[ { "id": 204597, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n67\n\nran parallel to the wall of the Legation in which the main gate was situated, and in summer often flooded the road, and at times gave off a horrible stench since many drains ran into it. Meanwhile repairs to the Legation proceeded and Rennie describes, among other things, Colonel Neale doing his accounts, the five hundred Chinese coolies being paid, a temporary strike, and continual trouble over 'squeeze'. The part intended for the members of the Legation to live in was now called 'Legation Court' and Rennie preserved, in translation, an estimate for redecorating the front of these buildings in the Chinese style, the total being one thousand and fifty Mexican dollars.\n\nBy mid-April the weather was growing hot and on April 26th Parkes, Wyndham, Lt. Gow (in charge of the guard) and Rennie made a trip to the Western Hills in search of a temple which could be adopted as a residence during the extreme heat of the summer. The Russians, who had maintained an ecclesiastical mission in Peking since the Treaty of Kiakhta in 1727, had been in the habit of going to the Western Hills in the summer, and probably gave the newly arrived English this tip. Henceforth this was to become the yearly practice of foreign legations in Peking. Meanwhile the first mail from home arrived on April 27th, having been posted in England on February 26th. In this way Rennie's account is full of interesting detail. For instance just near to the entrance to the Legation there was now a line of Peking carts for hire, just as later there was a rickshaw stand, and more recently pedicabs. From this time onwards Rennie described the arrival of various English visitors who were entertained at the Legation.\n\n* Rennie visited it in March, 1861. It was situated in the same street as the newly acquired French Legation, and the members consisted of an Archimandrite together with three ecclesiastical and six lay members. (Rennie, I, 43-4.). This place, known as the Nan-kuan (\"Southern Hostel\"), was originally a hostel for Russian envoys and, since it had a large compound, it was used by Russian merchants who after 1698 received the privilege of sending a trade caravan to Peking at regular intervals. It was situated near the Mongol market. As a result of the Treaty of Kiakhta (1727) two hundred Russian merchants were allowed to come to Peking every third year to trade, and Russia was permitted to build a church in the grounds of the Nan-kuan, and appoint priests. In addition four Russian students and two tutors were allowed to reside there and were subsidized by the Chinese government to study the Chinese, Mongol and Manchu languages. When the first Russian minister to Peking, Colonel Balluzeck, took up residence there in July 1861, the Nan-kuan became the Russian Legation, and the ecclesiastical mission then joined up with another Russian mission at the Pei-kuan (\"Northern Hostel'). See footnote 29 below,\n\n}\n\nI\n\n:\n\nJ", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205124, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n75\n\nanti-Western anti-Christian united front among the people of the East. Visits were exchanged with Buddhists in Thailand, China, and India. In 1904 Dr. Inoue Entyu, after returning from a trip to India, proposed that the Japanese should establish a great Confucian-Buddhist university that would serve the whole Buddhist world and maintain branches in Korea, China, and Mongolia.\n\nOther possibilities for work in China were opened that very year. The Ch'ing government had been encouraging local officials to confiscate monastic property and use it for the establishment of modern schools. Chinese monks were looking desperately for a way to save their property. At this juncture a Japanese priest named Mizuno Baigyo advised them to start schools of their own in order to \"get the jump\" on the confiscators. He and other Japanese also suggested that protection might be obtained by applying to the headquarters of the Higashi Honganji sect in Japan; and indeed, the latter was pleased to accept the affiliation of some thirty-five monasteries in Chekiang province towards the end of 1904.5 It sent its representatives to protect them. A test case soon arose. Part of one Hangchow monastery was about to be turned into a technical school. On January 10, 1905, with a blaze of firecrackers, a large wooden plaque was installed over its front gate, reading: \"General place of worship of the Imperial Japanese Shinshu-Honganji sect.\"\n\nThis caused deep consternation among literati and officials throughout the province. The governor appealed, without success, to the Japanese Consul. The Japanese priests stood pat on their passports. Peking wrung its hands, but said that the Japanese would have to be respected. All that the local officials accomplished was the removal of the plaque; Japanese protection remained in force.\n\nThis was the signal for general resistance by the monasteries of neighboring provinces against the confiscation of their property. In Fukien and Kwangtung they began to place themselves under Japanese protection. Such immunity was the latter believed to confer that in Canton, on February 26, 1905, a school established on monastery land was completely destroyed by a group of infuriated Buddhists. The newspaper Shen-pao castigated the insolence of Chinese monks in accepting Japanese protection", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205531, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "68\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\neast side of the inscribed rock. Here it bends at an obtuse angle and reaches a large boulder east of the rock, thus providing flanking fire in support of the defenders of the bank to south (see Plate 4). Beyond the boulder its course is less easy to follow, but it probably runs north-west about 30 metres, and then north again, past the inscribed boulder, and following the steep edge of the hill, for some 70 metres. Here it bends west at a right angle and becomes a large earth rampart, with a front face to north about 5 metres high protected by a ditch, now partly silted up, about 1 metre deep at its outer edge, where the counterscarp rises; the throw-out from the ditch forms a short glacis in front merging into the hill slope.\n\nThe rampart and ditch run about 55 metres across the north declivity of the hill ridge, cut at two points by modern paths (see Plate 6). At intervals of 20 metres behind it two smaller banks, parallel to it, cross the hill, both ending where the slope steepens to west: the more northern one has a short length of bank running north and south at its west end, which represents the only discoverable trace of the hill's western defences, for field terraces of later date appear to have destroyed the rest of them.\n\nThe Inscriptions*\n\n1. The well-known principal inscription on the hill, today standing in the Sung Wong T'oi park, needs no further notice here, as Professor Lo has dealt with it.\n\n2. On a small stone on the north side of the hill crest is an almost illegible inscription of seven, possibly more, characters, which the writer copied as follows:\n\n宋(or本)\n\n£\n\n?\n\n公\n\n??\n\n+\n\nIt may be conjectured that this was part of an earlier commemorative inscription.\n\n3. On a squared pillar of local granite standing on the west side of the hill, facing a rocky hill a mile away, about 85 metres high;\n\n泰山石敢當\n\nThis was probably put up by someone in an effort to correct the Fung Shui of a grave.\n\nThe next three inscriptions noted are certainly grave inscriptions, showing the hill was used for burials up to recent times.\n\n*The approximate whereabouts of each inscription is shown by its number on the sketch plan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206074, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH\n\n149\n\nalso wear headdresses and tails to resemble dogs and they have a legend about their descent from a dog. This legend, as reproduced in the later Han history, is as follows. An emperor who wished to subjugate a certain chieftain offered his youngest daughter in marriage to anyone who would bring him his head. After this proclamation one of his pet dogs brought a man's head and laid it in front of the throne. It proved to be the head of the enemy. The princess then insisted that she should be married to the dog and the Emperor was forced to comply. The princess was taken by the dog to a stone fortress in a mountain in Hunan. There she changed her mode of living, discarded her Chinese clothes and wore a strange head-dress. She bore six children. They made bark clothes which they dyed with various grass juices. They cut them with a tail behind. They lived in the mountains. Their descendants multiplied and are known as the Man I\n\nMan and I are Chinese terms for barbarians. Man, as we have seen, is applied locally to the Hoklo, but it can represent a barbarian of South China in general. It generally represents Tibetan or western barbarians. When Chao T'o, one of the chiefs of the Canton estuary, made himself independent in the Han dynasty, he called himself \"King of the Man and I\". Since the Yao have the same dog myth as the Man I, there is a likelihood that this people were partly composed of Yao and partly of Indonesian stock.\n\nIt is only possible to take such broad distinctions as the Chinese historians allow. There were in ancient South China two types. One the \"dragon myth\" peoples, primarily in Fukien, using boats with eyes painted on the bows, and designated by many names Min Man Tan and so on with the radical for serpent or dragon. The other a mountain people with a \"dog myth\" stretched from the confines of Tibet to South China and included the Yao. The former may be of Indonesian and the latter of Tibetan stock.\n\nOne problem must still be mentioned. The presence of a very early Negrito population in South China is suspected. Negrito dwarfs are still found in Cochin China, the Malay States, the Philippine Islands, and Formosa and in the history of the Liang dynasty occurs the following text:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206277, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "88\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\none of the leading brokers and charterers of emigrant ships. In front of his lots he erected a wharf which he leased to the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company after its organization in 1865. In 1860, he appeared in the Courts on the charge of piracy. In response to a request of the Mandarin of his home district in Hoi Ping for assistance in suppressing some Hakka bandits, Achoy had chartered the vessel Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy from Kwok Acheong, the P. and O. Company's compradore. Engaging some Europeans in the Colony he took them up to Hoi Ping where they attacked some Hakka villages. Achoy pleaded that he had not realized that this would be against British law and therefore threw himself upon the mercy of the court.19 He again assisted his home district in 1865 by supplying the local militia with western-made armaments. This earned him official recognition and a biographical notice in the Hoi Ping Gazetteer. In later years his constitution was affected by habitual opium smoking and he did not participate actively in public affairs. He died in 1871, leaving a large fortune.20 In 1857, the editor of The Friend of China described him as being \"no doubt the most creditable Chinese in the Colony\".\n\nTang Aluk, another contractor, though not as much of a community leader as Tam Achoy, was a generous benefactor of worthy projects. He was the largest contributor to the Chinese school book fund of 1859, contributing sixty dollars; Tam Achoy contributed fifty dollars and Kwok Acheong, the P. and O. compradore contributed twenty dollars; all other contributions ranged from ten dollars to fifty cents. The fact that Tang Aluk's name was that of \"Number Six\" indicates he was of humble origin. He began as a stone cutter. Most of them were Hakka, and it is probable that Aluk was of this group. In time he built up a successful contracting business. At his death in 1887 he left a large estate, much of which was in landed property. The administration of his estate involved many lawsuits among his heirs. A newspaper commentator observed that the estate was a gold mine for the legal profession as suits and appeals dragged through the courts for several decades after his death.2\n\nTHE MERCHANTS GROUP\n\n21\n\nHong Kong had difficulty in attracting merchants with capital. We have mentioned the abortive efforts of Chinam and several", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206901, "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-1973", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "172\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nThere are emperors, princes, ministers, generals, scholars, officials and the corresponding female parts, their sons and their daughters. They are dressed in gorgeous costumes and they sing and speak in a very literary language, and artistic voice, which even for ordinary Chinese is difficult to understand. As a contrast there are the common people, the servants and soldiers, who are dressed mostly in a simple dark gown and often appear as clowns with a white patch painted into the middle of their face. They speak in the common Peking dialect, sometimes even making rude jokes, in order to amuse the public and give it a chance to relax between listening to the very strenuous singing parts. This can also be found in the traditional western theatre. However, Miss Halson does not mention this technique of contrasting the two groups of society in behaviour, appearance and language, and does not give any background to the social groupings and their relationships, and to the examination system of Imperial China, all of which are absolutely essential for any understanding. Scott, at least, touches on the subject in his introduction.\n\nMiss Halson divides the roles into four major forms: male, female, painted-face roles and comic characters, with their subdivisions of young and old, military or scholar, attributing to them appearance, acting and voices. The book is illustrated with ten plates, very artistic brush-drawings by a Japanese artist called Ishizuka; these show ten different characters which give the reader very good impressions of the appearance of the actors. Scott also has about 10 sketches, beautifully done by himself, but not systematically chosen or arranged.\n\nScott tries to describe a subject in a very detailed way, whereas Miss Halson only touches upon subjects, giving only a few examples. For instance: under the section of costumes Mr. Scott gives all the major forms with all their subdivisions and their Chinese names, often as many as ten. Miss Halson only introduces the major costumes, but she has the advantage of having a detailed technical drawing of each. There is, for example, the costume representing an armour, worn by generals and commanders. It has four flags or pennants sticking out at the back of the neck. The costume is very stiff and heavily embroidered, consisting of a front and back-flap, the latter cut into stripes; there is a tigerhead-design on the front, the arms are tight, as this actor has to perform acrobatics. Scott's description is already more interesting; he says that there is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207144, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n209 \n\nto Dr. Peter Young of the Hong Kong Dispensary, but Dr. Young was prevented from building on it by the Governor's Notification of 10 April 1843, that no further building was to continue until after the signing of a Treaty determining the future of Hong Kong as a British possession. Both of the lots were later resumed by Government and a Police Station was built on the site. \n\nAcross the Queen's Road and on the sea front from “Jorrock's Hall\" was the business establishment of Gillespie operated in Captain Thomas Larkin's godown. Here he sold general provisions and goods suitable for trade with the Pacific Islands. Larkin's Godowns were just west of another extensive range of buildings called the Albany Godowns. They were built to store the goods of Chinese merchants, but they were not a financial success and stood empty or partially used for a number of years. Finally the land reverted to government in 1847. In 1855 both Larkin's Godown and the Albany Godowns were resold by Government and in the 1860's they were used for McGregor's Barracks by the Military, giving the present McGregor Street its name, \n\n(3) VISIT TO OLD WESTERN DISTRICT, SATURDAY, 8 JUNE, 1974 \n\nRoute Instructions \n\nMeet at Chinese Recreation Ground, Possession Point (the British flag was raised here in January 1841). \n\nEnter Possession Street and visit: 1) Offices of the Tung Kwun Trade Assn. (including the roof, from which an excellent view can be obtained); 2) The Foo Lung Restaurant (2nd and 3rd floors only). \n\nThe Tung Kwun District Commercial Association, as the Tung Yee Hop Tong, was founded in 1893. There are several interesting photographs and inscriptions in this office. \n\nFrom there the group will go along Fat Hing Street — a lane with many embroidery stores in it to the Shun Tak District Commercial Association at 67, Queen's Road, West. The Association owns the whole building and its office occupies the 2nd floor. The interior is practically the same with photographs, furniture and inscriptions as provided in 1915 when the Association was founded. The Association dates in fact from much earlier, around 1875, under the name of a Tong or 'Hall' (****).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207286, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "46\n\nCHIAO-MIN HSIEH\n\n1,400 miles long, runs between Lanchow and Urumchi via Hami in Sinkiang.\n\nThe Communist government obviously feels that the political importance of these railroads is greater than their economic value. Since the great bulk of China's population, markets, and production lies east of Lanchow and south of the Great Wall, many railroads are urgently needed in that part of China. One must wonder whether the two railroads built in the desert for the main purpose of connecting China with the Soviet Union were so necessary and their construction so urgent. Moreover, there is at the moment a sand-dune problem confronting the operation of the railroad in these desert areas. This seems to be insoluble by use of present techniques and makes the value of the whole project even more questionable.\n\n3. In southwest China a railroad was built between Nanning and Pinghsiang in 1955, which is connected with Haiphong and Hanoi. The significance of this new rail link between the Red River delta and the South China province of Kwangsi is that it opens a new major sea outlet for south China.\n\nSince China is an amphibious nation, facing the interior continent in the northwest and the Pacific Ocean in the southeast, one of the most significant geopolitical factors in China's history is her changing relations with the continent and the sea. In ancient times China faced the northwest, where the \"Silk Road\" passed through: the Pacific coast was the back door. The Kansu corridor in the northwest was the main entrance, playing an important role in communications between China and central Asia. In the nineteenth century, Western sea powers acted to open China's coastal ports, China began to turn her face toward the Pacific, which then became the front door, through which came new ideas and knowledge, but also new problems and troubles. Shanghai, Canton, and Tientsin replaced the cities in the northwest as the key cities. This reversal in geographic accessibility has transformed China's isolated condition to one of contact with the world.\n\nThe eastern coastal areas soon became the main part of China, where were located most of the large cities, heavy industries, railroads, and inland water routes, and about 70 per cent of the population. Because of its location, the area is vulnerable to attack by foreign sea powers. During World War II the area was easily", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207536, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 304, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "296\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nbeen an embarrassment until we had arrived at a workable scheme. We hope that this stage will shortly be reached, when we shall be glad to extend our activities with any help that may be offered.