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nAll in all, students should welcome this handsome book available at a reasonable price.\n\nH. Y. SHIH\n\nClassical Chinese Gardens, ed. Qian Yun. H.K.: Joint Publishing Co., & Beijing: Chinese Building Industry Press, 1982. 240 pp. (including 209 colour plates).\n\nThis is the most satisfying among a number of books on the same subject published in the past decade. Although the text is brief, intended for the general reader, it highlights the special aesthetic qualities of these combinations of architecture and constructed landscape, and offers a synoptic but well-founded history of various types of gardens - imperial, private, religious and scenic parks.\n\nSeveral surviving examples of such gardens and parks are discussed in this book, each illustrated with a plan of its design as well as photographed views. A brief written description of its history, chief monuments and experience of the visitor while walking through or standing at various points, introduces the individual complexes. The quality of this book's reproductions is exceptional. Especially pleasing is the revelation of their views in different seasons.\n\nApart from the many well-known sites in Beijing, Hangzhou and Suzhou, the book includes such relatively less tourist-ridden locations as the \"Magnificent Clear Lake\" near Xian, and a number of private (and still occupied) residences in Beijing as well as the provinces. Temple gardens in or near a number of cities are a welcome addition as they have been less well publicized for China than for Japan, yet Chinese examples served as prototypes for many in Japan. The final entry in this section of the book is the Norbu Lingka (Treasure Garden), the former summer resort of the Dalai Lama but originally designed for the Qing Dynasty's Resident in Tibet.\n\nOf course, it would demand a much more ambitious undertaking than the work described above, but this reviewer looks forward to a book on Chinese gardens that would offer basic information as to architectural design and construction and...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209850, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "Chinese \n\n87 \n\nLoan Word \n\nKumquat, \n\ncomquat \n\nCharacters \n\nKung fu \n\n功夫 \n\nKuomingtang 國民黨 \n\nKuoyu \n\n國語 \n\nKwan-yin \n\n觀音 \n\nkylin \n\n麒麟 \n\nLama \n\n喇嘛 \n\n*laisee \n\n利是 \n\nDEP \n\n** \n\n*Lap sap \n\n垃圾 \n\n*Lap sap chung \n\n垃圾蟲 \n\nLi \n\n里 \n\nWW D \n\n里/座 \n\nLoquat \n\n枇杷 \n\nLychee \n\n荔枝 \n\nMafoo \n\n馬夫 \n\nMahjong, \n\n麻將 \n\n249 2011 \n\nmah-jong (g) \n\nManchu \n\n滿洲 \n\nMao \n\n毛 \n\n*Maotai \n\n茅台 \n\nNankeen \n\n南京棉 \n\nOolong \n\n烏龍茶 \n\nMeaning \n\nThe small round orange fruit of such a tree, with a sweet rind, used in preserves and confections. \n\nA Chinese martial art combining principles of karate and judo. \n\nThe main political party of the Republic of China, founded chiefly by Sun Yat-sen in 1911 and led since 1925 by Chiang Kai-shek; the dominant party in mainland China until 1948. \n\nThe name given to the Chinese \"national tongue\", form of Mandarin adopted for official use. \n\nOne of the Chinese female Bodhisattvas, noted for her kindness. \n\nA fabulous animal of composite form, figured on Chinese and Japanese pottery. \n\nA Buddhist priest of Mongolia or Tibet. The red packets containing money meant to bring luck given on birthdays and festivals, especially at Chinese New Year. \n\nRubbish, \n\nLiterally 'rubbish worm', meaning a litter-bug. \n\nA Chinese measure of distance 27-4/5 li = 10 miles. or a Chinese weight, one-thousandth part of liang. \n\nA small evergreen tree of the rose family, native to China and Japan; the small yellow, edible plum-like fruit of this tree. \n\nThe fruit of the nephelium litchi. \n\nA Chinese stable boy or groom. \n\nAn old Chinese game, played usually by four persons with 136 or 144 \"tiles\". \n\n(One) of the native Mongolian race of Manchuria which formed the ruling class in China from 1644 to 1912. \n\nAdjective from Mao Tse-tung. \n\nStrong Chinese alcoholic drink, \n\nKind of cotton cloth originally made of naturally yellow cotton. \n\nA dark variety of cured tea.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211350, "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-1988", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "42\n\nThe search for the giant panda through Chinese historical records and ancient writings represented an interesting exercise. Nevertheless, no positive statement can be made that the Chinese had known about the giant panda before the pelt was brought to western attention.\n\nPère David, it is safe to say, may continue to bask in glory as the discoverer of the giant panda for the whole world, including China.\n\nbaixiong 白熊 Bishan 璧山\n\nBishi 壁溪\n\nGLOSSARY\n\nErya 爾雅\n\nLi Shizhen 李時珍\n\nLiaodong 遼東\n\nLolo 玀羅\n\nMing 明\n\nmo 貘\n\nOuyang Xiu 歐陽修\n\npixiu 貔貅\n\nSima Qian 司馬遷 Sichuan 四川\n\nShandong 山東 Xuande 宣德 Wuding 武定\n\nYunglo 永樂\n\nYunnan 雲南\n\nZhou 周\n\nzhouyu 州圉\n\nZhu Su 朱橚\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nBrightwell, L. R., \"The Giant Panda, Its History in Ancient China and Modern Europe”, Field 187:497-498 (London, 1946)\n\nDavid, Armand, \"Journal d'un Voyage dans le centre de la Chine et dans le Thibet Oriental\", Nouvelle Archives Musée Naturelle de Paris (Bulletins) 10:3-82 (Paris, 1874)\n\nFox, Helen (editor and translator), Abbé David's Diary, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949.\n\nDictionary of Ming Biography 1368-1644, New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1976. Essay on Li Shih-chen (1518-1593) by L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, I:859-865.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212034, "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": 449, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "424\n\nthe collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and written text by Craig Clunas, this work is an attractive volume for general readers interested in Chinese furniture.\n\nRobert Ford, Captured in Tibet, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, reprint of 1957 edition. 266 pp. Index, Photographs. This is a reprint of a highly readable account of the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1950, with an additional introduction by the Dalai Lama. The author, seconded by the British Army as a radio communications officer to the Tibetan Army, spent a year as a prisoner of the Red Army.\n\nChristmas Humphreys, A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism, London: Curzon Press, 1984. Paperback reprint, 1987. 224 pp. Little more than a dictionary, this book will be of help to English-readers who need a quick reference to Buddhist terms in Sanscrit, Chinese, or Japanese.\n\nRobin Hutcheon, First Sea Lord — The Life and Work of Sir Y.K. Pao, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990. 170 pp. Index, Photographs. A short commissioned biography written by the former editor of the South China Morning Post, this book is attractively presented with a number of photographs. A definitive study of the shipping and property giant, Sir Y.K. Pao and his phenomenal accomplishments, both in Hong Kong and worldwide, is still required.\n\nNigel Cameron, The Chinese File, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. paperback, 246 pp. Illustrations. First published in 1958 by Hutchison and Co. in London for an English readership, this book has been reprinted by Oxford University Press in Hong Kong. By now, the author is a well-known prolific writer in the territory. Cameron's observations as a serious traveller in China before he became a specialist, on such various topics as the Great Wall, the Minorities, the Deep South, and Sian, are interesting and enlightening.\n\nValery M. Garrett, Mandarin Squares, Oxford Images of Asia Series, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. 