[ { "id": 205998, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "THE BEGINNINGS OF TAIPINGSHAN\n\n73\n\nIn the meantime, the lot-holders petitioned Pottinger to be allowed to stay.10 They described how Captain Mylius, the first land officer in 1842, had given them certificates to prove their holdings. The Committee met the lot-holders and endeavoured to explain to them why they were being moved. They were told that there were 'insuperable difficulties' in the way of allowing them to remain. Moreover, the permission given them by Mylius to occupy the sites in question was no more than a 'temporary arrangement' since at that date (1842) Hong Kong was not in a permanent state. Nevertheless, the Committee represented that they were to inquire into what ground could be given to them for the erection of their houses. To this the Chinese replied that what was asked of them was like \"throwing their livelihood into the sea.\" If allowed to stay, they undertook to erect houses \"in the proper manner and style\" and pay a suitable rent. But their pleas were in vain. The Committee recommended that a site be allotted to them at Taipingshan, at which place, they pointed out, a considerable Chinese population had already settled. The Committee proposed that the ground should be prepared and levelled (it was, at that time, no more than a very steep and uneven mountainside) and with streets marked out. They would be permitted to remove the materials out of which their present houses were constructed. As to compensation, they would have their arrears of rent (never paid) remitted and would enjoy a 'rent holiday' for a period of five years from the following December. In addition, each householder who could substantiate his claim would receive $50, though one member of the Committee, Gutzlaff, thought that $20 would suffice.\n\nThe area of relocation lay south of Queen's Road, between Town Lot 78 and Town Lot 44: i.e., from approximately the present Gough Street to just east of the present Possession Street. The point was specifically made by Caine, with the agreement of the other members, that this location be reserved exclusively for Chinese and that no Europeans, with the exception of police, be permitted to live there.12\n\nPottinger approved these suggestions but reserved his decision on the question of compensation. He did not favour monetary compensation, partly because some of those in the Upper Bazaar were unauthorised squatters and partly because others were keepers of brothels and gaming houses who ought to be got rid of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206599, "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-1972", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "TRADITIONAL CHINESE REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE\n\n141\n\nencircled by a passageway. Within the central courtyard there are two narrow, rectangular one-storeyed buildings for the pigs and chickens and the privy. At the far end of the main axis is the ancestral hall. On the outer circle of the building there are the kitchens and cattle pens. There are three storeys to this dwelling. Again, the second floor is for storage and the third is for living. This time the house is facing west which is perhaps because of the surrounding land and was the decision of the local geomancers. In front of the house there is a river encircling the site and the house is protected on one side by a mass of pine trees. Although the front door faces west, the windows on the top floor face only south, thus allowing the auspicious, and cooling, winds to blow in. The outside wall is made of loess mixed with limestone, and with the grey roof, the green pines and the river below, the entire setting is one of warmth and beauty.\n\nThe next house21 is a more complicated version of the last example. The differences are mostly in size and number. There is a central axis beginning at the front door with a southern orientation. In the middle of the gatehouse there is a small courtyard. In the center of the complex is the principal courtyard, around which there are several reception rooms for guests. At the far side of the courtyard is the main hall, behind which there is another courtyard. Finally, one reaches the ancestral hall at the back. Along the outer wall there are numerous kitchens. There also is a secondary east-west axis running horizontally from side gate to side gate. These gates were built for easy access to the mills which frequently are found in Hakka settlements. These mills provide the employment and means of support for such a self-contained, independent group. From an interior view of the house, one can see the extreme height of the outer wall in comparison to the inner circle. The upper floors are used for the living quarters, which are entered through balconies. The windows, again, are only on the upper levels where the people live. The whole complex is built to keep the outside world out and to tie the community together in a living and working environment.