[ { "id": 205489, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "26\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY\n\nmy knowledge of Hong Kong, to attract mainly men today (as lay members at least) and it may well have been a religion more popular with men as far as individual practices are concerned in traditional times also.\n\nBut there is one branch of Taoism not centred on monastic life: its members are (and were traditionally) professional priests living in their own homes, and not vegetarian or celibate. Like the Buddhist clerics, they are recruited through masters, have recorded genealogies (some of which I have seen in Singapore) and are grouped in pseudo-kinship relations with others, this relationship often forming the basis for teams performing rituals (as with the Buddhists). Such priests have often been part-time practitioners in the rural area, working when not acting in their priestly capacity, in generally poorly rewarded and low status occupations.\n\nSome of the main activities of such priests in village life were the provision of rituals and ritual information for ordinary people and related to domestic affairs and problems in the main. They were also in demand from mutual aid associations using religious elements, those connected with trades and crafts for example, for conducting the periodic ballots for election of officers and participating in rituals during their festivals to patron gods; and they may have had a role also in promoting and organizing religious cults for villagers, perhaps some of those taking place in temples dedicated to popular gods. It seems unlikely, however, that they would figure significantly in any organization embracing both scholarly and non-scholarly members of rural society.\n\nThere were also certain Taoist societies having no connexion with priests of this kind and sometimes found at the village level. Some of those I have investigated overseas show in their records a line of descent through leaders going back to some Taoist sage, and they have their own preachers and organizers. Some concentrate on improving health and curing disease and drug addiction.32 The term Taoist and also Buddhist \"society\" or sect is often used rather loosely in the literature, however, to cover organizations using elements from such religions, but which were in fact syncretic. Some of these bodies were regarded as highly heretical by the State and known as \"left doors\". They occasionally called themselves Taoist or Buddhist to escape attention.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205642, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 184, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "The Library\n\n179\n\nof the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society up to 20th May, 1968, is copied from the catalogue. A list of the other contents of the library, including periodicals, scrolls, tape-recordings, and other materials will be compiled and published in due course. It is also intended to issue annual supplements to the list of books and periodicals.\n\nLIST OF BOOKS\n\n'ABD ALLAH IBN 'ABD AL-KADIR, Munshi.\n\nThe voyage of Abdullah; a translation from the Malay, by A. E. Coope, with notes and appendices. Singapore, Malaya Publ. House, 1949.\n\nABEL, Clarke.\n\nNarrative of a journey in the interior of China, and of a voyage to and from that country, in the years 1816 and 1817; containing an account of the most interesting transactions of Lord Amherst's embassy to the court of Pekin... London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1819.\n\nADAMS, Arthur.\n\nTravels of a naturalist in Japan and Manchuria. London, Hurst and Blackett, 1870.\n\nALEXEIEV, Basil M.\n\nThe Chinese gods of wealth: a lecture delivered at the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, on 26th March, 1926. [London] School of Oriental Studies, 1928.\n\nALLEY, Rewi\n\nPeking opera: an introduction through pictures by Eva Siao and text by Rewi Alley. Peking, New World P., 1957.\n\nANDERSON, Æneas.\n\nA narrative of the British embassy to China in the years 1792, 1793 and 1794... London, Debrett, 1795.\n\nARLINGTON, L. C.\n\nChinese women's coiffure. [Shanghai, China Society of Science and Arts, 1929]\n\nReprinted from the China journal, v.11, 1929, pp. 4-10, 69-76 and 119-126. Presentation copy signed by the author.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206269, "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-1971", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "80\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nto the preservation of the national integrity; uneasy under the restraint of law and unscrupulous of the means by which they live, they abandon without hesitation their hearths and household gods, their birthright and their father's tombs, to wander, unrespected, whither gain may call them. The unsettled state of the Colony, and the vast amount of crime during its infancy afford abundant proof of the demoralizing effects of their presence... (More recently) Hong Kong has been invested by numbers of the Triad Society, the members of which under shelter of a political maxim ‘overturn the Tsing... and restore the Ming' perpetuate the grossest enormities. I have satisfied myself that most of the burglaries have been planned and attempted by members of this dangerous association.3\n\nFearon mentions in his report a person named Aqui as the most influential and wealthy of the native residents. He had rapidly risen from the lowly status of a bum-boatman. William Tarrant, an early historian of Hong Kong who was well acquainted with the early days, writing in 1861 comments that\n\n— there were some curious fish among the earlier native settlers; the leader of them is still living in Victoria, Loo Aqui, alias See Mun King. If all reports be true, Aqui was monarch of all he surveyed on the water about Hong Kong prior to our taking possession — that is to say, he was the Sea King who took toll from all that passed his squadron. This is of course rumour only; and we but mention it to say that the presence of Aqui on the island had much to do in keeping people of better character from settling, or even visiting the place.+\n\nGeorge Smith, the future Bishop of Victoria, visited Hong Kong in 1844 and gives an equally critical description of Aqui's activities.\n\nHe possesses about fifty houses in the bazaar, and lives on the rent, in a style much above the generality of the Chinese settlers, who are commonly composed of the refuse of the neighbouring mainland. During the war, Aqui acted as purveyor of provisions to the British armament and acquired some wealth. After the peace, he was at first afraid to return to the mainland, lest he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206634, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "176\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\ncyclical characters of the year.\" Hodous appears either to be confusing T'ai Sui and Kou Mang, or to be giving T'ai Sui yet another alias.\n\nIn T'aip'ing in Malaya two images of mud bulls are to be seen standing on a pile of paper hell money on the altar beside T'ai Sui. The reason for their inclusion on the altar was not known by the temple keeper nor by the devotees who said that they had always been in that position as far back as anyone could recall. (See Plate 15).\n\nThe Rev. Wm Milne4 in Ningpo in the mid 1840s noted \"the festival of the Beating in of Spring\" when on the first day of spring the Chief Magistrate of the city beat the \"god of spring\", a multi-coloured paper ox, which was then torn to pieces by the crowd, for luck. Milne claimed to have seen this same ceremony elsewhere in Central China, and said that in some districts the bull is made of mud. “The colouring varies as laid down in the Peking annual book of ceremonies. The variations in colours such as red horns, black tail and feet, white body, blue head and neck are regarded as prognosticating the portents of the coming year. The amount of black signifies sickness, blue winds, white rain and floods, red fire and yellow the fruits of the earth. There are also a number of smaller mud oxen mainly sold for household good fortune.”\n\nThe Rev. Milne also reported that “the \"god of spring\" was seen in the shape of a youthful human image, the son of an early Emperor. He too is attired in a fashion prophetic of the fortune of the coming year: bareheaded predicted cold weather, and white robe augurs a dry year etc.\" This youthful image is almost certainly T'ai Sui. In all temples where he was observed in the \"scroll or bell-holding\" two-armed version, his image was seen very frequently to be balanced on wads, sometimes very high wads, of hell money. This is the paper money purchased from temple keepers to be burnt by devotees for the use of deceased members of the family in the Underworld. This custom is usually only to be seen in temples under wealth gods, but in the case of T'ai Sui, the wads are offerings to T'ai Sui for protection and not for transmission by burning to deceased relatives. Shyrock in his Temples of Anking says hell money is burnt for use by ancestors and is never presented to Gods. It would appear to be otherwise in Central and South China.\n\n4 Milne, W. C., Life in China (London, Routledge, 1857).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207899, "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": 287, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "272\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTo assist in this side of the Hospital's services it maintained a Coffin Depository. The present one is at Sandy Bay. Perhaps at some future date the Society will arrange a visit to it.\n\nWe have noted that General Rule No. 11 begins with the statement, \"The Hospital is not for the purpose of worshipping gods\". This statement, however did not prevent the Hospital from performing many functions that had religious significance.\n\nThe Social Significance of Tung Wah\n\n \n Societies tend to organize social groups in which membership confers a prestige generally recognized by the community. Qualifications for membership in such groups may vary. In traditional China the system of honorary degrees based on achievement in literary examinations and on subsequent official service created an elite class. In Hong Kong this traditional method of acquiring prestige status was replaced by membership of certain Chinese community organizations — and later official Government bodies and committees. Wealth was an important qualification for election or appointment to these status conferring bodies, but wealth was expected to be accompanied by a concern for the general welfare of the community. In commenting on the Tung Wah Committee, the American Consul in a despatch to the U.S. Secretary of State in 1875 says that \"the Association is largely composed of, and is controlled by, rich and retired Chinese merchants, who are directing themselves to morals, charity and benevolence.”\n \n\nIn the early period of Hong Kong history the Temple Committee was the major organization within the Chinese community conferring prestige. As we have noted, the Tung Wah Hospital Committee eventually replaced the Man Mo Temple Committee. It also took over its prestige conferring function. The emergence of a Chinese elite as represented by the Tung Wah Committee is discussed in my article in JHKBRAS, 11 (1971), pp. 74-115. This social function of Tung Wah is also set forth in the article by H.J. Lethbridge mentioned at the beginning of these notes.\n\nAccording to a statement made by \"a member of the Chinese Community\" in a letter to the editor of the China Mail in 1875, the recognition given to the members of the Committee rested upon popular vote by the Chinese community, and “as Government has no means of knowing who is most influential or most respectable among the Chinese, it begins to regard the ballot as the basis of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208063, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "86 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\nIt is generally understood that the \"spirits who counter or cope with misfortunes”, and whose names appear on the green sheet of paper, are the main occupants of the Under Altar and others who share occupancy are there on sufferance. Only two of the five or seven spirits of the Under Altar appear in image form, the Local Wealth God and the Five Demons. The remainder are represented only as titles listed in columns. \n\nThe green sheet of paper on which the Under Altar spirits are listed is either pasted, or framed and hung, on the rear wall of the Under Altar. The titles, apart from the two outside ones which are standard, can be in any order. The local Wealth God, however, seems most frequently to be the title in the centre column. The lists which are very similar on both sides of the Pearl River estuary, are as follows: \n\nRight hand column: \n\nLeft hand column: \n\nCentre column: \n\n\"The Boy who averts calamities (or suffering) on the right\" (右使化難童郎) or (右使化難童郎) \n\n\"The Boy who averts misfortune on the left\"(左便消災童郎) \n\nThe Local Wealth God who distinguishes right from wrong both in the Human and Under Worlds (He has the title of \"Cheng Chen\") (正真財君) \n\nThe other columns are as follows: \n\nThe Two Great Spirit Generals who avert misfortune(冰消瓦解二大神將) The Five Demons who bring fortune (五鬼郎君運財童子) \n\nThe Two Gods of Mourning (二位客星君) \n\nThe White Ape (Monkey), Star God, the Prince of the Palace of the East (東宮太子白猿(猴)星君) \n\nMarshal Yin, The King of Thunder who averts the hundred sufferings/calamities (百解雷王殷大元帥)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208064, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n87\n\nOf these eight titles, Marshal Yin, a famous character in mythology, is a God in his own right in the Taoist folk religion pantheon. He is to be seen only in one temple in the heart of rural New Territories in image form, where, unconnected with any Under Altar, he is one of four generals guarding a major deity.