[ { "id": 204271, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n35\n\nTo begin with a few examples in poetry: the poet Ts'ao Chih (A.D. 192-232), son of Ts'ao Ts'ao and younger brother of the first Emperor of Wei, wrote about the knight errant in \"The White Steed\", also known as \"The Knight Errant\":\n\nA white steed decked with a golden halter\nGalloped past towards the north west.\n\n\"Who is the rider?' I enquired from a by-stander.\n'A knight errant from the north' was the reply.\n'He left his native district when he was young,\nAnd spread his fame across the distant desert.\nHe always carries a fine sturdy bow\nWith arrows of bramble wood, long and short.\nPulling the string, he hits the target on the left;\nShooting from the right, he hits it again.\nLooking up, he shoots an ape in flight;\nBending down, he hits the bull's-eye once more.\nHe is more agile than a monkey,\nAnd as fierce as a leopard or dragon.\n\nWhen alarms came from the frontier\nThat barbarian troops had made repeated raids,\nAnd when a call to arms was heard from the north,\nHe mounted his steed and reached the frontier fort.\nHe rode on right into the land of the Huns,\nHolding the Mongol tribes in high disdain.\nHe threw himself before the pointed swords\nWithout giving a thought to his own life.\nHe did not even worry about his parents,\nLet alone his children and his wife.\nHis name entered the register of heroes;\nHis heart had no room for personal feelings.\n\nHe risked his life at a time of national disaster,\nAnd regarded death merely as coming home'.10\n\nThis portrait of a knight errant may be a little idealized, for the poet is, in all probability, using the subject as an excuse to express his own frustrated patriotic wishes and military ambitions, being prevented from fulfilling these by his elder brother. Nevertheless, the poem remains a good illustration of some of the ideals of knight errantry. Notice, in particular, that the knight errant did not allow filial devotion to deter him from his heroic task.\n\n10 Ts'ao Tzu-chien shih-chu (with notes by Huang Chieh, Peking, 1957), pp. 69-70.\n\n2000", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204321, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961).\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n85\n\nNo-cha then partially pulled off the celestial robe of the dragon-king and revealed the scales under his left ribs. He tore off some forty or fifty of the dragon-scales and the dragon-king was wounded and suffered a violent pain. He begged his assailant to spare his life. No-cha said, “If you want me to spare your life you must give up your law-suit against me before the Jade Emperor, and follow me back to Ch'ên-t'ang Pass.\" The dragon-king could not free himself and yielded to No-cha. Transforming himself into the shape of a small black snake, he hid in No-cha's sleeve and they descended from heaven. (Ch.13)\n\nSome references can be cited here for comparison and we can see how clever the author was in composing his ingenious and complicated plot which surpasses all the materials he made use of.\n\nIn the prompt-book Ch'in Ping Liu-kuo P'ing-hua (\"The Annexation of the Six States by the Emperor of Ch’in”), chüan 2, there is a sentence, \"to fasten the cuirass he should use the sinews of the old dragon.\" In the Ta-T’ang San-tsang Ch’ü-ching Shih-hua (\"Tripitaka's Search for Buddhist Sutras\"), chuan 2, (7), the Monkey-monk (Hou Hsing-chê) pulled out the sinews from a dragon with nine heads for a belt to hold the cuirass.\n\nAccording to the Min Shu (M), there was a Taoist priest named Yu Chên-chai (2) living in the epoch of Hung Wu, who was called upon by an old woman:\n\nShe was a female-dragon... and was to be struck to death by lightning on account of her failure in regulating the rains. She begged him to save her life. Yü said, “Can you transform yourself to a small shape so that I may hide you in my alms-bowl?\" The dragon followed his advice and transformed herself into a snake wriggling into the bowl.\n\nThe story of No-cha goes on as follows:\n\nOne day as the weather was excessively hot, he felt restless and annoyed, and ascended the tower over the city-gate. On the weapon-stands he found a wonderful bow called ch'ien-k'un kung (the cosmic bow) and three arrows called chên-t'ien chien (heaven-shaking arrows) which he appreciated very much, and did not know that they were left by the Yellow Emperor and since then no one had been strong enough to use them. He was so glad of this discovery and he seized the bow and shot an arrow toward the south-west. With a startling sound the sky was covered with red mist and auspicious clouds floated around. (Ch.13)\n\nIn chuan 13, in the chapter of the \"Competition in Martial Exercises for the Hand of Yasodhara\" of Abhiniskramana-sutra (DATE · #), we have the following paragraph:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204332, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch \n\nRASHKB and author \n\n96 \n\nVol. 1 (1961) \n\nISSN 1991-7295 \n\n(h) The name of Chin-cha does not appear in the prompt-book Hsi-yu-chi of the \"Four Travels\", but it appears in Ch.83 of Wu's Hsi-yu-chi, in a paragraph which is now open to question. \n\n(i) In Ch.38 of the Fêng-shen, the monster Lung-hsü Hu (A) when stirred up by Shên-kung Pao (A), was prepared to devour Chiang Tzu-ya, and exclaimed when seeing him approach, \"If one could eat a slice of the flesh of Chiang Shang, he would prolong his life for a thousand years more!