66 pp. Bibliography, Glossary, Index, Illustrations. In addition to delightful descriptions of the embroidered squares from court robes of the Qing officials, popularly known by Western collectors as Mandarin Squares, Garrett has presented in this most attractive volume in very simple terms how the Manchus came to the Chinese throne and how young men were trained to become officials.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212396, "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": 338, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "315\n\nDespite their conflict in the Crimea in 1855 the British and the Russians never turned the Great Game into all-out war: There the risks and horrors were in the local tribal scene — agents unmasked and beheaded or just disappearing, and mobs lynching unwelcome interlopers. A dreadful interlude was the British penetration of Tibet in order to check the rival influence, causing the slaughter with modern weapons of hundreds of ill-armed monks.\n\nHow did the Great Game end? Officially, when both sides were tired of it, by an Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Britain was by then seeing Germany as a more immediate potential enemy, and Great Power attentions were focused more sharply on Europe and less on any Russian ambitions in the East. Today there are no Great Games but rather a series of smaller games in Bosnia, the Gulf, Cambodia by smaller men unaware of any code or rules. Strange to recall far-off days when Russian and British officers, meeting inadvertently somewhere in the wild Pamirs, would ask each other to dinner and apologise for their governments' cussedness.\n\n—\n\nThe Great Game is a long, intricate and absorbing tale and Hopkirk tells it with unflagging enthusiasm, reflected in his lively writing-style. His is not a book garnished with footnotes for the historian (though it has a good index) but for the general reader it provides an excellent introduction to the amazing and still largely unknown and unreported world of Central Asia.\n\nANTHONY LAWRENCE\n\nAleko E. Lilius. I Sailed with Chinese Pirates (Hong Kong Oxford University Press reprint 1991) 245 pp illus.\n\nAs this is a re-print of a book first published in 1930 its relevance to present-day events is necessarily limited. The author, a United States citizen of Finnish origin, reveals himself as a journalist of extraordinary drive, pertinacity and courage but he is very much a creature of a pre-World War II colonial era when Western attitudes towards Chinese (even dangerous-looking pirates) were condescending and patronising in a way which reads quaintly today. Which is a pity, because with a different approach and greater knowledge of Cantonese and the coastal people of Southern China it might have been possible to produce a valuable study of the motives, pressures", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212418, "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": 360, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "337\n\nas regards your request to send someone to remain at the capital. while it is not in harmony with the regulations of the Celestial Empire we also feel very much that it is of no advantage to your country\" (pp. 122-123).\n\nThis disdain for trade has now been replaced by eagerness to earn foreign exchange. Recently, we saw China go to great lengths in its attempt to retain most-favoured-nation trading status with the United States. In the weeks before Washington was to decide whether to renew China's trading privileges, Beijing went so far as to lift martial law in Tibet and to release hundreds of political prisoners.\n\nSpence has an eye for the telling detail, the little twists of fate that propel history forward. Thus he says that when two Soviet nuclear experts were withdrawn from China during the Sino-Soviet dispute, they tore to shreds all the documents they could not take with them. But the Chinese painstakingly reconstructed the shredded documents and found in them crucial information on atomic implosion\" (p. 589).\n\nThis is by no means a book that can be read in one sitting. Some of Spence's earlier books were page-turners. \"The Death of Woman Wang\" was as gripping as any thriller: \"Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-hsi\" was poignant and stirred one's deepest emotions.\n\nBut \"The Search for Modern China\" is the most ambitious work by the author thus far.\n\nIt is encyclopedic in scope. It is crammed with facts, dates and names. Its 876 pages include 49 well-placed maps and 49 well-chosen tables, as well as dozens of illustrations in colour and black and white. Its contents are to be sipped and savoured, not swallowed in big gulps.\n\nSpence the master historian is on less sure ground when dealing with more recent events. Thus, he has Chiang Ching-kuo becoming president of Taiwan in 1975, three years too early. He also displays a less sure grasp of his facts regarding the Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong.\n\nBut these petty details are almost not worth mentioning when one\n\nPage 360\n\nPage 361", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212650, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "185\n\nTerrestrial Molluse of the Blue River Valley\n\nComparative study on the Cervidae and Suidae in China, Philippines, Indo-China, with osteographic and odonto-graphic descriptions.\n\nNotes on the Capricorn, Kemas and Pseudosikas of China and Philippines.\n\nOdontologic Study of Carnivorous Mammals\n\nRuminants, Water Buffalo, Bubalus Moinitensis\n\nCervidae, Hippelaphus of Malesian Islands.\n\nOdontologic Study of Ruminants\n\nThe Spotted Deer of Japan\n\nInsectivores and Marsupials\n\nNotes on the Capricorns of Northern Shensi Province\n\nStudy on Chinese Bears and other Ursines.\n\nThe Capricorn of Setchuan and of East Tibet\n\nThe Bears and allies\n\nThe Euhydris, the Bear and the Otary\n\nThe Eastern Talpidae\n\nStudy on the Rodentia\n\nDiscussion and Homologie\n\nRevision on the Classification of the Deer (the Sikas), The Group of the Goto.\n\nOdontology of the Chinese Boar, The Deer of the Philippines\n\nThe Lemurs, Tarsians, Galeopithecians, Gabians.\n\nMicropithecians-Anthropoids-Odontology-Man\n\nStudy on the Ursidae etc.\n\nFrederic Courtois S.J. succeeded Pierre Heude as Director of the Zi-Kia-Wei Museum. He was a botanist and ornithologist. He was interested in plants and birds. From 1906 to 1928, he organized expeditions almost", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212722, "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-1992", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Mesny's Personal Life\n\nPART TWO\n\nConsidering how detailed and verbose Mesny could be in his writings it is surprising how little we know about his personal life during the later years. A certain amount about his well-being and illnesses, his religion and his relationships with the female sex during his first fifteen to twenty years in China can be extracted from his autobiographical snippets but on the whole they add little but colour to the overall picture. He did however reveal relatively more to us about his financial situation but only because it had deteriorated and was obviously causing him great anxiety.\n\nMesny must have lived from hand to mouth for most of his later years. He had always had an eye for the big break and though at times he seemed to make himself a small fortune, though we never hear the details, he soon enough appears to have reverted to scraping by. He loved the adventure of travel and for some years managed to earn sufficient or at least obtain adequate sponsorship to visit all eighteen provinces of China. However, the day came when he could just dream. In 1896, at age of 54, he wrote that being strong and active though getting old, he would like to make an expedition to Lhasa [he called it Lassa]. He bemoaned the fact that he had not the necessary funds - but, he wrote, if he had had sufficient he would liked to have journeyed to Mukden [Shenyang] and Kirin, then via the Amur region, return via Urga [Ulan Bataar] or the K'un-lun and the Seven Lakes including Ch'ing-hai [Kokonor], Tengri Nor to Lhasa and Darjeeling [in India]. He felt capable of accomplishing the feat penetrating right through unknown Thibet [sic] to India and added the hopeful 'Wait and see.' He never made it.