\n\nOthers who regularly appear in the Under Altar and are the deities who share the occupancy but in image form, are the Local Wealth God and the White Tiger. Others who occasionally appear on top of, near to, or in the Under Altar include the Green Horse, Marshal Chao and a second demonic figure similar to the Local Wealth God.\n\nThe Local Wealth God (地方財神)\n\nThe major image, sometimes called the Wealth God of the Under Altar (下壇財神) or the spirit of the Location (地方神) is usually alone though very, very occasionally he may be accompanied by a somewhat similar image. A Hong Kong Cantonese writer who lived during the last century, Wu Yen-jen, in the collection “Ch'ing Tai Wu Yen-jen Yu Yen Chi” (清代吳恩仁寓言集) calls this local deity the \"Local Demon\" (地方惡魔), a description which is more honest than the anodyne and unprovocative term \"spirit\" used nowadays.\n\nThe Wealth God of the Location is a gaunt middle-aged man dressed in mourning apparel, ill-fitting robes of sacking (hessian). He has a protruding tongue and a tall dunce's cap bearing the message vertically on the front \"Fortune at one glance\" (一覽生財). His face is haggard, often with tears of blood coursing down his cheeks. Most Local Wealth Gods clutch palm leaf fans in their left hand, whilst others carry either furled umbrellas, wands with tattered edges raised above their heads in their right hands, have their arms full of paper charms, or a string of silver coins strung around their necks. The majority of images are roughly made of folded coloured papers, and bear strips of white cloth as a sign of mourning. One, in Macau, had a hessian veil stretched across the face \"to prevent him from eating worshipper's “luck\"\", so the keeper said!\n\nThe Local Wealth God is located at ground level because he is neither fit nor qualified to stand on the altar. According to a God Carver in Macau, he stands in the Under Altar for the want...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208067, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "90\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\nand in another temple with a carved wooden coiled snake in the middle of the group. In one Macau temple four of the Five Demons have very cheeky, European children's faces. This is because the original heads of the images had been so badly burnt by candle and incense heat that the temple keeper had substituted European doll's heads.\n\nApart from the background sheet of titles and the image of the Local Wealth God and those of the Five Demons already described, there are some five other items and images which may feature in Under Altars. As with every temple disposition there does not appear to be any firm rule as to where or how each image or item should be placed within the altar.\n\nThere are many conventions, but none without the exception. The first group of items consists of wooden or stone images of living animals or creatures, the most popular being cockerels, dogs and snakes. No keeper was prepared to say why these creatures are depicted.\n\nSecondly, there are several Gods whose images are seen in Under Altars in addition to being on normal altars. The most popular and easily the most common of these is Marshal Chao, a Wealth God who is also called the \"Marshal of the Dark Altar,\" Hsuan T'an Chao Kung-ming Yuan Shuai (#). Chao's image is relatively standard, and was very common in temples throughout China. He is a ferocious general, seated astride or seated with a foot on a tiger; or standing on a tiger; with his right hand raised holding a magic whip (a knobbly-bladed sword). He was spotted on one occasion in one temple only with a long folded white strip of paper and a short strip of hessian laid across his head. We will briefly refer again to Chao. Others include Tzu Wei Hsing Chun (***), The Star God of the Planet Venus, and Hua Fen Fu Jen (✯✯✯A), the Powder Maiden (who preserves a girl's beauty). The face of the latter image is coated with cosmetic powder by young girls and she is frequently bedecked with strings of imitation pearls as offerings. The connexion between the Powder Maiden and the rest of the altar escapes explanation, and the answer from temple keepers has been that it is simply custom. There are also numerous other unidentified individual images unconnected with the altar which have been placed there by ignorant temple keepers or worshippers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208069, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "92\n\nK. G. STEVENS\n\n\"White Tiger Disease\" which cannot be diagnosed further, and which can only be cured by offering him expensive propitiation.\n\nThe White Tiger's full title is \"The White Tiger of the Black Altar\" but even though the Wealth God, Hsuan T'an (literally “Black Altar\" and whose name, as we saw above is Chao Kung-ming) is always accompanied by a tiger, no temple keeper has had the courage of his convictions to connect the White Tiger with him, although the connexion seems obvious enough.\n\nWhite Tigers fight evil, destroy demons—particularly sickness demons—and, more mundanely, prevent squabbles and strife between women. Though many temple keepers spoke confidently, they tended to connect the attributes of any one deity with others on the same altar, thus claiming that White Tigers are prayed to stop scandal and rumours, and also prayed to by gamblers who are having a run of bad luck. In former days, so several temple keepers claimed, ritual purification before worshipping the Gods was carried out at the White Tiger Altar, as he was a stellar deity who warded off baneful influences.\n\nOn the day of the Excited Insects, (the 17th of the 1st lunar month, one month before Ch'ing Ming), White Tigers are propitiated by temple-goers, who crowd around them force-feeding them with delicacies known to delight them. These include raw eggs still in their shells, which are rammed willy-nilly into the tiger's mouth together with lumps of white cooked fatty pork, raw liver, chick peas and silver coins. Pork fat is a delicacy beloved of tigers who, according to temple keepers, will not eat beef or fish! One particularly stomach-churning sight was of a temple keeper pushing his fingers into the Tiger's mouth through the mush of raw egg, liver, paper, shell and fatty pork, to recover the coins. For the very poor, a mere smear of pork fat on the lips of the White Tiger is sufficient to bring his aid. Elderly ladies also offer oranges, minute packets of tea and three sticks of incense before the Tiger.\n\nAt the same ceremony devotees burn, or again thrust into the mouths of the White Tigers, dozens of tiny printed paper tigers with yellow and black stripes, folded in half lengthways and filled with cold cooked rice, slivers of raw liver and a few peas. Some of the elderly ladies took the paper tiger cut-outs and removing a shoe walloped the tiny paper tiger unmercifully. Such chastisement is to ensure that gossips and trouble from demonic sources do not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208070, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n93\n\nenter the homes of the beater and her family. (Incidentally, they did the same with the \"small people\" a common man (Hsiao Jen A) who are gossips causing untold trouble. They are depicted on a black-printed charm as a row of men, and represent anyone who bears a grudge or gossips about their neighbours.)\n\nThough Ch'ao Chow and Hoklo temples have no Under Altars, keepers in temples used by these communities claim that other unspecified Hoklo and Ch'ao Chow temples do have them. In practice, however, most have a stone White Tiger, blackened with age, crouching on the floor in front of one of the secondary altars. In one Ch'ao Chow temple, what at first glance could be confusing, were two large and untarnished black and yellow striped tigers seated before the temple's Earth God. According to the watchman, they were normal tigers and not White Tigers, awaiting his orders.\n\nThe Green Horse\n\nThe second is the Green Horse (*) who occasionally has a groom though, rarely, a rider. Not surprisingly the horse actually is green, although it is possibly called so because Liu (green) is a homophone for \"lucky\". In a few temples he is colloquially referred to as the \"Money Horse\". He is to be found in several temples where there is no Under Altar, no White Tiger, and no Local Wealth God. Green Horse stand on their own four legs and are seldom made of a permanent material, though two in Macau and one in Hong Kong are made of what appears to be painted concrete about half life size. Most are coloured paper pasted over a bamboo frame, frequently decorated with tall, gold paper floral crowns and red rosettes.\n\nThe Green Horse is variously offered prayers and incense for assistance in keeping in touch with distant relatives, for bearing petitions to unapproachable Gods, for stopping quarrels and rumours and, according to some, for wealth. Some even refer to the Green Horse as the Protector of Women. Many Green Horses seen in temples are heavily ensnared or trussed with long, fine red (or on very rare occasions, white) cords bound around the forelegs. Occasionally pairs of red chopsticks are bound to the Horse by these red cords. Both the chopsticks and the cords are charms, placed there by wives who pray that their travelling or erring husbands will be faithful to them, or return immediately to them leaving the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208072, "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS\n\n95\n\nGod of Loyalty and patron of businessmen, soldiers, detectives and firemen. When represented, this stands near the entrance to his temple and is held on a short rein by a standing groom. The second is the paper horse used for carrying messages to the dead ancestors during the Yu Lan festival (15th of the seventh lunar month). These white or red horses look very similar to the Green Horse and are burnt during ancestral rituals. The third is the White Horse of the monk Hsuan Chuang, Tripitaka, who brought the Buddhist Sutras back from India in the 7th Century, and is only to be seen in one temple in Macau and not at all in Hong Kong.\n\nAn interesting observation which would appear to have no special significance, and one which surprised many Chinese temple keepers, is the sighting of the Green Horse on the altar of the maids and attendants of Chin Hua, the Goddess of Childbirth, in some thirteen temples.\n\nOfferings, Charms and Messages\n\nApart from the force feeding of the White Tigers at the festival in Spring, an offering of a large slab of cooked fatty pork is frequently placed on the Tiger's head, and sometimes several ounces of Chinese yellow wine is then poured over it. Charms, printed on yellow or red paper, are pinned to the Local Wealth God and incense and candles are burnt before the whole Under Altar. Offerings of paper money on the \"Bank of Hell\" are piled onto some Local Wealth Gods, as are paper taels of gold and silver. On occasions particular to the individual devotee and connected with calamities in their lives, he or she may place five yellow paper charms, purchased from the temple keeper, beneath each of five oil lamp saucers with glowing wicks. These, together with fresh eggs, are offered to the spirits in the Under Altar.