\n\nObject\n\nThe survey as originally conceived was to make a photographic record of Hong Kong as it appears today, and before all of its older buildings disappear beneath the relentless tide of redevelopment. Much has of course already been lost; but it is not too late to catch something of old Hong Kong and to preserve it, if only through the camera's lens. In the course of our activities we have extended our scope to include not merely buildings, but also street scenes and shots of such everyday sights as hawkers' stalls, workshops, fortunetellers' booths, etc., all of which have been photographed many times before, but rarely with full documentation of date or place.\n\nSo far our activities have been concentrated mainly on the Western District of the Island, and extending up into the Mid-Levels behind. This was chosen because of the rapid changes anticipated under the Government's redevelopment programme for the area, though this will of course apply in many other districts. For buildings, the aim has been to take general views from as many angles as possible; though in most cases this means just two views—left front and right front since most of the streets covered are narrow and the backs of buildings either invisible or unpresentable. A few, however, can be photographed from more than one side—see for example Site 6 in the exhibition.* Apart from general views, any interesting architectural or other features have been taken see views of the Ohel Leah Synagogue, site 49, including interior and exterior details.\n\nMethod\n\nFirst, a schedule of sites has to be prepared, usually by two or three persons, who walk along the streets to be surveyed and write down anything and everything which they think to be of interest. The route followed is plotted on a large scale map, on which each of the sites or scenes to be photographed is marked. From the rough notes a schedule is prepared as guidance for the photographers.\n\n* See Schedule 1 below.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207780, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "A ROAD TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN WEST CHINA 1942-46 153\n\n4. Addition of centrifugal fan blowers to give some supercharge to the engine. These were belt driven from the engine front drive pulley. They were obtained as part of an American-designed and manufactured producer gas kit and were about the only components which stood up to the service required. The amount of petrol used for starting was small and a charcoal truck would normally use about 2 gallons for a 500 km. 3-4 day run. It was thus possible to haul 1000 km. tons with a minimum use of imported fuel and maximum use of the local resources.\n\nConclusion\n\nThe physical and quantitative part of the Units' transport work has been outlined in this paper. It is hoped that this record can be made more accurate and detailed by further research. If the transport work had not been done, many would have died who were cured. However, perhaps equally valuable was the training given and example set by the Western members in terms of systematic maintenance and driving care. The image, held by many Chinese at that time, of the Westerner as missionary, doctor, educator, or businessman; one who in general gave directions for others to carry out, was somewhat changed by the sight of young men working with their Chinese colleagues and employees, greasing steering, repairing engines and coaxing recalcitrant trucks over the roads of West China. It was an educative experience for all those involved and showed the value of practice over precept in the establishment of efficient working methods.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 These included a 26 hour, 606 mile drive from Lashio to Rangoon to clear medical supplies from the docks, 7 trucks loaded with medical supplies as part of the last convoy out of Rangoon on March 6, 1942; and a group of members, attached to Dr. Seagrave's Medical Unit, made the trek out of Burma to Assam in the party commanded by General Joseph W. Stillwell. Medical work with Chinese and Indian troops and civilians coming out of Burma into Assam continued there until the end of 1942.\n\n2 It is appropriate to mention briefly the direct medical work of the Unit. This consisted mainly of Mobile Surgical Teams (MST) attached to Chinese Army hospitals and treating military and civilian patients. These teams usually consisted of about eight people: two surgeon/physicians, one anaesthetist and two nurses, a dispenser, a handyman/mechanic and a business manager/quartermaster. The first of these MST was stationed at Walchow in Kwangtung in mid-1942 when forces were concentrated for a projected attack on Hong Kong. Most of the MST worked in Yunnan and the Salween front.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207993, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "16\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nporcelain cup full, the size of an egg, of a distilled liquor made from rice. We ate also rice and sweetmeats, using spoons of gold shaped like our own. In the place where we passed the two nights, there were always burning two torches of white wax, placed on tall chandeliers of silver, and two oil lamps of four wicks each, while two men watched to look after them. Next morning we came on the same elephants to the sea-side, where, forthwith, there were ready for us two praus, in which we were re-conducted to the ships. The city is entirely built in the salt water, the king's house and those of some chieftains excepted. It contains 25,000 fires or families. The houses are all of wood, and stand on strong piles to keep them high from the ground. When the flood tides make, the women, in boats go through the city selling necessaries. In front of the king's palace there is a rampart constructed of large bricks, with barbacans in the manner of a fortress, on which are mounted fifty-six brass, and six iron cannon. During the two days we passed in the city many of them were discharged. That king is a Moro and his name Raja Siripada. He was forty years old and corpulent. No one serves him except women who are the daughters of chiefs. He never goes outside of his palace, unless when he goes hunting, and no one is allowed to talk with him except through the speaking-tube. He has scribes, called Xiricoles who wrote down his deeds on very thin tree bark.\n\nThus Pigafetta's description of Brunei.\n\nII\n\nThe nature of the traditional kingdom in the Malay world differs markedly from the western conception of state. In very general terms it consisted of a ruler and his followers whose kampong or court was at a relatively strategic location such as on a narrow strait, (e.g. Malacca), at the mouth of a large river, or at the confluence of two streams where his forces could collect tolls on water traffic and his city could act as a trading center or entrepot. From his court the sultan's power radiated outward along the coasts, up rivers and along waterways as far as both his revenue collectors could operate, and his ecclesiastical title as sultan was respected. His kingdom or “empire” had no bounds as such. He \"owned\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208883, "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n17\n\nThe even larger Guan Yin temple, facing south west on the reverse of the same hill, has a similar layout, though in this complex the side halls are separated from the main hall by unroofed passageways.\n\nA third large temple, but not of traditional architectural style, the Lin Dai Temple off the Estrada do Repouso, has two separate secondary halls to the west but only one to the east. Each of the two western secondary halls are sub-divided into two altar halls, one to the front and one to the rear, making a total of seven separate altar halls.\n\nThe nearest equivalent in Hong Kong to the two largest traditional temples in Macau, are the traditional temples in Hollywood Road in Central Victoria, Temple Street in Yaumati and Stone Nullah Lane in Wanchai. Nowadays the traditional temple in Yaumati (Illustration 9) is in practice four individual temples under the management of the Tung Wah Hospital Group. Originally it was a single temple consisting of a large main hall with two side halls on either side, each hall separated from the next by an uncovered passageway. For at least thirty years, however, the complex has consisted of the main major temple, with the two secondary halls to the north being divorced from it and becoming individual temples with their own keepers, controlling committees and cults. The two secondary halls to the south have again been divorced from the main hall. One is an individual temple with its own cult etc and the other is a clinic and dispensary. The main cults in the four temples from north to south are Guan Yin, the City God, Tian Hou and again Guan Yin, though in addition the major deities worshipped in the second and fourth temples are the Ten Judges of the Underworld and She Ji (**) the Spirit of the Harvest and Crops. The carved titles of the main deities over the four temples' entrances, are interesting. The first is Fu De (**), the Earth God (and not Guan Yin as one would expect), the second has the title of the City God Temple above its entrance, the third has Tian Hou and the fourth has She Tan (***) (again not Guan Yin as one would expect). The last entrance, the clinic, has the characters for the Library over it.20\n\nThe traditional temple in Stone Nullah Lane in Wanchai is comparatively larger than other similar temples in the colony and is made up of four individual halls. The main hall, roughly 40 feet wide by 55 feet long, has three side-altars on each side of the\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208960, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "90\n\nDAVID LUNG\n\n'just growed,' how, or why, no one knows or cares. At some remote and generally unascertainable time in the dim past some families arrived from somewhere else, camped down, made themselves a 'local habitation.' ... and that was the village. It has a street, and perhaps a network of them, but no two are parallel, except by accident, and no one of them is straight. . .\"22\n\nThere is little doubt that fung-shui has played an important role in the planning of Kam Tin village. The reluctance of Smith and other Western observers alike to accept geomancy as a viable scientific planning principle has rendered their statements inaccurate.\n\nThe manifestation of the innermost layer of the Chinese mandala in built forms is the private home. In the farmsteads of Kat Hing Wai, the longitudinal axis penetrates through the enclosed space and open space recapturing the rhythm of light and shadow, gradient intimacy, and fusion of space, time and motion.\n\nThe private dwelling, resembling the cosmic diagram of the walled city and the walled empire, focuses inwards. The central courtyard in the house, just as the term t'ien-ching, well of Heaven, implies, is the ceremonial centre for worship vis-à-vis the two roofed areas housing mundane activities of men. The exceedingly narrow lanes and the windowless rear walls reiterate this idiom of privacy. No one from the outside world can tell what goes on behind the blank facades of the row houses, since rich men and poor men live side-by-side. Only the telltale granite slabs in the exterior walls show unostentatiously which house was once occupied by a scholar. Inside the house, the back room is generally more private and is, therefore, used as sleeping area and storage for more personal belongings, while the front room is an undesignated space in which various activities take place according to the purpose and the time of the day. In a way, Kat Hing Wai is more like a large house inside which there are many rooms. The clustering of several walled hamlets together resembles a residential neighbourhood. As Wong Chung-hong points out in \"Walled and Moated a Hong Kong Village\", the Chinese regard a village, a town or even a nation as just an enlarged family... all were to be built with the same principles in mind.\"23 Such a strong desire to attain an intimate relationship between man and nature in Chinese cities and villages", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208997, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n127 \n\nand gong, and a chi lin dancing, go over to greet the car. More fire crackers are set off to frighten away any evil spirits still around. The bridegroom gets out, dressed in a Western dinner jacket, white shirt with elaborate red-edged ruffles down the front, followed by other relatives, and then the bride. She is dressed in the traditional red kwa—a two-piece jacket and skirt made of satin and elaborately sequinned and embroidered, and hired for the day from a shop in Taipo. On her feet are red wooden-soled clogs with red plastic uppers, in her hair red ornaments, and carrying a pink feather fan. \n\nBefore she steps out of the car, two old women go to meet her. One is carrying a pair of black fu in a bamboo sieve to indicate the bride has older unmarried brothers or sisters or to indicate male dominance? This is carried over the bride's head as she progresses to the house. The other old lady places two bamboo sieves, with red painted circles in the centre, one after the other on the ground for the bride to step in as she walks. The sieves are rolled vertically over each other in a ceremonial fashion, and don't actually make contact with the ground until they are horizontal. The procession moves slowly towards the houses, the bride stepping in the sieves with each step, and following the chi lin, cymbal and gong players and the groom. When she reaches the groom's house, she steps over hot cinders in the doorway. She goes into the house to the back room which is their bedroom, and sits on the bed, with other female relatives and friends. The other villagers and guests then queue up through the house to take turns to peer through the window and doorway into the bedroom, to watch a first glimpse of the newcomer to the village. All the while, the mah jong and Chinese music continues. \n\nDaam, the Chinese term for a dowry, have been exchanged a week before the wedding. After negotiations between the match-maker and the two families, the proper amounts of money, food and livestock etc have been given to the bride's family by the groom's. The marriage has already been registered. \n\nAt 12.45 while the mah jong and music continues, men are seen going into the chi tong to light candles and incense in preparation for the actual ceremony of ancestor worship, which forms an important part of the marriage ceremony. On the altar in the chi tong is a large selection of edible items, including plucked and cooked chickens, pieces of pork, bowls containing sweetmeats etc,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209430, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "# THE STRIKE AND RIOT OF 1884\n\n# A HONG KONG PERSPECTIVE\n\nELIZABETH SINN*\n\nIn the autumn of 1884, Chinese dock workers in Hong Kong staged a strike against French ships. The strike spread, bringing trade to a standstill and creating much animosity. After a few days, a riot broke out in the Central and Western districts. This caused great excitement; the military was called out, the fleet was put on the alert, and the government passed new legislation for preserving the peace. The local press became almost hysterical. It became a diplomatic issue between Peking and London, and questions about it were raised in the House of Commons.\n\nYet, despite the uproar these events created, relatively few historians, including historians of Hong Kong, have paid attention to them. This paper is an attempt to reconstruct this dramatic episode, and to examine its significance.\n\nIn 1884, the war between China and France over Annam dominated the horizon of East and Southeast Asia. The year before, the Chinese had despatched regular troops quietly into Tongking. As negotiations broke off, the Chinese court feared a French attack on China itself, and important officials were sent south to consolidate the front. P'eng Yu-lin,** a president of the Board of War was appointed Commissioner for the Coastal Defence of Kwangtung, and in the following year, 1884, the conspicuously pro-war Chang Chih-tung became Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. Officials and people both of Canton and the surrounding region responded excitedly to every move the French made.\n\nOn 5th August, 1884, French warships bombarded Keelung,\n\n* Miss Sinn is a Ph.D. candidate of the University of Hong Kong, currently working as Resources Officer in the History Department of that University.\n\n** All Chinese names/words will be Romanized according to the Wade-Giles system except where there are other transliterated forms in common usage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209490, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "125\n\nunfortunately, we shall never know. We could, perhaps, tentatively add a seventh motive for murder to Tennyson Jesse's list: murder born of pride or 'face', murder from shame,21\n\n22\n\nAn earlier Chinese murder had not baffled an English judge and jury; this was a 'murder for profit', to use William Bolitho's phrase. At the Worcester Assizes in 1919, a Chinese Birmingham factory worker, Sung Djang Djing, was accused of murdering a fellow countryman, Zec Ming Wu, on June 23, 1919, in Warley Park on the Warwickshire-Worcestershire border. The victim's head had been savagely battered. Sung was accused of luring Zee to the woods, murdering him, and then stealing his Post Office Savings Book, which had a £240 credit. Sung admitted stealing the Savings Book found in his possession but denied murder, accusing another Chinese of the crime. The evidence was too strong; the motive too obvious. Sung was hanged in Worcester Prison (where, curiously, he was converted to Anglicanism in the weeks before execution). Sung was one of a number of Chinese attracted to the Midlands by the prospect of high wages during the war. It is not clear whether he was, like Lock, a former seaman, or had been a member of the Chinese Labour Corps, recruited in China, especially Weihaiwei, to work behind the lines on the Western Front, or in Britain's war industries. The problem of special ‘Oriental motivation' did not arise in this trial; it was a commonplace murder.2\n\nThe Chinese in Britain\n\nIn 1925 there were three main areas of Chinese settlement in Britain: Liverpool, Cardiff, and Limehouse in the East End of London. These communities had been formed primarily by Chinese seamen who had either jumped ship or been paid off in England, from the 1850s onwards; for once shipping routes were opened up between Britain and the Far East, the demand for Chinese seamen steadily grew, especially as they, like Lascars, were then a source of cheap maritime labour. Many of those who settled in Britain started small businesses, especially laundries (as did their compatriots in Canada, Australia and the United States). It should be emphasised, though, that the Chinese restaurant business did not expand markedly, or flourish, until", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209868, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "105\n\nwith rocks and reefs in addition; the name may mean \"Dragnet Isles\". The northernmost island is a dumb-bell with quite a good harbour, and a fishing village of huts very different from ordinary Chinese dwellings. This island was another settlement of early man. The southern larger isle has two or three villages on its dumb-bell isthmus. There is a shrimp paste factory here which exports to Europe and America. The names Tai and Sai A Chau mean \"Big and Little Forked Island\". A small island to the west of the group is also a dumb-bell; the isthmus here is covered at high tide.