\n\nHe was forever trying to persuade Chinese officials to allow him to help them and China with his grandiose ideas. Presumably he was planning and hoping to earn commission from any scheme which took off though he repeated several times in his writings references to such schemes in which he was prepared to act on behalf of China for the good of the Chinese people without benefit to himself. But for one reason or another, and we rarely learn why, these failed to come to anything. In 1878 he had been asked by a French bank to contact a very senior Chinese official, Marquis Tso, to arrange a loan to build railways, etc. in China's Northwest. Mesny would have to pay his own travelling expenses crossing China by land but would receive a handsome commission if", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212750, "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-1992", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "44\n\nacknowledging the initial concept having been his, or so he claimed.\n\n+\n\nHe has been described as 'an adventurer and an explorer, a plant collector and a Chinese general. He was certainly an adventurer though nowadays he would be referred to as a soldier of fortune, an adviser, an opportunist, and even a mercenary.\n\nThe question remains, how successful was he? Money certainly came his way at times though judging from his Will, he was not a particularly successful businessman. He certainly collected plants and sent them back to the British Consul in Canton and has one specimen, Jasminum Mesnyii, named after him. He bore the brevet rank of Lieutenant General in the Chinese Imperial army but to what extent this was a genuine rank rather than an honour and a courtesy rank, though fully earned during his military service, is hard to judge. Again, though accurately described as an explorer, he was in fact much more of a traveller in parts of China already settled by Chinese and visited earlier by other foreigners. The trek he made, as recorded by Captain Gill, from Ch’eng-tu in Szechuan province to Burma through what was then called lower Tibet has a different slant to what would have been Mesny's account. In Gill's Mesny is scarcely mentioned and he would appear to have been taken along by Gill as his interpreter. It would have been interesting to have read what Mesny would have, and indeed may have written about his journey of very nearly four months with Gill.\n\nHe saw himself as what nowadays would be called a go-between, a consultant, and in those days regarded, perhaps, as a fixer. Mesny had a few major bees in his bonnet the most barefaced of which was the value he put on the advice he constantly proffered to every senior Chinese official whose ear he could reach on how to modernise China. He had, for example, prepared a list of some nineteen items, suggestions presented to the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, and although Mesny assures us that Chang accepted the list there is no evidence that he did anything about it or if he did, that he even mentioned Mesny in any memorials to the throne. Mesny wrote indignantly at one point in his Miscellany about his list of suggestions to Chang having been ignored, or put into practice piecemeal and inexpertly, penny pinching and ineffectually without any reference whatsoever to Mesny.\n\nIn 1906 at the very end of his fourth and final volume of his Miscellany he prided himself on his advice with the words 'All those great industrial", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212753, "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-1992", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "47\n\n18\n\non the depth and interest of their writings. Some, like Archibald Colquhoun1 went into great detail describing the wealth of minerals, the scope for modernisation in communications and the economy, all subjects which Mesny too, at the same period if not earlier, had written about at length. Others like Mrs Scidmore2 list 'intrepid travellers to Szechuan3 and the far west,' with names like Richtofen, Pumpelly, Von Kreitner, Hosie, Baber, Blaikiston, Little, Gill, Hart, Parker, and Pratt, Mrs Little and Mrs Bishop, and Dr Morrison, but not one of these authors referred to Mesny whose travels and experiences outweigh most if not all of them. Was it because he was considered to have gone native or been more Chinese than ‘one of us\"? We shall never know but each time yet another book was published it must have been galling for Mesny to find only very rarely he had earned a mention. After his trip with Gill to Tibet and India in 1877 he was scarcely referred to in books on China; this together with his constant and repeated reference to his contacts with and closeness to Chinese friends and acquaintances, mostly in high places, suggests that he was ostracised or perhaps no more than ignored by the western social community in Chinese ports and in Shanghai in particular.\n\nDuring his later years when fortune seemed to elude him, when there was no caste lower than the impoverished European or American, a number of themes and points of view in Mesny's writings place him fairly firmly into a class and category of his time. A plague of self-importance swept late-Victorian Britain and spread through its colonies and dependencies. Mesny suffered a massive dose and never, as far as his Miscellany record, appears to have had his balloon pricked. He must have been seen by foreigners in Shanghai and, in particular by his fellow 'Old China Hands', during the latter years of the nineteenth century and the first decade of this as a vulgar, low-born upstart, too fond of his own ideas, a self-centred braggart and an opinionated man, but let it be stressed that he would not be alone in this category in Shanghai or for that matter in all the other major western communities in the Orient. His own notes reflect the disdain with which he was regarded by people like Sir Thomas Wade and Sir Robert Hart. His name dropping in many of his writings, mostly in his personal relationships with Chinese viceroys, provincial governors and commanders in chief, suggests that he probably also dropped names to the same extent in everyday conversation. However, he knew the importance of patronage, especially in China, as one can see from his obituary of Tso, and his description of the momentary meeting with a Manchu hereditary prince.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212763, "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-1992", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "57\n\ntaken advantage of, possibly due to the cost of reproduction in his Miscellany though more likely because he did not possess a camera during his travels.\n\n[2] Campaigning in Western China. Regrettably, despite a note in the Miscellany to the effect that he would be writing more, possibly the most interesting part, the second Kueichou campaign, he only completed the first campaign.\n\n[3] Mesny's Itinerary - from Canton to Kashgaria which was later renamed Mesny's Journeys through China (from Canton to Turkestan). This was never completed. Mesny wrote in the Miscellany that he had written an account of his journey from Canton through Kuangsi in 1879 for the London Daily News. \"This very influential and highly respectable journal did not consider my poor contribution sufficiently interesting to insert it in its widely read columns, so the useful information then written by me practically remained unpublished owing to my lack of funds until 1896 when I wrote up some of it in Mesny's Chinese Miscellany.