\n\nIndividual devotees who wish to report their particular misfortune to the Disaster Spirits obtain slips of paper from the temple keeper. These are normally some four inches long and two inches wide, in either red or green, with a regular pattern of diamonds and circles cut out by folding and snipping in a special way. In a few cases, temple keepers require details of the \"disaster\" to be written on them, with dates and names of the people involved. The slips of paper are then burnt in the temple incinerator. In rare cases where devotees confuse the message papers with charms, they are", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208073, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "96 \n\nK. G. STEVENS \n\npasted up on the upper lintel of the altar, or across the sides, where they remain until Spring-cleaning, or just drop off with time. They are called petitions, Pang (#). Another form of charm connected with the Green Horse is a simple postcard-sized piece of rice paper, block-printed in three colours, depicting a galloping green horse and his groom, on which is the petition (****). This is only used during the lunar New Year and, too, is burnt. One temple keeper very carefully folded such a paper inside a piece of red paper, producing a package no larger than a cigarette, ready for devotees to burn. \n\nOccasionally, green and red paper cut-outs are pasted on the Under Altar, or tied to the Green Horse's nose, head or back. These are said to represent \"messages\" from humans to the Gods asking for general benefits, and passed directly on by the Green Horse without going through a spirit medium or being dispatched by incineration. These \"messages\" without inscription are entrusted to the Green Horse at all times of the year. Although borne aloft to the Gods by the Green Horse, he is never expected to bring back a reply; the general benefits doubtless will manifest themselves in time. \n\nPaper charms obtained from the temple keepers, bearing printed prayers and pictures begging the Gods for safety, protection and blessings, are thrust into the belt or hands of the Local Wealth God or again tied to the back of the Green Horse. \n\nThe slips themselves go under the generic title for red ones of \"the Nobleman\", and for green ones of “Green Horse\". These are also regarded by many as charms to ward off demonic influence and not as messages, and are therefore pasted on certain altars and figures. \n\nOccasionally street shrines, such as the one on the corner on Taipingshan Street and Pound Lane, dedicated to the local Earth God (), have a further role as an Under Altar. The roof of the shrine and wall above it are heavily coated in red and green Green Horse and Nobleman slips which normally should be burnt. Many of the slips of paper are, in this case, pasted over the top of white or black cut-out papers which represent the Mean Ones, the Hsiao Jen. These appear in two forms; as individual human figures with large ears in black paper, and as white or black cut-out slips which look like carnival masks for a man with five eyes!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208338, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "46\n\nKEITII STEVENS\n\nMu. The whole is best known as a Taoist Heaven (*). The temple at its peak bears the title of Fan Ch'ih Kung (£) \"The Palace of the Essence of Brahma\". The slip of paper in Tou Mu's back relates that Huang Wen-yuan, a sincere believer, born on the 27th day, 11th moon of the Year i wei (about December, 1835), residing south of Lu Ling City, Chi An Prefecture, Kiangsi Province, together with the whole of his family, on a lucky day of the 9th moon, of the Year keng wu during the Tung Ch'ih reign (about October, 1870), prayed before Tou Mu stating, \"I respectfully implore Most Reverend Tou Mu, a heavenly Goddess of Sacred Virtue, having the immense brilliance of T'ien Hou, generosity, the magic powers of suppressing demons and spirits, and the ability to produce amulets and prescriptions for saving people with serious afflictions, to effectively respond to my earnest prayers and wishes, and wield her supernatural powers to protect all the members of my family and to increase not only the number of children but also all kinds of happiness and prosperity\".\n\nOf the score or so images, only three deities are categorically identifiable, Kuan Ti, Kuan Yin, and Chao Kung-ming, the deities of loyalty, mercy and wealth respectively. Two of the images seem to be local Earth Gods (+) (Plate 8). They are of a style very commonly seen but with what are probably provincial characteristics. They are seated old men, clutching a fly whisk by the end of its handle allowing the handle itself to rest along the forearm and the whiskers to hang from about the elbow. They have a \"shoe\" of gold in their left hand, long white beards, white eyebrows and white hair under a green floppy form of skull cap with their hair drawn up into a bun through a hole in the top of it. They are wearing long robes bound by a red belt tied in a bow at the front, and black shoes. A female carved in the same pose, holding a fly whisk in the same manner, and dressed in a floral robe but without the “shoe\" of gold, has unbound feet, and hair, without a cap, drawn into two short pigtails. She may perhaps, be the consort of the Earth God.\n\nA final image, unidentified, has a spectacular face (Plate 9). He is an unidentified monk, seated cross-legged on a bench and with the ends of his robes hanging beneath him concealing the bench. He holds a fly whisk in his right hand in the same manner as the Earth God and in his left hand he holds a rosary. He has the face of an elderly man but with the characteristics more frequently", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208339, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "ALTER IMAGES FROM HUNAN AND KIANGSI \n\n47 \n\nidentified as those of the long-face northern Chinese, with narrow almost closed eyes, a furrowed brow and a black pointed beard resting on his upper chest. \n\nThe rest of the images, all with empty back cavities, consisted of one man similar to the first above, six women seated, dressed in robes, with their right hand carefully holding the edge of their robes and their left hand concealed, similar to the second of the six images described above, and one other Kuan Yin with an empty cavity in her back.\" \n\nOne slip only of the seven suggests that the Yin family placed an image on a family altar of a standardised, impersonal image of a female named Jen (perhaps the deceased wife of Mr. Yin). Perhaps it was the practice to place such standardised images of deceased relatives on family altars in Hunan? Cantonese god carvers in Kowloon were all quite positive that such a custom is not observed in Hong Kong, nor in their memory was it performed in Kwang-tung province. Several said that they understood that the Fukienese, and in particular the people from around Amoy, customarily placed stylised ancestral figures of old men and women on personal altars but never on temple altars. They also said that there is the well-known custom of the Boat People of South China, of placing standardised images of all deceased members of the family on the family altar irrespective of the age at death. (See my article on \"Soul images and Gods of the Boat People\" in Arts of Asia, volume 7, Number 6, Nov/Dec 1977). \n\nRegrettably, Hunan was ill-served by foreign travellers and writers, particularly about its temples and gods, and so no collateral information would seem to be available. A photograph taken in the sixties in the entrance hall to Mao's birthplace near Chang-sha in Hunan province, shows the family altar, with Chao Kung-ming the wealth God and Kuan Yin both easily identifiable, the remainder being indistinguishable. None, however, look like the images described above. \n\nAn example of the Fukienese custom is the lady, Madam Hsieh (###), from a family household shrine in Singapore. The image, carved in 1931, some six inches high (see Plate 10) is again a standard, impersonal likeness of an elderly dowager. She is recognisable as an ancestral image by the white duck(?) under each of her bound feet. Otherwise, she is dressed in elaborate robes,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208476, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 200, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "184\n\nDAVID H. S. CHAU\n\nthem might have. Prints of images might help to bring luck or protection, and as agencies might represent both personal and impersonal beings; such as ancestors, nature spirits, saints, heroes, gods, or goddess. Because the chief attitudes of the devotees towards these agencies were fear, awe, love or affection, loyalty, reverence, obligation, and aspiration, prints of the images would be the very core of the ceremonial through which the devotee hoped to secure the benefits which he was seeking such as food and drink; protection from natural dangers like thunder, lightning, flood, disease, plague; or victory in wars; long life; riches; prosperity; and counsel in emergencies. Some of the block printed folk prints were in the form of applications to the heavenly authorities conveying all sort of messages or containing prayers for the benefits which the devotees hoped to secure. These talisman-like prints were either burnt together with other paper-made religious offerings or pasted on the walls.\n\nSome Chinese folk prints in the form of character-styled charms were created by Taoist priests for either warding off evils or curing diseases. These Taoist charms were usually written or printed in red colour on yellowish medicated papers by Taoist priests. Taoist priests were both occultists and herbalists. They used their secret formulas like vermilion (b) red orpiment (*) etc. to write or print charms, and these charms could produce some sort of medical effect to lighten diseases when sick persons drank them with water. Taoist priests had long been using these special practices to promote their religion and to make people believe that magic came from their religious power and through the design of the charms they created. Today these charms have become merely a superstition. Those we can find are printed in ordinary ink by the print makers instead of by the priests. Even contemporary priests have little knowledge about the use of formulas. The old formulas are mostly lost through many generations. Yet though charms no longer have the magic power, they still can give psychological comfort to ignorant believers.\n\nSince Late Ming most of the folk prints were printed in colours. The colour used are traditionally believed to have beneficial effects. Each colour has its meaning: red for happiness, joy or prosperity; green for peace and eternity; white also for peace but for mourning as well; gold and yellow for royalty, strength and wealth. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208733, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n(iv) by transformation of a ghost shrine into a temple. The author might have added one more group :\n\n163\n\n(v) construction of temples for deity statues washed up on Taiwan shores. Many cases of famous gods are mentioned\n\nin the literature and folk traditions. Once a temple is built, the cult may spread by virtue of the god's efficacy,\n\nIn fact, the author does not explain the initial stimulus why a cult becomes popular and a god efficacious. Cult-formation should be treated before 'genesis of temples'.\n\nChapter IV, \"Purity and Pollution, Life and Death” (pp. 136-188) is on the one hand easy to summarize, but on the other hand difficult to judge. It seems to me that the author has mixed together a great amount of factually correct observations with logically incoherent interpretations; in other words, this chapter suffers greatly from 'subtle distortions', due perhaps to his exclusively anthropological method, with neglect of philosophical analysis and especially of historical perspective.\n\nLet me first summarize the main ideas expressed in this chapter. First of all, the author states that the idea of yin and yang, with its ritual application of impure (or polluting) and pure, or of rituals for the dead and rituals for the living is \"probably the major theme which runs throughout the folk religion” (p. 136). Also important is the distinction and separation between private and public, family and community interests (p. 137).\n\nMan alive lives in a world between the two extremes: the yang world of the gods and the yin world of the ghosts (p. 138). He tries to increase his yang power, which generates wealth, offspring and longevity, but also tries to maintain the \"balance of the universe through his ritual actions in worshipping the spirits\" (p. 140). Because of the ritual separation of pure and polluted, no temple can offer services to all categories of spirits but tends to specialize its services for special groups. It seems that community temples tend to offer services for the benefit of the living: such are the ch'iu-p'ing-an, li-tou and chiao rituals, whereas rituals for the dead are performed in ancestral halls (chin-chu) and Buddhist temples (chin-r'a). However, the author clearly states that there is no \"exclusive association of Taoism with life-oriented services, or (of) Buddhist with death\" (p. 173).