\n\nIn the provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung there is a distinct type of society. The area is more heterogeneous and is divided by many dialects. \"The villages of the provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung are compact. Many of them are communities composed of the\n\n* See also Fig. 4: also Plates 13-14.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207815, "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "188\n\nMICHAEL SMITHIES\n\nthe minority dances like those the repetitious groupings of the Karen, but in the pwe, a complicated form of popular opera where the narrative of a traditional story is intertwined with a modern play which, reaching its end about two or three in the morning, then reverts to the rest of the pwe story. Pwe has everything for the villager wishing to take his mind off current cares, for it includes love songs, stories of handsome princes chasing after princesses who can wiggle their bottoms, often in contrary directions, with regal exquisiteness, and the strident orchestra gives the appropriate support to the stage. Mandalay is the great centre for pwe activities.\n\nThe Mon theme can be resumed in Thailand by a visit to Nakorn Pathom, a few hours drive from the city. Like Pegu, Nakorn Pathom is an ancient Mon centre, called Davaravati in Siam, and is thought to date from the 5th century. Just before arriving at the modern city, which was established in the 19th century, is the Phra Pathone; little remains of the original stupa which is probably the oldest Buddhist monument in Thailand. Nearby a kind of grotto has recently been erected by a deceased monk into which are inserted heads and objects found in the temple grounds; they are nearly all Davaravati period and some Buddha heads are of much beauty. Not far from this is the unimpressive brick remains of Wat Chulapathone which has however yielded considerable artistic riches in the form of terracotta bas-reliefs which were originally placed around its base. These illustrate Mon versions of the Jataka tales and are to be seen in the new museum to the south of the giant chodi in the town. Wat Pramane is a much-excavated brick ruin to the south of the city giving but a faint idea of its early importance. But the chief pride is the 19th century stupa erected over the original stupa that was Phra Pathom. The work of building the enormous tiled cupola was started by King Mongut, who discovered the original stupa when still a monk, and was continued by his son Chulalongkorn. The stupa may be higher than the Shwe-dagon in Rangoon but it cannot begin to compare in interest. At its base, on the upper terrace, are twenty-four small turrets with bronze bells for the faithful to ring. The projecting chapel to the north contains a venerated statue in the Sukhotai style, and in a detached prayer hall to the east is an excellent Davaravati stone Buddha seated in the European fashion. Also of interest in Nakorn Pathom is the Sanam Chan palace built by King Vachiravuðh", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208884, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "18\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nmain altar, with a further three altars down the side walls. In the centre, a long altar divides the upper part of the hall from the lower. A side hall to the west, dedicated to one goddess, is also used as a workshop for the construction of paper items to be burnt in ceremonies for the dead. Behind this side hall is a courtyard beyond which is a separate hall containing three more altars. To the east of the main hall is a secondary hall, dedicated, not altogether surprisingly even in a traditional temple, to the Buddhist Trinity. This hall contains just the one large altar and behind it are the living quarters for the staff.\n\nSome traditional temples have had a secondary temple built alongside, as an annex or as a separate temple dedicated to a particular deity, and many traditional temples nowadays have had windows knocked into the outside walls, particularly into the rooms in which the keeper and his family reside.