[ { "id": 204628, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "96 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\npopularity with businessmen and others, and of the degree of wealth and general prosperity there in the middle of the last century: since district associations, like present day Kaifong in the urban area, can only operate effectively (and, indeed, come into existence) inside a community which possesses prosperous elements. The district associations must also have been a useful counterpoise to the political dominance of the WONG Wai Chak Tong. \n\nThe association for natives of Tung Kwun is the largest, richest and probably the oldest of the Cheung Chau societies. It seems to have been established in the fifth year of Chia-ch'ing (1800-01) and in 1898 owned five shops, office premises and an ancestral hall which had been in existence for at least forty years, judging by an incense holder dated the ninth year of Hsien-feng (1859-60). Members and destitute persons of Tung Kwun origin could receive relief assistance from its funds and contributions, with which the Po On study, the ancestral temple, and later three large communal urn graves were also managed. Practically all the way from the cradle to the grave the member and his children could benefit from the operation of his association.26 \n\nThe association laid emphasis on social cohesion and the observance by its members of the customary proprieties. There was the traditional feast for all members every year at the lantern festival on the fifteenth day of the first moon, on which day the managers for the new year were elected, and the yearly worship of Kwan Tai, the god of war and patron god of the association, on his birthday on the thirteenth day of the fifth moon, when each subscribing member received a share of roast pork. Confucius' birthday and the two grave sweeping festivals were also celebrated by members gathering together. \n\nOther commemorative tablets existed until only a few years ago which would have provided useful information about two other similar associations of long standing; those of people from Wai Chau and Chiu Chau (combined) and from 惠州及潮州 Sei Yap. One in the Wai Chiu clansmen's office was turned out 27 during repairs after Typhoon Mary in 1960 and not replaced; and what was probably the foundation stone of the Yik Sin Tong, an association for Sei Yap natives, was taken down and \n\nT \n\nJ \n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207316, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "76\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nwhich has the shape of a miniature temple, has the three characters Han-lin yuan embroidered on its red curtain; it is not General T'ien who is sitting behind the ever closed curtain, but the San t'ai-tze lao-yeh\n\nthe 3 princes (Mu-ch'a, Chin-ch'a and No-ch'a).* \n\nThe birthday of the San t'ai-tze lao-yeh is celebrated yearly by this troupe with special performances in the first month of the Chinese calendar in the public housing estate Tung Tau Tsuen ✯✯, not far from the airport, where a whole community considers the San t'ai-tze as their patrons.\n\nAt this birthday celebration in 1976, between 9 and 10 p.m. a man suddenly came running to the temple facing the stage and donned the costume prepared on the table. No-ch'a is usually represented as a young boy: his hair tied in a bob over each ear, with his feet on fire-wheels. The man, a medium, is believed to be an ordinary man who might have never thought of No-ch'a. But on his birthday the god (here No-ch'a) will possess a person who will then only act as a medium. The man or sometimes a woman will get up from his bed, if he is sleeping, or from the table if he is eating, and rush to the square where the festivities are held without talking to anyone. Sometimes 3 people appear being possessed by the 3 princes. If the god in this temple has proved to be particularly efficacious (ling) then this event is expected and the respective clothes for the god are already prepared on a table specially marked with a green bamboo 3m high attached to its leg. The costume for the god is usually put into a flat round basket and a weapon is placed beside it. The medium puts on No-ch'a's costume, a yellow silk blouse and trousers and on the head he puts a band with the two hair-knots attached, shaking all the while and aided by those who have expected his arrival. When dressed the medium takes up the weapon, a solid spiky iron-ball on a chain, and wields it against his own body, beating his back and chest, perhaps to prove that he is actually possessed by the god.\n\n* Doré, Chinese Superstitions, Taipei 66, Vol. 7, p. 413 and Vol. 9, p. 111; E. T. C. Werner: Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, page 247.\n\n† Such a bamboo is also fastened to the roof of the stage or where rituals for the dead are held: it indicates the presence of spirits or marks the place to which spirits are invited to come.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207965, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 4, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "173\n\nthe kaifong, which was fixed by auction, the keeper of the scale could keep the charges paid for the use of the scale by merchants. The fee was used for the management of the temple and the annual celebration of the birthday of T'in Hau, usually held towards the middle of the Fourth Lunar Month. To prepare for this festival, the committee had to arrange for donations from Sai Kung residents to make the necessary purchases and to contract with a troupe for the opera. Besides the birthday of T'in Hau, the kaifong also had to arrange for a puppet show at the Great King Earthgod's shrine, and the offering of a pig at the temple at the beginning of the year, on the day of the T'in Hau Festival, at the Kwan Tai Festival, and at the end of the year.35\n\nThe activities of the kaifong committee became routine. Some time in the 1930's, a younger generation of merchants in Sai Kung formed themselves into the Chamber of Commerce. The leader of this new body was Lei Shiu Yam, of Lan Nei Wan. When World War II broke out, it was this group that was the more active in Sai Kung Market.\n\nDAILY LIFE C. 1920\n\nPopulation\n\nThe census of 1911 counted 9,243 people in Sai Kung District, which at the time also included Shap Sz Heung and villages near Sham Chung and Pak Sha O. The same census reported that there were 2,633 Punti-speaking, 6,599 Hakka-speaking, and 11 Hoklo-speaking villagers in the district. It probably neglected the boat population, the size of which must now remain unknown. As recorded, the Sai Kung population amounted to 13.4 percent of the total population of the New Territories.