\"\n\n[4] Varieties of Food in China [in which Mesny covers plain and exotic food and menus, eating etiquette, banquets and the production of foodstuffs such as tou-fu]\n\n[5] Progress in China [editorial essays explaining how China kept missing opportunities, and how it would have been different and better if his advice had been taken]\n\n[6] How I made my Fortune by an Old China Hand ['who is even now neither too old to row nor too heavy to ride']\n\n[7] Notes on Tibet; Mongolia; Kueichou and the Miao-tzu [and in several other places he again described Miao customs and tribal differences]; Yunnan and its Trade Routes; and Kuangsi and the West River", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212768, "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-1992", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "62 \n\n1874 April \n\nJuly October \n\n1874 \n\n1874 December Late 1874 \n\n1875 Summer? 1875 Winter \n\n1877 February \n\nKueichou, but Mesny had already departed \n\nTo Ch'engtu (six month stay] \n\nVisited the temple dedicated to Tu Fu the poet in Ch’engtu Returned by very large houseboat via Sui-fu, Chungking and I-ch'ang to Hankow. Mesny entertained at the palace of General Viscount Pao Chao in K'uei-chou en route on the Yangtze. In Hankow he met Rev. David Hill \n\nPublished 'Tungking' [date in the book itself: Mesny however, claimed later that it was published in 1875] \n\nOfficially married Nien Suey-tsen in Hankow \n\nTravelled overland from Chin-kiang, through Shantung [Chi-nan], en route for Peking. Spent winter in Chi-nan at invitation of Ting Pao-chen, the Governor of Shantung, to whom he claimed he had been an adviser \n\nPeking \n\nReturned to Kueichou via Shanghai [November]. Hankow and Human [1876] Re-appointed Superintendent of the Kueichou Armouries, an appointment he held until March 1877 \n\nMesny entertained two British Protestant missionaries in Kuei-yang \n\nOverland Trek to Western China, through Burma to India and by sea to England \n\n28 May \n\nJune 1878 8 January \n\nNovember \n\n26 December 28 December \n\n1879 February \n\n9 March 4 June \n\nDeparted Kuei-yang for Szechuan [his third visit to the province (en route for England, via Tibet, Burma and India, with Captain Gill)] Arrived Ch'engtu \n\nArrived in England from Calcutta \n\nVisited Channel Islands \n\nReceived telegram from Chinese Minister in London desiring Mesny to accompany the returning Chinese Minister at Berlin to China: departed! Marseilles for Hong Kong aboard the Irrawaddy Arrived Hong Kong from England \n\nDeparted Hong Kong for Canton \n\nVisited Amoy \n\nDeparted Canton for Kueichou, via Kuei-lin (Kuangsi] Arrived Kuei-lin \n\n25 July \n\nArrived Tu-yun Fu \n\n4 August [1880/1881] \n\n1880 February \n\n15 March \n\nAugust \n\n1881 January \n\nFebruary \n\nArrived Kuei-yang \n\nPossibly visited Hanoi? \n\nGovernor of Kueichou province recommended Mesny to the Throne for the bestowal of posthumous honours for three generations [San-tai Erh-p'in Kao-feng] \n\nSet out for Lan-chou via Chungking [where he had remained six months] \n\nMesny spent the night at Ch'ien-hsi Chou, some 90 kms NNW of Kuei-yang, where he was attacked by an armed mob Departed Chungking [after 'delay due to unexpected contretemps\" which Mesny did not clarify] \n\nArrived Lanchou \n\nDeparted Lanchou, crossed Gobi to Ham taking six to seven weeks", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212769, "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-1992", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "63\n\n1881\n\nApril\n\nJune\n\n1882 February March Spring\n\n1882 November 1882/1883\n\n1883 May\n\n1833 Autumn\n\n1883\n\nca 1883/1884\n\nEarly 1884\n\n1884 July\n\nArrived Hami\n\nPassed through Shensi and Kansu to Turkestan he tried to push on through Central Asia to India but was stopped; again, tried to push on to the Russian frontiers via Ili and Tarbagatai but was stopped, visited Hami [HQ Chinese Army]. Residence in Hami where he said he remained until the Treaty of Livadia [2-10-79] was signed and where he learned a number of Turkish words. [Mesny claimed that in 1882 returning from Kashgaria he stayed in Tso Tsung-t’ang's camp. [Tso was recalled from Hami to Peking in late 1880] Departed Hami and retraced his steps leisurely across the Gobi desert to Kansu, on to northern Tibet (visited old fashioned gold diggings) and back to Kan-chou to refit before continuing into Tibet a second time in another direction. He then, travelled through the Kokonor region ending up at Lanchou, February 1881, via Hsi-ning.\n\nDeparted from Northwest China for Peking, via Si-an, Ho-nan Fu, Tai-yuan Fu and Pao-ting Fu.\n\nWhilst in Si-an Mesny visited the Nestorian Cross, later, on his first evening in Taiyuan he lost 640 pages of notes, the journal of his Journey to Hami from Canton\n\nArrived Peking\n\nVisited Tientsin to await the first steamers of the season carrying mails Returned to Tai-yuan in Shansi and Pao-ting Fu, and again visited Si-an.\n\nVisited the famous Shao-lin monastery in the Sung-shan [Mountains] near Ho-nan Fu and invited to settle down for a couple of years with the monks.\n\nDeparted Shansi for Canton; however,\n\nVisited Yunnan province at the invitation of T'ang Chung to assist in the development of natural resources of the province The French authorities in Tongkin insisted that Mesny leave the province Passed through Ch'engtu and Yunnan Fu heading for Canton via Po-se, Nanning Kuangsi [Kuei-hsien, where he spent three to four months whilst the Franco-Chinese war raged in Tongkin), Kueichou and the West River. He travelled much of the way by large house boat. He took careful notes which he offered to the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce but failed to receive any encouragement\n\nArrived Canton, then visited Hong Kong, Macau, Swatow, Amoy and Foochou [Viceroy Chang Chih-tung retained Mesny at Canton for one year and ten months (nfd) He lived in an hotel unable to get an appointment from Chang he eventually withdrew. Mesny met Kung Chao-yuan, the Commissary General at Shanghai for Formosa, at the Kiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai\n\nVisited tomb of Su Hsiao-hsiao near Hangchou. (a celebrated courtesan of the 11th century AD)\n\nDeparted Canton via Hong Kong for Foochou and Shanghai [elsewhere he noted that he had been recommended for the post of Foreign Superintendent of the Arsenal at Foochou during his visit there in 1883)\n\nIn Wu-chang and Han-yang", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212820, "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-1992", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "114\n\nits population. With the fall of Tengyueh, soon after, the rebellion was finally suppressed. Survivors of Sultan Suleiman's family took refuge with King Mindon at the Court of Ava in Mandalay. Two years later a British consular official, Margary, who had been appointed with the consent of the Chinese government to accompany a British expedition, which was to leave Bhamo to explore a commercial route to Tengyueh - now called Tengchung - was murdered under treacherous circumstances near the latter town. It was thought at the time, but not proven, that a Chinese official, named Li Su Tai, whose mother was Burmese, was implicated: the incident led to negotiations between the Chinese and British governments and was settled by the Chefoo Convention.