\n\nIn villages and hamlets there are two types of temple. The first is the small, often single-room popular folk religion temple or shrine, of the kind we have described above, in which one or two major deities are depicted on the main altar. The second, the clan ancestral hall or temple, may be a comparatively large complex of halls and rooms, the main hall of which contains, by seniority, serried rows of ancestral tablets of the most senior members of the family, the public ancestors of each generation back twenty or more generations.\n\nVillage temples, be they traditional folk religion or clan temples, are more than just religious establishments where prayers and offerings may be made. Side halls and rooms are used as the village storehouse for items like the old rice winnower, large tables and clan crockery*, as the village school, the games room and as the civic and medical centre. They also frequently are homes for one or two of the village needy.\n\nMost walled villages in the New Territories have a very small single-hall folk religion temple called a Shen Ting (神廳), dedicated to one of the national or local heroes (such as Guan Di or Hou Wang) situated in the north wall, facing south, and located at the opposite end of the main lane which bisects the village from the main gate. In most walled villages too, the Tu Di Gong (the Earth...\n\n*\n\nLineage or village properties that can be borrowed by families on festive occasions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209980, "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": 239, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "217\n\nwas great and must have left them with little time or money to spare for their ruined temple. Finally, and almost certainly the most seriously, the influx of a new population, and immense schemes of redevelopment completely altered the generally rural background of village and market town life that still characterised pre-war East Kowloon.\n\nThus, in the Tung Shan Temple we can see a temple, founded for purely rural reasons slowly growing until it became the predominant community temple of the whole of rural East Kowloon. During this period its management changed from a purely private, clan-based system to a typical community temple structure of committee members and chairman of a type typical not only of the rural community temples in the rest of the New Territories but also of those in urban Hong Kong at this date.\n\nFounded in a rural community this temple could, and did, develop both physically and in its management structure to reflect the needs of that community. It could not, however, survive the complete destruction of that community, and its ruination directly reflects the collapse of its founding community in the face of massive urbanisation, and the establishment of the new urban communities created by that urbanisation. The new urban communities have formed their own shrines, and their flourishing condition, alongside the continued ruin of the main temple of the defunct rural community, show more clearly than anything else can the essentially community basis of the temples of this area and their management groups.\n\nNOTES\n\nIn the 1904 Block Crown Lease for Survey District No. 3, New Kowloon, the ownership is recorded in the monk's name Shing Kin (Hsing Star Bridge) and the property is listed under Lot 1101 as temple 0.7 acres, house 0.2 acres, and potato ground 0.33 acres. An entry \"Kwun Yam Temple, Ngau Chi Wan\" had been crossed out by the Assistant Land Officer who recommended that a lease for the temple buildings and site be given to the Registrar General, 28 April 1904.\n\nFrom south-east Kowloon, Ngau Tau Kok and Cha Kwo Ling; from east Kowloon, Ngau Chi Wan, Ping Shek, Sha Tei Yuen, Upper and Lower Yuen Ling and Chu Shi Liu; from central Kowloon, Tai Hom, Po Kong, Nga Tsin Wai, Upper and Lower Sha Po, Nga Tsin Long and Kak Hang; from Kowloon City, the commercial areas, Sai Tau, Tung Tau and Hoklo Village.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213102, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "16 Sham Chum Tsuen\n\nFerry\n\nDe Weng Tau Street\n\nTa Yue Tin\n\nTa Pang\n\nUpper Street\n\nUpper Street\n\nLower (Main) Street\n\nMarket\n\nTower\n\nOld Street\n\nUpper Earthgod\n\nBabault's House\n\nLower East Gate\n\nMap 2: Sha Tau Kok (Tung Wo) Market, 1853\n\nSha Tau Kok (Tung Wo) Market\n\n1853\n\n* 220 40\n\n0\n\nTower\n\n152", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213103, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "153\n\nwas dangerously exposed to storms behind low and flimsy buns. This little temple almost certainly dates from the original reclamation for the saltpans.\n\nThe ferry pier and the Tin Hau Temple were built on the foreshore, about 200 yards from the town proper. Chan Hip-tsun and the other elders of the Shap Yeuk had designed the town proper as an approximately square walled enclosure, with two east-west streets, joined by a north-south street somewhat east of the centre of the town.