\n\nPatung or Shek Kwu Chau (“Stone Drum Island\") is rocky and barren, but with one small valley where cultivation is possible. It was once proposed to lease the island as a rabbit farm, but the proposers never went on with it.20\n\nits English name\n\nTo the south-east of Lantau are a number of more important islands. Of these the most prosperous is Cheung Chau (“Long Island\"). Cheung Chau is the best example of a dumb-bell island in these waters. The northern end contains a small hamlet and cultivation, the southern end contains the \"Peak\", or European reservation. It started there through missionaries building holiday bungalows on the hills: they began doing so in 1906, attracted by the beaches, the easy marketing and the village ferry to Hong Kong. This was run in the interest of the fish trade, but was taken over some 10 years ago by the Western Ferries Co., a Hong Kong concern,\n\nBetween the fish trade and the market gardens, Cheung Chau breeds more flies per square yard than any other place in the Colony. It has a street cleaning squad, but of course this cannot touch the masses of filth on private property. There is a fire engine, a Government school, a hospital, and a big temple to Pak Tai, god of the Pole Star, the finances of which were inextricably mixed with those of the market, the ferry, and the electric light station. There are plays annually performed in May for the pleasure of Pak Tai, and incidentally for his worshippers, in a huge decorated matshed put up in front of the temple. It draws big crowds, and stimulates business quite a lot. There are other temples too, and little shrines to local spirits. There is also", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209886, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "123\n\nwhenever there is an outbreak of plague or other serious epidemic; but within the fifty years' collective memory of the mid 1960s managers this had only happened once, about 1915. The committee of managers does not run money loan or funeral benefit schemes, nor does it undertake general welfare or community work. It is, and was, it seems, concerned only with ensuring the continued protection of the area through the faithful and regular performance of religious rites and their accompanying entertainment. The god's image was always brought to the place where the puppets were being shown, and to the restaurant where the annual dinner was held at which the leaders were selected.\n\nIt will be seen from this account of their duties that these managers did not have the wider general functions performed by the leaders of the three Fong on Ap Lei Chau. They were kaifongs, but they were not the Kaifong, a role played by the predecessors of the postwar Western Kaifong Association, Ltd., whose premises are located at Possession Point.\n\nThe method of selecting the managers has differed little over the period 1910-1965, although it was apparently more protracted and complicated in pre-war years. This was because there were more interested parties than there have been since the war, when redevelopment of old properties has gradually taken large numbers of former residents away from the area, and so beyond the immediate area of the god's protection.\n\nIn pre-war times there might be up to 100 interested parties who wished to become chik lei, but as stated, only 40-50 were required. The selection was left to the god. It was the practice for all persons wishing to serve on the committee to go to the shrine at an appointed time on the god's birthday. Lots were drawn in front of the altar. The number of tickets matched the number of aspirants. Only, say, 40 of the papers were marked chik lei, the rest being marked with the characters tai kat (1/2) or 'great fortune'. Only those securing the first went forward to the second stage in the selection of managers. This was the filling of the three senior posts of chung (#4), fu (§]) and hip chik lei (£), or principal, deputy and assistant (senior) manager, This event was conducted in a restaurant at the annual dinner held in the first moon. Again, the selection was made in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209899, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "136\n\nSources on population are given in Marjorie Topley and James Hayes, \"Notes on Temples and Shrines of Tai Ping Shan Street Area\" in Topley (ed), op cit, pp. 123-141, at p. 124.\n\n20 Topley, op cit, p. 139.\n\nThese and other details are given in Topley, op cit, pp. 123-125 and 136-139.\n\n* See note 5 above. Whilst the Kung sor is still in existence a school building (R) on the other side of the temple has been pulled down. See the photograph p. 72, 58 in the Urban Council's 1982 publication, The Hong Kong Album.\n\nFor a historical account of this area see Revd. Carl T. Smith's note on \"The Five Terraces\" with Li Po Lung Path, in \"Programme Notes for Visits to Older Parts of Hong Kong Island (Urban Areas),\" in JHKBRAS 14(1974) pp. 197-199.\n\n+\n\n+\n\nThere is a possible confusion here. If the three powers of nature are intended it would be, without A. If truly 三聖公 it could refer to Yao, Shun and Yû or Yü, Chou Kung and Confucius (W.F. Mayers, The Chinese Reader's Manual, (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1874) pp. 301-302.)\n\nI am grateful to liaison staff of the City District Office, Western, who obtained the information on this shrine for me in 1974.\n\nThe 1841 estimate comes from the first Hong Kong census of May 1841. The remaining figures, taken from later census returns and other sources, can conveniently be found in Hayes 1983, p. 253 note 21.\n\n10 Tung Tai Kai and its eastern adjunct Ah Kung Ngam together had four temples. There were large Tin Hau and Tam Kung temples in the Street. To its front, built on rocks in the sea and therefore known as the Hoi Sum Temple (or temple in the sea), was another smaller, older Tin Hau temple which for long has been completely hemmed in by squatter boats. On the east was the fourth of these temples, dedicated to Yuk Kung (Jade King). Tablets and other dated material inside the temples, together with other information, show that they date as far back as the 1860s, 1905, the 1890s and the 1840s respectively, at the least. See my note \"Visit to Old Shau Kei Wan --- 24th May 1969\" in JHKBRAS 10(1970), pp. 183-88.\n\n* Sessional Papers 1901, No. 39/1901, p. 18, Table XII. Like most of the Shau Kei Wan villages, the residents were mainly stonecutters. For the quarries see JHKBRAS 10(1970) p. 186 in the Note cited above (note 36).\n\n* Information from Mr. Walter Schofield, Hong Kong Civil Service 1911-38.\n\n* Sessional Papers 1901, No. 39/1901, p. 18, Table XII.\n\n* See Endacott's History of Hong Kong. p. 293 and Edward Szczepanik The Economic Growth of Hong Kong (London, Oxford University Press, 1958) p. 114.\n\nIt will be obvious that this article could not have been written without the assistance of many people. I gratefully acknowledge their assistance here. I also wish to thank Dr. Patrick Hase, editor of this Journal, for much encouragement and good advice in its presentation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210052, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "JULIAN PAS \n\noracles. Many deities in China have their own set and devotees consult them for all important questions, problems or difficulties. They believe that after honest prayer and a gift of incense or other offerings, the compassionate goddess will manifest her advice through the paper oracle slips, printed by the temple officials.\n\nOn the altar are several bamboo tubes, each containing 60 bamboo sticks numbered from one to sixty; they can be found in almost any temple in Taiwan.* Here in Peikang, however, there is a large number of sets since the flow of pilgrims is endless. Moreover, in many larger temples of wide reputation, one can nowadays see huge oracle containers three or four feet high, made of dark green marble, extracted from the Hualian mountain quarries. The bamboo sticks in these marble containers are very long.\n\nWith almost no elbow space the people kneel on the floor in front of the sacred images. Incense smoke curls up to the carved beams and one hears the unceasing noise of shaking bamboo sticks and the accompanying clatter of the small or large moon-shaped divining blocks dropping on the temple floor. The noise is non-stop but there is reverence in the atmosphere, and the worshippers believe that Matsu's spiritual power is at its strongest here in her Peikang shrine.\n\nI am standing near a pillar on the side, watching the whole scene of devotees coming and going, of groups leaving the temple, and groups arriving to the joyous sounds of bell and drum. I watch the people, study their facial and bodily expressions and realize that their sense of religion is perhaps different from the Western type. Yet, there is faith in their actions and an implicit trust in the power of the goddess. Her oracles are the especial focus of this power. An older lady goes to the marble container, shakes the sticks (she cannot lift the heavy container itself, of course) and picks up one of them. She puts it on the altar table, takes a set of small divination blocks — there are dozens of them here — and holds them with both hands at the level of her chin. Her lips mutter prayer; she must be asking the goddess whether the numbered stick she has just taken is her true and correct answer in this case. The situation\n\n* See line drawings on following pages, by Ho Yu-dao, of Taichung, Taiwan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210624, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "212\n\nOsborn was, however, different. He had faced death before, as a 17-year-old seaman at the Battle of Jutland, in 1916, and, later, in the Royal Marines on the Western Front. His life had been hard, firstly in rural England, and, later, as a casual worker, during the depression years, on farms and railroads in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada.\n\nHe joined the Canadian militia in 1933 and was promoted rapidly. Osborn was cool and tough; the kind of man you are glad to have on your side in a tight corner; a natural leader.\n\nWhilst most of the Grenadiers may have been little more than raw recruits, and lacking in experience under fire, Osborn's calmness had a steadying effect. Under his leadership, his men were determined and fought like battle-hardened, regular soldiers. Osborn was everywhere displaying courage and inspiring his company, and although it is said by some that he led a bayonet charge, it ran into a hail of fire from Japanese entrenched machine guns.\n\nThe Canadians, who by now had been reduced to about 30, clung fiercely to the bare, pitted hillside, and twice they beat off counterattacks, and always Osborn was there. However, in spite of great courage, the position became untenable, and the Grenadiers were finally forced back by superior firepower. Osborn then covered their withdrawal, at one stage single-handed, engaging the enemy and exposing himself to heavy fire.\n\nBy mid-afternoon, the dozen men that survived were exhausted and entirely surrounded, but, although the Japanese were within a few yards of the Canadians' position, they continued to fight doggedly on.\n\nAt that stage, hand-grenades began to fall among them, and, on several occasions, Osborn flung them back at the Japanese. Finally, however, a grenade fell which Osborn could not grab in time, and, after shouting a warning and pushing others away, he threw his body over it, thus saving the lives of his few remaining comrades. Osborn was killed instantly, but the six men who were with him survived.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211077, "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-1987", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "113\n\non the right side were stitched six $1000 notes. On either side of the characters were strips of red paper with gold inscriptions wishing the young couple health and good fortune, from the various family members who had contributed the money.\n\nOutside in the street female relatives and friends of the groom were busily cleaning cooking utensils and preparing for a feast. Other women were practising banging the gong and dancing in step, in readiness for the 'Dragon Boat' dance they would perform. Although the Hoklo people in Yim Liu Ha have been settled on land for more than four decades they still retain many of their customs originally performed on water. Instead of the bridegroom being transported by boat to worship and to fetch his bride, on land he is carried along in a procession called pa lung sung (扛龍船) by pairs of women pretending to row a dragon boat.\n\nThese women are gaily dressed in matching pairs with straw hats decorated with plastic flowers and paper tassels. Round their necks they wear collars embroidered and sequinned with nine Chinese characters symbolizing good fortune: up, down, in, out, double happiness, then the same ones repeated around the other side. At their waists they wear aprons in the same colour as the collar, and each woman carries a yellow painted stick to resemble an oar. Often the family will possess its own set of wedding attire, made by a clever seamstress within the family, but in this case the whole set had been borrowed from another family.\n\nAt 10 am the procession was ready to leave the groom's home. The women formed themselves into four pairs, with one at the front to bang the gong, and another older woman at the back carrying a fan, with her left trouser leg rolled up above the knee, who was said to represent the tail of the dragon. Then, at a given signal, the women set off at a steady pace, moving in a rhythmic rocking motion to suggest the rowing of a boat.\n\nThey were followed by two men who formed the head and back part of the Chilin, while behind them walked the band banging a large gong and clashing cymbals. Then came the bridegroom and his best man, both wearing Western suits of the latest fashion, with the groom in white shirt, maroon cummerbund and matching bow", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211079, "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-1987", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "115\n\nbow once more, then the procession wended its way round the village square to where the groom's car and those of his attendants were parked. The groom's car was decorated in the usual fashion with rosettes along the bonnet and a Western doll in a white dress at the centre. Cymbals clashed, the Chilin postured around each wheel and to the front and back to prevent bad spirits from following the groom and best man into the car. Firecrackers were set off and the car left for Kwan Tei accompanied by friends and relatives.\n\nAt 1.30 pm we returned to find everyone waiting in the village square. The women had really entered into the fun by embellishing their outfits, and were now dressed in funny hats with small leafy branches stuck in some of them. The old woman with the rolled up trouser leg who was playing the part of the dragon's tail, was now wearing a yellow plastic colander, decorated with beads and ornaments, upturned on her head. At her back she had a small cushion stuffed under her sam which had been tied tightly to form a large lump! She was carrying a pink plastic beaker, and holding a wooden stick with a red piece of cloth tied to the top. Two women were holding a bamboo pole, supposed to be the rudder, which had crushed beer cans tied to the bottom and at the top a small branch of kumquat leaves. More women now prepared to join the Dragon Boat procession. Those without the proper accessories improvised by either wearing ordinary kitchen aprons, or else ones to which they had added some handsome decoration of beads and embroidery at the neck. There was an air of great frivolity as all entered into the spirit of the festivities.\n\nSoon the car returned carrying the bride and groom. More firecrackers were set off, cymbals clashed and the Chilin cavorted around the car, covering it, touching it, and bowing to each wheel. The women with bamboo poles and tin cans danced as the assembled crowd fought enthusiastically to get a first look at the bride. She was dressed in the traditional hung kua and red leather shoes, with cypress leaves and gold ornaments in her hair, and was carrying the bouquet given to her by the groom.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211080, "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-1987", "page_number": 141, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "116\n\nThe dragon boat procession reformed and set off in the direction of the groom's home where the newly weds would live. Two women in front were wearing funny hats: one banging the gong while the other thumped a plastic oil drum. They were followed by eight pairs of women rowing in formation, while at the back were the two women with the rudder of tin cans and the woman representing the dragon's tail. Above the bride's head was held the sieve of pomelo leaves and ginger root, carried by the 'fortunate' woman. One attendant, wearing a Western style short evening dress, was carrying a pink umbrella held over the bride, to which was tied a sprig of cypress and pomelo leaves with red cord. A second attendant carried the red and gold patterned tin suitcase known as gar chong (#), containing the jewellery the bride had been given, while a further attendant brought a large suitcase with the bride's belongings. Another woman carried a white enamel basin decorated with red characters for double happiness and flower motifs. In the basin food and other items were wrapped in red cellophane paper, and decorated with cypress leaves.\n\nThe procession stopped briefly in front of the earth god and again firecrackers were set off. At the Ma Jo temple the young couple paused and bowed three times before continuing to their new home. Cymbals rose to a crescendo; the couple, followed by other relatives and the Chilin, went into the house, and a long string of firecrackers was set off.\n\nThe rest of the procession now dispersed as those inside the house settled down for a cool soft drink. It was now 2.15 pm and in the street women were feasting on food prepared that morning, especially on a salty vegetable soup known as ham choy cha (**), chicken, and for dessert, sweet dumplings which are only served at Lunar New Year and special occasions such as wedding ceremonies. These are considered a lucky symbol of getting together. Later that afternoon the newly weds would offer tea to the groom's parents, and then at 6.00 pm all who had taken part in the ceremony were invited to a restaurant in the village of Sha Tau Kok for a large feast to round off the day's festivities.\n\nPlates 19-23 illustrate this article. They were taken by the author.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211250, "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-1987", "page_number": 311, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "286\n\nset in front of the shrine. I was invited to cut the first, and the 90 year old father of the Mount Davis Kaifong Welfare Association chairman was asked to cut the second. There were the usual speeches of welcome and appreciation for help given. Northern and Southern lions were brought to life by the chairman and vice-chairman of the Western District Kaifong Association, and the dancing displays followed.\n\nThe Southern lion began by taking down a lettuce, a roll of paper with money inside and a red paper with a name written on it from the upper part of the pailau. The red paper carried the name of the donor of the lucky money, who happened to be the manager of the local branch of Tao Hang Bank. The three items were suspended from the top of the pailau by a piece of string.\n\nThe front man of the two-man team used a 25 feet long stout bamboo pole, with foot rests towards one end, to reach them. The pole was hoisted, and kept in position, by about ten youths, members of the lion dance group. The front man, still in his mask, proceeded to dance at the top of the pole, in time with the drumming which accompanied the whole dance. In ten minutes he had secured the lucky money and “consumed” the lettuce (choi, synonymous for good fortune, for the community, understood). The drummer was as important as the lion dancer. He looked at the dancer with intense concentration, intensifying and diminishing the speed and volume of the drumming during the time the dancer was at the top of the pole. The effort was very taxing, and the drummer was relieved twice. He was accompanied by six persons playing gongs and cymbals. Meantime, the lion's tail was kept in place by the second man in the dance team, who held it up with a thin bamboo pole.\n\nThe vice-chairman of the Western Kaifong told me that before lion dancers were prohibited by the police from going in procession round the neighbouring streets this had been stopped about 1962 — it had been the traditional practice for the local shopkeepers to hang out the lucky packets and lettuce from the first floor of their premises, for the dancers to obtain by skill and in competition. The excitement was intense, and squabbles between the lion dance teams quite frequent.