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208739, "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": 196, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n169\n\nticipants in the (li-tou) festival usually come from within the protective area of the deity.”\n\nIn my opinion this is a tautology: community temples are defined by their geographical areas: the word \"because\" does not explain anything.\n\nOn p. 197 we have a case of logic in reverse: gods are said to be ranked on the basis of their wealth and by extension of their luck and efficacy. The opposite is true: gods first prove their efficacy to the worshippers; if they prove their spiritual powers, the worshippers will flock to them in great numbers and the temple's finances will prosper.\n\nWith regard to li-tou rituals in \"bone temples\" it is said (on p. 200) that they attract far fewer worshippers than those held in community temples. This again is obvious, although not for the reasons indicated: \"the presumed efficacy of the Buddhas... and the pollution of the temple\". The reasoning here is doubtful, but Buddhas and bodhisattvas should be taken together as one group and Kuan-yin is admittedly an exception. The pollution of the Buddhist temple cannot be taken too seriously, for as the author states on p. 180, \"bone pagodas\" are kept separate from tablet halls and Buddha altars. If a li-tou ritual takes place in a Buddhist temple, it is not held in the \"bone temple\".\n\nMoreover, the reason for the smaller number of Buddhist participants in the li-tou ritual is due to the particular nature of a Buddhist temple community in which membership is on a voluntary basis and is stricter than in the popular religion. Worshippers are often from different geographic areas and are in many cases exclusively Buddhist. Therefore the li-tou rituals are not community events in the same way as in the community temples.\n\nOn p. 206, author discusses the chin-t'a (entering the pagoda) ritual and identifies it with the final act of second burial. However, the chin-t'a most frequently takes place at a different time altogether: after cremation following death the ashes are put in an urn and stored in the pagoda.\n\nThe chapter concludes with a rather long informative description of the p'u tu rituals to liberate the lonely ghosts. The author perhaps over-emphasizes the community's concern with the rituals for the living, while it \"pays mostly lip service to its responsibility", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208757, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN \n\n187 \n\nThis may at first appear as a tautology: all religions are naturally human. However, in contrast again with the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, in which God is seen as the Absolutely Holy and Transcendent One, the Chinese worshippers in the folk-religion conceive of their deities and relate to them in very human or humanistic terms. This can be explained in many different ways. One aspect is the magico-religious treatment of the gods, just mentioned, but there are several other angles to look at this complex phenomenon. The Chinese deities are often man-made: created by the people, and sometimes in the past appointed by the imperial government. Many gods and goddesses are actually apotheosized historical figures of special reputation or virtue who after their death proved to possess spiritual powers to assist the suffering people. There exists even the conception that the whole Chinese pantheon (not including the Buddhas-bodhisattvas) is modelled after the imperial government: they present a mirror-image of this world with the emperor — the Jade Emperor at the top. Underneath him are the various boards or ministries, the provincial governors, district and city officials down to the lowest rank of neighborhood inspectors. The humble Tu-ti-kung or Earth-spirits are thus the lowliest rank in the divine hierarchy. Gods and goddesses can be promoted or fired just like humans; in cases of mismanagement or misconduct they are sent into exile or otherwise punished. Man's imagination sees this whole spiritual world as operating by virtue of rules and relationships characteristic of his own this-worldly society. Perhaps the most striking manner to illustrate the humanity of the Chinese religion is that it is so evidently utilitarian. The gods and goddesses are worshipped by the people mainly and perhaps exclusively to obtain divine assistance in various difficult or important circumstances. These may be of individual significance or may relate to social concerns: family and community. But most often the blessings requested belong to the sphere of this life: health and wealth, fertility and progeny, position, success in business, cures of diseases (often in the past: epidemics) and overall protection against evil forces, evil spirits who threaten to destroy human happiness. Concern with the after-life may also be a motivation of religion, but then life after death is seen as a continuation of life on earth. The deceased are imagined to have the same needs as in this world: food, shelter and clothing are their most important concerns. Therefore, the ancestor cult is utilitarianistic in two ways: if it is not intend-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208771, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n201 \n\nIt would seem incongruous that Na T'o, a Muslim who would abhor idolatry, should be venerated by the Chinese and it would be interesting to know what the Malays themselves would think of such a practice; that is of course, assuming that they even know of his existence. The Chinese, however, see no incongruity in having a Muslim on their altar, and in some areas, particularly around Kluang, he is especially treated with the respect and constraints due to another religion. As a Muslim, he is never disturbed on a Friday and never offered pork. \n\nThe only other case so far noted of a Muslim appearing on a Chinese altar was heard from a Chinese from Sian who recalled a deity in North China, the Wei Wei Ts'ai Shen (✯✯1⁄2§i†), said to be the Mohammedan god of wealth, depicted dressed in a Tibetan high-crowned cap. Wei Wei, he thought, was probably derived from the Arabic, and, it was claimed that Muslim Chinese offered beef at his altar. Wei Wei however, is possibly a local variant of Hui Hui, the usual Chinese term for \"Moslem”. \n\nThe second cult is that of Miss Lin (✯✯✯) whose image is to be seen on Chinese temple altars only in Southern Thailand. Her legend explains all. Left alone by the death of her parents in her home village near Ch'aochou in Eastern Kwangtung province of South China, she followed her only living relative, her brother, down to a village near Songkla in the far south of Thailand where he worked in the fields. When she arrived she found to her disgust that her brother was just about to marry a Muslim girl and be converted to Islam. She attempted without avail to persuade him not to do either. A Chinese god carver in Bangkok added, with disgust, he even gave up eating pork! \n\nThe sister knew she could not live with her brother and his wife and in a desperate moment threw herself into the river Patani and drowned herself. The brother, despite being filled with remorse, to demonstrate that he, as a convert, was more devout than born believer, went ahead with his plan to build a mosque and even went as far as to bury his sister beside the site chosen for it. As the last brick was laid lightning struck and destroyed the mosque without harming the sister's grave. However, the brother refused to believe that it was divine retribution for his denial of his parent's gods. Twice more he built, and twice more lightning struck. Only then did he accept the message and renounce Islam. Realizing that his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208784, "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": 241, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "214\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe location of the first major incident was the wooded slope of a steep hillside covered with pine trees and shrubs which was held under forestry licence by the Tsing Yi Rural Committee on behalf of the island community. The occasion for it was the entry of a bulldozer in connection with site investigation surveys (by boring rigs) to this area, where engineering works were held up pending negotiations with the villagers for the removal of several villages.\n\nIn the event, an unauthorized entry was made without the knowledge of the supervising engineer or District Office land staff. The bulldozer made tracks some 300 yards long in several zig-zags across the front of the hill, to the imagined and claimed detriment of three old villages whose fung shui area it has long been. The bulldozer's tracks were approximately 8 feet wide and it had effectively knocked over trees, taken up shrubs and exposed red earth, as clearly shown in Plate 4.\n\nThe villagers were prompt in their response; not only to complain to the District Office, but also to take early action to reduce the harm thought to emanate from the uncovered earth scars across the hill face. They sent parties of people to the spot who quickly cut adjoining grass, shrubs and the lower branches of trees to cover up the red earth. This took place over much of the tracks (Plate 4). They also hired a geomancer from Kowloon who set up a shrine beside a major clan grave whose side had been closely skirted by the bulldozer (Plate 5). He also provided charms which were set beside the shrine, to avert any bad influences coming from the uncovered earth nearby (Plate 6). In their turn the villagers sent a man at early morning and dusk to light joss-sticks and candles, change the oil in the little lamps on the shrine, so as to try to ensure that harm was averted by showing devotion to the earth god and to the ancestors. This service was provided in turn by a certain class of men styled fuk chù (±) from each of the villages affected by the excavation. This term means elderly persons who are thought to have received blessings from the gods e.g. by having many sons and health in old age.\n\nThe District Office 'made amends' by paying for the expenses/labour costs of the remedial work, and for the cost of the ceremonial rites styled tun fu (#). The effect of the remedial work thus undertaken was estimated to last for 6 months, after which the process would be repeated.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208869, "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\nen\n\n3\n\nThey have however continued in S.E. Asia and Taiwan; and in some of the remoter areas of Malaysia there are altars in temples, preserved and much the same as they were a hundred years ago.\n\nIt is often difficult to obtain a clear answer from devotees themselves whether a particular temple belongs to Daoism, Buddhism or popular religion because, in the main, devotees simply do not understand the question. The majority of Chinese are not concerned with legendary or historical explanations and, if remotely religious, claim to be Buddhist irrespective of which temple they visit or which deity they venerate. In a few temples it is quite obvious that the deities are all of one religion, either Buddhist or Daoist, but the altars in most temples bear a mixture of Buddhist, Daoist and folk religion images side by side on altars.\n\nCommon usage by both Buddhists and Daoists of temple titles and religious terms also tends to mislead. It is therefore unwise to ascribe, automatically, specific terms to Buddhism or Daoism, though a few have a generally accepted and common meaning. The majority of Buddhist temples for example, are called “Si” and Daoist “Guan”, with “Miao” a common term for either. However, Miao is also the common term for folk religion temples and for certain shrines. \"Tang,\" a usual term for Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, is also used for Daoist or clan ancestral halls and for certain Guan Yin temples. \"Dong\", a cave, is a Buddhist title very frequently used for squatter temples, suggesting perhaps that the immigrant founder liked to think of himself as a hermit.*\n\nWhereas Buddhist and Daoist temples and monasteries bear flowery titles, usually obscure religious phrases or names unconnected with the main deities, folk religion temples tend to be dedicated to one or a pair of specific deities, the main god or gods on the main altar, and his, her or their names or titles are cut in stone or painted over the entrance to the temple.9\n\nIn Hong Kong temple building tends to reflect the wealth of a community (unlike in India where it reflects the class of the devotees). There are large establishments where monks and priests live; smaller establishments with a resident or day-time only keeper; and non-residential structures, the smaller of which are usually referred to as shrines.