\n\nVillage, lineage, and voluntary association\n\nThe reported population was distributed through 126 villages. The great majority of these had a smaller population than 100, and many could not have been more than isolated houses. By no means the smallest, Tin Ha Wan had 37 people, Mok Tse Che 51, Tai Nam Wu 33, Ma Lam Wat 43, and Tso Wo Hang 24. Only 21 villages in what is recognized now as Sai Kung", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207971, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "179\n\nAmong smaller villages, arrangements for co-operation often extended beyond the village itself. Hang Hau and nearby Seung Sz Wan, for instance, were closely involved in each other's celebrations. When there were celebrations in one village, members of the other village could come without invitation.44 Inter-village co-operative arrangements of one sort or another were sufficiently strong for most of the smaller villages to identify themselves as being parts of permanent village alliances. Tai Mong Tsai, Tai Po Tsai, Shek Hang, Tit Kim Hang, Tam Wat, Wong Mo Ying, Ping Tun, and She Tau formed the Paat Heung (Eight Villages); Nam Shan included also Fu Yung Pit, Kak Hang Tun, Keng Pang Ha, and Lung Mei; Pak Tam Chung included Pak Tam, Tsak Yue Wu, Wong Keng Tei, Sheung Yiu, Wong Yi Chau, and Tsam Chuk Wan; and Ngong Wo, Wo Liu, Shan Liu, Tai Wan, Tso Wo Hang, Sha Ha, Nam A, Wong Chuk Yeung, Long Keng, and O Tau formed the Shap Heung (Ten Villages). The Paat Heung had a joint school in Tai Mong Tsai; the Pak Tam Chung villages jointly worshipped the Great King earthgod near Sheung Yiu; the Shap Heung had its joint school in Tai Wan, and used to maintain collectively the T'in Hau Temple at Wong Chuk Yeung (now ruined). The larger villages, e.g. Ho Chung, Mang Kung Uk, Sha Kok Mei, Nam Wai, Tseng Lan Shue, and Pak Kong, were apparently not parties to such alliances, but regarded themselves as forming complete units in themselves.45\n\nInter-village disputes were not common, but there were some long-standing ones. Sha Kok Mei disputed with Nam Shan over tree-cutting rights. Nam Wai and Ho Chung fought over a quarrel that had started when the cows of one village damaged the crops of the other.46\n\nFestivals and customs\n\nThe major festivals in the village were the New Year, and the T'in Kei (birthday of Nui Woh, the Earth Goddess), Ts'ing Ming (spring worship at the ancestral graves), Dragon Boat, Tsat Tse (Seven Sisters), Mid-Autumn, Double-Ninth (autumn worship at the ancestral graves), and Tung Chi (winter solstice) festivals, the temple festivals of the local temples (in this area Ch'e Kung, T'in Hau, Koon Yam, and Hung Shing), the festivals of the local", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208652, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "82 \n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS \n\ntake over the civil administration. News has seeped into the Camp that Bishop Paschang, with Fathers Paulhus, Jim Smith, North, together with Sisters Patricia Coughlin and Beatrice Meyer are in Macao, having been deported by the Japanese from Kongmoon. \n\n22-Sunday and, Washington's Birthday. Father Norris, C. P., the day's preacher. At one o'clock a party for children is arranged, but for Americans only. The Camp cook comes across with a cup of coffee, two doughnuts and some popcorn for all, adult Americans included. At three p.m. at St. Stephen's, Stations of the Cross and Benediction with a sermon by Bishop O'Gara. In the evening at 6, Fathers Quinn and Madison direct the songfest. Warmer weather. For some days now, Brother Thaddeus has had his eagle eye on two pigeons which have been roosting on our roof and tonight he manages to catch one with its eyes shut. As a result, the members of his room, No. 9 no less (the unlucky number in China), had a cup of pigeon soup apiece. Incidentally, there are seven in Room 9. \n\n23-The Maryknoll Sisters finally move from their temporary quarters to the American Block. Maryknollers help carry baggage, and to secure a few iron cots from the Hospital. The Sisters now have three rooms on the ground floor and one room on the third floor of Block A-3. \n\n24-As previously mentioned, the British Government had built in various parts of the island a considerable number of godowns or storage depots for rice, peanut oil and canned goods, in case of a long siege. A few of these godowns are very close to our Camp—in fact, they might be considered to be within our confines, and today the Japanese authorities asked for volunteers among the internees to help in loading these supplies on trucks to be moved elsewhere. From the Maryknollers, Fathers Gaiero and Siebert join up, as also Father O'Connor, C. M., and Brother Anthony, one of the two Christian Brothers living on our floor. After working several hours in the morning, each volunteer was given for his dinner, as much canned milk, hardtack and butter as he could eat, and when the day's work was over, each received four cans of goods, such as butter, milk and pork and beans. Ten cases of goods were also given to the Community kitchens. Brother Michael comes down with a form of diarrhea. \n\n25-The Blessed Sacrament is now reserved in the Sisters' Chapel. More volunteers asked for today for loading food; as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208760, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "190\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nbe followed. In other words, for the average Chinese, religion is a socially important value system to make for a smooth functioning of human relationships as much as it is a method to obtain divine favours to increase the effectiveness of human efforts toward the realization of a happy life.\n\nEND-NOTES\n\n1 This paper was first presented at the joint panel of the CASA and the CSSR on Chinese Religion at the Conference of the Learned Societies in Saskatoon, May 1979.\n\n2 Compare the five-volume work written by J. J. M. de Groot: The Religious System of China; although it is mainly based on his field work done in Amoy, it is considered to be a standard work on Chinese religion in general.\n\n3 See P. C. Baity, Religion in a Chinese Town (Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs, no. 64), Taipei: The Orient Cultural Service, 1975. (See my review article pp. of this issue).\n\n4 See various ceremonial and memorial booklets issued by the Municipal Government of Taipei, Tainan and Taichung, e.g., Ta-ch'eng chih-sheng hsien-shih K'ung-tzu shih-tsun chien-shuo, Taipei, 1974, Ta-ch'eng chih-sheng hsien-shih K'ung-tzu shih-tsun chien-chieh (Memorial Service for Confucius on his Birthday), Taichung, 1977.\n\n5 See Y. Raguin, S.J., \"Buddhism in Taiwan\", pp. 179-185 in H. Dumoulin, ed. Buddhism in the Modern World, London, New York: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1976.\n\n6 Questions and Answers about the Republic of China (Taipei: Chung-hua Information Service, 1978), p. 17.\n\n7 W. L. Grichting, The Value System in Taiwan 1970: A Preliminary Report. Taipei, 1971. (Quoted by Y. Raguin).\n\n8 See for example Taiwan Tzu-miao ch'uan-chi, Ed. by Wang I-han, Taichung Luan-yu Journal Society, 1977. Lists of local temples issued by municipal governments follow the same pattern. However, the more scholarly but antiquated list published in the Taiwan Gazetteer and adopted by Lin Heng-tao divides the temples into three main groups: Taoist, Buddhist, folk-religion (t'ung-su).\n\n9 See Lin Heng-tao, Taiwan Szu-miao Ta-ch'uan, Taipei: Ch'ing-wen Publishing Company, 1974.