\" This idea does not appear in the \"Four Travels\", but is repeated twice in Chs. 32 and 40 of Wu's Hsi-yu-chi to the effect that if anyone could eat a slice of the flesh of Hsüan-tsang he would prolong his life. \n\n(j) In Ch.45 of the Fêng-shen Yen-i, in order to break through the ranks of the Boisterous Wind Array (RAM), a “wind-stopping pearl\" (L) was to be borrowed from the Immortal Tu-O (EXA). Now in Ch.59 of Wu's Hsi-yu-chi, Sun Wu-k'ung was fanned away by the wind and he had to borrow a \"wind-stopping pill\" (A) from the Bodhisattva Ling-chi (M). This story does not appear in Ch.37 of the Hsi-yu-chi in the \"Four Travels\". \n\n(k) In Ch.34 of the Hsi-yu-chi in the \"Four Travels” when the black ox of Lao-tzu stole its master's diamond ring and descended from heaven with it, though it fought fiercely with many gods it never encountered the gods of the Department of Fire. But in Ch.51 of Wu's Hsi-yu-chi, it fought against many genii of the Department of Fire whose weapons were fire-dragons, fire-horses, fire-crows, fire-rats, fire-swords, fire bows and fire arrows. The fire-crows first appeared in Ch.9 of the Nan-yu-chi and both the fire-crows, fire arrows and fire-dragons appear in Ch.64 of the Fêng-shên Yen-i and were a part of the arms of Lo Hsüan (). The \"fire-horse\" may be derived from the \"horse of red smoke\" (ch'ih-yen chù *), a mount of Lo Hsüan, \n\nThe above points when considered separately may be regarded as accidental and some of them may even be refutable, but as some of them seem to be invulnerable and when they are found together in the same book, it would be ridiculous to overlook their significance. And besides, it is easy to sum up a long story and to write a synopsis of it as is done in Ch.83 of Wu's Hsi-yu-chi, but it would be a very difficult and thankless task to develop a short paragraph into a thrilling story of some twenty thousand words. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that these", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204449, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 81, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "70\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS\n\nbut their main concentration in a solid bloc is in the Ta-liang mountains southwest of I-pin district of Szechwan.\n\nMore closely related to the Tibetans, the Ch'iang live in the west fringes of the Szechwan basin east of K'ang-ting city. The chief areas of Tibetan settlement are almost all in the Tibetan plateaus, though politically the areas are divided among five provinces in addition to Tibet proper and not counting now-abolished Sikang province. These are Kansu, Chinghai, Yunnan, Szechwan and Kweichow. Since Sikang has largely been incorporated into Szechwan, the latter now contains over 700,000 Tibetans, whereas Yunnan has some 67,000,\n\nAside from the Chuang who constitute about seventy per cent of the total population in what is called the Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region, other T'ai-related groups are widespread especially in Yunnan and Kweichow. The T'ung occupy a solid bloc of territory joining three provinces: southeast Kweichow, northern Kwangsi, and western Hunan. They are related to the Shui who live in the southeast corner of Kweichow. The Pu-yi (also called Chung-chia) are a T'ai-related group in southwest Kweichow. In central Kweichow they live intermingled with the Miao, and they constitute the majority of the country people around the provincial capital of Kuei-yang. The T'ai proper have settled in the southern half of Yunnan where they are divided into two branches: the Hsi-shuang pan-na T'ai and the Te-hung T'ai. The former of these branches constitute \"Twelve pan-na or basin 'states'\", whence their name. The latter are close relatives of the Burma Shan people. Also related to the T'ai more distantly are the Li people of Hainan Island, with their heartland in the Li-mu (\"mother of the Li\") mountains that dominate the southern half of the island. Some Miao also are found on Hainan, having been imported during the Ch'ing dynasty to make poison arrows in the campaigns against the Li.20\n\nThe Miao are a very scattered group and only in two regions do they form compact settlements: eastern Kweichow and southwest Hunan. In Szechwan they live along the Kweichow borderlands. In Kwangsi they have settled in small groups in the centre of the province. In almost all regions the Miao have\n\n20 Hsu Sung-shih, Yueh-chiang liu-yü jen-min, 122-123.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204659, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "126\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nCompany's second steamer Shu-hun, a larger and more powerful steamer than their Shuting, which was built by Yarrow's in 1913. It was not until the 1930's, however, that the majority of Upper River steamers were able to do the whole trip unaided.