\n\nAfter the British occupied Mandalay and Upper Burma in 1885 they sought to define the boundary between Burma and China. The question was not found to be easy because the Chinese advanced claims to large sections of territory which had obviously been part of the Kingdom of Ava. However, a considerable length of boundary was agreed upon and marked by enormous stones: they are the size of a small cottage, I suppose to discourage easy removal, and each stone is numbered and its position is marked on the quarter-inch map. The length of border left undefined made for an unsatisfactory situation, not unlike that between the United States and Mexico before that boundary was fixed, or like the situation which now exists on the border between China and Tibet. Various attempts were subsequently made to agree the undelimitated part of the boundary, and by 1942 only a stretch of the frontier from just N.W. of Tengchung up to Tilset remained undemarcated.\n\nThe railway from Haiphong, through Indo-China, reached Kun-ming in the early years of this century and so opened the province to French influence; whether, however, owing to strong local conservatism or a lack of enterprise on the part of the French, their influence appears to have left little mark. It was only with the opening of the Burma road in 1939 that Yunnan for the first time felt the full impact of the modern world.\n\nI had had no previous experience of western China. I knew that Lung Yun, the Old Dragon, as the Governor of Yunnan was generally called, had for long been almost independent of the National Government. It was only with the transfer of Government troops to Burma through Yunnan in 1942, and their subsequent retreat to Yunnan, where they remained, that the Chungking government had established a partial", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212822, "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-1992", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "116\n\nAmerican air forces based in China and to the extensive establishments supplied to train and equip the Chinese Expeditionary Force, as the army which had been built up in Yunnan by the Chungking government to assist in driving the Japanese out of Burma was called.\n\nI was sent to Kun-ming to see about giving assistance to the Myosa of Kokang, prince of a small Burmese border state. The longest unnavigable river in the world, the Salween, rises in Tibet, flows through China, and enters Burma at about the level of Bhamo. For a stretch the river flows from east to west; to the north of it the territory is still China, to the south lies Kokang. The river then leaves China altogether, bends south, and lower down at Kunlong receives the Nam Ting flowing in from the east. The Nam Ting forms the southern boundary of Kokang, while the mountain-tops that divide the Salween watershed from the next river to the east form the state's eastern boundary. The stones marking this boundary were set up in 1898 as a result of the agreements made at that time. Kokang also spreads across the Salween to the territories of the large Shan state of North Shenwi, of which Kokang is actually a sub-state. The greater part of Kokang though is sandwiched between the Salween and China. Kunlong is the site of one of the most frequented of the Salween ferries, and it is down the valley of the Nam Ting that the projected railway from Kun-ming to Lashio, connecting China with Burma, will run. The embankments to carry the line had been nearly completed before the Japanese advance into Burma put an end to the work. To the south of the Nam Ting are situated the Wa states, inhabited by wild head-hunting tribes.\n\nThe Myosa of Kokang was a most loyal subject of the British crown, and because of that loyalty he was to suffer great injuries. When the Japanese advanced up the length of Burma in 1942, the British troops, who were covering the western flank, that is the flank towards India, withdrew into India. The civil administrative staff of the Shan States also withdrew to the west, while the Chinese armies, on the eastern flank,\n\n\"One British administrative officer, Evans, withdrew from Kengtung, away to the south of Kokang, into south-west Yunnan. He had established cordial relations with the Chinese troops there, and with their assistance organised local levies, drawn from the dispersed ranks of the Burma Rifle regiments; he used these to wage a small campaign of his own against the enemy until he was killed during an assault on a position manned by Siamese troops. He died unknown, unsupported, unrewarded, but not unsung, because at a time when throughout the East the British star was thought to have set for all time, this lonely man left a record of British pluck which will long be remembered on the border.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214244, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "65\n\nhand holding a precious object including a rosary, cudgel, jar, spear, pagoda, golden arrow, halberd, or bell, etc. and it is therefore not surprising that the images of Chun-t'i on the altars of both Buddhist and folk religion temples portray her with eight or eighteen arms and hands, the main two hands being held palms pressed together before the chest in prayer. The uppermost hands hold discs of the Sun and Moon respectively and the remainder, individually, hold various attributes including a seal of office, a sword, shield and fly switch. She is variously represented with three heads though predominantly she is depicted with one head with three faces one of which is that of a sow. Chun-t'i again often has a third eye in the centre of her forehead, usually a Taoist form but attributed to her Indian origin as a metamorphosed caste mark. She is generally portrayed sitting on a lotus throne in the same posture adopted by the Buddha and, in one of her poses, also by Kuan Yin P’u-sa. According to Werner the legend explaining the third face being that of a sow and the creatures supporting the lotus also being pigs relates how one of the abbesses of the Semding monastery in Tibet in whom the goddess Chun-t'i was believed to be successively incarnated, had an excrescence resembling a sow's ear at the back of her head.\n\nIn northern and central China in Tantric Buddhist temples, the Lamaist goddess Maritci, portrayed in a chariot drawn by seven pigs is identified as Chun-t'i; in the south however, where Tantric Buddhism hardly penetrated, images identified as Chun-t'i are said by priests, should devotees enquire, to be the Brahmanic cult of Maritci. However, in Tibetan and Mongol [Tantric] Buddhism Tou-mu is a common deity with her three eyes and many arms; she is considered to be an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva known throughout China as Kuan Yin and this doubtless explains the confusion with Kuan Yin in central and southern China. She has been identified as Tou-mu Yuan-chün, the main deity in the T'ai Sui Hall in the Jade Emperor temple in Tainan, where she is flanked by two Tantric aides, Ch'ieh-ch'ih and Yao Ya.\n\nIn her Taoist form she is portrayed seated on a lotus, again of Indian origin, which in a number of temples rests on the back of a tortoise which in turn rests on three or seven pigs. Most likely this is no more than a reflection of the tale in the Feng-shen Yen-i in which one of the disciples of Tou-mu, Shui-huo Tung-tzu, who changed into a tortoise, bore off Tou-mu to the Western Heavens.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214957, "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-2000", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "8 \n\nposed as to whether the Chinese as a whole were \"anti-commercial\" or whether it was only the government. Greenberg believes that \"trade in the long run mattered little to the Chinese economy.