\n\n10 See M. Saso \"The Taoist Tradition in Taiwan\", China Quarterly No. 41 (1970), 83-102.\n\n11 M. Saso, \"Red-Head and Black-Head: the Classification of the Taoists of Taiwan according to the Documents of the 61st Heavenly Master,\" Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica (Taipei), 30 (1970).\n\n12 See H. Welch, \"The Chang T'ien-shih and Taoism in China\", Journal of the Oriental Society 4 (1957-58), 188-212.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208772, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "202\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nsister, now a spirit, had proffered good advice, he built a folk religion shrine in her honour. Her cult thrived, so much so that her image is revered by Ch'aochou emigrants in most areas of South Thailand and, so the story goes, also in Singapore and in Nakorn Sri Thammarat.\n\nThe Bangkok god carver claims that Miss Lin is the only Chinese deity with a special urn donated by the King of Thailand who is well known for his tolerance towards and encouragement for other religions. He is said to have bowed in her honour before her image which consists of a simple, seated country girl with bare feet and large hands, dressed in working clothes Plate 3. Her festival is celebrated in her temples each year on her birthday, the 15th of the first lunar month.\n\nHong Kong.\n\nMarch, 1980.\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nTHE TEMPLE OF THE SUPREME RULER,\n\nNEAR SUNG WONG TOI, KOWLOON*\n\nIn the thirteenth century A.D. the Southern Sung Emperor Tuen Chung was attacked by the Mongol Conquerors of the North. Driven from his provisional capital at Hang Chow, the Emperor retreated southwards through Fukien and on to Kwangtung province, stopping temporarily at more than 30 places on his way. Besides the well known Palace at Ngai Mun in the San Wui district of Kwangtung, that at Sau Shan by the Pearly River has been fully described in the Imperial Records which were published in the Yuen Dynasty. Such buildings provide evidence of the efforts of the Sung Emperor and his ministers to make that stand against their enemies which has long been cherished in the people's minds.\n\nIn the spring of 1277 during the second year of his reign, the Emperor left Kam Tsz Mun of Wai Chau district in Kwangtung and reached Mui Wai. In the fourth moon he arrived at Kwun Fu Cheung, a district which included present day Kowloon, the New\n\n*This heading and the following text are taken from a memorial tablet erected in the Urban Council's Rest Garden at Lomond Road, Kowloon, site of this former old temple. A Chinese tablet is also provided.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210051, "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-1984", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "TEMPLE ORACLES IN A CHINESE CITY\n\nA Study of the Use of Temple Oracles\n\nin Taichung, Central Taiwan*\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\nPrelude\n\nIn the early morning of February 26, 1978, our group of over a hundred pilgrims from Taichung arrived in the city of Peikang, one of the major centres of the Matsu cult. The ch'ao-t'ien temple there was first built in 1694 and enlarged in 1775. The whole previous day had been spent in visiting temples in other places and burning incense to prepare for this solemn visit. As we arrive, the sedan chair of the goddess which we had brought from Taichung is carried toward the temple gates by ten strong men; the pilgrims follow behind, while musicians blow high-pitched trumpets and beat gongs and drums.\n\nSoon our group disappears inside the temple gates, while the great bell and drum are beaten to welcome the visiting Matsu. All the courtyards and halls are crowded with worshippers. It is still three weeks before the deity's birthday celebration but already every day large crowds of visitors pour into the small town from all over Taiwan. Peikang is the seat of the mother temple of Matsu on the island, and hundreds of temples claim affiliation with it.\n\nWhile the visiting gods and goddesses are carried into the inner shrine and seated on the altar tables to pay homage to the Peikang Matsu, the crowd of pilgrims go about their private devotions. They offer incense to all the deities enthroned here, pray to Matsu, tell her about their problems and uncertainties at home, and ask her advice. Matsu's counsels have been embodied in her temple\n\nTo prepare this survey I was greatly inspired by my learned friends Mr. Liu Chih-wan, a research scholar at the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Institute of Ethnology, and by Professor Wolfram Eberhard of the University of California at Berkeley. I am also indebted to the untiring efforts of Miss Ch'en Yu-mei in Taichung, who collected many samples of the temple oracles. I finally wish to recognize my gratefulness to the Tunghai University in Taichung: my team of anthropology students, 1977-78, contributed to the completion of the Taichung sample collection, while the Centre for Environmental Studies kindly offered me office space. (Dr. Pas is professor of Religious Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada,)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210182, "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-1984", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "132\n\ntemples.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nThe village temples of Hong Kong Island were the centre of community activities at more than a single village level, as elsewhere in South China. A letter from Collinson of 29th April 1845 refers to:\n\n\"a great feast... celebrated in Chuck Chu [Stanley] for the last 3 days, which was nothing more or less than a fair in front of the principal Joss house.\"82\n\nThis \"fair\" was clearly celebrating the birthday of Tin Hau, which falls on the 23rd day of the 3rd moon, which in 1845 was 30th April. A temple fair to celebrate Tin Hau's birthday, still held on the land in front of the main Stanley temple, is still celebrated at that season each year. There can be no doubt, too, that the double festivities at Aberdeen, on the birthday of Tin Hau, and on that of Hung Shing (23rd of 3rd moon), on each of which celebrations the statue of the deity whose festival is not being celebrated is solemnly carried in procession to the other's temple “as a guest”, as a concrete demonstration of the local people's feeling that their prosperity and safety at sea depends on both deities, also date to before 1841.