\n\n→\n\n* The characters referred to in this paragraph are ...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208870, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "4\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nTemples and monasteries, despite their outward appearance are not always simple, self-contained religious units. Quite frequently they contain a number of major and minor deities, each with its special shrine or altar, hall or building.10 The original major deity may, for one of several reasons, be relegated to a secondary position and a new primary deity installed on the main altar. After some years and changes in abbots or temple keepers, the identity of certain deities, including surprisingly, major gods and goddesses, have been forgotten and, so as not to lose face, their identities are guessed at by temple staff, often wildly inaccurately.\n\nThere are several groups or complexes of folk religion temples in the two territories and to identify the number of individual temples on one particular site apart that is from where it is possible from reading the titles over the entrances-it is necessary to count the number of Earth Gods and Door Guardians in their niches inside the temple on the inside walls, usually opposite each other, facing across the various entrances. A single or pair of these deities is usually found in each individual temple within a complex of temples irrespective of how many entrances there are. The Wen Wu temple (or Man Mo in Cantonese) in Hollywood Road, Hong Kong is an example, with two temples side by side seeming to be one having only one courtyard. The Wen Wu itself, a large traditional temple, is to the east with its Door Official and Earth God sitting side by side in one shrine. In the smaller \"Temple of the Buddha of Light\" on the west, there is only a single image, a lone deity called the \"Door Official Earth God\", a title which amalgamates the titles of the two usual deities.\n\nUrban and rural11 folk religion temples differ in that the former tend to be more sophisticated, always have a keeper and several other staff, cater for worship by individuals at any hour (between 8am and 6pm) and have a wealth of images. Rural temples, in the main also boast keepers, but these are usually absent as they are \"pensioners\",12 very elderly people who spend much of their time asleep, calling on friends or shopping. Devotees visiting a rural temple normally find no one to assist them, and presumably, as this is an accepted facet of rural life, nobody seems to mind. The urban temple keeper on the other hand has to earn his living or recoup his investment of an annual tender, and so he ensures that a member of the staff is permanently in the temple during opening hours to assist in devotions, offer for sale incense, oil, charms and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210513, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "101\n\nreferring to this same threat. Neither she nor anyone in Kau Sai volunteered the still more generalised argument in terms of the classical Chinese cosmological dualism between 'Yin' and 'Yang' that might be expected from a literate informant though they probably all could have done so. Dualism was an unquestioned assumption with which every Kau Sai person I talked with was familiar, but which was very seldom invoked. For most of them most of the time the polluting nature of menstruation was a self-evident and sufficient reason for the taboos.\n\nIt is perhaps worth noting that Kau Sai men never raised these matters with me, and when I enquired about the sexual divisions of labour always ascribed them entirely to differences in physical strength and health and (with reference to cooking and the care of young children on the one hand, and marketing fish and building junks on the other) in know-how. Women, who were voluble and endlessly inquisitive about all matters connected with female physiology, stressed much more than the ritual prohibitions the personal discomfort, inconvenience, and above all sheer embarrassment of having to cope with the menstrual flow in the confined space of a small boat where \"everyone must know about it\". One of the great advantages of moving ashore was felt to be that this particular problem was much easier to deal with there.**\n\nTwo further physical and ritual peculiarities associated with women and their participation in work in the fishing boats must be mentioned before leaving this digression. Pregnant women were under no special prohibitions that I could discover, but after either birth or miscarriage a woman was unclean, for a full month or until after the performance of the ritual known as \"changing the gods” (woon shan). A birth, indeed, put not only the mother but also the boat and all its company into the ritual quarantine I have already mentioned, like a death; it did not put an end to fishing operations however, and though the woman herself was theoretically not supposed to do so, I was told that in fact she often did help with the drawing in of nets etc., once she was strong enough, provided that she observed the usual (menstrual) taboos.\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211663, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "53\n\nwere destroyed but at the end of the campaign (ca 1127 BC) Lu was made President of the Celestial Ministry of Epidemics () with his four disciples as his senior departmental officials. The coincidence of the number five, and of them dying from epidemics before their due date of death, suggests that these five might be the precursors to the Five Plague Gods of much later times. Lu is described as having red hair, a blue face, fangs and a third eye, and it is therefore not surprising that god carvers have used this description when making Wang Yeh, and a number of images of the Wang Yeh on altars in Taiwan and South-East Asia have blue faces, red hairs and fangs though none has been seen with a third eye. It was interesting to encounter a Hakka ancestral image on a public altar in northern Taiwan which had a bright blue face. This was explained to be so because the ancestor, a Mr Huang, was a Ta Jen, an alternate form of Wang Yeh, a worthy and not a Pestilence deity; but because many of the temples around had Pestilence Wang Yeh and their faces were blue, red or green, it had been decided that the worthy Mr Huang should have a blue face too.\n\nAccording to the Yeh Wang Yeh legend in Tainan, Yeh himself took part in fund raising to build his cult temple in Fukien province. He disguised himself as an old man and went to Fuchou to buy the wood necessary to build the temple and also sent instructions to the villagers in their dreams that he would like his effigy to be carved in camphor wood to be placed on the roof. This they had carved, and when it was delivered to the site the timbers for the temple's construction arrived without anyone appearing to have carried them there, leaving the villagers only the task of erecting the building.\n\nFishermen in 1795 found an unmanned bamboo raft near the island of Haifeng on which there was a tablet dedicated to Chang, Li and Moh, Three Wang Yeh. They built a shrine on the island dedicated to the three and later the tablets were moved to the present temple at T'ai Hsi in Yunlin county on the west coast of Taiwan.\n\nOther groups of five deities in Taiwan have similar and on occasions identical legends and are believed to be able to control or prevent epidemics. They too are also prayed to for a cure by the sick, and for the maintenance of good health by the hale and hearty. Temple keepers on occasions identify them as Pestilence Wang Yeh though they are not officially referred to as such. These groups include The Five Great Emperors of Fortune (Wu Fu Ta Ti), and the Five Efficacious Lords", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211947, "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": 362, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "337\n\nThe Jau and Wong Temple also used to house spirit tablets to \"heroes\". The tablets (three in total, without names) were moved to the Yau-Leun Tong from the side altar in the temple about 50 years ago because they were siu-yan (“small people”), and it was unseemly to house them in the same temple as the two great men (daai-yan). As mentioned before, villagers agreed that the “heroes” were those who had died in fighting (da-saat) between Kam Tin and its enemies.\n\nKam Tin has quite a number of other temples. There are the Man-Cheung Temple and Hung-Sing Temple in Shui Tau, and the Tin-Hau Temple in Shui Mei. Many of the other villages, e.g. Kam Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen, and Wing Lung Wai, which do not have “standard” temples, have a san-teng, a house with an altar for a spirit tablet for about ten popular temple gods. The gods of some of the vanished temples, which include a Yeung-Hau Temple and a Bou-Dak Chi in Shui Mei, and the Hung-Fan Taam Temple of Shui Tau, are still worshipped in the jiu festival, as are the gods of two nunneries, in Shui Mei and Tai Hong Wai respectively, which no longer exist.\n\nThese temples and nunneries hold tablets or images of some 20 different gods, if we are to include the Earth God for temples, and Wai-To for Buddhist establishments. The other 18 include the popular temple gods Yeung-Hau, Tin-Hau, Bak-Dai, Man-Cheung, Gwun-Yam, Gwaan-Dai, Hung-Sing, the God of Wealth, Gam-Fa, Taai-Seui, the Dragon King, and the Buddha. The Bou-Dak Chi housed spirit tablets for Jau and Wong. There is not much information about this other temple dedicated to Jau and Wong, but it was worshipped probably only by the villagers of Shui Tau, where it was situated.\n\nFui-Sing, and Fa-Gung Fa-Mou are probably respectively responsible for success in imperial examinations and the health of children. Hoi-Saan Suk-Lou is a title found in some other local temples as well, and represents the earliest settlers of the place. Hong-Wong is a title that I have not seen elsewhere in the New Territories.\n\nThe titles of localized gods found in most of the Kam Tin villages include the God of Earth and Grain, the Water God of wells, and the Earth God for the gates of the walled villages. There are, in some of the villages, a Tree God and Earth Gods for bridges and for the gate to a complex of houses. In addition, there are Ngau-Wong and Pun-Gu,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212579, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 133, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "113\n\nBe born in Soochow; Live in Hangchow; \n\nEat in Kwangchow; \n\nDie in Liuchow, \n\nThe first is noted for beautiful women, the second magnificent scenery, the third tastiest cuisine, and the last durable timber for making coffins.\n\nIn 1988 coffins ranged from about $2,500, for a humble pine ‘box', to $300,000 for one smelling of eucalyptus. The coffin in this study cost $7,200. Coffins, known in slang as 'four half boards' (*), come, basically, in either Chinese or western styles. Timber for western coffins, say teak or rosewood, is often imported from Malaysia. For Chinese coffins, boards can be roughly hewn, up to four or five inches thick, retaining the curved outside of the tree trunk and hollowed out on the inside. Good quality China fir (**) from Luchow, in Kwangsi Province, can last, buried, for up to 100 years as demonstrated by old buildings in Hong Kong with their China Fir, piled, foundations. There are a number of coffin shops, some watched over by Ts'oi Shan the God of Wealth, at the western end of Hollywood Road. Many coffins with their white or yellow cloth linings are imported from China.\n\n23\n\nBy comparison, a British coffin is normally made of English oak (elm was used for cheaper coffins before World War II) with boards one-inch thick.24 This is usually rendered watertight with pitch or mastic and lined with a bed of sawdust, white drapery and a pillow stuffed with fine wood shavings.\n\nBecause of space, in present day Hong Kong it is not practicable for the elderly to have coffins made in advance and stored in an ancestral hall or at home, as was the custom in old China. They were revarnished every year. But if a person is too interested and 'finds the smell of coffins more appealing than the smell of cooked rice' (聞見棺材香過飯) the gods may come after him. (Similar words are occasionally uttered as a curse.) Some believe a small piece of coffin wood, if boiled and the water drunk, will keep away ghosts.