\n\nA unique feature of the Upper Yangtse was the trackers' paths cut in the hillside above the rapids, at some places as high as 30 or 40 feet above the river level. At the most dangerous rapids the junks were lightened of their passengers and most of their cargo, only a few men staying on board with the pilot to work the bow sweep and pole. The negotiation of the rapids required great skill on the part of the pilots, and instant obedience and co-operation from the junkmen and trackers, and it might take an hour or more of unremitting exertion to pull a junk up the worst 200 or 300 feet of one of those rapids. The trackers and junkmen would be encouraged and stimulated by drumming, and by the antics of the headman, to which they replied by a low, monotonous chanting. Some of the gorges were too precipitous for trackers' paths, and at such places junks had to wait for a strong, favourable wind.\n\nThere were frequent accidents, many of them fatal, at the more dangerous rapids, and special large-sized sampans were stationed at such places to rescue those who came to grief. These were called \"red boats\", and it was in a sampan of this kind that Sir Reginald Johnston travelled from Ichang to Chungking in 1906. One of the most dangerous rapids was the Hsin Tan, or New Rapid, 135 miles above Ichang, which was formed by a landslide some 300 years ago. It was here that the China Navigation Company's first Upper River steamer, the Shuting, was lost in 1937. The Hsin Tan was most dangerous in the low water season; other rapids were most dangerous in the high water season.\n\nThe Yangtse Gorges provide some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. Windbox Gorge and Witches' Mountain Gorge are the most famous of the Gorges. The latter is also the longest, being 20 miles long, with the river only 150 yards wide at some places. It is also probably the most beautiful and mysterious, in an awe-inspiring manner. As in Windbox Gorge, there are places where the passenger on a river steamer has the distinct impression that the mighty and almost sheer precipices actually overhang the river in places. There are caves high up in the cliffs, and villages over 1,000 years old clinging to ledges more", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204722, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 25, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "W. C. HUNTER\n\n \n Soldiers with matchlocks, bows and arrows, flags and songs moving across the Square to reinforce those stationed on board the Chop and other boats.\n \n \n Tomorrow is Captain Elliot's last day, when I am quite sure the passports required will not be granted11. The heat of the weather is such that much of our provisions is spoiling.\n \n \n New China Street still remains closed with bars of wood nailed across the gates and police stationed to guard them. The Chinese houses in all directions filled with people looking from the roofs and out of the windows but none daring to attempt an entrance into the Square which is perfectly clear, except the police force. Foreigners move across the Square and into each others Hongs without impediment.\n \n \n Captain Elliot received a communication this morning from the Commissioner direct which ordered him to give up all the opium outside.\n \n \n Captain Elliot's secretary and myself went to the cow-yard with a small piece of paper containing a list of a few articles, such as rice, bread and meat which they wanted in the Company Factory. We thought we could bribe the cow-man to buy them and secrete the articles amongst the straw till we could carry them away a little at a time, but we were so closely watched we had no opportunity to speak to the man and finally the police drove him out of the yard.\n \n \n 27 March\n \n \n This morning Elmslie12, Captain Elliot's secretary, came round with a circular to the foreigners in which was requested that all opium owned by British subjects should be surrendered to him for the use of Her British Majesty's government to be delivered to the Commissioner.\n \n \n We made our list and gave up under receipt:\n \n\n \n 980\n chests Malwa\n \n \n 356\n chests Patna\n \n \n 33\n \n 97\n chests Benares\n \n \n 40\n \n 4\n 33\n \n 100\n piculs Turkey\n \n \n 700,000 dollars\n \n \n 1437 chests the cost of which is upwards of all belonging to our constituents in Bombay", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204871, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n149\n\nAn expert could say what the ranges of such cannons were, but after you have landed at the pier and walked to the fort, you will appreciate that it is 1,200 yards from the coast. It is unlikely that guns in the fort could be really effective at this range, so that one questions the wisdom of its planners in placing it so far from the sea, if it was meant to be a work of coastal defence.\n\nWhat of the garrison? In the later Ching period there were at least three military installations on Lantau at Tung Chung, Tai O and Fan Lau, another on Cheung Chau, and a considerable number of troops in the Kowloon Walled City. These were all sedentary garrisons drawn from the Tai Pang (Mirs Bay) battalion of the Chinese regular forces, which was scattered in forts and guard posts all over the eastern and southern part of the Sun On district, of which the present Crown Colony of Hong Kong formed the major part. The garrison at Tung Chung was commanded by a subordinate officer and probably consisted of a score or two men who were very likely without modern weapons. Writing in 1903 Dyer Ball said of the Chinese military forces that \"matchlocks, gingals, bows and arrows, spears and lances are still the weapons of many\". Their military efficiency was probably very slight. A missionary, who wrote an interesting account of the San On district for the last number of the transactions of the old Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1859, has an amusing description of the guard post at the Shatin Pass. However, they probably had a deterrent value, but owing to the poor state of local communications at that time, they were much too far away to assist if anything happened elsewhere on Lantau, particularly on the south side, though their influence was felt there. When the local leaders of the Pui O community (South Lantau) rebuilt the Hung Shing temple there in 1875, they persuaded the garrison commander at Tung Chung to make a contribution. In the commemorative tablet recording the event he is styled Fu Ye, a respectful form of address for this subordinate officer.