\n\nTemples required management committees, and it was usual for temple management committees to take on, as the Kaifong, the general oversight of the market towns or the community of villages in or near which they stood. The towns on Hong Kong island certainly had kaifongs. A couplet of 1820 in the Tin Hau temple at Stanley was given by the Chik-sze (managers)83 which certainly implies the existence of a management committee at that date. If the tradition that the Pak Tai temple was founded in 1803 by the Hoklo community of Stanley is correct, it is possible that the Kaifong was built around ethnic groups, as was almost certainly the case at that date in Cheung Chau, and which was common later. **Certainly the 1820 Chik-sze are typical of later kaifongs in that, of the eleven Chik-sze named, five certainly, and at least a further two in all probability, were names of commercial enterprises, showing dominance of the kaifong Temple Committee by the market shopkeepers. Equally typical was the likelihood that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211634, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "24 \n\nand not even a tablet is permitted. Images of the Jade Emperor seen in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and in South-East Asia are all very similar, portraying him as a bearded, usually gilded, image of an official seated on a throne, with a jade tablet clasped in both hands before his chest (see Plates 2 and 3). His head-dress is not a crown in the western sense, but a classic hat, the mien (mian) the rectangular mortar board cap from which is suspended, front and back, thirteen red cords bearing green, red and blue beads and descending almost to the level of his eyes. Thirteen indicates his supreme rank. This, it should be noted, is the typical standard image of a great number of official deities other than the Jade Emperor, and the only way one can categorically identify his image is to see it on his altar, or to find that it bears an original inscription describing it as the image of the Jade Emperor.\n\nHis image is placed as high on the altar as possible, even to the extent of placing it on as many as three to four tiers; his image, even more than most, must never permit his feet to be touching the ground. In a number of places he is considered to be too holy and too powerful to be portrayed by an image; his title only being recorded on a tablet which occupies the centre of his altar. Images of the Jade Emperor are to be seen not only on the main altars of temples dedicated to him but also, in a small number of instances, on secondary altars in temples dedicated to lesser deities. In Suifu in Szechuan, Graham in 1928 counted nineteen images of the Jade Emperor on altars in the town. The images were placed on the first floor of the temples whereas other gods were normally on the ground floor.\n\n7\n\nGrootaers noted that the cult of Yuh Huang was well represented in the sanctuaries built in high spots in the city of Hsuan Hua (south of Chang Chia Kou [Kalgan] and northwest of Peking). The earliest was dated 1535 AD. Yuh Huang was better known there as Hao T'ien Shang Ti and his image portrayed him as a bearded scholar with a mortar board cap.\n\nIn many folk religion temples in Ch'aochou (Teochew) communities his tablet stands in the front centre of the altar table nearest the main entrance, and in front of the main altar, with only an image of the Third Prince on his altar table standing between the Jade Emperor's tablet and the entrance. The altar of the Jade Emperor is referred to as the T'ien Kung T'an (Tiangong Tan). On his birthday, the 9th of the first lunar month, large sacrificial offerings to T'ien Kung are placed on this special altar", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211648, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "38\n\none of the temple staff thought that Chih (b) bore the personal name Meng-piao (E).\n\nA very few deities, on the face of it Pestilence deities, in practice turn out to be protective Wang Yeh. One such example highlights the probability that local devotees in southern China some considerable time ago, perceiving that their local protective deity bore the title Wang Yeh, assumed that he must be a Pestilence Wang Yeh and treated him as such. This was in a temple in Tungkang, south of Kaohsiung, said in a guide book to have an impressive display of 80 to 90 images of Wang Yeh. It turned out to have but one major Wang Yeh, a protective hero, Wen Hung. Wen Hung, also known as Wen Wang Yeh, a title said to have been awarded him by a T'ang dynasty emperor for his services, lived during the seventh century AD. A dozen or so portable images of him also stood on the altar table before the main altar. A handbook presented by the temple committee not only provided Wen Hung's biography but also contained charts shewing the routes his images had been carried around the parish for five successive years during the annual 'pestilence festivals'. This suggests that two cults have been combined, the cult of the T'ang hero Wen Hung, known as Prince Wen (Wen Wang Yeh) and, almost certainly due to a misunderstanding, the cult of the Pestilence Wang Yeh. Wen Hung's image is taken out during the Pestilence festival during the fifth month but unlike Pestilence Wang Yeh, he also has his own and more important festival celebrated on his birthday during the eleventh lunar month. His original legend, over the years, has had added to it elements of the Pestilence Wang Yeh legend, and to add to the confusion he now has his own Pestilence Wang Yeh boat. Such cases of apparent Pestilence Wang Yeh having a specific and individual personality are not at all common though they have been noted in several other cults in Taiwan.\n\nAlthough there are four temples in Yunlin and one in Taipei county dedicated to ten specific Pestilence Wang Yeh, known always as the Five-Year Excellencies (†) or (EFE), the maximum number of images of Wang Yeh with different surnames seen by the author on any one altar is seven, the Ch'i Fu Ch'ien Sui (LT) in Tainan. In each of the temples dedicated to the Five-Year Excellencies images had been borrowed by devotees for private worship at home. The collective group of the Five-Year Excellencies each has an individual birthday though it was decided in 1662 that they would be feted on one day in a collective feast on the 29th of the tenth lunar month, with one", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211924, "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": 339, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "314 \n\n10 \n\nthe Dangs of Kam-Tin in the dispute with the Dangs of Ping Shan over the grave of the gwan-ma several decades before 1737. The descendants of Man Wai and his brothers (i.e. the members of the Gwong Yu Tong and the Lei Ging Tong) are all also members of the Sung-Kok jou segment which derives its name from the \"pen name\" of Man Wai's father.\n\nE. Loi-Sing Tong \n\nTo avoid confusion with Gwong-Yu Tong (i.e. the descendants of Man-wai) I shall call the Gwong-Yu jou segment (Le, the descendants of Gwong-Yu) by the name of their ancestral hall, the Loi-Sing Tong. The first datable event relating to this segment was the building of the ancestral hall in 1701 by Jeung-Luk, a sixth generation descendant of Gwong-Yu. Probably the best known of the Loi-Sing Tong ancestors was Si-Daan. The details of Si-Daan's descent are obscure. He was probably a descendant, perhaps a grandson, of Jeung-Luk. Sung (1973:63-65) records a story that upon his birth there was an unmistakable sign that he was destined to be a rich man. According to Sung (1974:164) he “built himself a very big house called Naam Teng, the remains of which can still be seen on the South side of Kat Hing Wai\". In 1755 when Si-Daan's uncle presented a bell to Ling-Wan Ji his name was included as one of the donors. The family probably had become rich before his father's generation. That uncle of his, Dang Yu-Jung, had purchased a minor official title. The donation list for the rebuilding of a temple in 1744 recorded a single sum donated by four Yus that included Yu-Jung and Si-Daan's father Yu-Man. Among the four, Yu-Ji had purchased a gung-sang degree in the Yongzheng period (1723-1735), and two others had degrees of gaam-sang. Si-Daan himself had purchased an official title of jau-tung.