\n\nContinuously, from three o'clock the day before to the actual funeral ceremony in this study, relatives and friends visited the hall to give face to the family and the departed. It is a greater offence not to attend a person's funeral than not to attend his wedding. The author recalls", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212583, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "|17\n\nstorey, basically domestic, accommodation in crowded, busy Kowloon, The eldest daughter, in the front seat of the car, carried the enlarged photograph of Mother in her 'spirit shrine' (jing tong), made from coloured paper stretched over a bamboo frame. A short ceremony was held at 'Pine Shade Hall' with two Buddhist nuns in attendance. Pine is an emblem of longevity.\" It frightens away evil, such as ghouls that prey on corpses.\n\nLater, a meal with three tables (about 12 people to a standard Chinese round table) was provided at a nearby restaurant. A place was filled at intervals. It was the first time relatives had eaten meat for two days.\n\nIt is bad luck to return to the funeral parlour on the same day (to retrieve something left behind, say) and it is not propitious to go straight home. One should 'leave' the bad luck elsewhere. All close relatives, however, were given a piece of bright red cloth, about eight inches square, cut from the shroud. This they still keep as souvenirs.\n\n28\n\nBecause of congestion long funeral corteges with pedestrians, some in good spirits, and close relatives and professional mourners weeping unashamedly, are no longer allowed. Up to the late 1960s when these were still common, an elaborately carved, nine-foot high funeral chair with a portrait of the deceased would lead the procession followed by the hearse.29 Large bamboo and wicker frames covered with silver and blue papers and flowers, with characters reading, for example, ‘Funeral of Wong Family', and describing the dead person's outstanding characteristics, would also be shouldered by coolies or transported on tricycles. The names of the three genial Gods of Happiness, Wealth and Longevity, Fuk, Luk and Shau, would also sometimes be displayed as would names of donors. Chinese bands, some engaged by friends to proffer condolences, played western hymns: like Abide with Me, or pop tunes such as Polly-wolly Doodle all the Day. Paper scatterers left trails for souls to find their way back home.\n\n28\n\nThe cortege of Kwok Acheong, who died in 1880, was supposed to have taken one hour and 13 minutes to pass. The author recalls a quarter-mile long cortege in 1956, with 16 separate bands and musicians' uniforms ranging from white-waiter-style, to Salvation Army blue, to Confederate grey. The procession completed one circuit of Happy Valley before stopping at the then Colonial Cemetery gate. On such occasions newspapers recorded, \"The funeral passed the Monument at such a time.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212589, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "the Buddhist hall. After this was finished close mourners changed into everyday, brightly coloured clothes. A meal was held in a restaurant. There were seven courses. About 50 people attended. Meat was served.\n\nThe immediate family members then went home and took a second bath with pomelo and wampee (variant spelling wampi) leaves to purify the water. Lucky packages were opened. Besides money they contained pieces of hibiscus, foo paak (†), a homonym also meaning wealth or riches. Another packet contained, in addition to money, a needle and thread, and a lady's hairpin, described as kat lei ( ). This is interpreted as pierce or sharp, also as lucky or profit. Anything that could bring bad luck, such as black objects, had been burned. Things that were brought home, for good luck, included white mourning shoes and white attire. These were known as tsoi paak (ĦĦ ), for ‘good luck'. The large photograph used at services was later hung in the dead woman's home. Some maintain it should be packed away or it can bring bad luck.\n\nAshes\n\nThe day after the fifth tsat the immediate relatives went to the funeral parlour to collect the ashes. Everyone expressed pleasure that these were 'fairly white'. They are often blackish. There was a short ceremony. Joss sticks and ‘gold bars' were burned, together with a rosette made up with yellow papers with blessings printed on them.\n\nAt Ching Chung Koon (Temple) permission to enter was requested from the two door (earth) gods. Everyone bowed three times. An orange was placed on each shrine. The niche selected two weeks earlier to hold the ashes of the dead woman, together with another alongside for her husband, was not too high so it was accessible. His remains were moved from another niche. The cost for each, in 1988, was $10,800, increased from $600 in 1966. (Business is thriving and extensions are continually being built to the columbarium.) The mother's niche number is '17' which can be interpreted, 'certainly you will get it.' The father's niche is '18', read as 'definitely will prosper'.\n\nThe mourners bowed three times to 'spirit neighbours' of father and mother and burned single incense sticks in all vases in that room. An effort was made not to offend and not sit on ledges in front of other", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212596, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Topley asks whether the poor trace hardships, basically, to lack of money. Cash can solicit and secure worldly and spiritual favours, advantages as well as goods.” At a funeral there is abundant, cheap, 'mock' money which mourners 'remit' to the deceased. The dead can be 'looked after' in a style not often possible on earth.\n\nOther ritual ingredients are belief in supernatural powers making up driving forces of the universe, whether these be magic, the complementary powers of yin and yang, ‘dragon vapours' (lung hei) of feng shui, fuk hei (divine blessings) or other superstitions. They must be handled correctly so no one is alienated.\n\nThere are, nevertheless, inconsistencies. If even the average Chinese does appear to believe that everything depends upon impersonal whims and pulsation of feng shui through the universe he does not resign himself entirely to fate. The contradiction is that most Chinese display a strong motivation to achieve wealth, power and prestige. Ability and education are valued. To complicate the issue further there is the Buddhist karmic belief that one's afterlife depends upon morality and performing good deeds on earth. So with a broad streak of pragmatism, if, with ancestor worship, forefathers do not provide adequately for present generation - even though forebears' bones have turned white instead of black - the living will still try to achieve objectives in other ways, such as by following the Confucian work ethic. But the need to perform the will of the gods, if one wishes to be saved, is also stressed, although ascetic practices and abstaining from worldly comforts appeal to a limited number of Chinese. But effort on its own is not enough. Something else, something special, is required.\n\nWith Chinese civilisation going back to the Shang Dynasty (circa 1600 to 1100 B.C.) beliefs do not usually change overnight. Yet, as explained in this paper, a number of Hong Kong funeral customs have altered significantly since World War II, such as acceptance of cremation and streamlining of funerary formalities. In many ways, Hong Kong Chinese think differently to westerners and even to their mainland cousins. Yet, if a European reflects after attending a Chinese funeral, many aspects are very meaningful. These can help a westerner strengthen Christian beliefs.\n\nEven those Hong Kong Chinese who do not profess a faith still usually engage Taoist or Buddhist monks to perform last rites. The author recalls\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212737, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "31\n\nA native of China generally, whose chief characteristics are: sobriety, frugality, and industriousness; having a burning desire for male offspring, an insatiable appetite for public notoriety, and a terrible affinity for lucre; a being who is perfectly willing at all times, and in all places, to worship the God of Wealth, Ts'ai Shen, or any other particular god or deity, as well as all the known and “unknown\" gods and his own ancestors, as far back as he, or somebody else, may be able to have traced them, but more especially any of them who may have acquired wealth or fame in any age.\n\nPatronage and Name Dropping, and Incidental Anecdotes\n\nHe appears never to have missed an opportunity throughout his long life in China to pay his respects by calling on the local county, provincial and even national mandarins. A number of these officials were referred to thereafter on more than one occasion as 'friends' or 'officials with whom [Mesny] had conferred.' The one he most prided himself on was his 'intimacy' with the Chinese senior statesman, Li Hung-chang, by whom he would appear to have been tolerated, but only just, though with the normal Chinese courtesies.\n\nMesny knew the importance of patronage and name-dropping, especially in China: this we can see from the two and a quarter pages he devoted in one of his Miscellanies to the momentary meeting with a Manchu hereditary prince; his obituary of Tso, etc. He was as obsessed with his affiliation and rapport with the Chinese as he was about females, and at every possible opportunity he managed to name-drop and rub home his kindred feeling for the Chinese together with descriptions of their reciprocation in kind. Mesny refers with pride on a number of occasions to Chinese 'sworn brothers.' He disclosed these individually either without ever referring to them again or in some instances he simply mentioned their names in passing during descriptions of his journeys. One such blood brother was Chang Kuang-chun (or -chin) who in about 1874 was an Expectant ta-t'ai of Szechuan, and a Metropolitan literary graduate [Chin-shih] of the Tao Kuang reign. Another was Chang Ping-tang, the Military Secretary to the C-in-C of the Szechuan Force. Elsewhere in the Miscellany he claimed to have two Chinese sworn brothers, one a literary and the other a military undergraduate whom he had met whilst travelling in a provincial town in Kueichou. He met", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213284, "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-1994", "page_number": 106, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "86\n\nIn England between 1697 and 1851, a tax on windows was imposed. Consequently, many were blocked up. For different reasons, Chinese living in villages in the New Territories also consider carefully before cutting a hole through a wall to construct another window or door. These are viewed as 'noses' and 'mouths'. An opening can admit evil influences and bring sickness or death. Their position, size and proportions are important. So is the way they open and swing.\n\nIn the flat in the case study the Chinese amah (maid) was frequently sick. 'Move the gas cooker,' the lady of the house was instructed. 'It is not good for the cooker to face the door.' After this was done, although it could have been coincidence, the amah said her health improved. She had faith that if the cooker was moved she would feel better. Afterwards, she assured the author she did.\n\nWith Chinese culture embracing so many aspects of the universe and influencing daily life, aesthetics have always been considered important. Door gods, for example, sometimes adorn entrances to ward off evil. In turn, colour and lighting affect both mind and wellbeing. If a person prefers dark colours, then, to balance, they should choose patterns that have light backgrounds. Colour and beauty are meant to complement.\n\nColour symbolism has been linked to the Five Elements, the forces of nature (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water), since the fourth century BC. These are not just looked upon as five kinds of fundamental matter but more as five fundamental processes. Fire, for instance, is linked to red. Not only does it look good but it protects the wearer from evil (Baker, 1981:154). For example, the talismanic red spot on the white headdress of a mourner at a funeral service; worn in the nature of an amulet, red (often vermillion) attracts good fortune. It is a yang colour: the colour for weddings and celebrations. It signifies joy, festivities, virtue and sincerity. Yet to have red paint on the end of a bamboo pole, on which the washing is hung high above the street, is not considered appropriate. It could fall and kill. Red symbolises blood.