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211469, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "161\n\nfaith, the Lam Toy's and Lam Quan's, who became our life-long friends. By this time Chinese women were freer to visit with each other, and Mrs. Lam Quan taught Mother how to sew Western style dresses for us children, to bake cakes, to make delicious ice cream (which was a great treat in those days), and to use Western medicine. When Mr. and Mrs. Ai took a trip to China in 1913, their son, Samuel, would often play with me or Helen. One afternoon while he, Mung Yee Yap and I were playing ball, the family dog, tied to a mango tree, bit Samuel repeatedly when he tried to retrieve a stray ball. I stood immobilized and horrified by his screams. He happened to be wearing clothes his friend had loaned him when his head became wet while playing in a stream, and the unfamiliar scent must have provoked the dog. Fortunately his sister Bessie, who happened to come to the front door, rescued him. It was also traumatic to hear Samuel's scream while he was being treated on the back porch by Dr. Francis Wong-Leong.\n\nAmong Mother's non-Christian friends was the first Mrs. Siu Kit who lived in a small lane behind the Dutro's. She had come from China with her oldest child to join Mr. Siu, who ran a butcher shop at the corner of King and Aala Streets. She bore five more children, but the youngest died of whooping cough before he was even a month old. After the death of this infant, Mrs. Siu seemed to have no will to live, and, again, pregnant, became very ill, possibly from influenza. She died in 1919, insisting to the end that Mr. Siu had taken in a concubine in his village. There was no foundation to her accusations, because only after her death did he go to Japan, where he met and married a young girl from the village selected by his family to be his second wife. This second Mrs. Siu also became our life-long friend, who looked upon Mother as a surrogate parent and was always generous and thoughtful. She found the care of five undisciplined stepchildren and seven of her own a difficult responsibility. When the exchange rate was very favourable, Mr. Siu retired to Shekki with his whole family but gradually sent his children, two or three at a time, back to Honolulu. He died during the Japanese occupation of China. Mrs. Siu returned to Honolulu after the Second World War to live with her daughter, Siu Ying Chun, and died in 1985 while on an extended visit in California.\n\nThis was a worry-free and happy period of my life in spite of the fact that occasionally I had a stormy time with Mother, who did not spare", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211634, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "24 \n\nand not even a tablet is permitted. Images of the Jade Emperor seen in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and in South-East Asia are all very similar, portraying him as a bearded, usually gilded, image of an official seated on a throne, with a jade tablet clasped in both hands before his chest (see Plates 2 and 3). His head-dress is not a crown in the western sense, but a classic hat, the mien (mian) the rectangular mortar board cap from which is suspended, front and back, thirteen red cords bearing green, red and blue beads and descending almost to the level of his eyes. Thirteen indicates his supreme rank. This, it should be noted, is the typical standard image of a great number of official deities other than the Jade Emperor, and the only way one can categorically identify his image is to see it on his altar, or to find that it bears an original inscription describing it as the image of the Jade Emperor.\n\nHis image is placed as high on the altar as possible, even to the extent of placing it on as many as three to four tiers; his image, even more than most, must never permit his feet to be touching the ground. In a number of places he is considered to be too holy and too powerful to be portrayed by an image; his title only being recorded on a tablet which occupies the centre of his altar. Images of the Jade Emperor are to be seen not only on the main altars of temples dedicated to him but also, in a small number of instances, on secondary altars in temples dedicated to lesser deities. In Suifu in Szechuan, Graham in 1928 counted nineteen images of the Jade Emperor on altars in the town. The images were placed on the first floor of the temples whereas other gods were normally on the ground floor.\n\n7\n\nGrootaers noted that the cult of Yuh Huang was well represented in the sanctuaries built in high spots in the city of Hsuan Hua (south of Chang Chia Kou [Kalgan] and northwest of Peking). The earliest was dated 1535 AD. Yuh Huang was better known there as Hao T'ien Shang Ti and his image portrayed him as a bearded scholar with a mortar board cap.\n\nIn many folk religion temples in Ch'aochou (Teochew) communities his tablet stands in the front centre of the altar table nearest the main entrance, and in front of the main altar, with only an image of the Third Prince on his altar table standing between the Jade Emperor's tablet and the entrance. The altar of the Jade Emperor is referred to as the T'ien Kung T'an (Tiangong Tan). On his birthday, the 9th of the first lunar month, large sacrificial offerings to T'ien Kung are placed on this special altar", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211672, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "62\n\nthe British Concession at Kiu Kiang. The mud, waist-deep and soft in the autumn, when first exposed by the receding waters of the snow-fed river, was now dried firm, and streaked with gutters, where the drainage from the houses along the Bund had cut out little evil-smelling runnels.\n\nA broad gravel walk reached the full length of the Concession, half a mile or so along the river front to a small creek at the western boundary. Plank gangways led from the bund across the mud to each hulk. A thoughtful municipality had provided benches, where on a warm day you could sit under the shade of the large trees planted by an earlier generation, rest your feet on the iron railings erected along the Bund edge, and watch the junks go by; or listen to the coolies chanting as they carried cargo between godown and ship. At the eastern end of the Bund and at the back, gates gave access to the narrow teeming lanes of the Chinese walled city and the congested suburbs, that hedged in the Concession on the two landward sides.\n\nWithin this small space lived a mixed community. There were several dozen British, a few Americans and some Japanese, with the odd Frenchman, Italian or Portuguese; also a small Russian group, who kept much to themselves and were mainly concerned with compressing and exporting brick tea, stamped in designs calculated to appeal to Muscovite taste. For a long time Chinese had not been allowed to live in the Concession, as they would soon have crowded out the limited space set apart for foreign occupation, but at this time exceptions had been made. The odium of owning the Concession, as was not infrequently pointed out by their kind friends, lay with the British; but all shared in its benefits alike under the \"most favoured nation\" clauses included in the treaties with China.\n\nThese benefits in retrospect did not appear small. Here within the Concession, in contrast to what went on without, law, order, and security prevailed. The law was known, the administration was honest, the small police force of Chinese constables under a British superintendent was reasonably efficient, taxation was equal for all, and the expression of opinion was free.\n\nSocial activity centred round the Club where the times were often good. In 1927 it was housed in the unrequired portion of an ancient godown, in the other half of which amidst an aroma of tar reclined large", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212000, "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": 415, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "390\n\nStaging this piece has atropaic effects, cleansing the site from harmful influences or malicious spirits. Because opportunities to see \"The White Tiger\" staged are rare, it was felt worth printing a photograph (Plate 23) of the piece as staged at the Lung Yeuk Tau rat siu opera matshed in 1983.\n\nIssei TanakA\n\nBRITISH CHINESE LABOUR CORPS LABOURERS BURIED IN ENGLAND\n\nProbably the only visible reminder of an episode in Sino-British military history in Britain is the group of six graves of Chinese labourers who died during or just after the Great War. Of the two thousand or so who died in Western Europe of the nearly hundred thousand Chinese shipped to France by the British only six lie in British soil, in the Shorncliffe Military Cemetery, which is situated beside the former Shorncliffe Military Hospital above the Channel port of Folkestone. They rest far from their native Shantung and Honan provinces, with no indication as to how they died. The proximity of the former hospital suggests that they may well have succumbed from injuries, wounds or epidemic.\n\n\"China on the Western Front\", by Michael Summerskill, published by Summerskill in 1982 which describes other military cemeteries, in France, where Chinese labourers are buried, is a most interesting description of the British Chinese Labour Corps with its officer cadre consisting mainly of missionaries and sinologues.\n\nDespite each of the thousands of Chinese labourers being awarded a war medal, it is worth noting that they are exceedingly rare and a much sought after collectors' item. It would be interesting to know where they all went.\n\nThe illustrations (Plates 24 and 25) are of Shorncliffe Military cemetery with the English Channel and Romney Marsh in the background; and of one of the six gravestones, all of which are well cared for in a tranquil spot under shady trees.\n\nKEITH STEVENS", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212210, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "― \n\n129 \n\ndamage. The war caught many Chinese towns in a state of transition. The new urge for progress had overcome the financial reluctance of shopowners, in their dark narrow alleys, to allow the authorities of the town to tear down their shop fronts without compensations. For where was the money for compensation to be found \n\nand put back the frontage twenty or thirty feet. It was a double loss. Not only were the shop owners faced with the cost of rebuilding the shop front, but the ground surrendered was irretrievably lost. Often, the depth would be cut down by half, leaving only a fraction, inadequate to the continuation of the business on that site. When that happened, it was just too bad. There was nothing that could be done about it. The process of road widening was in full swing when the war started: it was even continued during the war, and often a bombing raid saved the cost of pulling down a street length of shop fronts. The new Chinese towns will be rebuilt with wider streets, and the houses will be of improved design. The Chinese are learning the advantages of sunlight and fresh air. \n\nKiu Kiang was captured in July: in October the Japanese landed in Bias Bay and marched through, apparently with little opposition, to Canton: there was yet another surge of refugees into Hongkong. Shortly after, Hankow fell, and the capital removed to Chungking. The Japanese continued their advance up the Yangtze until they reached Ichang at the foot of the Gorges; but, some local incursions apart, those were the limits of their advance for the next four years. \n\nThe railway connection was cut. No longer was I pressed by the insistent Chinese officials to load cargo onto lighters to be ferried across the harbour to the Kowloon railway jetty. In the past only too often were the promised railcars not available at the appointed time, and the cargo would have to come all the way back into the godowns on the Hongkong side, at considerable cost in lighterage and coolie hire, unrecovered. The shipment of supplies was now diverted to Indo-China. From Haiphong they were sent by rail to the Kwangsi border for transfer by lorry to Kweilin, which became the distributing centre for Western China. \n\nSubstantial supplies for Eastern China could still pass in, under a foreign flag, through the unoccupied eastern ports, such as Ningpo, Wenchow and Foochow. Japan was not at war with China, and so was unable to declare a blockade; but such trade was mainly confined", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "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": 212593, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "127\n\nwhere offerings are burned. In another dream the deceased said money was wasted. Excessive food was placed on the altar. Conversely, in another dream she complained that people were hon (cold) and foo (bitter) because they did not put out enough for her to eat. But she was pleased with the arrangements for her funeral.\n\nA friend was told in a dream to go to the home of the deceased to collect a piece of jade which she wished her to have. Another person dreamt that the deceased instructed the young to respect their elders more. In another dream an associate had been informed by the dead person that the maid had wiped her face, first with a cold and then with a hot towel. The previous morning, it transpired, the maid had, in fact, wiped the deceased's picture, first with a wet and then with a dry cloth.\n\nIn another dream the dead woman told a friend she was staying in the house of the Chan family and that she was to be reincarnated as a boy. \"He\" would be easy to recognise, playful and would turn a somersault in front of \"her\" eldest daughter. The eldest daughter later dreamt that the deceased, who seemed neither happy nor sad, appeared. She then disappeared and a little boy stood in her place.\n\nSurvey\n\nDuring 1992 and 1993, the author questioned 122 Hong Kong Chinese men and women to ascertain whether they believe in reincarnation. This sample can be divided roughly into two. Most of the first section of interviewees (but not all) had completed secondary studies. Generally, they live in housing estates and work at white or blue-collar level, similar to the bulk of the population in Hong Kong. Of this group of 46 persons, 35 said in a convincing way that they believed in reincarnation, eight did not and three \"did not know\".\n\nThe interviewees in the second group work in the professions or at senior management level. They had all received university or college education and most had studied or worked for periods overseas. Of this better-educated group of 76, 35 said they believed, 25 did not, and 16 \"did not know\".\n\nThe conclusions emerging from this survey were not only that the better-educated and the western-educated are less likely to believe, but that men are less likely to believe than women. In six cases women admitted they believed in reincarnation although they were Christians.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212623, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "157\n\nbut enclosed in front by a high wall. There was a small room alongside, suitable for a kitchen, so we used the hall as our mess. Another large room next door was divided into three by wooden partitions, which went up about seven feet, leaving the remaining space to the sloping roof open; it was used for sleeping quarters. In front of this too there was a little sunken courtyard, which filled with water from the roof gutters when it rained and became a pool; a drain led to the village pond in front of the building but was slow in carrying off the water. A small squirrel lived in this drain - the Chinese call them tree rats; it became quite tame, and soon got used to dodging the mongrel dogs that attached themselves to us. The quarters were cool in summer, and very cold in winter, fully open as they were to the air.\n\nOur water came from any one of the village wells, all of which obviously filled from surface drainage. During the summer when it rained heavily the water in the wells was flush with the level in the rice fields outside; in a country rife with typhoid and dysentery not a very satisfactory supply. We later decided we would dig our own well in the sunken courtyard in front of the sleeping quarters, with a stone coping to keep out surface water. The suggestion met with opposition from the village elders, who pointed out that the presence of a well in the line of approach to the Gods, left in position at the back of the hall, would interfere with the goodwill of the local spirits. When, however, we suggested we should dig the well to one side of the direct approach, though still in the sunken courtyard, they were quite agreeable. Some expert well makers were hired for us; the well was dug under the frequent inspection of curious villagers; but here too the water level continued to coincide with that in the paddy fields.\n\nPrivacy, in the western sense, is not known in China; our quarters, being something of a novelty, were for long the main attraction for local tourists, male and female, who would enter and inspect, Mac, for instance, in bed with absorbed interest and the greatest bonhomie on both sides. In my temple down the path, I was protected from this camaraderie by the presence of a sentry posted over the office.\n\nWe learnt a great deal about village life in China. Chin Ya was the largest of a number of villages in the valley. The valley was by no means flat; it was broken up by knolls and ridges, and there was, for China, an unusual number of trees. Mr. Hsiao, the headman of our village, also controlled several of the smaller villages around. The appointment was the prerogative of the magistrate in the nearby town, and carried with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212662, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "197\n\nA NOTE ON HONG KONG'S WILDLIFE\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nIn the mid-1960s, an Indian bird-watching friend counted 48 different species at King's Park, in the heart of Kowloon. In early 1955, when I first lived in Conduit Road, the western end resembled a delightful country lane and there you could occasionally hear barking deer call from Victoria Peak.\n\nSince late 1980 I have been going up and around the Peak regularly, four or five times a week. At first, I felt there was little wildlife left, but, more recently, largely because it is mainly nocturnal, my conclusions, agreeing with a second school of thought, are that there is far more than most people appreciate.\n\nOn 26 April, 1989, I saw a dead masked palm civet in Barker Road. This was followed, on 11 November, 1990, by a dead ferret badger on Plantation Road, and, on 17 November, 1991, another on Severn Road. All had blood on their snouts and had probably been struck by vehicles. The last two were seen at daybreak.\n\nThere are also 'good' years for snake sightings, and, in the autumn of 1991, I spotted a young cobra crossing Po Shan Road, near dwellings. The first snake I saw in 1992 was a cobra sunning itself, in mid March, on a hilly path off Hatton Road. Less frequently, one sees the odd fresh-water crab even as high up as Lugard Road, and blue-tailed skinks seem to appear in batches.\n\nAlthough not on the Peak, on the Royal Asiatic Society outing, on 4 March, 1989, high up near a plantation on Tai Mo Shan, RAS member Rosemary Lee and the son of Dr Elizabeth Sinn spotted what was believed to have been a crab-eating mongoose run across a track, off Route TWISK, in front of our coach. Patricia Marshall, in Wild Mammals of Hong Kong (1967), says, about the mongoose, 'Probably no longer exists in the Colony.' Nevertheless, according to a game warden at Mai Po Marshes, one was spotted by bird watchers at Tsim Bei Tsui at Christmas 1987.\n\nI have also been told of barking deer and porcupine being seen", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212698, "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": 7, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT.\n\nARTICLES:\n\n1 Keith Stevens A Jersey Adventurer in China: Gun Runner, Customs Officer, and Business Entrepreneur and General in the Chinese Imperial Army, 1842-1919 ... Vii\n\nP.H. Munro-Faure - Behind the Front Lines in Burma, The Marches of the Salween Border, 1942-1944... 113\n\nWei Peh Ti A Peek Backwards into the Jewish Community of Shanghai. 149\n\nJames Hayes - Old Chinese Graves from the Tsuen Wan District of Hong Kong's New Territories ... 164\n\nDavid Faure An Exploratory Study of Pingshan, a Hakka Village Cluster to the East of Shenzhen ... 180\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES:\n\nDavid Faure - China Resurgence of Folk Religion in Western ... 193\n\nDenis Bray - Growing up in China: Lecture to the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, 14 May, 1993 ... 199\n\nP.H. Hase Bandits in the Siu Lek Yuen Yeuk ... 214\n\nAlvin P. Cohen First Meeting of the Warring States Working Group, University of Massachusetts ... 216\n\nBOOK REVIEWS ... 218", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212735, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "29\n\n1st Class in a sedan carried by four bearers.' This was probably no more than hyperbole. He stated in his Miscellanies that he had once possessed a very fine sedan-chair presented to him in Szechuan, with a magnetic compass let into the hand rest or bar which is placed across the chair in front of the rider to rest his hands on.\n\nImperial officials, and their principal wives, wore large embroidered square badges tacked across their surcoat's chest and back, which in addition to their hat buttons, denoted their rank. These were worn by all nine grades of civil officials and, according to Garret, by military officers of the Manchu army stationed in provincial garrisons and in Manchu quarters in large cities. This might explain why Mesny failed to mention squares, apart from five paragraphs describing them and their use, and a remark in passing that a Major-General, 2nd Class of the 2nd Degree would have a 'lion' breast badge. When he visited Amoy in 1879 he was reported in the local foreign press having worn western clothes but with the red button of mandarin rank on top of his foreign cap. As he never spelled out that he ever wore the badge and button commensurate with his military rank we shall probably never know whether he ever did wear such a badge.\n\nHe possessed a Chinese passport consisting of a large single sheet of printed white paper, usually endorsed with certain conditions but in Mesny's case it entitled him to protection in all provinces and beyond the Great Wall, unlimited as to a period of time. He was, he added, never asked for it. It called on all county officials to afford the traveller due protection, safe guidance and reasonable information. He also had at various times official Circular Dispatches [ch'uan-p'ai]. These, he explained, were issued to officials travelling on government service entitling them to named supplies of food, fodder, carts, chairs, pack mules, saddle horses, coolies and accommodation in official inns along the whole line of march.\n\nHe had an official seal when he was the General Superintendent of Foreign Ordnance for the whole of Kueichou province, an appointment he obtained during the Winter of 1875 and held until March of 1877. He explained that he observed all the due formalities of putting away his seal during the New Year annual rites and ceremonies. The seal, he claimed, bore his rank as Lieutenant-General, and Knight Ying of the Order of Pa-t'u-lu. We have no idea of the rank and grade of the Superintendent and as he does not refer to himself as Lieutenant-General", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212805, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "99\n\nrebellion [1851-1868], led by Chang Lo-hsing, was a rising of impoverished peasants against the Manchu dynasty in the area to the north of the Huai River. It was defeated by the local Huai Army under Li Hung-chang into whose army many Nien were enlisted for service in the troubles in the North-west.\n\nNingpo: a treaty port on the coast of the eastern province of Chekiang.\n\nPai-lou: an ornamental archway in memory of a deceased person of exceptional chastity, loyalty or filial piety.\n\nSeals [Mandarin]: Every Chinese official of any standing had a seal of office. [all seals, either government, business house (hong) or personal were usually referred to as 'chops' by foreigners]\n\nSedan chairs: Mesny was first carried by two bearers but was upgraded to three shortly afterwards. The emperor alone was entitled to sixteen bearers, princes of the blood eight, and all other officials down to Prefect four, including District Magistrates if in office. Below this grade two was the rule. All tao-t'ai's rode in green chairs carried by four bearers, accompanied on their official visits by a great number of attendants, some of whom were bodyguards, the others bearers of the insignias of office.\n\n'Self-Strengthening': a Chinese term denoting the policy of selective adoption of western technology and institutions between 1860 and 1895. One of the main proponents was Li Hung-chang about whom Mesny wrote many complimentary and other not so complimentary comments.\n\nSquares: pu-tzu: Square badges denoted the nine grades of official ranks in later dynastic China, worn front and back of the official's surcoat. They were some twelve inches square, embroidered in various designs, portraying, for example, a silver pheasant for a civil official grade 5, and a tiger for a grade 4 military official.\n\nSqueeze: applied both as a verb and substantive to peculation of any kind. Originally it was the commission Chinese servants, fully in accordance with Chinese custom, charged their masters on all articles purchased.\n\nTa Ch'ing**: The Great Pure Dynasty: The name of the last Imperial", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212819, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "BEHIND THE FRONT LINES IN BURMA THE MARCHES OF THE SALWEEN BORDER\n\n1942-1944\n\nP.H. MUNRO-FAURE*\n\n113\n\nI had lost what was left of my worldly possessions in a fire which had unfortunately destroyed one of the temples at Chin Ya and so I took the opportunity of a period of leave in India to refit. By August I was back in Kun-Ming.\n\nYunnan province is recognised by all to be one of the provinces in China least affected by western ideas. It is a remote province, appointment to which in the old imperial days was considered by Chinese officials a form of banishment, indicating imperial disapproval. Until 1254 the semi-independent Shan kingdom of Nanchao shut off communications between China and Burma. In that year the capture of Talifu, the Shan Capital, by Kublai Khan extended Chinese control westwards to the Burmese border, where however through the centuries the March Barons, or Shan Sawbwas, continued to behave as independently as they might, sometimes affecting allegiance to the overlord in the East and sometimes to the overlord in the West, the kingdom of Ava.\n\nUnlike the British policy of indirect rule, which leaves the population in the Shan States on the Burmese side of the border under the administration of their own princes, with some restriction regarding the imposition of the capital sentence, the Chinese policy has been to displace the tribal chieftains by Chinese magistrates. With a few minor exceptions on the immediate border there are thus no Shan Sawbwas left inside China. As for the tribal people, they are gradually driven by the encroaching Chinese into the remoter regions and out of the valleys onto the mountain slopes: they are suffering the fate that awaits weaker peoples in the rough and tumble of natural selection.\n\nIn 1855 a great Mohammedan rebellion, known as the Panthay rebellion, broke out and a Mohammedan ruler set himself up in western Yunnan, styling himself the Sultan Suleiman. The Chinese recovered his capital again, Talifu, in 1873, put the city to the sack and destroyed\n\n*This is the fourth and concluding extract from Lt Colonel Munro-Faure's memoirs (Editor)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212823, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "117\n\nwithdrew partly into India and partly back into Yunnan. Kokang was left high and dry. Undaunted the Myosa from his own funds purchased what weapons he could from the retreating Chinese troops and the disbanded men of the Burma Rifles, who had been instructed to disperse to their villages with their weapons, which were to be retained for local protection until the British returned. He acquired several hundred rifles, a small stock of ammunition, and a few Bren guns, and organised his own force, the Kokang Defence Force. Fortunately the prowess of the force, which could scarcely have proved high in the face of the battle-trained troops of Japan, was not put to the test. The Japanese advance stopped at the Salween, a convenient barrier on which to consolidate their East Wall in Burma.\n\nThe Myosa, left thus in a most dangerous situation, in the front line, as it were, of the Allied positions, applied to the nearby ally, China, for assistance. The Chinese who were themselves receiving equipment from America for their forces in this part of the world, could spare him no equipment, but undertook to train officers for his force. The quality of the training so provided will grow evident as this story unfolds.\n\nIn 1943 the Myosa made the journey to Kun-ming to apply to the British authorities for assistance and it was at the British Consul General's* house in Kun-ming that I met him. I saw an alert slight figure, young looking and brisk for his 45 years, dressed in a western suit of Palm Beach cloth. He looked Chinese, but I believe there is also an admixture of tribal blood, possibly Shan; there is, of course, a good deal of intermingling throughout all that border country. The prince spoke Burmese and Chinese, but very little English: though his schooling on the border had probably been rough and ready, he possessed in a strong degree that charm, which goes with a courtesy so cultivated that it becomes natural and can conceal the aptitude for decision based on a habit of command. The prince was accompanied by his son, a capable young man in his early twenties, who had been educated at the Princes' School in Taungyi and spoke excellent English. The Myosa explained to us, his son serving as interpreter, the difficulties of his position, the trouble he was having with Chinese troops, a battalion of whom had been stationed in Southern Kokang, and the hope that we might be able to come to his support. We discussed the situation and the nature of the\n\n*Strangely, he had been the Consul at Kiu Kiang in 1927, from whose house we retired to the warships", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213105, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "155\n\nto the front of the school building, to double the defences of the bridge, probably some time in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.\n\n27\n\nThe building of the gun-towers, the school, the Man Mo Temple and Meeting Hall, and the communal grave, is evidence for the prosperity and vitality of the town, and the village society in which it was set, in the later nineteenth century. By 1904, the market had about doubled in size, and in the number of shops operating, from its situation fifty years earlier. From its foundation in 1830-1835, in fact, the prosperity of the town seems to have increased steadily until 1898, with the only check being the very temporary set-back of the Taiping attack.\n\nThe Market and the New Frontier\n\nThe leasing of the New Territories to Great Britain in 1898 was traumatic for the villagers of the Sha Tau Kok area. The line originally proposed for the new frontier would have run along the Sha Tau Kok River from source to sea. This would have put two of the eleven village alliance areas of the Shap Yeuk into China, the market and the other village alliance areas into the New Territories. This was unacceptable to the Chinese authorities, who were unwilling to allow so significant a place as Sha Tau Kok to become part of the area administered by Britain. Eventually it was agreed that the frontier should run along the Sha Tau Kok River from the source down to the Sha Tau Kok bridge, and then be diverted from the bridge down the centre of the bridge access road to the sluice at Yim Liu Ha, then in a straight line to the sea, and thence east along the high-water mark to the mouth of Mirs Bay.* This line was drawn very close to the northern and western edges of the market. As such it isolated the market from the rest of Chinese territory; its only access was either over the bridge, which was half in Hong Kong, or through Hong Kong territory, or by sea through Hong Kong waters.\n\nIn the late nineteenth century, China controlled imports and exports through customs regulations, enforced by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. By the drawing of the frontier where it eventually was, the normal, day-to-day trade of Sha Tau Kok market suddenly found itself\n\n* See Map 4.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213121, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "171\n\nHowever, the move towards Wang Tau Street had only led to building on the area immediately west of the old walled market by 1898. When the gambling house was established in Sha Tau Kok (about 1904), it found the area immediately south of the walls empty and ready for development. This area was quickly built over - a row of houses for prostitutes being built to the east, connected by a new alleyway through the walls with Lower Street, and the gambling house nearby to the west, closer to Wang Tau Street, was a long wooden building, set awkwardly at an angle to the street, which was used as a restaurant serving noodles (especially dog-meat noodles, for which Sha Tau Kok was famous). Between the noodle restaurant and the gambling house Wang Tau Street formed a small irregular triangular open space.\n\nNone of the elders claims to know anything of what the prostitutes' houses were like inside, except to say that it was generally believed that the prostitutes also offered opium to their customers. The prostitutes' houses were small, however, and probably consisted of two main rooms only: a front room where guests could take opium, and a bed-chamber.\n\n4).\n\nThis\n\nMore is remembered about the gambling houses. It was approximately square - about 40 feet by 50 - and two-storeyed. The western part of the ground floor was one big square room, of about 40 feet square. This had doors leading directly to the street on the north (leading to the street of the prostitutes' houses), west (leading to Wang Tau Street), and south (leading to the guesthouses and Customs Station). Of these, the west door was the main one. This ground floor square room was the main gambling hall. It contained four tables, where the game offered was Po Tau (which consisted of the manipulation of small, nested brass boxes). The game was very popular, and the room was often crowded. The eastern side of the ground floor comprises stores, service rooms, and the staircase up to the second floor. This contained (on the east) the residence of the manager, and, on the west, a second gambling hall, with wide windows overlooking Wang Tau Street. This second gambling hall was half the size of the ground floor one, and had two tables, at which Tsz Fa (七花) was offered. In addition, tables for Pai Kau (牌九) were set up in the street outside the main entrance, under an awning. The gambling house was a very prosperous business, and the little open space in front of its door was one of the central spots of the town - wood and grass for fuel were sold here.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213265, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "67\n\nStandard Chartered Bank's big brother, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (surrounded by the Bank of China, Standard Chartered Bank, the Legislative Council building, and others, which act as 'dragon and tiger' guards), also went to considerable lengths to build 'fung shui considerations' into its award-winning headquarters. It was completed in 1985. Sir Norman Foster, the English architect, brought in fung shui masters at various stages throughout the Bank's design and construction. Although it was described as the 'most innovative bank building in the world', symbolising flexibility with no expense spared, nevertheless 'The Bank' (as it is sometimes known locally) went to great pains to lift its two bronze lions into position simultaneously (Lions Return Home, 1985:19). Work commenced on a propitious day, starting at 5.00 am (Guarding the Bank.., 1985:10) (Chung, 1985:10). Senior British Bank officials attended. On the advice of the fung shui practitioner, the two lions, Stitt and Stephen (named after two past Bank managers), act as guardians. They ward off evil. They are often patted by Chinese to bring them good luck, although the two lions do not directly face each other. Their exact positions are important. Heavy objects such as stones or statues (like two-ton, bronze lions symbolising energy) have the power to stabilise a situation. In everyday life, heavy ornaments and the like can affect the ability of a person to hold down a job or to hang on to a wife.\n\nIn addition to placing two lions in position in front of a bank, turning the first sod, foundation stone laying and topping out ceremonies, and house-warming parties are all important in Western society (Groves, 1991:passim). Also, a Christian priest consecrates a new church. In Chinese culture too, although human sacrifices have long disappeared, special building ceremonies are still sometimes conducted, for example, when starting work on the foundations, erecting the main door, or hoisting the ridgepole of a village house. With the last example, items are hung from the ridge. These include 'lucky' objects, such as a small bag of rice (no-one must ever go hungry). All such ceremonies must be carried out on auspicious days.\n\nOne would imagine the Hong Kong Bank is too concerned with profit and loss accounts to bother about what some describe as superstitions. Yet care was taken, when planning the front entrance on Des Voeux Road, that it is lower than the exit on Queen's Road. This is similar to a humble Chinese college in that the front door should be bigger and lower than the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213266, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "68\n\nback door. In this way prosperous winds are not allowed to blow straight out of the other side. Considerable care was taken, too, in selecting the positions and angles of the two long escalators leading up to the first floor of the Bank. They should not directly 'confront' the entrance.\n\nUnlike most enterprises in urban Hong Kong 'The Bank' still has an open space in front of it and a sea view. The harbour is the bathing place of the dragon. With water signifying money this is important. Water is the most powerful of all the Elements. It is non-resistant. It can wear away rocks. A deluge can sweep all before it.\n\nIn many cases planners go to some lengths, among other measures, to ensure that interior water features assist good joss to circulate throughout a building. The height of the ejection of water of a fountain is often considered important.\n\nThe now liquidated Hong Kong Branch of the Bank of Credit and Commerce was sadly not so wise. '... the BCC displayed a large water feature which cascaded away from the entrance... this means (in fung shui terms) wealth pours out of the bank. I am surprised anyone should put their money into this bank in the first place,' a fung shui master contended.\n\nThere are countless cases where western managements have paid consideration to fung shui in Hong Kong (Saw, 1990:8) In Exchange Square, for example, a special skylight was installed and the 'water curtains' on either side of the two escalators are spectacular. In the Hyatt Regency Hotel doors and furniture were repositioned.\n\nVirgin Atlantic Airways timed their first flight to the Far East to start on a propitious day. Marks and Spencer buried lucky gold coins in strategic positions under floors in its stores, and Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm, also pays regard to the 'caring philosophy'. Asians, of course, like to see Westerners respecting their culture. In turn, it is good for business (Sunday Times, 1995:16).\n\nThe author has no hard data, but his personal recollections are that clearly far more interest is shown in fung shui by western establishments today than 40 or so years ago. Certainly there is far more interest in it now than there was between the two World Wars. Going back still further,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213370, "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "177\n\nscheme a success. The hospital and the tomb established in 1878 are still in existence to this day, and a memorial tablet for the deed was mounted on the front wall of a shop near the hospital. It is still in existence, too.\n\nNOTES\n\n \n 1\n Ch 2-7, A Brief Record of the Pacification of the Kwang-tung Rebels. A 1865 edition.\n \n \n 2\n Ibid. Ch 8.\n \n \n 3\n Ibid. Ch 9-10.\n \n \n 4\n Thick, Ch 1-12.\n \n \n 7\n Ch 72, Fung Kwan Gazetteer. 45, 46.\n \n\nBy that time, Lai Chun-hot was the commander of the 'Shung' Naval Battalion stationed in Chikrang. In the 5th Moon of the 2nd year of Tung Chi reign (1863), he found that his Battalion had only a few sloops but too many officers. Thus, he transferred his brother Lai Chun-pin back to Kwang-tung.\n\nDuring his time in Kowloon, he had dedicated a memorial board to the Hau Wang Temple in the Kowloon City in the 6th year of the Kuang Hsu reign (1880). The board is still hanging inside the temple today.