* The town had four gates, two each to the east and the west. The most important was the Upper East Gate, which faced the fine three-span granite bridge built by the Shap Yeuk over the often violent waters of the Sha Tau Kok River,\n\nThe Shap Yeuk had built the walls and roads of their new market, but the shop units were built by investors from villages of the Shap Yeuk area willing to take them up. These investors then built over their lot, from the road back to the already completed wall.\n\nOnce the Shap Yeuk had succeeded in their political aims of freeing their district from the influence of outsiders, and had founded their market and its temple, they thereafter ran the district and market through the Council of the Shap Yeuk (the Tung Wo Kuk, \"The Council for Peace in the East\"). The day-to-day management of the market was handled by a Headman, appointed by the Tung Wo Kuk. He adjudicated minor disputes, and had at his disposal certain trust funds, and the income from the ferry tender, and from rent of the town weigh-beam. He let tenders to sweep the streets (the street-sweeper was expected to reimburse himself from the sale of the wastes as fertiliser), and supervised the Town Watch, recruited from youngsters of the surrounding villages, whose job was to maintain order, especially at night. The Council of the Shap Yeuk, the Headman, and the Town Watch, are all mentioned by the Basel missionaries in the 1850s, and there can be no doubt that the management structure of the town and district was in place from the first foundation of the town.\n\nThe market founded by the Shap Yeuk was called by them Tung Wo Market, “Eastern Peace Market”, but it was more usually\n\n1\n\n* See Map 2, taken from a map of 1853 prepared by the Basel missionaries.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213104, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "154\n\ncalled Sha Tau Kok, (, \"Sand-dune Point\") from its location amidst the sand-dunes,21 The market was quickly successful. In 1849 it was said by a missionary to be 'bustling with business', and by 1853 it had 50 shops operating.22\n\nIn 1853, perhaps 20 years after the market's foundation, there were still two areas within the walls not yet developed - \"pig market\" and an area just inside the Lower East Gate - and there had been no development outside the walls. Nonetheless, with 50 established shops, the town was clearly already flourishing. In 1854, however, the development of the town suffered a rude shock, when irregular troops claiming to be Taipings came close enough to the town for cannon-fire to be heard. The town seems to have been temporarily almost deserted in the face of this threat.23\n\nAfter 1854, however, the town seems to have entered a period of steadily increasing prosperity. Some when soon after 1854 further defences, in the form of a tall gun-tower, were added to the Upper East Gate, to cover the bridge. Guns were placed there, on the top floor.\n\nProbably at about the same time as the building of the gun-tower, the Shap Yeuk built a large and prestigious school, outside the Upper East Gate. This school consisted of two courtyards, one behind the other, and must always have required several teachers, as was certainly the case in the 1920s. The aim of the Shap Yeuk elders in founding this school was to ensure that the district as a whole had at least one high standard school, where education at a higher level than could be provided in the individual village schools could be had. That the school was a district school was shown by its name: the Tung Wo School. To ensure that boys from throughout the district could study there, it had cocklofts to allow boys to board at need. The foundation of the school also raised the prestige of the Shap Yeuk,24\n\nAt the back of the school a third courtyard contained a new Man Mo Temple, where the elders of the Shap Yeuk would worship twice a year. The side-hall of this temple to the one side was a \"Hero Shrine\" where the spirits of certain unclaimed dead, who had been buried by the Shap Yeuk in a communal grave, were worshipped.25 The side-hall to the other side was the Shap Yeuk Meeting Hall and office. The elders met here to adjudicate disputes, and to hold formal meetings: a meeting of 'several hundred' elders is recorded here in 1899.26 A second gun-tower was added", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213120, "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": 188, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "170\n\nshop on the ground floor, and a residential unit above, often with a cockloft above that, and a tiny yard at the back, backing onto an alley which separated the rebuilt shops from the rest of Upper and Lower Streets, where the shops remained as before, facing onto those streets. The shops on the western side of Wang Tau Street were also built as shop-houses. There were about 40 shop-houses in this upper part of Wang Tau Street in 1925. Most of the other shops in Upper and Lower Streets had also been rebuilt as shop-houses by 1925.