\n\nRegarding the other four primary colours which are linked to the Five Elements. Yellow (emblematic of earth), a natural and loyal colour of old China was sacred to the emperor. It is the colour of the garments of Taoist priests. It signifies longevity and is the colour for burying the dead. Geomantic blessings and charms, to ward off evil influences, are frequently written or painted on yellow paper representing the earth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213837, "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-1996", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "162\n\nbeen built in 1765. Since its establishment, the building has been renovated several times, in 1878, 1910, 1962, and 1978.7 The first recorded reconstruction, that is the one in 1910, is evident on the commemorative tablet installed on the interior wall of the temple. It is fortunate that the architecture through all these ages has retained its original style and character,\n\nThe temple, which can be considered a well-endowed and elaborate structure for its time, consists of three halls. In the main hall, a wooden idol of Houwang is installed at a shrine, covered with a canopy with the title \"Imperial Bestowed Loyal and Brave Marquis Yang\" (JAKE) written on each side. Clay statues of a civil official and a military official stand on the left and the right, respectively, as attendants to the local god. Enshrined in the side hall on the left are three spirit tablets. The one in the middle is for the pioneer villagers who established the temple; the one on the left is for those who donated the construction fee; the one on the right is for the men in charge of the reconstruction. In the side hall on the right, secondary divinities, such as mountain gods and earth gods, are enshrined. (See the floor plan of the temple.)\n\nThe facade of the temple is decorated by murals of scenes on walls and doors. On the left and right tips of the roof, there are streaked clay decorations in three dimensions. Figures of the martial arts, embellished with coloured glaze, are installed on the central ridge of the roof. It is recorded that these ceramic figures, of high quality workmanship, were manufactured at the well-known Shekwan kilns in 1910. In terms of structure and design, the Houwang Temple can be considered architecture of characteristic style. If the construction of a temple reflects the wealth of a community, Tung Chung's Houwang Temple seems to indicate that people there fared quite well before the locale declined into a periphery along with the shift of Hong Kong's economic core.\n\nIt is also surmised that a village coalition was being formed at the time of the construction of the Houwang Temple. As hundreds of immigrants moved into the New Territories after the \"Coastal Evacuation\" order in the early Ch'ing had been abolished, cult worship might have contributed to social integration and community building. Tung Chung's Houwang Temple, as mentioned above, is believed to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214351, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "174\n\nThe conflict is described in gory detail with both humans and deities waging unrestricted warfare using thunderbolts, poisonous gases, and magic fans. Armies are annihilated by wizardry, bizarre and fantastic magic weapons are deployed by both sides leading to the eventual defeat of the Shang, and the suicide of the ruler and death of his concubine. The story ends with the heroes of both sides being canonised. This historical fantasy describes the struggle in the 11th century BC between the forces of the evil King Zhou3 [Zhou Wang, known also as Zhou Xin] of the Shang [Yin] dynasty and the armies of Duke Fa,a with large bodies of men clashing as well as individual duels between heroes leading to the eventual victory by Duke Fa and the end of King Zhou and his concubine. It describes individual or groups of deities, their origins, careers, and their miracles and supernatural powers during the campaign of Duke Fa against King Zhou. During the struggle, both sides called upon Heaven, who in response sent mythological deities [i.e., not deified humans] to take part in the clashes and battles.\n\nThe major hero of the forces of Duke Fa was his prime minister, Jiang Ziya, who was eventually responsible for handing out honours deifying the human heroes of both sides, with both the victors and the conquered being awarded posts in the Celestial hierarchy. Images of many of these heroes can still be seen on altars, deities in their own right, with responsibility for specific roles as gods of wealth or health or as patron deities. These deified heroes are possibly best thought of as 'human' deities in comparison with the mythological orthodox Daoist and Buddhist deities of the Creation and pre-history, a number of whom also took part in the fictional conflict. It has provided a standardisation of myths and legends woven into a continuous story which has, since its compilation, been the main spring of Chinese popular knowledge about the celestial and Underworld deities. A great many deities were familiar before this work was written, and the problem, therefore, has been well-nigh impossible, of determining how much of the work was original and how much was grafted in from earlier legends.\n\nChinese histories describing the fall of the Shang are far from clear. It was the era when the Chinese in the Yellow River basin were emerging from the mists of pre-history. Dates vary from 1050 BC to 1120 and 1127 BC, but one scenario is well known to the Chinese man in the street, the final act. The Shang was ruled by a degenerate, Zhou Xin [also known as Zhou Wang], whose army was defeated in battle on the Muye plain before the Shang capital. The victor was Duke Fa [Ji Fa], who founded...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214366, "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "190\n\nfor\n\nmany years. Although the government had turned a blind eye to such activities in the past, mainly in the name of making tourist dollars, it now focused attention on these 'superstitious rituals' which were said to be daily corroding the ideology of the people. The magazine, saying that market forces had prompted a resurgence of 'backward' religious practices, described how the system of traditional beliefs which had been finding fertile ground in the countryside was now creeping towards urban centres. This would seem neither to have inhibited nor prevented Taiwanese pilgrims flying into mainland China bearing Taiwanese images of deities to their particular cult centres in Fukien and Chekiang provinces for their 'power' [ling] to be renewed. It has to be remembered, however, that Taiwanese visitors are treated as privileged guests.\n\nProblems of luck and fate are as real today in China as they are in any rural society, and as they were in pre-communist China. Some private firms are reported maintaining altars on company premises and are making offerings to the traditional God of Wealth in the belief that this would help ensure their success in business. Buddhist statues have been placed in cultural centres and tutelary deities adorn the roofs of schools. Children too seem to have succumbed to the craze. A survey of 1,622 children between 11 and 12 in Changchun showed 50 per cent believed in fate and 40 per cent believed in the immortality of the soul. A further 40 per cent of boys and nearly 60 per cent of girls believed in spirits and in Heaven and Hell. It went on to describe the resurgence of superstitious practices and the appearance of several 'reactionary sects.' The September 1996 issue of Democracy and Legal System magazine said that tens of thousands of temples dedicated to China's colourful assembly of gods were being illegally built or restored. It quoted 20,1692 in Fukien province, 9,000 in Honan and 10,000 in Shansi provinces had been destroyed, and even 597 state-run restaurants in Peking had taken down and removed Buddhist shrines during one month alone. A further report described a similar crackdown in Hupei province where 1,600 'pagan' shrines, mostly dedicated to the Earth God, had been destroyed as part of the nation-wide crackdown. Similar action had been taken in Kueichou province where nine illegal temples had been closed in one month. A report about Chekiang province about the same time claimed that provincial officials had brought under control 17,900 Taoist, Buddhist or Christian [sic] temples and monasteries.\n\nThe mainland newspaper, Paok'an Wenchai, had about this same time criticised the widespread superstitious practices in the building", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214721, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "'double happiness', to sprigs of foo paak (hibiscus), a homonym also meaning 'wealth' or 'riches'. By comparison in the West, in rural England, a horseshoe is sometimes displayed at the entrance of a cottage to bring luck.\n\n3\n\nThe Pat Heung Valley covers an area of just over 50 square kilometres.\n\n* The Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation later reimbursed the Hong Kong Government.\n\n5\n\nBecause of the rising and falling naam moh sound of their chanting. Lo means 'fellow'.\n\nf These are normally in threes. One is offered up for heaven, one for earth and one for mankind.\n\n7\n\nThe number of urban Chinese who have never partaken of a basin meal frequently surprises the Author.\n\n*To make them more attractive and presentable for the gods.\n\nThe Author has been informed that tun fu ceremonies do take place outside Hong Kong although he has never observed them or seen anything about them in writing. Although there has been a religious revival in China in recent years, he has never observed any tun fu pots on the Mainland although that does not mean they do not exist. A fellow researcher has told him that they may be seen in Xiamen.\n\n10\n\nBy comparison, at Pat Heung there were five pots with one talisman in each. At the Sha Tin ceremony there was one pot with five talismans and the same at Kam Tin and Tai Wo. At Ma Wan there were two pots with three talismans in each.\n\nThe same applies to feng shui where different schools exist. Again, masters have their own ideas. One who the Author accompanied on assignments in urban Hong Kong believes in placing crystal in homes to absorb impure influences. A similar custom is also found in the West.\n\n12\n\nFor which the Hong Kong Government is said to have paid $40,000.\n\n13\n\nIt was made illegal to let off firecrackers in 1967 (the year of prolonged riots).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214821, "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": 236, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "202\n\nTo this day, services for the departed, whether as newly-deceased souls or as wandering spirits, command the greater part of the time of practitioners from the two religions. Apart from the varied religious services carried out in the homes of the deceased, or in the temples and monasteries where similar rites were held for the departed, both Buddhists and Taoists are prominent in the rituals carried out in public places at the Hungry Ghost Festival.23 This, the most important ritualistic pacification of wandering souls and spirits during the lunar year, is still performed throughout Hong Kong on behalf of the general public by priests of the two religions, hired by local committees and associations.\n\nWhat People Want: Individual Expectations from Acts of Worship\n\nIn approaching the gods, whether in the temples and monasteries, or at the earth god shrines on the street or in the fields, the worshippers had specific requirements in view. Then as now, worshipping itself was principally devoted to obtaining divine assistance in time of trouble or to attain the object of one's desire or supplication. These usually concerned health and wealth, as well as general preservation from all ills, for oneself and for family members, deceased as well as living. There was also the need to obtain protection (because of their great potential for harm) from the general body of those many departed souls without living male descendants to care for them.\n\nUnlike the ritual services, worshipping was not carried out with the help of intermediaries from the two religions. It is a personal act, usually conducted by the individual before the altars in temples, monasteries or nunneries, or at the tombs of deceased family members and ancestors at certain fixed times of the lunar year.\n\nAs Archdeacon Moule says - and it bears repeating because it is so basic to an understanding of how Chinese people think and act - the prayers of the worshippers one sees in the temples are being \"addressed to images representing deities of living and present power.