\n\nAs per note 6.\n\nThe charitable hospital was called the Fong Bin Hospital.\n\nThe tomb was called Yee Chung Yuen, and was situated on the slope facing the sea at Tai Shek Flat, not far from the Tin Hau Temple of the region.\n\nTo my knowledge, Jar O on Lantau Island had one, formed by charitable subscription, and indeed, there was one at Lai Chi Kok, Sai Ying Pun and at Lai Ping Shan Street on Hong Kong Island. It was known as Kong Fuk Yee Charity Hall but in 1851, also formed by charitable subscription. It was taken over and extended as the Tung Wah Hospital in 1870, after which it became a hospital in the western style.\n\nDetail of the story of the scheme can be seen on the memorial tablet established in the 4th year of the Kuang Hsu reign (1878). It is still in existence.\n\nBecause of recent development on the island, the slope with the charitable tomb was levelled. The tomb has been moved to the cemetery which lies on the north of the island.\n\nThe shop, with the one next to it, were purchased with the charity fund at the time of the establishing of the Fong Bin Hospital. They were rented, and the money so got was used as the expenses of the hospital.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213483, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "(4) if he treads \"in the air\", this means ascending the staircase. (5) when two men are holding an oar - this indicates the existence of a pontoon bridge for someone to use it to get to a nearby boat or sampan.\n\n(6) two big flags, each bearing the imprint of a wheel, held by a man or woman in each hand, with a noble lady in the middle, indicates that the lady is sitting in a chariot.\n\n(7) punishment or degradation of an official or scholar is indicated by \"taking away his hat\".\n\n(8) if a man wears a heavy balaclava, that means he is on a long distance trip or in severe cold.\n\n(9) there is no eating scene in Peking Opera. Drinking wine is denoted by raising the wine cup, with the right hand, to the lip, and hiding the movement by raising the sleeve of the left arm.\n\n(10) a man without a hat, constantly swinging his hair from side to side or tapping his finger on his forehead, or the constant rubbing of hands means he is in trouble and does not know how to get out of it.\n\n(11) why does an important figure walk from the back of the stage to the centre in a funny gait? This is because the Chinese theatre usually has no curtain, as the Western theatre does, so he has to perform the action in a dignified way.\n\n(12) wiping the eye with the sleeve denotes that the actor or actress is weeping or crying. I don't know why, but possibly handkerchiefs were not used in China in former times.\n\n(13) you will find that, in some of the play, a chair is used to represent the front door of a house or cave house.\n\n(14) a painted cloth screen, with an opening in the middle, represents the city wall and the entrance to the city.\n\n(15) you never see a man sleeping on a bed with a pillow. To portray that he is sleeping, he always sits upright in a chair, with his day clothing on, behind a cloth screen.\n\nThe Painted Face Actors\n\nHow much do you know about these painted Faces? From behind these facades, how much can you make out of it, to foretell the kind of character or personality of the man the actor is trying to represent on the stage? The following few hints maybe of help for you to understand the character of the man in history that the actor is portraying.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213498, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "62\n\npicture of the situation was given by L. Yu. He stated:\n\n“At the time they built their fortress with the backs against the hills and the fronts facing the sea. The two fortifications acted as two watchtowers. It made the Ching army difficult to attack or even try to get near to the island. On the slopes above Sai Ying Pun, at the midlevels, there was a fort and it helped to reinforce the defence.\" (Lai, 1948, P.13)\n\nSecondly, it is because Sai Ying Pun was situated at the foothill of the highest peak of the island. The peak (i.e. Victoria Peak 1917 ft. which was called O Tau Shan or Ngan Tau Shan at that period) formed the look-out of the pirates in those days. They wanted to keep an eye on the harbour which was a very important water route in that part of the South China coast. Whenever a vessel appeared, the watchmen would signal the pirates who were stationed at the foothills at Sai Ying Pun. The pirate fleet would then sail off to plunder and loot the vessels.\n\nThirdly, the pirates chose the place because Sai Ying Pun possesses some peculiar physical characteristics. Before the waterfront was reclaimed in the late nineteenth century, Sai Ying Pun was the only area in the northwestern sector of the Island, which controlled the western inlet to the harbour, with a fairly long coastal slope. The slopes were made up of colluvial fan. In other words, the soil in the area was derived from the decomposition of granite or other primitive rock. It was not, however, formed of detritus of rock washed down from above, but solid rock altered in situ. In the area west of Sai Ying Pun, Shek Tong Tsui, the granites outcropped nearly to the sea front. It was possibly the reason why as early as 1771 the Hakka people came to the area and quarried the granite and carried them to Shek Pai Wan. Therefore we can see that Sai Ying Pun was the only area in the northwestern sector that was suitable to set up a fortification. I think this is also the reason why the British commanders chose the same area to set up a barrack in 1841.\n\nSo Sai Ying Pun during the early years of Chiaching period was probably occupied by scores of pirates. They guarded themselves against the attack of the Ching armies and waited patiently for the signals that came from the peak and were always ready to sail off to plunder any trading vessels that happened to sail past the Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213592, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "159\n\nmangrove areas (See Irving & Morton, 1988).\n\nIf we choose as our example the Mai Po Marshes in Deep Bay we see that the mangroves, and the mudflats in front of them, support a unique flora and fauna (Morton & Morton 1983) and, together with the tidally operated shrimp ponds (geiwais), have been exploited by man for commercial gain for many centuries. It is the mangrove litter which supports all of these activities. The geiwais are perhaps the best example of commercial use and at Mai Po yield 1500-4000 kg of fish (mainly Tilapia) and shrimps (Gei Wai Ha) per pond per annum.\n\nThe mangrove stands also serve as the nursery ground for both shrimp and fish fry, which again accumulate there because of the abundance of food. The fish fingerlings of grey and other mullets are netted by local fishermen and then raised in nearby ponds for about one year when they reach marketable size.\n\nFarmers also cultivate oysters in this area, the oysters filter feeding on very fine organic detritus and plankton, based again on mangrove productivity (the total Deep Bay oyster crop is some 250 tonnes per annum). Many oyster farmers also trap mudskippers in woven bamboo baskets and, again, these fish are very dependent on mangrove productivity for their survival.\n\nTo the farmers living on the shores of Deep Bay the mangroves also offer a source of firewood and other useful products. Thus, the tallest Kandelia provide timber, fishing stakes, firewood and charcoal, and from the bark can be obtained various tannins; Acanthus fruits are used medicinally as a blood purifier and boil dressing while their leaves are used to cure rheumatism and their dried roots are used in the treatment of hepatitis, cancer and asthma; Avicennia seeds yield a resin used to treat ulcers and tumours, and an infusion of the bark is a medicine against parasites and a balm for gangrenous wounds; Excoecaria sap is used as a purgative, and finally Derris roots contain rotenone, a powerful fish poison, used in fish culture to harvest the fish.\n\nThe modern availability of fuel resources and other materials and of western medicine has led to a decrease in utilization of mangroves for these purposes. Now their major value lies in their role in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213631, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 227, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "201\n\n'Will some kind hand in a foreign land place a flower on my son's grave.' \n\nAvril Williams has answered that call countless times. She looks upon the departed, including of course the two Chinese, as members of her extended family. It is important they all have visitors.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 J Keith Stevens, 'British Chinese Labour Corps' Labourers Buried in England', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society vol. 29, 1989 (1991), p 390 and Plates 24 and 25\n\n2 Michael Summerskill, China on the Western Front, Britain's Work Force in the First World War, published by Summerskill (1982), passim\n\n3 The Register at Foncquevillers Military Cemetery\n\n*S M Bard, Report on Survey and Study of old Service Graves at Stanley Military Cemetery, Antiquities and Monuments Office (Hong Kong, c 1990), p.10, and S M Bard, Annex to Board Paper Antiquities Advisory Board/21/91, Study of Military Graves and Monuments Hong Kong Cemetery (Hong Kong, 1991), p 17\n\n4 In large Chinese families children are still sometimes known by numbers eg 'Number Four Sister'\n\n5 British soldiers in World War Two each wore two identity discs on a cord around their necks. On these plastic discs were stamped their army number and their name. If a soldier was killed one disc was buried with the body and the other was sent back to base for record purposes\n\n6. Four proverbs were used. The other two were, 'A noble duty bravely done', and 'Though dead he still liveth'. All four have a hint of a Christian message\n\n7 Tim Sebastian, 'Haunted by the Ghosts of Heroes', South China Morning Post (1 July 1995), Features p.3\n\n8 Ibid\n\nPLATES\n\nPlate I Although an army number is inscribed, this grave of a Chinese labourer in Foncquevillers Cemetery is unnamed. This is not uncommon\n\nPlate II The inscription on this grave shows the name of the labourer and his native place in China", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213816, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "140\n\nat the top was another of these tea houses and here we called a halt. I soon got into a chat with an old priest with his clean-shaven head. His temple, or rather hovel, was close there and he got his living by begging. He was stone blind. It was a mendicant Friar, and a wandering Friarð in argument. He freely acknowledged the absurdity of his creed. He is a Buddhist: and offered me on the spot to go with me and learn my creed if I would feed and clothe him. Then I jeered him about his idols, and why he did not get them to help him. The worst of them is, they all acknowledge the absurdity of it, but say it is their custom. Western Foreigners have customs and celestial's have customs, and all creeds are good alike: here the matter ends.\n\nWe again got on our route, and descended the valley. Mr Stringer and myself were so long with the old priest that we were far behind the rest of the party; but we were armed and therefore there was no danger. When we again reached the valley at the bottom, our road lay along a small stream for a few miles. The rest of the party were out of sight, and we went on alone, partly uncertain that we were going right. At last, however, the road suddenly opened into a deep valley on the right, and at last we saw the German Mission House, just under the brow of the hill, and our companions seated very comfortably on the balcony [Ed.: An illustration of the Lilong Station accompanies this article.] So we put our best leg foremost, and at last tired of walking and riding we got in about 5 o'clock. The house is not a very grand affair. But it just has served their purpose. There is only one other house near it for a long way. The situation is beautiful in the extreme, and as healthy as possible. They have a little ground in front, and on the sides of the hills are plantations of tea shrubs, though nothing very bright about them.\n\nThe missionary staff consists of Mr Winnes, who has been in China nearly 20 years, and a fine young German, named Eitel\". I was much struck with him. There is a nobleness and firmness in him which I greatly admire. In fact, there is something almost severe about his look. But the animation with which he speaks, and the natural energy of his character, together with his pleasing and gentlemanly deportment, lead you soon to see he is not an ordinary person. [Ed.: Photographs of Lechler, Winnes and Eitel accompany this article.]\n\nWe took a short walk on the hills, and then came home to dinner, which by the bye I enjoyed with a keen relish. Then we sat a while on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213874, "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": 226, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "200\n\nThe influence of these western-educated Cantonese extended northward in the 1860s when western firms such as Jardine and Swire established their branch offices in the newly opened Treaty ports — Shanghai in 1850, Fuzhou in 1854 and Hankou in 1861. It was in these new Treaty ports that the Cantonese recognized that a new job market in politics was open to them. A \"Western Affairs Movement” was initiated by several powerful provincial officials in China by the 1870s. Under the patronage of these officials, economic and legal reforms were introduced into China in the name of westernization. These officials who rose to power after suppressing the Taiping Rebellion without Beijing's support, developed huge business enterprises in the name of the \"official supervision — merchant management” or “western-affairs movement\". The Hong Kong compradores were mainly responsible for the collection of capital. Their credibility came not from the enterprises they set up, with or without the legal backing of a company law, but from their own reputation as well as the political patronage behind them.\n\nAmidst the rhetoric of these western affairs movements, “reform-minded\" officials recruited their own advisors and set up their own personal governments, known as Mufu, literally, tent government, or what we now call think-tanks. Many Cantonese, with or without imperial degrees, were sought to fill these posts. The strength of this “Cantonese party” rested on their early access to things western — the \"Cantonese faction established predominance in China's internal affairs and foreign relations... [their strength] lies in the monopoly in the matter of emigration overseas ... Before 1840, Canton was the only port open to foreign traders”. On how these think-tank members were appointed, westerners observed that:\n\nin the exercise of patronage... the principle is that which animated Washington in the selection of his first cabinet. Latterly the Canton party, ultra-progressive, has come to the front.\n\nIn the 1870s amidst this rhetoric of westernization, and with the assistance of western-educated Cantonese, the \"reform-minded\" officials managed to bargain with Beijing and develop huge business enterprises under their patronage. In an environment where company law and stock markets were absent, these reform-minded officials started these modern enterprises under an arrangement known as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213877, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "203\n\nBy the 1890s, however, these patronage networks developed by the western affairs movement underwent very drastic changes. Many of the “reform-minded\" officials in China had passed away due to old age.\n\nThe most serious blow came in 1895 with China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War. This destroyed the credibility of the western affairs movement. With the downfall of Li Hongzhang, the basis of political patronage began to diversify.\n\nAs for Li Hongzhang, after having been disgraced, he was assigned by Beijing to be the Viceroy of such peripheral provinces as Guangdong and Guangxi. It is where the first attempt to make south China independent came into play.\n\nIn 1900, the issue of the Boxer Uprising divided the viceroys into two factions. The viceroys of the northern provinces followed Beijing and declared war on the foreigners. The viceroys of the southern provinces, led by Li Hongzhang, declared themselves neutral.\n\nHo Kai, a former member of Li Hongzhang's think tank, and then the Legislative Councillor of Hong Kong, was the agent in a deal between Sun Yat-sen, the Hong Kong Governor, and Li Hongzhang to establish a proposed independent government in the South. He sought the Governor's assistance to persuade, even with military coercion, Li Hongzhang to declare Guangdong independent. The Governor, anticipating that China was about to be partitioned, was anxious to find ways to protect British interests in Southern China. Without committing himself, Li was said to have reacted favourably. In addition, it is recorded that Li Hongzhang wrote to Sun Yat-sen inviting him to Canton for a \"parley\".\n\nAt this juncture, Beijing offered Li Hongzhang attractive high-level posts in northern China. He was called to Beijing to tidy up the political chaos after the Boxers. The rumour that Li was about to leave for the North evoked great fear among the Chinese in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Telegraph reported that to stop Li from leaving, the merchants threatened to \"lie in front of the wheels of his carriage\".\n\nThe Governor of Hong Kong, through the Consul in Canton, urged Li to reconsider his decision. Politely refusing this advice, Li inquired whether he could be granted an interview when he passed through.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214057, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "92\n\nfrom which tunnels were excavated to locations under the floors\n\nA lady, appalled by the primitive standards of hygiene in 1879, wrote \".....no sort of effective drains or sewers have been provided whatever; sewerage finds its way [into rain-water conduits] is simply deposited along the whole harbour front, thus poisoning what else might be a pleasant situation........the arrangements for the daily (or among the poorer classes only bi-weekly!) removal of nuisances from every house (for subsequent conveyance to the mainland as an article of agricultural commerce) form a very unpleasant page in the sanitary statistics........\". Environmental concern clearly was not created in the late 20th century.\n\nMatters were not improved by Governor Hennessy (1877-82)'s deep conviction that for the local inhabitants their traditional earth system of sanitation was preferable to western flushing toilets. Even at the eve of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, the primitive system of collection and disposal of sewage was common, collection being based on an estimate of six taels (227 grammes) per person per day. In view of the above it is not surprising that a report recommended in 1882, amongst other things, that the city should be completely re-drained and a cholera outbreak in the following year gave timely impetus for new main drains and sewers to be laid. Nevertheless it was not until soon after the first serious outbreak of plague in 1894 that the main drainage system in the principal urban area had been practically completed. Legislation was then passed in 1896 making drainage for houses compulsory. Records indicate that the main storm-water drains around the turn of the century were formed with mass gravity retaining walls and incorporated a half-round dry-weather flow channel; where appropriate these drains were covered with simply-supported concrete or granite slabs.\n\nSubsequently more open nullahs were constructed, often running along the centre-lines of road reserves, for instance in Kowloon along Nam Cheong Street (Sham Shui Po) which was completed in 1912 and Waterloo Road (both of these now having been decked, mainly to effect much needed road improvements). As a result of continuing enhancements to the drainage system, in particular those relating to nullah and stream training works, plague was virtually eliminated by 1924 whilst deaths from malaria, although still numerous at the outbreak of the Pacific war, gradually declined.