\"2 A further factor contributing to distrust of foreigners and the consequent restriction in contacts and trade was fear of European expansionist policy apparent to the Chinese in Tibet, the East Indies, the Philippines, Burma, and Nepal. \n\nBy the 1830s British demand for tea had become enormous; tea worth twenty million pounds sterling was imported into Britain annually. It was paid for from huge profits made on the sale of smuggled opium. Many foreign firms in Guangzhou, other than British, had engaged in the lucrative trade, with two notable exceptions,13 Britain accounting for more than 80% of the trade. Dissatisfied with the capricious nature of its trade in Guangzhou, Britain made three high-level attempts to form full diplomatic relations with Beijing, sending embassies under Macartney in 1793, Amherst in 1816, and Napier in 1834; all failed. The last two reached no further than Guangzhou before being unceremoniously sent back. But it may be of interest to deal in some length with Macartney's Mission because it seemed to succeed; that it failed was the most significant disaster in relations between the two nations, eventually leading to war. \n\nAfter a long journey, Macartney's Embassy embarked on Chinese boats to proceed up Baihe (Peiho) River on the 9th of August 1793. The following day they reached Tianjin (Tientsin) where they met the Emperor's envoy at a formal ceremony, which, however, lasted a mere 20 minutes. After staying in Beijing for some two weeks, they set out for Chengde (Jehol) where, on the 30th of September, they met Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795). Lord Macartney was graciously permitted to dispense with kowtow; it was agreed that the salutation was to be made on the right knee. According to Macartney, the Emperor was polite, and the conversation, conducted through interpreters, was lively and interesting. Moreover, the various scientific instruments, which were brought as gifts, were examined with obvious interest. The Embassy was told that they should depart on the 7th of October. Three days' grace was promised but immediately withdrawn, ostensibly because the Emperor was concerned that an early onset of cold weather would inconvenience the Ambassador. To reach their ships at Zhoushan (Chusan) Island, the Embassy had to travel across China, partly overland and partly by rivers - a journey that took nearly two months. It has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214970, "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-2000", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "22\n\nHan Suyin's patrimonial heritage is very specific, as her father originated from the Hakkas, or \"Guest People,\" a sub-group of ethnical Han Chinese, which initially meant displaced, dispossessed, and hungry peasants, the refugees from misery, migrating in millions from the regions struck by floods, droughts, foreign invasions, civil wars, and rural upheavals, and simply \"seeking a roof.\" The Hakkas themselves claim that they moved five times within recorded history, their first migration dating at about A.D. 311, and the fifth one at the end of the Taiping rising (i.e., in the sixties of the nineteenth century). Their culture was to a very large extent affected by the turbulence of political and social events, by their own relative insecurity in the territories of new settlement, and by the resulting enormous eagerness and ability to survive. For these particular reasons, a somewhat remote analogy can perhaps be drawn between the mobile, industrious, and hard-working Hakkas, dispersed among the settled Han population, and the Jewish enclaves dispersed in medieval Europe and in the contemporary world as well.\n\nIn the thirteenth century - the time of Gengis Khan's invasion and of the resulting third migration - Han Suyin's distant ancestors, named Chou, settled in Meihsien in the province of Kuangtung, a purely Hakka district. The wave of the Manchu-dynasty-inspired fourth migration (1680-1720) took some of them further to Szechuan, the region of Four Streams, a remote Chinese hinterland guarded from the outer world by the cliffs of Tibet, the Snow Mountains, and the Cold Mountains, and the dangerous Yangtse gorges. The recorded family history starts from the first ancestor, who arrived in Szechuan as an itinerant pedlar, most probably carrying across his shoulder a pole, with the baskets swinging at both ends to transport miserable personal property and sale goods.\n\nBy the nineteenth century, Han Suyin's family had managed to climb up the economic and social ladder, to attain the top echelon, i.e., the scholar-official-administrator class. They had become local landed gentry, the cornerstone of the Chinese feudal social setup, and this anachronistic setup might have continued ad infinitum, had it not, under pressure from the colonial superpowers, ultimately collapsed.\n\nHan Suyin's father, Chou Yentung, was born in 1886 in China already invaded by the French and the British, the two colonial", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214971, "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-2000", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "23\n\nsuperpowers of that time, incessantly challenging one another, and by the Belgian, German and other colonial regimes soon following exactly in the pioneers' footsteps. All of them were hypnotised by China's reported wealth, by the trade of Central Asia and Tibet, and Szechuan was the key to Tibet. All were active in corrupting the declining Manchu regime, thus receiving multiple concessions as a reward, one of them being the privileges for Christian missionaries to preach their faith all over China. French endeavours made Szechuan into the main bastion of Roman Catholicism and the reservoir of missionaries to convert further regions of Central Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia. These events, which resulted in a series of anti-European and anti-Christian riots and culminated in the Boxer Rebellion (1900), are well described in Chapter Five of The Crippled Tree (volume one of the aforementioned epic cycle):\n\nTheir [i.e. the French priests'] courage and ability to endure hardship might have been praiseworthy had it not been only too clear that the religious garb covered most unreligious actions. Catholic priests and bishops bought up whole villages in times of flood and famine, demanded and obtained on threat of military action the best land in cities for their churches, after evicting the inhabitants and paying no compensation. Catholic priests formed militia bands of their own, and claimed to rank higher than our own magistrates. Bishops were invested with the pomp and power of governor-generals. They used sedan chairs with eight carriers, a drummer going in front, and everyone in the street where they passed had to stop work, stand up, and unroll their headbands in obeisance to the Catholic bishop, on pain of being beaten with the heavy bamboo.\n\nThe Boxer Rebellion marked the end of the feudal epoch and announced an approach of an unpredictable Great Change. In the Boxer Protocol of 1901, imposed after the defeat, China had to pay an enormous indemnity sum of five hundred million dollars, open more ports and cities, accept a permanent garrison of soldiers in Peking and other towns and along the existing railways. Moreover, the Boxer Protocol abolished the Imperial Examinations, an inevitable part of recruiting imperial administration and training classical Chinese scholars. This reform prepared the way for the long awaited New Learning, i.e. for finally educating young people in Western science and technology, until then almost unknown in China. New Learning", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215464, "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": 241, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "190\n\nBhutan, so when the absolute deadline for bookings came in December, I simply said 'Why not?' and sent in my cheque.\n\nUnfortunately my favourite travelling companion (my wife) was not able to come with me. The start of the RAS trip coincided exactly with the start of her parents' six-week visit to Hong Kong to stay with us. I honestly cannot recall which booking happened first, theirs or mine - honestly.