\n\nOf the ancestors whose tablets were housed in the hall Puk-Chai, gung-sang degree holder, is remembered by his descendants, who still keep an embroidery presented to the father of this degree holder on the occasion of a birthday.\" He was probably one of Jeung-Luk's brothers.\n\nF. Mau Ging Tong \n\nThe period of the late Ming and the early Qing was an eventful period for the people of the Xin'an county. The Kam Tin jiu festival itself had started as a response to experiences in this period, especially the serious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211931, "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": 346, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "321\n\nThese accusations were made at the county magistracy. The Kam Tin Dangs got news of the accusation and arranged that all their young men gathered in the various ancestral halls and temples to read, so as to deceive the investigators from the county government. The county magistrate was deceived, and believed that the Kam Tin Dangs were all scholars and would not give any time to the accusation. Therefore he did not pursue the case any further.\n\nSome of the Dangs believe that the fighting between the people of Kam Tin and those of Pat Heung was over agricultural resources such as irrigation water. The Dangs of Kam Tin used only one bei reservoir, the one called Fui Sha bei. The water flowed from Pat Heung, near Lin Fa Tei, and the Pat Heung people could stop the water. One recent (about 100 years ago) example of a dispute over agricultural resources was the Ngau Wong Wui association which had been started to organize the cowherds of Kam Tin, to protect them against their Pat Heung counterparts, and to preserve Kam Tin pasture rights.\n\nOne piece of documentary evidence of the conflict between the Dangs and their Pat Heung tenants has survived. It is a stone inscription dated 1777 found in both the Daai-Wong Temple of Yuen Long Old Market and the Jau and Wong Temple of Kam Tin. It records a rent dispute.\n\nFive Dangs are named as the landlords in this inscription. In general terms, the document calls the landlords \"the Dang surname\", and the land \"the land of the clan\". It is therefore clear that the landlords were all from the same lineage and the property was considered as linked to the lineage as a whole albeit it was probably individually owned. Four of the five names can be found in various documents from Kam Tin. All four appear in a silk embroidery presented to a Dang of Kam Tin to celebrate his birthday in 1771. We have more specific information about two of them: one, Dang Si-Daan, was a descendant of Yam's second son Gwong-Yu, and the other, Dang Chung, is a descendant of one of the other sons of Hung-Yi, most probably Gyun. It is therefore clear that one of the parties to the dispute were many of the Dangs of Kam Tin, including members of different branches and represented in general terms the Dang lineage.\n\nA few names are also given of the tenants. There were about the same number of Dangs and non-Dangs among them. While the landlords were referred to as members of a lineage, the tenants were referred to as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211956, "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": 371, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "346\n\nthe 71st birthday of Dang Nga-Chyun, a member of a rich family descended from the mou-geui-yan Dang Ying-Yun. Also on display in the same room were other scrolls of calligraphy and painting. Put on display for a couple of hours were relics of the wong-gu. As many of the Dangs were proud of telling, there were two of them (1) a set of twelve small paintings known as Gwai-Fei Tip, believed to be the work of Fu Qing, a lady-in-waiting in the Song court; and (2) a painting of an eagle, reputed to be the work of the Emperor Song Huizhong; both given to the wong-gu as souvenirs.54 Although they were put on display during a visit by about 200 members of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, to put those two antiques on display had always been part of the tradition.55\n\nEach of the villages was decked out with fa-paai banners too. In most cases there was a fa-paai presented by all the members of the village in celebration of the ten-yearly jiu. In the case of Tai Hong Wai there was one from all the descendants of Sung-Gok jou (father of Dang Man-Wai and his brothers) as well as one from the \"youngsters\" of Tai Hong Wai. The village gate had red slips of paper saying Fast (tsai-gai) and Clean (git-jing).\n\nC. Ritual Representatives\n\nIt was explained to me that the people in each gu divided into family groups (chu). In some cases, the nearest common ancestor such a \"family\" group could trace was more than ten generations distant. For example, under Mr. Dang Tim-Kau's entry were his blood brothers, the sons of his father's brothers, as well as others who were more remotely related to him. The nearest common ancestor of the chu as a whole was Git-Sau jou, who was, from the standpoint of Dang Tim-Kau's grandsons, 12 generations up the lineage tree. The selection of ritual representatives was done by divination with bui.56 The theory of an elder is that each chu chooses its own candidate for ritual representative. But, according to a younger ritual representative, if a man failed in the divination, then his son would try his luck in the same selection process. The candidate who got the longest series of sing-bui would be the no. 1 ritual representative. The others were chosen and ranked in the same manner. But there were additional rules. Each gu section must have one man among the no. 1 to no. 5 ritual representatives, and each had to have three men among the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives. The last three places (58-60) were, as a rule, alloted to the Ying Lung Wai people,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213166, "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-1993", "page_number": 234, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "216\n\nThe main ceremony consisted of the kar ye (godfather) and kat neung sitting below large Chinese characters, (meaning 'double happiness'), and a 3-inch diameter, draped red-paper 'streamer'. The 'son' then poured and 'offered up' cups of tea to his adopted parents and kowtowed. By accepting and drinking the tea this signified that the couple had taken the 28-year old man as their 'son'. He would, however, continue to live with his real parents. As with most Chinese ceremonies today, photographers were present to capture important moments on film.