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214205, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "26\n\npicture than to the tiny figures on the mountain. Chinese medicine also takes a holistic approach. Again, it has been argued that Westerners see time as stretching out in a straight path in front. Asians, however, see time as a spiral, with things repeating themselves. It has been suggested this may have something to do with belief in reincarnation and the idea that there is 'a time to live and a time to die and a time to be born again.' Again, some of us are said to be logical thinkers, sometimes called 'convergers'; and there are also 'instinctive thinkers', sometimes called 'divergers'.\n\nWith the cortex of the brain composed of two hemispheres, it can be argued (Waters, 1991; 35) that the left lobe handles thought patterns which need to be processed linearly, sequentially, in systematic stages, step by step. The right lobe, conversely, operates in a more general way with simultaneous thought processing. How does all this affect appreciating jokes?\n\nEven though China is a single country about nine-tenths the size of Europe, populated largely by Han Chinese with many different dialects, there are also 56 minority groups with different lifestyles. This means that, although there are some jokes that will raise a chuckle no matter where they are told, some senses of humour, even within China itself, are to some degree regional.\n\nOnce in rural, Eastern Guangdong, at a walled village, the author asked a group of locals where the communal toilet was. As he walked away towards it, he heard the group giggling. In parts of China where Westerners seldom frequent, the white-skinned, red-faced, perspiring foreigner is an oddity and good for a chuckle; just as in some Western countries where Chinese seldom visit, they are intrinsically strange to Westerners. In the instance of the author looking for the lavatory, even though scatology is a form of Chinese peasant humour, he certainly did not expect to find it in the unprintable condition that he did - a country with some of the dirtiest bogs in the world.\n\nEven in \n\nChairman Mao was also fond of good, earthy expressions, although the author has been unable to find confirmation that: 'Making a noise like thunder to drown out the sound of 100 farts,' was actually dreamed up by him.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214237, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "58\n\nseen in a comparatively modern temple near Taipei. A lengthy tunnel connects the main part of the Kuan Tu temple complex, to the North-west of Taipei, with the front entrance overlooking the Tamshui River. Some twenty-eight images stand in glass-fronted niches carved into the rock down the sides of the tunnel. These large individual images are of the Early Buddhas, the Ku Fo; the Buddhas of pre-history, the Buddhas who came before Sakyamuni, The Buddha. They have no altars and as there is an altar dedicated to the Thousand-arm and Thousand-Eye Kuan Yin P'u-sa at the river end of the tunnel they are not offered incense individually.\n\nSeveral aspects of the hagiography of the images in the cave/tunnel are intriguing. First of all, those holding weapons have them in their left hand. They are mostly dressed in gilded armour, and finally, their titles in Chinese, though Sinicised Sanskrit, have proved impossible to translate into the original Sanskrit and are therefore unidentified. Several of these unidentified deities have been depicted in Taiwanese religious literature but without any explanation apart from being listed under a general title of Supportive Incantations to Buddha, Ta Pei Chou Fo 大悲咒佛.\n\nThe following Vedic deities who have been noted in one or both of the temples in the Western Hills would seem not to be present in the cave/tunnel:\n\nMarici, Pancika, Hariti, Pippala [Bodhidruma], Laksmi, Prthivi, Surya, Candra, Vimalakirti, Nanda Upananda and Skanda/Veda.\n\nOf the scores of books, both the popular illustrated and monastic academic, produced over the last half century in Taiwan describing the Buddhas, bodhisattvas and the hundreds of minor deities of Buddhism, one at least has listed what they have called The Celestial Guardians Division. This list includes not only the Four Diamond Kings, the T'ien Wang, [Vaisravana, Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka and Virupaksa] but nine of the Deva seen in the Western Hills. These are Indra [Sakra-devanam], Brahma [Maha-Brahman], Marici, Laksmi [Sri-maha-devi], Sarasvati, Yamaraja, Guhyapati, Skanda [Wei T'o] and Gandharva.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214250, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "one of the Twenty Deva. Sagara Naga, the Dragon King of Rain.\n\n71\n\nIn Chinese he is the Dragon King. His image has only been noted in one of our two temples in the Western Hills, the Pi-yun Ssu where he is portrayed as a standing, black-skinned official in multi-coloured robes and a pill-box cap with a small sunburst on the front. He has large round eyes and a black beard and is holding a tablet in both hands clasped before his chest. His image is also present in the cave/tunnel under the Taiwanese temple where he is known as Sha Lo Wang 沙洛王 and is portrayed as a middle-aged Chinese, standing,\n\ndressed in gilded armour and small Taoist crown. He is holding an unsheathed sword in his right hand and a small snake-like dragon in his left.\n\n15] Asura known in Chinese as Ah-hsü-lo\n\nThe Asura in the Lotus Sutra are one of the Eight Classes of super-natural beings - Asura originally meant a spirit or even a god - and are regarded as demons who fight against the forces of Indra. There is an image of an Asura in the group in the Ta Pei Ssu but not in the Pi-yun Ssu, nor in the cave/tunnel in the Taiwanese temple. In the Ta Pei Ssu he is a demonic human with four arms, three eyes and a further head superimposed upon his normal head. He has fiery red spiky hair, red moustache and beard, large round eyes and rings one in each ear. He is stripped to the waist and is white skinned, has bare legs and feet and is wearing a highly decorated colourful skirt.\n\n16] Vimalakirti known in Chinese as Wei-mo Chu-shih\n\nVimalakirti was a disciple of Sakyamuni at Vaisali who the Buddha is said to have instructed, and who later recorded it as the Sutra of Vimalakirti. The realm of Vimalakirti is a realm of profound joy.\n\nAn image of Vimalakirti is in the group in the Ta Pei Ssu but not in the Pi-yun Ssu, nor in the cave/tunnel in the Taiwanese temple. He is standing, dressed in a green robe decorated with gilded roundels and border, and a scarf round his head holding his hair in a loose knot protruding up and through it. He has grey hair, beard, moustache and eyebrows. There are no unique characteristics.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214406, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "230\n\nHONG KON\n\n(from the notes of a Russian traveller)\n\nOf the many islands, scattered along the shores of the extensive Chinese empire, the English selected for themselves a small island not particularly distinguishable for its fertility, almost bare, of little use to China; but with a good harbour and lying on the route from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean - hence very useful to them - and founded a city here, a depot for trade not only with China but with neighbouring islands. The city, whose proper name of Victoria is hardly known even to its own inhabitants, looks over the strait separating the island from the mainland, and consists of one main street following the course of the shore; it's called Queen's Road, although neither the present, nor any future queens of Great Britain are likely to travel on it; a number of other smaller streets run parallel to this main street or cross it at right angles. The latter rise up the mountain so steeply, that the houses behind stand a whole storey above the ones in front and that is why all of them have a wonderful view of the harbour and the picturesque shores of China. Magnificent too is the view of the city from the harbour. The houses, arranged in the form of an amphitheatre at the foot of the hill, are shaded by groups of trees; the main street is interrupted in the middle by an avenue, from which a garden with convenient, winding paths, runs further up the mountain, so that the mountain itself, previously completely bare is now covered to a certain level by shady bamboo lanes or groves of various trees. People building houses here mainly tried to shield themselves from the burning rays of the tropical sun, which is why the houses all have something in common: each one has, without fail, a covered balcony, and has some semi-dark hall through which the breeze blows; also shutters are an essential accessory of windows. The best building, in my opinion, is where the beautiful is united with the useful, which is - the barracks of the regiment stationed here. The two-storeyed peristyle surrounding it gives it the appearance of a Roman temple and shields it on all sides from the sun's rays. The Governor's House built recently on an elevated site in the middle of a newly cultivated garden, would have been one of Hong Kong's best adornments, were it not obstructed by extensions which completely obscure it. Other magnificent buildings I must include are the hospital, the club and many private homes. The western part was the first to be settled and is now nothing very much: - narrow streets with small houses", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214856, "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": 271, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "239\n\nTwo important things happened in October 1971: firstly, men were no longer allowed to take concubines and, secondly, every person had to have at least one full day off work a week. Up until then people in small Chinese firms frequently laboured seven days a week with a few days off at Lunar New Year and odd days off at major Chinese festivals - like Dragon Boat and Mid Autumn Festival.\n\nPeople\n\nEnough about statistics: what about RAS members who made things happen?\n\nI will always remember Dr J R Jones CBE, MC, MA, LL.D, JP, who served as our President from the time our Branch was reconstituted until 1970. I first met J R in early 1955 at a Dante Alighieri (the Italian Society) meeting. Then I learned he had a penchant for things antiquarian as well as languages — although he spoke little Chinese. There are a few short pieces written by him in early RAS Journals.\n\nI remember him in a pinstripe, blue suit and, although fairly tall, he could be described as dapper, polished and a ladies' man. He was gentlemanly, personable and, as such, made a splendid RAS ‘front man.' Much of the work behind the scenes, such as setting up the reconstituted Branch in 1960, was in fact done by Dr Marjorie Topley and Jack Cranmer-Byng, Honorary Editor. Marjorie Topley became our President in 1972.\n\nDr Jones had led an interesting life including serving King, Country and Empire in two world wars, as well as helping to organise the Ukrainian Army soon after the end of World War One. He also went on archaeological expeditions to Italy and Africa. As a lawyer he practised at the High Court in London and later in Shanghai. In Hong Kong he was legal advisor to The Bank, as he always referred to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank.\n\nIn fact he advised 'the Bank' to buy a number of paintings by George Chinnery (1774 to 1852). The latter is often said to have been the most accomplished western artist to have worked in the East in the 19th century. These paintings, which the Bank purchased, were a splendid investment. In addition, JR sat on a number of government", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214888, "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": 303, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "276\n\nargued a bit among themselves they were not militant people. Letters to the Editor were, however, written to the English press.\n\nLet us look at the Chinese community that went up to this temple on a daily basis. Many more went up at weekends. Some of them I got to know quite well. The first to arrive every morning was a man and his wife, both in their eighties, who got up at about four o'clock. They then walked up the hill in the dark (there are now streetlights on the lower part of Hatton Road). The old couple would stay up at the temple until late afternoon when they would return to their home in Western District. The temple meant a great deal to them. Their lives were woven around it. They had spent some of their own hard-earned money on repairing it and providing for day-to-day necessities - like joss sticks and oil for the lamps.\n\nDuring the day the old man would spend much of his time meditating. I saw him seated, frequently, swaying in a trance. Some maintain that the ultimate aim of meditation is to get one's soul to leave one's body. The danger is that it may be difficult to coax the soul, suspended in space in front of one's body, to return to its normal abode. All the time the old man was so occupied the wife was engaged in more mundane pursuits. She spent much of her time busying around cleaning the temple and listening to Buddhist music from a cassette player. She also prepared simple dishes such as congee. She made tea. I was frequently invited to drink with them.\n\nMost people came up to the temple early in the morning. Those that had jobs to go to would hurry down the hill, at what was still a reasonably early hour, while the elderly, the retired, would stay in the vicinity of the Temple longer. Often they would remain there for the best part of the day. Many would exercise in styles varying from the different schools of 'hard' and 'soft' Chinese martial arts to quasi-western callisthenics. Others would tend flower beds they had managed to create from the sparse layer of top soil, while others, who were mostly handymen rather than craftsmen, would carry such items as tools, timber or cement up the hillside. In their own time, in stages, a section of trellis or a shelter was added here, and an extension to the Temple there. Of course if one had nothing to do one could chat, relax and while away the time. They played mahjong (especially popular on Sundays), or worshiped the benign, grubby statue of Kwan Yin, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214896, "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": 311, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "285\n\nProbably it was worth it with someone fanning you the whole time. We all had a good laugh...........\n\nOn the third day, after breakfast, we took a sampan ride along the serene Perfume River and visited the Minh Mang Tomb, built between 1840 and 1843. The zenith of the Nguyen Dynasty was reached during the reign of Emperor Minh Manh. The tomb consists of about 40 monuments of various dimensions. All lie within a wall, oval in shape and 2,000 metres across. The main entrances to the monumental complex opens to varied scenes offering visitors pleasant sights. Most of the monuments mirror themselves in man-made lakes. The planning of the tombs reflects the strict social organization in Minh Mang times, the centralism and the monarch's Confucian inclinations.\n\nAnother place we visited was the Khai Dinh Tomb. Emperor Khai Dinh (1885-1925) ruled the country for nine years, from 1916 to 1925. His tomb, however, was built within a period of 11 years, from 1920 to 1931. Under Khai Dinh, western culture vigorously infiltrated Vietnam. As a result, in his tomb, several elements of western architecture blend with Vietnamese traditional art, particularly in the use of concrete in place of wood, ardoise slates for roofing, iron gates, lightning rods and electric lamps. Mountains, hills and rivulets around the tomb are exploited to fulfil the geomantic requirements thus offering the tomb a majestic environment. In the Thien Dinh Palace, inside the tomb, its interior decoration features colourful mosaics made up of millions of ceramic chips. The Khai Dinh Tomb has been classified as a work of \"neo-classicism.\"\n\nThe last monument we visited was the Thien Mu Pagoda. It was built by Lord Nguyen Hoang, in 1601, and named \"Pagoda of the Heavenly Lady\". The pagoda area can be divided into two sectors separated by a triple gate. The front sector comprises monuments and memorials such as the seven-story Phuoc Duyen Tower, the Big Bell, weighing two tons, a Stele on the back of a Tortoise, and the Stele \"Bell of the Pagoda of the Heavenly Lady\". The rear sector of the Pagoda is set aside for the practise of Buddhism and monks' activities. Also preserved there are some precious antiquities such as the bronze gong, cast in 1677, and the 1715 timber gilded board with Lord Nguyen Phuc Chu's inscription. With landscape and monuments in perfect harmony, the monuments mirror themselves in the peaceful Perfume River.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214969, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "21\n\nTEA, IVORY AND EBONY: \n\nTRACING COLONIAL THREADS IN THE INSEPARABLE LIFE AND LITERATURE OF HAN SUYIN\n\nTERESA KOWALSKA\n\nHan Suyin, medical doctor and fierce Chinese patriot, is the grand dame and doyenne of Chinese writers, born and brought up in pre-communist semi-colonial Old China, and has devoted over fifty long years, in a splendid literary career, to the interpretation of her beloved and largely misunderstood motherland China to the Western world. In spite of perfect fluency in French, Mandarin Chinese and English, she decided to write in the latter language in order to reach the largest possible audience. Her ultimate intention has always been to build bridges of communication and understanding between East and West, and her much under-estimated artistic and intellectual contribution has added a non-Eurocentric reflection on modern history of the Far East and South-East Asia to the treasury of contemporary global thinking. Maybe the humiliating touch of quasi-colonial atmosphere in Peking of her childhood and adolescence spurred her to undertake this challenging task of becoming an outspoken ambassador of her nation in front of the outer, fairly prejudiced and occasionally hostile world. Her inner independence irritated many, provoking accusations of being a communist, or a communist sympathizer at least. The artist's answer to these unfounded objections and simultaneously her meaningful artistic as well as human credo is contained in the below cited fragment of Chapter Eleven from Phoenix Harvest, volume five of her powerful six-volume epic cycle on modern history of China:\n\nI have had to live by what was imprinted in my cells, remaining averse to and suspicious of high-flown abstractions, but totally engaged to that smell and savour and warmth, that feel of the tide, blood beat, which is for me the people of China. With others, exultant ideologies may have priority, but it has never been so with me. I shoulder and make do with systems, with ideologies. I am not committed to any. Only one thing concerns me: in the great sweep of history, will this or that system have been another step forward for the Chinese people? They are the only 'side' I am on.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214971, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "23\n\nsuperpowers of that time, incessantly challenging one another, and by the Belgian, German and other colonial regimes soon following exactly in the pioneers' footsteps. All of them were hypnotised by China's reported wealth, by the trade of Central Asia and Tibet, and Szechuan was the key to Tibet. All were active in corrupting the declining Manchu regime, thus receiving multiple concessions as a reward, one of them being the privileges for Christian missionaries to preach their faith all over China. French endeavours made Szechuan into the main bastion of Roman Catholicism and the reservoir of missionaries to convert further regions of Central Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia. These events, which resulted in a series of anti-European and anti-Christian riots and culminated in the Boxer Rebellion (1900), are well described in Chapter Five of The Crippled Tree (volume one of the aforementioned epic cycle):\n\nTheir [i.e. the French priests'] courage and ability to endure hardship might have been praiseworthy had it not been only too clear that the religious garb covered most unreligious actions. Catholic priests and bishops bought up whole villages in times of flood and famine, demanded and obtained on threat of military action the best land in cities for their churches, after evicting the inhabitants and paying no compensation. Catholic priests formed militia bands of their own, and claimed to rank higher than our own magistrates. Bishops were invested with the pomp and power of governor-generals. They used sedan chairs with eight carriers, a drummer going in front, and everyone in the street where they passed had to stop work, stand up, and unroll their headbands in obeisance to the Catholic bishop, on pain of being beaten with the heavy bamboo.