\n\n58\n\nIn 1853, the Basel missionaries had found all the shops in the town single-storey structures, usually consisting of two buildings separated by a courtyard, and often with a yard at the back. These premises functioned as shops only, but not as permanent family residences. At that date, while the shop-owner and his staff usually slept in the shop in pallets in the shop cocklofts, their families remained at home in the ancestral village. By 1925, however, only the shops in the less-frequented parts of town remained as single-storey buildings, elsewhere they had been replaced by shop-houses. This move away from single storey units to shop-houses seems to have been a frequent development in the region in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: after 1898, descriptions of New Territories market towns normally refer to shop-houses in the main shopping areas, and single-storey structures elsewhere in the towns.\n\nThis redevelopment of the shops at the western ends of Upper and Lower Streets as shop-houses facing into Wang Tau Street led to the removal of the old Upper and Lower Gates. The East Gates, however, especially the Upper East Gate, remained.\n\nIt is likely that this move of the economic centre of the market, from Lower (Main) Street to Wang Tau Street had begun before 1898. At least three of the shops recorded on the 1894 tablet recording donations to the rebuilding of the temple at Shan Tsui39 were, in 1925, in the upper section of Wang Tau Street between Upper and Lower Streets. Almost certainly they did not all move between 1898 and 1925 from sites within the walls to sites outside - the most likely scenario is that they were already on their 1925 sites in 1894, and that, therefore, the move towards Wang Tau Street had begun somewhen between 1853 and 1894, and therefore arose from the steady increase in the town's prosperity in the later nineteenth century, and was thus not a response to the changes in the town's economic fortunes following the marking out of the new frontier in 1898.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213132, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "182\n\nhave some to sell. Fruit was sold on street, but was not always available.76 Occasionally, however, a mountainside villager might bring in a load of the little bitter mountain larch berries in the autumn, or rose-myrtle fruit, and the lowland villages sometimes had Wong Pei or Lung Ngan. Ginger flowers in the summer, from the lowland villages, and New Year Bell-flowers and other New Year plants from the mountainside villages, were also traded.\n\nThe full-time, professional, hawkers were of two types: those who normally traded in the town, and those who normally traded from the town through the surrounding villages. Within the town, there were a few permanent cooked-food hawkers who sold fried noodles - often dogmeat noodles - from charcoal stoves carried through the streets. These hawkers sometimes carried their wares through the nearer surrounding villages, as well. There were a few knife-sharpeners who worked in the same way. There were also a few sweet sellers who hawked sweets through the town and the nearer villages: these were mostly connected with the sweet-shops in the town.\n\nThere was only one good well in the town, outside the Upper East Gate. Within the town there were a number of small backyard wells, but these were polluted and brackish. They were not fit for drinking from, and were used for getting washing water. However, the wine-makers in the town used these backyard wells for the water they made their wine with. The shopowners did not, usually, draw their own drinking water. A number of women from the nearby villages made a living by drawing water and carrying it around the town, selling a load for a few cash. These women were called \"Water-women\" (水婦).\n\nWithin the market district there were a number of full-time hawkers who carried wares from the town around the villages. These did not usually carry general goods, nor did they usually fulfill orders from villagers unwilling to go to market. 'Anyone who wanted something had to walk to town to get it: there was no other way, no-one would carry anything for you.