\n\nThe procedure of offering cups of tea was repeated by the new godson 'doing the honours' to the wife's eldest sister and her husband, as well as to another unmarried sister. At an adoption ceremony such as this, and on occasions like a parent's birthday and at Lunar New Year, such action displays filial piety. It is interesting that tea is always presented and drunk, not wine. Kowtowing is still sometimes performed in traditional Chinese families although it is not nearly so common in Hong Kong as it was, even 40 years ago.\n\nIn Chinese culture presents are commonly exchanged at this ceremony, of course they included the usual red 'lucky packets' containing money. The godparents also gave their godson a neatly packaged box holding two bowls and two spoons. These signified, 'May you never go hungry'. In China, which has been plagued by famine throughout history, such a wish was appropriate. After all, even as late as the early 1960s, 30 million (the exact figure is debatable) died after the crop failure during the 'Great Leap Forward'.\n\nSeveral members of the two families involved in the Wanchai restaurant adoption ceremony are professional musicians. The godfather composes Chinese opera. On the evening in question his four to tat (*apprentices or pupils) also poured and offered up tea to their 'master'.\n\nThe last 'event' of the evening was the meal, which, of course, included roast suckling pig and shark's fin soup, washed down with brandy. As one would expect, as many of the guests worked in the entertainment business, karaoke accompanied the dinner. There was many a star performance.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214016, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "50\n\nin pairs on Min [Fukienese] community altars as offerings to the Jade Emperor, whose birthday is celebrated the following day and who had persuaded Yang to call off the pursuit.\n\nAn image categorically identified as the Seventh Son, Yang Yen-ssu has only been observed in one temple, in Medan in Sumatra, where it stands alone on a separate side altar simply marked, Yang Ch'i Yeh. He is portrayed as a black-bearded general, standing dressed in long yellow robes and holding a long staff but without any unique features. In a temple near Taichung where he is depicted together with the rest of his brothers he is inexplicably portrayed with a ferocious, decorated face and a bird's beak mouth. His black skin is decorated with a white [opera-style] face pattern, whilst the beak with a red edging is under a human nose. His eyes are staring, round and bulging, and he is holding an unsheathed sword at the ready. All in all, an extraordinary image which, whilst accepted and labelled as the Seventh Son by the temple staff, is completely out of character.\n\nFinally, in Seremban in central Malaysia, the temple keeper of a small rural temple pointed out a small standing figure of a soldier in armour at the rear of a crowded secondary altar. The image has no unique characteristic and could be any soldier/deity. The temple keeper identified him as Yang Sung-pao, a T'ang general who had been the protector of a Sung emperor. In Seremban he was also known as the Venerable Golden Lion, Chin-shih Ta-jen, as well as the Great General, Ta Chiang-chün.\n\nThe Eighth Son, Yang Pa Yeh, has only been noted on two altars in northern China despite the two Yang Family Daughters being numbered Eight and Nine, Yang Pa Chie and Yang Chiu Mei. These two daughters were involved in several battles fighting alongside the Sixth Son.\n\nPost Script\n\nChinese characters carved into a roadside rock beside the modern main road from the Fen River plain in northern Shansi to Inner Mongolia proclaimed that the nearby old temple had been dedicated to Wu Lang, the Fifth Son of the Yang. This was confirmed by a local peasant. The temple was in a col between two mountains, itself several thousand", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214496, "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": 354, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "323\n\nTHE DRUNKEN DRAGON DANCE AND THE TAN GONG (TAM KUNG) FESTIVALS: NOTES ON THE RASKB VISIT TO MACAU, MAY 1997\n\nGEOFFREY ROPER\n\nThe eighth day of the fourth lunar month is an important date in the Chinese religious calendar. Principally it is Lord Buddha's birthday, and for that reason is soon to become a Hong Kong public holiday. In Macau, on a more local basis, it is also the date of the Drunken Dragon Dance Festival around the markets of central Macau and the Tan Gong (Tam Kung) Festival celebrations in Coloane Village, Coloane Island. It was with these two Festivals mainly in mind that a twenty-strong party from the Hong Kong Branch of the RAS, led by President Dan Waters, set off for Macau early on Wednesday, the 14th May (the date in the 1997 Western calendar).\n\na.m.,\n\nPreceded by Chinese opera performance the evening before, the initial Drunken Dragon Dance celebrations had already started by 8:30 by the time we arrived at the western end of the former Sao Domingos Market. The dragon heads and tails were being blessed by a Taoist priest outside the adjacent Guan Di (Kwan Tai) Temple and brought to life by the painting of eyes by invited VIPs. A golden flower with a red ribbon was tied around the head of each dancer - representing God's gift of energy for the dancing ahead.\n\nThe scale of the festivities was somewhat smaller than the previous year, with humbler staging for the sponsors from the Macau Fish Merchants Association and restrictions on the free distribution of rice and vegetables to the public at the first market. The reason was disruption caused by building work, but most importantly, the Dance itself remained unchanged.\n\nThe dragons, the dancers, and the dance itself are best seen in the illustrations (which were actually photographed by the author at the 1996 celebrations). Accompanied by a loud drumbeat, the group of about twenty male fish porters circled around and took turns in holding the wooden red and gold dragon heads and red and green tails. As", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214646, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "25\n\nSeven, rather than into any relationship with Po Kong. Tai Hom was the only Hakka village in the League of Seven. It was probably this Hakka ethnicity, their rejection by Po Kong, and their relative isolation from Nga Tsin Wai that led the Tai Hom villagers to establish a temple of their own outside their village, somewhere in the period 1821-1850, probably late in the period: it was greatly expanded in 1904. This temple, the Tung Shan Temple (it was dedicated to Kwun Yam) became, for a short period during the 1920s and 1930s, the main religious focus of the \"thirteen villages of Kowloon\", that is, the villages of both the League of Seven and of the Six Villages Alliance, but it was left ruined in the War.\n\nThe land south of Ma Tau Kok formed part of the Alliance of Three (三聯盟) of Hung Hom (Hung Hom including Tai Wan, Hok Yuen including Shek Shan, and To Kwa Wan, probably including Ma Tau Kok). The land east of Ngau Chi Wan and Pak Uk Tsai formed the inter-village alliance called \"The Four Stone Hills\" (四石嶺). This was a sworn alliance of the quarry-villages of this mountainous and infertile area (Ngau Tau Kok, Sai Cho Wan, Cha Kwo Ling, and Lei Yue Mun).