\n\nThe Boxer Rebellion marked the end of the feudal epoch and announced an approach of an unpredictable Great Change. In the Boxer Protocol of 1901, imposed after the defeat, China had to pay an enormous indemnity sum of five hundred million dollars, open more ports and cities, accept a permanent garrison of soldiers in Peking and other towns and along the existing railways. Moreover, the Boxer Protocol abolished the Imperial Examinations, an inevitable part of recruiting imperial administration and training classical Chinese scholars. This reform prepared the way for the long awaited New Learning, i.e. for finally educating young people in Western science and technology, until then almost unknown in China. New Learning", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215040, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "Fisher, W M : Dr E J Stuckey and the Chinese Hospital at Noyelles-sur-Mer. A biographical fragment of World War I : unpublished: BA Hons. Thesis at Monash University: 1984\n\nGriffin, NJ: The Use of Chinese Labour by the British Army : PhD thesis, University of Oklahoma : 1973 - held by the Imperial War Museum, London\n\n: Britain's Chinese Labour Corps in World War 1: Military Affairs : vol.XXXX No. 3 [Oct 1976]\n\nJones, A. Philip: Britain's Search for Chinese Co-operation in the First World War : Garland Publishing Inc.: New York and London: 1986\n\nKlein, Daryl\n\nLoisel, M : : La Chine de l'Empire Celeste [Chine des Han] en Terre Française - Picardie: 1995\n\n: With the Chinks: Bodley Head: ca. 1918\n\nLucas, C : The Empire at War\n\nMaxwell, J : The Chinese Labour Corps: A précis of their participation in World War: Unpublished\n\nMellor, Norman: With the Chinese Labour Corps - France 1918\n\nPaton, Alec : Occasional Gunfire, Private War Diary of a Siege Gunner: Bishop-Laggett Publishing: London: 1998\n\nPutkowski, J: British Army Mutineers 1914-1922 : Francis Boutle Publishers: 1998\n\nStevens, Keith : British Chinese Labour Corps Labourers Buried in England Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society: Vol. 29: 1989\n\nSummerskill, M: China on the Western Front: pub by Michael Summerskill", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215063, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "116\n\nwhich tends to bewilder foreigners is the lone deity representing Taisui on one altar and images of his sixty forms on another. This appears to be due to a policy decision by the temple committee which decided that in addition to a lone Taisui, the whole group of sixty would be more appropriate and rather than replace the lone image they added the sixty on another altar. In other temples the Taisui group is represented merely by sixty almost identical heads affixed to individual wooden blocks that are covered in red paper or swathed in red ribbon. The range of images is quite wide with, for example, in a temple on Hong Kong island one of the sixty is an aged man with a long white beard. His image has as its neighbour a standing youth with one arm raised holding an axe.\n\nThe only image of the sixty which would seem to have a unique and extraordinary characteristic is the primary one of the sixty, Jiazi. It consists of two small arms in addition to his normal pair which emerge, one from each eye-socket, and stretch a short distance in front of his face with the forearms turned upwards at their elbows and the hands poised as if about to grasp something. Although his unique feature is to be seen in sketches in several 19th century western books, such as DuBose in 1885, his image depicted with his extraordinary feature has only been noticed on altars in three temples. All three are popular religion temples where all sixty images are arrayed along the walls of their side hall. In Pudong, across the river from Shanghai, he is portrayed as an ordinary male sitting on a bench, dressed in gilded robes, holding a small lion cub in his right hand. He has a black beard and eyebrows and with his unique feature. The Jiazi Taisui in the Taisui Hall in the temple at Song Shan in Taipei is wearing a blue outer robe decorated with gilded Daoist signs, and two large red roundels on his knees bearing the character Fu, for good fortune. He is holding two peaches in his left hand symbolising longevity, rather than a lion cub. An almost identical image is the initial Taisui of the set of sixty in the Taisui hall of the third temple, the Taipei Fazhu Gong Temple. However, this time the tiny arms and hands emerging from the eye sockets are much smaller than elsewhere. Nonetheless, the two sets in these Taipei temples have only been installed within the last decade and both sets appear to have been ordered from and carved on the mainland, possibly near Shanghai. These unique Taisui are obviously blind having these miniature arms and hands taking up their eye sockets, and temple custodians have no idea what these miniature arms signify. However, DuBose writing in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215374, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "100\n\nthe 1970s it was usual to see most young children transported in the cloth carriers. Now imported mass-produced ones have replaced them, and mothers tend to carry their children in front following Western fashion. But fortunately, this large collection of Chinese baby carriers has been saved at the Museum, and will continue to give pleasure to future generations from both east and west.\n\nFURTHER READING\n\n* Garrett, Valery M. (1994) Chinese Clothing: an Illustrated Guide. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press (China) Ltd.\n\n* Garrett, Valery M. (1990) Children of the Gods: Dress and Symbolism in China. Hong Kong: Urban Council.\n\n* Garrett, Valery M. (1987) Traditional Chinese Clothing in Hong Kong and South China, 1840-1980. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press (China) Ltd.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215613, "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": 390, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "341\n\nNEXUS OF VILLAGES BY UNICORN DANCING TEAMS\n\nCHIU HANG SHI\n\nIt was chilly, cloudy and rainy on Sunday, January 27, 2002 in Hoi Pui Tsuen, Pat Heung. This village is inhabited by the Fan, the Cheung and the Kan. This area was quite inaccessible before the construction of the Tai Lam Tunnel and recently the West Rail Station.\n\nSome 60 people, mainly young men and some leaders of the village, have been gathered in front of the village office since 2:00pm in a jovial manner. Inside the village office, a temporary altar was set up facing the entrance of the building with a tablet of hand-written characters on it. Some seven unicorn dancing teams arrived by 5:00pm. All teams were first greeted by the unicorn team of the host village and then each team proceeded to the two ancestral halls (Fan's and Cheung's) to pay tribute to the ancestors. A banquet of basin meal of 120 tables was served in the evening.\n\nThe organizer of this celebration was Nam Shing Tong. This celebration has been held every year after the Handover. The reason for doing so was that this Tong has had some extra money left every year.\n\nAt first one might have no idea why unicorn dancing teams from some apparently unrelated areas would be invited to come. 1. Yuen Long, well, it is reasonable to have a team from Yuen Long. Hoi Pui Tsuen is in Yuen Long, 2. Shatin, it is quite the other part of the Territory, and 3. Sai Kung, it is obviously very far away. Later, I was enlightened by being told that they were from the same instructor, Master So. The unicorn dancing team from Sai Kung was particularly able to draw one's attention - it was known as Pak Kei Lun (Northern unicorn), which was black, as different from the unicorns commonly seen in Hong Kong, which were bright and colourful. The Pak Kei Lun had two small horns, which might, ironically, make it no longer qualified to be a unicorn, in a Western sense. The ordinary unicorn had five colour strips around the neck: red, yellow, blue, white and black, resembling the five directions: south, centre, east, west and north.\n\nPage 390\n\nPage 391", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215648, "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": 425, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "377\n\ninscription. The ivory canister is accompanied by a book to which one refers to read one's fortune. In Cantonese, this method of fortune telling is called Cow Tsim\n\n3. A copy of the Hong Kong Telegraph Pictorial Supplement dated 2nd June, 1934. It includes a group photograph of staff and pupils of the Peak School among who is Douglas Franklin's sister - Sylvia. Other photographs in the supplement include the construction of the Shing Mun dam, the latest fashion and high society of the day\n\n4. Photograph taken some time before Mr Frederick Franklin's wedding in 1925. Mrs Franklin had been a nursing sister employed at the Government Civil Hospital in Western District. She originated from Scotland\n\n5. The old Peak Church, taken in 1925, where Frederick Franklin and his bride were married\n\n6. Saint John's Cathedral Choir, on the steps of the Cenotaph in Statue Square, taken at the Armistice Service in 1938. The statue of Queen Victoria, under the canopy, is in the background. The Cenotaph is a smaller version of the one in Whitehall, London\n\n7. Christmas Fancy Dress Party at the Peak Hotel, 1924. The hotel was demolished after World War Two\n\n8. Snapshot of Mr Franklin senior with Sir Robert Ho Tung, one of Hong Kong's most famous sons. Robert Ho Tung died in 1956. Although Eurasian he normally wore Chinese clothes\n\n9. Snapshot taken in 1924 of Frederick Franklin and the lady who later became his wife, together with a friend in front of a matshed at Repulse Bay. The three are in \"whites\" and, apart from pith helmets, the two men are dressed very much as we dressed in the 1950s and '60s. Mr Franklin was wearing shorts and knee-length socks and his male companion was wearing a Saigon linen wet-wash suit\n\n10. Another snapshot taken in 1924; again, all three are wearing similar attire. Father sits on the running board of the car, which is definitely 1920s vintage", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215650, "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": 427, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "379\n\nTAIPA FORT AND A NINETEENTH CENTURY\n\nTaipa Fort\n\nCANNON\n\nRICHARD J. GARRETT\n\nThroughout Macau's long history, many forts and batteries were built to protect it from aggressors. The fort on Taipa, an island forming part of Macau, is one of the territory's lesser fortifications although, unlike most of the others, it survives largely intact.\n\nTaipa Fort was built in 1847 after the island's population petitioned the governor, Ferreria do Amaral, to station military forces there to provide better protection from pirates. The islanders' main livelihood was fishing and a large fleet anchored there. The governor agreed to the proposal and Pedro Jose da Silva Lourerio was put in charge of constructing a fort. The islanders themselves funded the cost of the building.\n\nThe fort was built to guard the strait between the islands of Taipa and D. João and to protect the fishing fleet that used the inlet between two islands which formed Taipa. (These two islands and another very small one are now joined by reclamation.) Located on the western shore, the fort is built on the side of a slope, and before reclamation, the front walls were washed by the sea. Figure 1 shows a plan of the fort dating from the early twentieth century.\n\nThe main building of the fort is a single-storey brick-built structure, with the arms of Portugal and the date, 1847, on the side. (Figure 2) Sometime before 1900 the fort was adapted to provide a summer residence for the Governors of Macau. A veranda, supported on six columns that sit directly on the front wall of the fort, was added some time after the governor had adopted the fort as a residence. (Figure 3) This extension shows that by then the fort had no military pretensions.\n\nThe plan in Figure 1 shows the other internal buildings and indicates the location of the principal cannon. Apart from some small conventional buildings around the fort, there is a small circular building,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215673, "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": 450, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "402\n\nBy July 15, the 24th Division was forced back on Taejon, sixty miles below Osan, where it initially took position along the Kum River above the town. Clumps of South Korean troops by then were strung out west and east of the division to help delay the North Koreans.\n\nWhile pushing the 24th Division below Taejon, the main North Korean force split, one division moving south to the coast, then turning east along the lower coastline. The remainder of the force continued southeast beyond Taejon toward Taegu. Southward advances by the secondary attack forces in the central and eastern sectors matched the main thrust, all clearly aimed to converge on Pusan. North Korean supply lines grew long in the advance, and less and less tenable under heavy United Nations Command (UNC) air attacks. The U.S. Far Eastern Air Force meanwhile achieved air superiority, indeed air supremacy, and UNC warships wiped out North Korean naval craft.\n\nAlarmed by the rapid loss of ground, Walker ordered a stand along a 140-mile line arching from the Korea Strait to the Sea of Japan west and north of Pusan. His U.S. divisions occupied the western arc, basing their position on the Naktong River. South Korean forces, reorganized by American military advisers into two corps headquarters and five divisions, defended the northern segment. A long line and few troops kept positions thin in this **Pusan Perimeter**. This line was, essentially, the front on August 12, the day that Mr. Morrison was killed.\n\nMr. Morrison's movements in Korea before his death are unknown. Seoul had fallen several days before his arrival, so he would have been forced to arrive in the south of the country, perhaps at Taegu. One assumes he spent the next five weeks, or so, behind the retreating UNC frontline.\n\n\"Morrison, a Daily Telegraph correspondent, and a great friend of mine, Uni Nair (sic), acting as a UN observer, were all killed together. I have always been convinced that Nair probably got them all into trouble. He was notably fearless. While with the Indian army in Italy during WW2, as a PR officer, he thoroughly enjoyed taking visitors into particularly dangerous sectors where their jeep attracted hostile fire. Towards the end of the war, in Burma, he volunteered without training to jump with paratroops in the drop on the outskirts of Rangoon.\n\n'Nair was fond of palm reading. My own, that I would reach a ripe old age, turned out pretty true. But if we asked Uni what sort of future he read in his own palm he always said, after a pause, “A short life and a merry one.”\" (Russell Spurr -- personal communication with the author)\n\nPage 450\n\nPage 451", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216036, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 335, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "269\n\nthe time ripe for an insurrection..\n\nThe rebellion began among the Hakka people in the southern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong and by 1853 was spreading north and west, led by Hong Xiuquan, a schoolmaster who had picked up a smattering of Christianity. Whilst suffering from an illness he experienced severe hallucinations and saw that his mission was to free the Chinese from Manchu rule. He also convinced himself and others that he was the younger brother of Christ and a son of God sent to save mankind. The Taiping rebels were known colloquially by the Chinese peasants as the Long-haired Rebels, Chang Mao, as they refused to shave the front of their head. [China's Manchu conquerors had ordered that all Chinese males would shave the front half of their head and wear the rest tied into a lengthy queue or 'pigtail'.] Hong Xiuquan's liberated territory was known as the Kingdom of Great Peace, Taiping Tianguo and by 1860 he had more than a quarter of China under his control. Much of the fighting between the Manchu Imperial forces and the Taiping rebel armies took place across Zhejiang province and down the Yangzi, especially around the Taiping capital at Nanjing. With Zhenjiang captured by the Taiping in April 1853 [a mere eleven years after the British had taken the city], their control of the southern bank of the Yangzi was virtually complete. Zhenjiang lay deserted during the Taiping era, being no more than a fort occupied by the Taiping rebels. The pagodas and temples were all destroyed with the usual Taiping iconoclastic fervour, and in many places their stones used as fortifications. The city, surrounded on three sides by a remarkable line of Taiping trenches some ten to eleven miles in length, was besieged several times by the Imperial forces. Each time they were driven off, with the city remaining in Taiping hands until compelled by a failure of supplies the rebels were forced to evacuate it early in 1857. Zhenjiang never fully recovered. The Taiping were finally defeated in 1864 when their capital at Nanjing finally fell to the Imperial forces - assisted by several foreign-led armies of Chinese and western mercenaries, one of which was the Ever-Victorious Army under General Gordon. Rasmussen in 1905 refers to the decayed trench system as 'Gordon's trenches', with some of his guns still to be found sunk deep into the soil of their old embrasures. He added that 'the only reminder now [1905] of the Taiping Rebellion was the thousands of graves covering the countryside, and the ghost-ridden walled city where the whole population had been put to the sword'. Thomas Adkins, the British Consul in Zhenjiang,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216434, "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-2003", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "143\n\nof the natives and made a very favourable impression was in the prohibition of religious propaganda on the part of [foreign] priests.\n\nForeign bias towards the Japanese\n\nThe great majority of western correspondents in the field would appear from their reporting to have had Japanese sympathies. British illustrated histories regularly contained favourable reports on individual scenes and acts by Japanese forces. They were frequently praised for humanitarian acts and regularly reported as having paid particular care in their treatment of and friendly relations with the Chinese population.\n\nA western observer reported that 'in May 1904 prior to the Japanese assault on Dalny (Dalian) a Japanese sergeant made his way into the Chinese quarter, and by spreading news of a great Japanese victory and a quickly arriving Japanese army, induced the residents to fly the Japanese flag, and so stampeded the Russians.'\n\nThe Japanese fought their way for three months, up the Korean Peninsula, stormed across the Yalu in April 1904 and set up their Headquarters in Andong, a Chinese town of some size. Here, stores of all sorts were purchased from the Chinese, though at an exorbitant cost. Chinese coolies, laden with military stores, competed with bullock carts, similarly laden, crowding the road now filled with marching troops and empty carts returning from the front. Coolies and carts were plentiful as they had no problem working for the Japanese who paid promptly, unlike the Russians.\n\nIn general, the lives of Chinese coolies were wretched and the Japanese Army commander issued an order reminding his troops that they were fighting the Russians and not the Chinese, and that they should remember they were fighting an enemy in the country of their friends. A Japanese report claimed that in Manchuria, as in Korea, they had made full use of Chinese coolie labour but had worked their coolies as transport carriers in the same scientifically humane way they worked their horses. After three months of unremitting labour the carrier coolies, well fed, well treated, at a daily wage five times as high as they had been accustomed to earn, and so well looked after that there had been only 2% of sickness among them, were in better condition than when the campaign began.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]