\" However, there were things which the ordinary village woman could not carry, and these were brought by the hawkers. Thus, every family needed a few large, heavy, earthenware water-pots and rice-jars. These were cumbersome and awkward even to lift, let alone carry over the mountains, where a single slip would cause them to smash. Hawkers brought these, and similar wares, around the villages. Wares unavailable", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213144, "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "194\n\n14 The oldest surviving dated object is the bell, of 1922 (D Faure, A Ng B Luk, F. M. Xianggang Beiming Huabian, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, Urban Council, Hong Kong, Vol 3, p 733) The temple, however, appears in the Block Crown Lease (1905), and the local villagers believe it is old\n\n15 The Sam Heung villagers have recently elected a tablet at the resited replacement temple, stating that the temple was first built in the Chia Ch'ing reign (1796-1820), and that the Ta Tsiu was instituted as soon as the temple was built While the grounds for these statements are not given, they are reasonable, and probably correct, although a date late in the reign is likely\n\n16 D Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op cit. p 107\n\n17\n\nA copy of this genealogy is in the collection of New Territories historical documents at United College, Chinese University of Hong Kong I am indebted to Dr D Faure for drawing my attention to this reference\n\nOur information on mid-nineteenth century Sha Tau Kok comes primarily from documents of the Basel Mission, which had a Mission Station in the town 1849-1854, and whose missionaries regularly visited it in the late nineteenth century The missionaries rented four houses from a local village elder, near the western end of Upper Street, backing onto the wall The missionaries drew a map of the town in 1853, plans of typical shop units in 1849 and 1853, and wrote a long description of the town and district in 1853 – Map 2 is a re-drawing of the missionaries' map of 1853, corrected by measurements taken from the 1924 aerial photograph of the town (13 November 1924 original in the Department of Geography, University of Hong Kong) The written description of 1853 is Basel Mission archive, doc Al-2, Nr 44, “Half-Yearly Report of the missionary Rev P Winnes, from 1st January to 1st July 1853\", printed in translation in P H. Hase. \"Sha Tau Kok in 1853”, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol 30, 1990, pp 281-297 See PH Hase, \"The Alliance of Ten\", op cit, for redrawings of the plans of mid-nineteenth century shop units, and also for a drawing of a cross-section of such a shop unit I am indebted to Rev Carl Smith for drawing my attention to the importance of the Basel Mission documents to the history of Sha Tau Kok, and for allowing me to use his transcripts and notes I would also like to thank Mrs W Haas, and the staff of the Basel Mission archive in the preparation of this article\n\n19 The Tung Wo Kuk was so named in direct emulation of the older Punti Council in Sham Chun, which was also known as \"The Council for Peace in the East\", PA, Tung Ping Kuk - the choice of the name Tung Wo Kuk must be seen, in these circumstances, as a marked sign of local pride and self-confidence\n\n20 See n 11\n\n21\n\nThe villagers believe that the name Sha Tau Kok is taken from a poem by a Ch'ing official who passed by and was so impressed by the beauty of the sun rising above the sand-dunes that he wrote a poem on it ADV AEAA. \"The sun rises from the sand-dunes the moon hangs where land and ocean meet\" I have heard this story from a Sheung Wo Hang elder, and see also Shatoulaode quwer xuanguanbu (Sha...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213486, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "50 \n\nto the new comers? I have come up with four logical reasons: \n\n(1) In the actor's psychology, his role on the stage is to entertain, and as long as he can keep the audience amused, everything will be O.K. Sometimes, he forgets, as when he puts his whims and fantasies into practice, and he throws logic out of the window. \n\n(2) The theatrical people may be inclined to think that the audience's mind cannot be rushed. The action has to be brought about in such a way that they can gradually grasp the meaning and importance of the story being told. \n\n(3) One way to highlight the importance of the story is to prolong the time of the fighting scene. In other words, the more you fight, the more important that fight will be. \n\nThings can turn sour if you run counter with this theme. Take, for