\n\n24 In Hong Kong, a visit to a large city temple like the Wong Tai Sin Temple in New Kowloon at a major festival leaves one in no doubt that the people believe in the ability of the god to grant their requests. Nor is satisfaction kept to oneself. The word soon gets around, and since the worship", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214889, "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": 304, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "277\n\nGoddess of Mercy, with her vase containing the dew of compassion and her enigmatic smile. Kwan Yin helps souls in distress. The inside of the Temple was blackish from the smoke of countless burning candles and joss sticks. This added to the atmosphere. There were other minor gods. In frenetic Hong Kong visiting the Temple and taking part in the pastimes described helped people stay sane.\n\nOne 70 year old Chinese, afflicted with diabetes, began to find it more and more of an effort to struggle up Hatton Road which he dubbed, (Long Life Road). Nonetheless he was determined, come what may, not to give up his daily, what he believed to be, health-giving ascent.\n\nMany of us knew that the Temple complex was no architectural masterpiece and was not fit to be graded by the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office let alone be designated as a monument. It had grown like ‘topsy' and, in parts, could even be described as 'grotty'. Yet it played an important part in the daily routine of many local, regular early morning walkers. Some Hong Kong European residents, when visitors came from overseas, the Temple was one of the places to which they would take them. There they could absorb local colour.\n\nHow long had the Temple been there? When I asked the temple folk I usually received evasive answers, such as, in Cantonese, 'Several tens-of-years.' Others said it was 30 years old. I know the latter was not true because I visited the Temple in the mid-1960s and it gave the impression, even then, of having been established for some long time. It is likely that this Temple complex developed, as did several others, from a small shrine. I have no proof of this.\n\nAlthough no Chinese members of the Temple community that I spoke to were in favour of a 'sanitised' country park the Government demolition team moved in at the end of November 1999. Work went on for several weeks. In addition to pulling down the Temple, craftsmen constructed a pavilion and a few useful shelters as well as a long, part stone, part crazy-paving concrete path up over the foothills. These are well constructed. The pack of 'wild dogs' consisting partly of escapes and partly releases, although some puppies had been born in the wild were rounded up by a Government dog-catching team. There was, however, trepidation among members of the unit. Some believed that, with reincarnation, the souls of some Japanese soldiers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215070, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "123\n\nscroll stands in the centre and is flanked by two images each with his right arm raised holding a bell. The faces are one red and one black, and the pair are known as the Red Taisui and the Black Taisui, all three functioning as one deity.\n\nA six-armed image of Taisui in the side hall of the Penang City God temple shares the main altar with Guan Yin and the Great Saint [Qitian Da Sheng - though better known as the Monkey God]. In Cholon, Saigon, three separate deities are portrayed on one altar, each with Taisui added to his title. These are Ziwei Xingjun, Wenchang and Xuantan, the first being a stellar deity whose likeness is pasted or nailed to doors as a popular charm to ward off demonic attack, the second is the God of Literature and the third, a Wealth God. This nomenclature would appear to be a local whim, not seen nor heard of elsewhere.\n\nOnly in very few instances does Taisui have any assistants. Several temple keepers in Taiwan and Singapore explained that Taisui, like so many protective deities, has Five Demon Armies under his command. These he despatches to cope with recalcitrant humans who fail to honour Taisui properly or who have insulted him in any way. When humans come under any form of demonic attack the cause and source of the attack is usually revealed to them by mediums, who are then in a position to advise the individual what should be done to counter and ward off the evil effects, particularly so when the attack is mounted by tamed demons under the control of a deity, Taisui. They advise the human to immediately propitiate him and request him to call off his demonic forces.\n\nIn several novels Taisui is described as having ten assistants the last four being the gods of the year, the month, the day and the hour. All were described in the Deification of the Gods as having been slain at the famous battle between the good and evil forces at Wan Xian Chen and have been named as:\n\nLi Bing\n\n李丙\n\nHuang Chengyi\n\n黃丞乙\n\nZhou Deng\n\n周登\n\nLiu Hong\n\n劉洪\n\nIn a temple in Kalgan, a city known today as Zhangjiakou in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, Yin Jiao's second brother, Yin", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215073, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "126\n\nWorkload of the Gods\n\nAn idle passing thought - The endless stream of pleas for assistance and advice by devotees to the gods and goddesses in general is beyond our comprehension, especially when we consider the burden of the daily workload of the God of Sickness, the Maternity Goddess, as well as that of the God of Wealth, particularly on race days at the Jockey Club in Hong Kong or the Canidrome in Macau. If we then reflect on the daily workload of the members of the Ministry of Time, what exactly do they all do? Apart from the image of the President, the images of the ten members of the Ministry do not appear on altars and are therefore not venerated by devotees nor are they approached for specific blessings. It would be blasphemy to suggest that their posts are sinecures but looking back at the rôle of certain mandarins during dynastic times, with the celestial mandarinate so strongly paralleling their terrestrial counterparts, it does leave one with a strong suspicion that the Gods of Time are not exactly overworked in their celestial duties. The workers, the Sixty Taisui, do however have an onerous workload, complying with the requests of devotees seeking from their individual Taisui of their year, protection from all evil and calamities.\n\nAlthough Taisui is the Minister of Time, another major deity, Fu Xi, has been credited not only with the establishment of kingly rule and of marriage laws, but also the computation of time by inventing a form of calendar using a knotted cord. The Eight Trigrams (bagua) are attributed to Fu Xi as well as the development of a system of fortune telling using these trigrams, which has governed the lives of a great many Chinese ever since. Geomancers to this day use their specialist compass to read the future. It comprises concentric bands in which there are the Eight Trigrams of Fu Xi, the twelve branches, the ten stems, the twenty-four solar periods, the Twenty-eight Constellations,\n\nas well as the Thirty-six Stars of the 'Plough' [Tiangang Xing 太綱星] and the Seventy-two Stars of Evil Omen [Disha Xing 地煞星].\n\nTime and Calendars\n\nAlthough time is no more than the distance the Earth turns in one day, together with its human sub-divisions, there are two separate and distinct types of time, the first being lunar and solar time, and the second,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215111, "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": 207, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "164\n\nThe next of our euhemerized heroes is the loyal victor, Guo Ziyi, whose armies were to a great extent the power behind the throne during the rebellion. He is best known to many by his title, Fenyang Wang, the King of Fenyang, an erstwhile name for Anhui province. He is one of the most renowned of Chinese generals, greatly distinguished following service under four successive Tang emperors. He lived to the then great age of 84, dying in AD 781 having been blessed with innumerable progeny, the offspring of his eight sons and seven sons-in-law, all of whom occupied high official posts. Legend claims that he had one hundred sons and one thousand grandsons, hence another of his titles, the Ancestor of Five Generations [Wu Dai Tongtang]. He is also known as Father of the Realm [Shang Fu] and having such a wealth of sons and grandsons, is popularly regarded and worshipped China-wide as the God of Happiness, Lushen. The image of the God of Posterity and Happiness, stage left in the trio of elderly men, the San Xing, the Three stellar Gods of Wealth, Fortune and Posterity, is frequently identified as Guo Ziyi. Such groups of three are to be seen in many Chinese homes and in the UK in most Chinese take-away shops [Photographs 4 and 5]. The standard image portrays him as an elderly scholar-official, standing, dressed in blue robes leading or holding his eight year old son in his arms. The blessings he enjoyed, namely honours, riches, longevity and posterity, were attributed in popular legend to the stellar maiden Zhi Nü, who was said to have appeared to him once on the day consecrated as her annual festival, the double seventh, when she promised him these rewards.\n\nIn temple legend he was born of a peasant family whereas in fact he was the son of a wealthy official, born in the far north in Shaanxi province. In southern China, however, he is claimed by Hakkas to have been a Hakka. His youngest son married the daughter of the Gao Zong emperor, and among the many stories related about Guo and his relationship with the Tang Court, possibly the best known tells of the princess refusing to offer her greetings to Guo, her father-in-law, on his eightieth birthday, as he was a mere commoner. Her furious husband beat her causing her to return to the Palace to complain to her father, the emperor. Meanwhile, Guo had his son bound and sent to Court for punishment. The emperor, recognising Guo's years of service and that domestic affairs were nothing to do with the Court, set his son-in-law free whilst the empress advised her daughter reach an accord with her husband.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215321, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "46\n\nmuddy plats, eventually reached the first \"gun-house,\" as the crumbling fort was known to the Chinese. Finally, the passengers reached the Custom House and on to whatever accommodation they had reserved or could find in this very primitive European backwater.\n\nChinese immigrants from Hainan, along with those from Fujian, Guangxi, and Guangdong, flocked down to the foreign colonies of south-east Asia. Though integrated into the greater Han Chinese population of Singapore and Penang, as well as within towns and cities in North Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, even today Hainanese have remained in one or two linguistic pockets, such as is to be found in the area of Rengam and Kluang in southern Malaysia.\n\nOnly a few of all the Chinese temples visited in South-east Asia have been categorically identified as exclusively founded by Hainanese immigrants. Others, predominantly Hokkien, have a Hainanese altar stuck away in one corner, erected by the few local Hainanese, though two temples stood out, both in southern Malaysia, in which the images of the deities were predominantly uniquely Hainanese, though the temple custodians, the devotees, and the other images were all Hokkien. The picture gained from Hainanese staff and devotees in temples containing uniquely Hainanese images revealed the following minimum of temples being predominantly, if not entirely, Hainanese - six in Singapore, two in Penang, one in Kuala Lumpur, one in Seremban, and two in or near Kluang in southern Malaysia; on Sumatra, one in Medan and two in Palembang; on Java, one in Jakarta, one in Cirebon, and one in Semarang. There are several in Ha Tien in southern Cambodia and others scattered across southern Thailand. The strangest of all was the lone, small Hainanese temple on Bali.\n\nHainanese temple altars bear the usual accoutrements and have the same layout as altars in other Chinese communities, though, to generalise, with less clutter, particularly on altars in Hainanese Huiguan [community club houses]. Major China-wide deities, such as Guan Yin, Guan Gong, Hua Guang, City Gods, Earth Gods, and the Wealth Gods, are the same as in every Chinese community. There are also a number of predominantly Cantonese, Chaozhou, and even Minnan deities in many of the Hainanese temples both in Hainan and in South-east Asia, adopted from other immigrant ethnic groups, including Jinhua Niangniang, Caibo Xingjun, Fazhu Gong, Qi Tian Da Sheng, Longwei.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]