\n\nMountains of reading\n\nI was able to do some rather brief research before the journey, although I was not able to do justice to Brian Shaw's three-page bibliography. (With much relief, I found out later that I was not the only one to have failed in this regard.) I was able to discover that this \"tiny\" mountain kingdom is not so tiny after all, being about the size of Switzerland. Until unification in the 17th century, Bhutan was a series of independent valley-states. Initially influenced by its much larger northern neighbour, Tibet, what is now Bhutan became Buddhist in the 8th century and is now perhaps the staunchest of Buddhist countries. The country was never part of British India, but following a clash in the mid-19th century relations with the Raj warmed and these continued after India's independence. Even so, Bhutan remained for most purposes cut off from the rest of the world until the 1970s, not least due to its remote location in the eastern Himalayas.\n\nIt is almost inevitable, if travelling to Bhutan from Hong Kong, to route via an overnight stopover in Bangkok. But this can hardly be considered a hardship. By the time our evening flight had delivered us to Don Muang airport, and thence to the Windsor Hotel, it was well past midnight and bedtime, although I did hear some enthusiasm being expressed for a neighbouring beer garden.\n\nI awoke the following morning just in time to catch the tail end of breakfast, and then repaired to the room to really sort out the bags I had packed in a bit of a hurry. The rest of the day was spent looking for photographic opportunities along Bangkok's klongs (canals), and trying hard not to think of the 4.15 a.m. wake-up call the following morning.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215485, "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": 262, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "211\n\nauthority to this day. We could only enter on certain conditions: no hat (okay, we had become used to that), no cameras (ho hum), and no scarf! What?? I had become extremely attached to my white yak-wool scarf and to leave it in the 'bus was quite a wrench. Inside, the Dzong was suitably large and impressive, but a bit cold without a scarf.\n\nLunch was again provided by the catering crew who had gone ahead of us to Chendebji Chorten, the same site we had used on our way east. One was becoming somewhat blasé with all this looking after in such stunning settings.\n\nThe village of Gangtey Gompa in the Phubjikha Valley was where we were supposed to see the cranes. We did see some, but only at a great distance, apart from a squadron that flew in formation close overhead, practicing for the ceremonial re-entry to Tibet. The village was interesting for having an over-sized dzong in its midst that was being extensively renovated. Electricity is forbidden in this valley as it might upset the visiting cranes, so all work has to be done by hand and in daylight.\n\nA dog's life\n\nNot prone to doing things by daylight were the dogs. Throughout Bhutan it was remarkable that the dogs were extraordinarily docile. I could not imagine entering the average New Territories village and emerging with my four limbs intact. But in Bhutan a large group of strangers comes in from Mars, as it were, and the dogs just look, disdainfully, and resume their slumber. And then somebody pointed out the obvious: they are up all night yapping their silly heads off and are therefore exhausted by daybreak. But why do they do that? My theory is that they are trapped in a vicious cycle with no way out; they go to sleep in gentle morning sunshine but when they awake the sun has gone. All night, they are in a state of panic. Where has the sun gone? When at last it returns, even if in the opposite side of the sky, they can once more go to sleep and dream happily. I might be wrong in this analysis, however.\n\nOn leaving the village, I saw a sign that made me wonder if I had missed one of the attractions. Attached proudly to a post was a sign that read, 'AIDS IS DANGEROUS. AVOID MULTIPLE SEX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215487, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "213\n\never be bacon for breakfast.\n\nTwenty miles or so up the valley, still passing people coming in the opposite direction, we came within sight of the Crown Prince Chorten, also known as the Khamsum Yulley Chorten. Built only in 1999, this chorten nevertheless has some importance through having been constructed under the patronage of Bhutan's four current queens. Very decent of the other three, as only one of them could have given birth to him for whom the temple is named. To get to this site we had to leave the buses, walk across a wobbling suspension bridge and stroll for half an hour up the side of the valley to a promontory, on which the chorten is built. Had we strolled further, after a few weeks I am sure that we would have reached the ridge of 20,000 feet peaks that stood like sentries at the head of the valley, guarding the way into (or maybe out of) Tibet.\n\nHaving tried (and, as I subsequently found out, failed) to do photographic justice to the view of the Mo, meandering down the valley into the misty distance, a gentle stroll down the way found us back at the waiting buses. These obligingly took us off to our lunchtime stop. This was to be the last that was courtesy of our terrific chef, Signor Fresco. Again, he did us proud, setting up the table and chairs next to the river on a shingle bank. As the sun was rather hot, most of us repaired to the shade of the nearby pine trees. A highlight was being able to watch a cormorant diving into the icy water for his lunch. On the whole, I think we did better than he.\n\nA rare treat after lunch - a comfort stop back at the hotel! The afternoon's destination was a temple with an unusual theme. The village of Chime is home to the Chime Lhakhang, also known as Drukpa Kinley's Lhakhang. The village was about half-an-hour's stroll away from the road, through the village of Egwakha. These villages are on a bit of a plateau on the valley-side, surrounded by rice paddies - and it was along the paddy walls that we had to thread our way. It is not unusual in mountainous areas for an anabatic wind to pick up in the afternoon as the air mass heats up and flows uphill - and today was no exception. By 3.30 the wind, although not strong enough to remove my much-admired Tilley hat from my head, was enough to wobble my camera when lining up for a shot.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215595, "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": 372, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "322\n\nracing through the Gorges make this section difficult and dangerous both at low and high water. Chongqing, the chief commercial port of western China and an important distribution centre, was opened to foreign trade by an Additional Article [1890] to the Chefoo Agreement of 1876. This stretch also includes the River down to Chongqing from its junction with the Min River at Yibin [Suifu].\n\nThe fourth and final stretch, the Upper Yangzi of 1,600 miles, is torrential almost from its source in Eastern Tibet far to the west, down to Yibin. It has several major tributaries.\n\nWe, however, are interested in the Gorges. They have long been regarded by Chinese junkmen and especially foreigners who had travelled through them as passengers on river junks, as one of the most difficult stretches of river navigation on earth, with a current in places running at 13 knots.\n\nOur story concerns two British expatriates in China who, as far as we know, never met as they were of different social circles. One is Archibald Little, a British Shanghai merchant, married to a British lady and William Mesny, a struggling entrepreneur also in Shanghai but married to a Chinese. Paul King wrote that 'One of the foreign tea-tasters who each year visited Kiukiang [Jiujiang] was Archibald Little, who was never very successful in business but found himself in Yichang in the uphill work of establishing as a fact that the rapids in the upper reaches of the Yangtze could be negotiated by steam craft. In my [King] time the Navy was represented in Yichang by H.M.S. Kinsha - the famous pioneer merchant steamer on the Upper Yangtze owned and operated by the late Archibald Little.'