instance, the following example which amply proves my point: \n\nIn the play \"Jie Dong Feng\" (f) which literally means \"Praying For The East Wind\", people spend hours acting out the story that leads to the \"The Battle Of The Red Cliff” (EZ). The story has it that strategists of both the Wu (R) and the Shu (S) States are scheming how to defeat the mighty Wei State's fleet that was anchored on the upper reach of the Yangtze River. Since the Wu's forces were in the lower reach of the Yangtze River, they needed the \"East Wind\", in gale force, to help them to win. \n\nWell, when the East gale force winds do come, you would expect that thousands upon thousands of soldiers would throw flaming arrows across the sky aimed at the Wei's fleet, which was tricked to join together with iron chains by internal spies. Then, when the fleet was destroyed and the smoldering ships were cold enough to board, the Wu and Shu strategists would send soldiers to mop up and put a finishing touch to it. \n\nNothing of the sort happened! What they did was to send a couple of men, with maybe two dozen arrows (not even the flame carrying ones), and throw them in the direction of the enemy. Before you even knew it, the war was over! What an anticlimax! So everyone who sat", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214641, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "20 \n\nand the upper end of the Market (the Ng clan Ancestral Hall stood next to this road): this path went through the scattered houses of Tung Tau Village. To the south went a path which led to Sha Po Village, the lower end of the Market (where most of the shops owned by Nga Tsin Wai people were), and on to the pier. Of these, the path from the South-East Gate and on to Sha Tin Pass and the pier at Yuen Chau Kok was of major importance.\n\nThe Hong Kong Government did a traffic survey at Sha Tin Pass in late 1904, in an attempt to consider the profitability of the Railway then under planning20, 600 persons a day were recorded as crossing this pass, 280 of them \"carrying goods\" (a good deal of this trade was of fresh fish from Tolo Harbour being carried for sale at Kowloon City Market, and through the Market on to Hong Kong). This was a very summary and unsophisticated survey, and probably under-estimates the traffic (it took no account of the higher numbers passing on Kowloon City market days, and it is unlikely to have been undertaken from dawn to dusk), but still suggests very heavy traffic (even as it stands, it implies someone crossing the pass every daylight minute). The \"goods carried” would have been carried in the standard loads of 75 catties (100 pounds), and hence at least 12½ tons of goods were being man-handled over the pass every day at that date.\n\nBefore the opening of the Railway in 1912, wealthy men would hire sedan chairs and coolies to carry them over the passes. Sha Tin village elders remember the Tai Wai man who was, before 1898, a clerk in the Sub-Magistracy at Kowloon City, and who travelled to and fro by sedan chair, and remember also that, if a villager called a doctor from Kowloon City to visit them, and then the doctor would insist on being carried over the mountains in a chair. All these would have passed under the walls of Nga Tsin Wai.\n\nThis constant heavy traffic along the paths around the village brought business to Nga Tsin Wai. Cakes (Cha Kwo), and tea could be sold to passers-by, and also fruit and so forth. It is not known if any of the Nga Tsin Wai villagers worked as chair-coolies - it is perhaps more likely that the chair-coolies mostly lived in the Market - but there can be no doubt that all this traffic brought a lot of business the way of the village.\n\nJ", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214644, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "were also to be found in Ta Kwu Leng and Ma Tau Wai.\n\n23\n\nIt will be seen that Kowloon City, Kowloon Market, and the suburban villages around them, apart from Sha Po, (that is, Tung Tau, Sai Tau, Hau Wong, and Hoklo Villages) had no part in the League of Seven. These areas were considered to fall immediately under the control of the Sub-Magistrate in Kowloon City, or under the control of the Kowloon Market Kaifong. Apart from these places, the League of Seven covered all the area around Kowloon City.\n\nThe Kowloon City and Kowloon Market areas worshipped at the Hau Wong Temple outside the Walled City, and did not worship at the Nga Tsin Wai Tin Hau Temple. There was a Tin Hau Temple at Sha Po where the residents in the Market also worshipped. Ma Tau Wai had a temple of its own: this was to Pak Tai, worshipped under the title Sheung Tai (7). Only the gate pillars of this temple survive today, in the Lomond Road Garden.