\n\nInter-village alliances normally centre on joint worship by the elders, either at the higher earth god of the area, or at the local temple. Nothing is now remembered in Nga Tsin Wai of any inter-village worship by the elders of the League of Seven as a group at any higher earth god shrine, nor of any She, * , Feast of the elders in front of the shrine. However, the Nga Tsin Wai villagers do not now even remember where their earth gods used to stand - they were all removed by the Japanese, except for the earth god of the Village Gate - so too much should not be made of this. The elders of the villages of the League of Seven did and do worship the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau, however, on her Birthday each year (the Tai Hom elders consider the villages of the League of Seven as \"belonging to the Tin Hau of Nga Tsin Wai\"): it is likely that this was the ritual focus of the League, and that the meetings of the elders of the district took place after the worship. The elders hold a feast today after the worship of Tin Hau, and this is probably a very ancient tradition. The Temple, however, was the property of Nga Tsin Wai alone (it is owned by all three of the Nga Tsin Wai clans, and the Manager of the Temple, chosen by the elders of the three clans, is the Village Headman): it was probably for this reason that, on her Birthday, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214647, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "26\n\nelders of the League of Seven worship her at a temporary altar set up outside the village, facing her altar through the open village gate.\n\nThe deity is thus not taken from her altar for these annual Birthday celebrations: the elders worship her from outside the village, through the open village gate and the open temple door. Once in every ten years, however, the League of Seven holds a Ta Tsiu ritual. On this occasion, the statue of the deity is repainted and dressed in new robes by the Nga Tsin Wai village matrons, behind closed doors, and the matrons then carry her statue out of the temple to a temporary altar in front of the village gate, where the entire League of Seven conducts the Ta Tsiu rituals. The Ta Tsiu is the most important ritual event of the League of Seven. Indeed, since all but Nga Tsin Wai of the League's member villages have been cleared for development - many of them sixty or seventy years ago - it is the Ta Tsiu which alone keeps the League of Seven in being today, and, indeed, it is only the Ta Tsiu which keeps any memory of their ancient village community alive for the displaced descendants of places like Ma Tau Wai and Ta Kwu Ling.\n\nThe Nga Tsin Wai villagers believe the League of Seven was established in 1726, when the Ta Tsiu was held for the first time (at least since the Coastal Evacuation), and this is very likely, although the alliance may well, at that date, have used another name. The 1726 celebration was held after the 1724 rehabilitation of the village was completed. The 1996 celebration was the 28th to be held. Before the other villages were cleared for development, the villages conducted an elaborate procession through all the villages of the League, carrying in procession not only their own Tin Hau, but other statues of Tin Hau as well, from other temples in the area, before the rituals conducted in front of the gateway at Nga Tsin Wai. A photograph of a religious procession, which is likely to be the League of Seven Ta Tsiu procession for 1906, has been published on several occasions.\n\nAlthough they have no part in the League of Seven, Nga Tsin Wai always invites the Ngs, Chans, and Lis who have moved away from Nga Tsin Wai to return for these annual and decennial rituals, since these displaced descent lines are \"still our brothers\".\n\nInter-village alliances were, first and foremost, defence alliances against bandits. The League of Seven was probably established in 1726, when there was no yamen at Kowloon City, and at best only a very", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214672, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "51\n\nLife was not, however, all hard work, sickness, and brawls. The farming year was full of slack periods when there was time for entertainment and pleasure. The ritual year gave the villagers a framework for their leisure activities: each major festival was marked with a feast - even the poorest of families would have fat pork and rich eels on feast days. Nga Tsin Wai was, according to the Sha Tin village elders, famous for making \"Cha Kwo\", the traditional sticky village cakes, and these would usually be in evidence at festivals. The New Year, Tin Hau's Birthday, and the Winter Solstice Festival were the main festivals celebrated in Nga Tsin Wai, together with the Spring (Ching Ming) and Autumn (Chun Yeung) Grave Festivals, where fat pork would be distributed by the Ancestral Trusts to those who attended the worship at the graves.\n\nDuring the summer, and particularly at the Dragon Boat Festival, the village had the habit of inviting strolling singers to come and stay in the village for a few days or a week, to sing through their repertoire of \"Dragon Boat Songs\". These were long sung novels, and the villagers would sit outside the village gate in the evening listening to the singer for hours.\n\nThe villagers of Nga Tsin Wai were famous for singing themselves (the Tai Wai villagers in Sha Tin were jealous of the Nga Tsin Wai skills). The villagers sang Shan Ko, “Mountain Songs\". These were sung man to woman, verse by verse, and often included innuendo and suggestive comment: they were often called \"Teasing Songs\" as a result. Nga Tsin Wai villagers would often hold impromptu contests with youngsters from Tai Wai when they met at the pass which separated the lands of the two villages (the villagers say that is why the songs are called \"Mountain Songs\"). The Sha Tin elders also remember that more formal contests were also held - an annual one at Ma Tau Wai drew contestants from all of East Kowloon and Sha Tin: it was held at the Mid Autumn Festival. Contestants would be drawn, man and woman, and they would sing to each other; the one that ran out of things to say being declared the loser. The audience was mostly youngsters, and a few interested elders - they would sit around the contest area on the ground, vocal in their comments. The village elders say these contests could last for a couple of weeks if enough contestants appeared. The last contest was held just after the War. This was a Punti practice. The elders of the Hakka village of Ngau Chi Wan rather...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214773, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "152\n\nSecond. We feed well today as we get rations for six. We are all a bit on edge wondering how they got on.