\n\nThe first steamer to ascend the upper waters of the Great River, the Yangzi, through the Gorges above Yichang and as far as Chongqing during the low water season in the month of March 1898 was the 9-ton steam launch, Leechuen [Li Chuan], the property of Mr. Archibald Little who travelled aboard the steamer with his wife.\n\nArchibald John Little was born in London in 1838, and arrived in China in 1859 where he remained, apart from short visits back to Britain, until 1907 when he returned there and died the following year. He was a merchant, traveller and writer and is as well known to some as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215674, "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": 451, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "403\n\n* Hammond World Atlas. p. 107.\n\nhttp://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/AMH/AMH-25.ht\n\n10 http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/photos/Korea/kor1950/kor1950.htm\n\n\"'STRIX' in The Spectator on August 18, 1950, reported Morrison's death thus: 'Although he was only 37 when he was killed last Saturday, I think Ian Morrison was what is generally understood by a great man, and I am quite sure that he would have been remembered as one had he lived. It was not merely that he was an extremely enterprising and clear-headed correspondent with very mature political judgement. His character had a sort of translucent quality, so that behind his diffident manner and his boyish appearance people of all races recognised in him a man to be liked and trusted. He had an almost feminine blend of sympathy and intuition, yet he was tougher and more single-minded in his purposes than colleagues who looked much more like thrusters. Everybody liked him, at all levels; he was becoming a legend in Eastern Asia, and no single individual did more in the last ten years for what remains of our prestige there. When I heard of his death I remembered that last year, near the borders of Tibet, I had been given a letter to deliver to him, but our arrangements for a rendezvous had failed, and I still had the letter somewhere. I found it in a drawer. It is a dull letter, from a little engineer called Hsu who wrote from the Sining Electrical Works, Tsinghai Province. It begins: \"Dear Mr. Morrison, I often think of you since you went away. I do not forget you at all...\" People have long memories in Asia, and Ian Morrison will not quickly forfeit the place that he won in them. Christopher Buckley was a very good man, too.' [Hon. Ed.'s note: The use of the phrase 'little engineer' does much to explain the reason for the earlier...what remains of our prestige there.'}\n\n12 Reproduced at Annex I\n\n13 http://www.newseum.org/scripts/Journalist/Detail.asp?PhotoID=718\n\n14\n\nThe Road to Peking, p. 156.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215679, "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": 456, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "408\n\nsee the immense possibilities of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He became convinced that the only way to develop this was to find a way to bring steamers through the Three Gorges between Ichang and Chunking.\n\nLittle, still of the opinion that the Upper Yangtze could be navigated by steamships, made the passage in a junk from Ichang to Chunking in 1887. En route he carefully surveyed the main areas of risk and, on completion of this 400 mile journey, was even more sure that he was right.\n\nHe raised the money to build \"Kuling,\" a stern-wheeler, built on the Clyde and designed specifically for service on the Upper Yangtze. She was shipped out to Shanghai in pieces and reassembled there. However, when she arrived in Ichang, the Chinese authorities would not let her proceed. Apparently the Chefoo Convention stipulated that Chinese steamers had to be the first to ply this section of the river. (This restriction was abolished after the Sino-Japanese War by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.)\n\nIn any event, Little had to abandon this attempt to realise his dream. \"Kuling\" was sold to Chinese owners at a vast profit and traded on the Yangtze up to Ichang for many years, but never beyond.\n\nNot in the least deterred, in 1898, Little built a wooden-hulled, twin screw, steam launch named \"Leechuan.\" Once again he made the passage from Ichang to Chunking. Apart from having to be pulled up the stronger rapids by trackers the trip was a brilliant success. (Trackers were Chinese coolies who lived in villages near the rapids on both banks. Several hundred would be employed to haul vessels up the rapids.) Unfortunately, being only 55 feet long and full of engine, \"Leechuan\" carried no cargo.\n\nHeartened by his achievement with \"Leechuan,\" Little returned to London in 1899 to raise money to build a vessel that could navigate the Three Gorges and carry sufficient cargo to make its service financially viable.\n\nHow Samuel Plant came to China\n\nLittle was successful in raising money to build “Pioneer.\" By the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216240, "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": 539, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "473\n\nmodernity' (p.10) and is a very good read: in places, simply riveting.\n\nThe Introduction sets the style and the content (and quality) one can expect (and get), from the whole book of 371 pages. The chapters are devoted to different aspects of China's modernisation, as seen through the eyes of persons from many levels of society. We see them benefiting, or in many cases suffering, from rapid urban and economic change, in Beijing (especially fast-tracked owing to the coming 2008 Olympics), Shanghai, and in the countryside. We visit West China, and listen to those affected by the immense scale of the Three Gorges Dam. Tibet and Taiwan are also on the menu. There is a chilling and most compelling chapter on \"subversion,\" including an enlightening account of Falun Gong. Interspersed, are fascinating chapters on the writer's family background in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and on her own life in the Colony, from birth until she left to study journalism in Australia in 1981. There are final chapters on the social upheavals caused by the ongoing shift away from state capitalism, and on the new-style problems affecting China's progress towards becoming a developed nation.\n\nMany topics come alive through the wide range of personal stories resulting from the author's oft demonstrated ability to create and utilise opportunities for meaningful discourse in a country where this is, quite clearly, far from being an easy task; whilst her frank and engaging descriptions of how she circumvented difficulties that would have stymied less determined mortals, is itself a valuable commentary on China's bureaucracy and the relationship of government and people.\n\nThe book's popular style is deceptive, because a relentlessly probing approach makes this essentially a serious book, in which the author describes, graphically and convincingly, how China finds herself at present, with all her attendant problems and difficulties. Despite being able to reveal much that is still wrong, and harmful to the nation's progress, she is essentially optimistic in her Epilogue, emphasizing how far China has come in the last decade, and advising her readers that 'China isn't going to collapse' though in need of greater transparency, especially in the financial sector.\n\nWe are left pondering how China's rulers are going to cope with a runaway situation. For this reviewer, the author's experiences whether", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]