\n\nTo the east of the area of the League of Seven was the large and ancient village of Po Kong, belonging to the Lam (*) clan. Po Kong never joined the League of Seven. Po Kong had its own temple (it was dedicated to Tin Hau), and the Po Kong people did not go to the Tin Hau Temple at Nga Tsin Wai. Chuk Yuen and Sha Tei Yuen were genealogically connected with Po Kong. According to the Nga Tsin Wai elders, the villages of Po Kong, Chuk Yuen, Sha Tei Yuen, Nga Yiu Tau, Ngau Chi Wan (including its \"Mau Tsuen” of Pak Uk Tsai, or Ping Shek), and Yuen Ling (both the Upper and Lower Villages) formed an inter-village alliance of their own, the Six Villages Alliance (AM). Ngau Chi Wan had its own temple, to the Sam Shan Kwok Wong - this temple still survives. According to Ngau Chi Wan village elders, there was no Six Villages' Ta Tsiu, but Ngau Chi Wan conducted these rituals on its own every ten years. Ngau Chi Wan also held the She (£) feast before their higher earth god, every year, when every family made an offering of food, which later formed the basis of the communal feast. Ngau Chi Wan was, clearly, rather independent where the worship of the deities was concerned, and may well have been rather less well-integrated into the Six Villages than the villages closer to Po Kong. Ngau Chi Wan was a Hakka village, founded in the very early eighteenth century. It was founded by the Lau (1) clan, but the To (†), Yeung (), Tsang (4), and Yip () clans joined the Laus during the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214702, "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": 117, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "Kak Hang\n\nPo Kong, Sha Tin Pass,\n\nYaen Chru Kok, Tai Po\n\nSha Tei Yoen\n\nFlekkda\n\nTiu Sam and Tai Wai\n\nFields\n\nCL Courtyard\n\nLatrines\n\nMetres\n\nFluids\n\nRiver\n\nMoat\n\nSEBO SERIA\n\nThe Has Terapie\n\nEntrance Causeway, and Gate,\n\nwith Guard Chamber Over\n\nMont\n\nWall\n\n日\n\nWall\n\nMAP 2\n\nNga Tsin Wai in 1902\n\nFlekk\n\nSouth-East Gate of Walled City\n\n100\n\nLower Sha Po and Pier\n\nFielde\n\nUpper Sha Po\n\nNg Clan Ancestral Hall (Village School)\n\n+7\n\nCL\n\nD\n\n81\n\n24-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215805, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "37\n\nforces to the north would tire themselves out trying to link up with the beachhead. Should the Chinese collapse in the face of a Japanese attack, then an Allied campaign to recapture Hong Kong would be jeopardized.\n\nJapan had an incentive to retain Hong Kong. Besides being a part of Japanese-held China, Hong Kong also lay just outside Japan's Inner Zone. This zone included Japan Proper, Korea, Manchuria, North China, Formosa, the Pescadores, the Ryukyus, and the Japanese half of Sakhalin Island. Well before the war, the British had already gained an appreciation that a Hong Kong in Japanese hands would augment the defence of the Inner Zone. Moreover, Hong Kong helped guard Japan's LoC to points west and her oil supplies in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese could still afford to trade space for time by forfeiting many other parts of their Pacific empire to the Allies, but they were certain to defend their Inner Zone and the positions that anchored their LoC to and from it with the utmost vigour. If the Japanese lost Hong Kong, this would provide hope to people living under Japanese rule elsewhere, while it would send a message to the Japanese people that the war was proceeding unfavourably for them.\n\nBy late 1943, the Allies had gained the upper hand over the Japanese in the Pacific. It was the Allies who could dictate where the next move would fall. As China was still in the game, Allied planners began to take a closer look at the feasibility of a Hong Kong campaign. One opponent the Allies couldn't overcome, however, was Mother Nature, so heed was paid to Hong Kong's weather and how it could affect an Allied campaign there.\n\nA timeless enemy\n\nNature at its cruellest is a phenomenon that humanity's best efforts still cannot match. Even during a high-technology conflict like World War II, the weather proved to be as indomitable a nemesis as it had been throughout the history of war.\n\nWith World War II being fought over a greater expanse of the planet than any other war in history, its participants had to endure extreme variations in the weather, like the freezing cold of the Arctic and the Soviet Union to the sweltering heat of New Guinea, or the oppressive humidity of the South Pacific to the barren aridity of North", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]