\n\nThird. Frank and I up at four and go down to the jetty. The Japs have locked the gates but we make a hole and get through. Japs hold a parade to count us as they caught three gunners last night. On parade the Japs spot that we are two short and ask the Wing why. He says he has no idea but they were with us last night. They seem perturbed about escapes.\n\nFourth. Up at three and down to the jetty but the sentries are awake and shots start whistling nearby, this happens every half hour and we take shelter. After two hours and no sampan turns up and bullets getting too close we retire to bed.\n\nFifth. Japs now wise to escapes and we have to parade again at eight for two hours. Another parade at one which takes over four hours, all very annoying and they don't seem very clever at counting us. They don't take precautions to prevent escapes but seem surprised when it happens. In the Jap army, to escape is to desert.\n\nSixth. Wake up to find the others busy dressing and packing. They have been ordered to be ready to move at short notice but I am not included. No one knows what it's all about. Just time for brief farewells and they are gone, driven off in a car and what luggage they have follows in a lorry. I am now the only RAF officer left. A sad day for me to lose such grand companions in distress, especially the Wing. Someone brings me a parcel which Florrie had brought me. The Japs have started to allow a limited number through. A large tin of cocoa, tomatoes, milk, butter, soap, and biscuits. How the others would have enjoyed it. I go down to the fence and see Florrie and have quite a long chat with her. She has been interned at Stanley for a fortnight. She seems very cheerful and is coming again tomorrow. What a girl. Sentry offers me ten cigarettes for my gold wristwatch, a twenty-first birthday present from Billie. When I refuse he indicates my gold signet ring given to me by Pam. I would not part with either for the world so no business is done. Roy Haywood and Ken Glasgow come and have evening cocoa with me. Spend hours these days thinking of home and family, especially Pam, they probably think I am dead and I pray to God that the Japs will get news through. Thank God for you Pammy darling, your memory is...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215210, "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": 306, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "270\n\nconnection, as my mother was a Yip from Chan Uk Village, also at Nam Tau. There were over ten families of Ng in Kowloon Tsai, but we had no ancestral hall there. There were two parts to the village, an upper and lower part - Sheung and Ha Wai. We lived in the Ha Wai. There was a Tin Hau temple at the village, and we had puppet shows on the goddess' birthday every year when I was young. We also had a Ta Chiu in the village every ten years.\n\n'I was married to a Li of Sheung Sha Po Village when I was 18. My husband was a revenue officer in the Customs service. We had three houses in the village, but they were all demolished for the airfield extension. We were sent first to a vacant tenement house in Cheung On Street [not identified in a modern street guide, but very likely to have been in nearby suburban Kowloon] whose owner had left. We were there for 4-6 months, before moving to Model Village.\n\n'I am Shing Sung, now 55, a Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau and came to Kowloon when I was 18 to join my uncle who owned a wooden house at Tsat Kan Uk [The Seven Houses], a place north of old Kowloon Tsai Village. I later built a wooden hut there for myself. I came to Model Village after the war. I remember that there were private fields in the general area, as well as government land. People named Fung, Hui and Tsang owned fields there before the war.\n\n'I am Madam Law Mui, aged 57, also Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau, and came to Kowloon when I was 20, to marry Shing Sung's elder brother - also to The Seven Houses. We farmed government land there, for which we had a permit and paid fees, both before and after the war. There were many people at Ap Tsai Wu (Duckling Pond), the name of the general area where we lived and farmed. They were scattered here and there, because we were all vegetable farmers and you built your own house beside your own plot of land. Like Shing Sung, we moved to Model Village after the war.\n\n'I am Madam Kwai-fung, aged 64. I am a Hakka, born at Sha Po Tsai, Kowloon, where my family had lived for several generations. My father kept a store in Lower Sha Po, near Blacksmiths' Street in the Kowloon City suburb. When I was 22, I was married to Ng Sam-hong, a Punti, of Old Kak Hang Village, next to Nga Tsin Wai, when we had gone to live in a newly repaired house. We had two houses of our own at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216073, "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": 372, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "306\n\nThe last mention of Mason in Hart's letters refers to Mason in 1897 having sent Hart his book The Shen's Pigtail or Other Cues of Anglo-China Life. Mason, wrote Hart, had been in low water at home and twice [Hart] had helped him. Mason was, added Hart, a clever fellow who, before the C'Kiang affair broke out, had just got himself on to the ladder of advancement, and in that matter [the Mason affair] he was to Hart's mind, the victim of mixed motives - he was curious, and he wanted to serve Hart, and got into a quicksand.\n\nHart was much kinder to Mason than ever Mesny would be. Mesny, in his Miscellany some ten years later, related in great detail, both from notes and from memory, the extraordinary story related above of being persecuted by Mason.\n\nMesny also wrote in his Miscellany [6 Feb. 1896] that he had gone through the evidence [on the Mason Case] in the British Blue Books and could not see how any mortal could come to any other than one of two conclusions - either Mason had been paid by the Chinese to get up a bogus scare [to create anti-foreign action] or that he was a mere maniac. Nine-tenths of his revelations had been unquestionably pure fabrication. At the bottom of the page, Mesny added, without offering any evidence, \"I am now fully satisfied that Mason was paid by the Chinese.\"\n\nOn an entirely different aspect of life in Shanghai, we read in a postscript from Mesny on the snobbish attitudes of the British in China that adds colour to our story. The British Consul in Shanghai held a party in May of 1899 to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria. Mesny wrote in his Miscellany that despite not receiving an invitation, a fact which confirms that he was ostracised by fellow Britons, possibly because of his wife or because he made a point of living among and mixing with Chinese, though it could also have been due to his very pro-Chinese stand, he turned up at the Consulate only to be turned away by the British police at the gate. This short note in the Miscellany describing the slight would appear to have been his method of getting his own back.\n\nAs with most small expatriate bodies, factions existed. Mason described in his 'Chinese Confessions', the problems of a 'British bachelor in the Imperial Customs Service in Zhenjiang, a small Customs", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]