\n\nTo bring these rather rambling notes to a close, the fort was used after 1898 as a police station. The District Officer who recovered the cannons for the fort has left a vivid picture of his occasional magisterial visits there about 1920:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204938, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "THE POPULATION OF CHINA \n\n39 \n\nshe is bound by every tie of duty to encourage and to patronize a concubine through whom his name may be preserved, and provision made that when he leaves the world honours will be done to his manes. One of the most popular of Chinese writers says, \"There are in the world wives who, never having borne boys nor nourished girls, even when the husband has reached the age of forty, prohibit his bringing home a concubine or entertaining a handmaid for the purpose of continuing his posterity\n\nthey look upon such a person with jealous hatred and malignant ill-will. Alas! do you not know how fleet is time! Stretch as you may your months and your years, they fly like arrows; and when your husband's animal spirits and vigorous blood shall be exhausted, then indeed he can never beget children, and you, his wife, will have stopped the ancestral sacrifices, and you will have cut off his generation; then repentance, though you may exhibit it in a hundred ways, will indeed come too late; his mortal body will die; his property, which you, husband and wife, have sought to keep together, will not descend to his children, but be fought for by multitudes of kindred and relations; and you will have injured not one person, - not your husband only, -- but even yourself; for who shall take charge of your coffin and your tomb? who shall bury you or offer sacrifices? Alas! your orphaned spirit shall pass nights in tears. It is sorrowful to think of. There are some wives who do control their jealousies, and allow their husbands to take concubines to themselves; but they do so (ungenerously) as if they were drinking vinegar, and eating acids; they beat Betty by way of scolding Belinda* - there is no peace in the inner house. But I beseech you to act as a prudent and virtuous woman. If you have no children, provide with openness and honesty a concubine† for your husband. If she bear him children, to you he will owe that the arteries and veins of his ancestral line are continued; his children will honour you as their mother, and will not this comfort you? Give not way to the malignant jealousy of a wicked woman! not a bitterness which you yourself must swallow.\"‡\n\n* Prepare Chang for Lee, i.e., they punish the concubine's servants to be revenged on the concubine.\n\n† Genesis, xxx 1-13.\n\nFrom the Perfect Collection of Household Gems.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205369, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "124\n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\nward wheel-barrows, and the cost of carriage adds so much to the price at which goods must be sold to remunerate the trader, that the demand for them soon ceases.\n\nThe inhabitants along the coast support themselves principally by fishing. Hundreds of old men, women, and children, may be seen on the extensive flats left by the receding tide, collecting the small fishes, crabs, and other animals which have been stranded; with these they season their rice. The able-bodied men are with their boats at sea. Many of these proceed to distant islands, and remain at sea for several months. Towards the end of the year they set sail for their native villages, and then all the bays and mouths of rivers teem with crowds of fishing-boats, which have returned that their crews may celebrate the New Year with their families.\n\nPik-tow, Sha-tsing, Fuk-wing, Sai-heong, and Nam-tow, are the principal fishing stations. At Sha-tsing and Fuk-wing there are extensive oyster beds. Pik-tow, Kong-ping, and Fuk-wing †, are said to be the head-quarters of pirates. Sham-tsün is the chief place of export from the villages occupied by the Hak-kas, who are often met with in long trains, of from 400 to 600, conveying produce to that place. The northern part of the district is inhabited by populous and powerful clans, not unlike in their constitution to the old clans of Scotland; these live in intimate connection with one another for mutual protection.\n\n+\n\nThe villages in the plain of San-keaou, are almost exclusively inhabited by four clans, Man, Mak, Tsang, and Chang. The villages inhabited by other clans are of no importance, and gradually either become absorbed in the more powerful clans, or are ruined by their hostility, and forced to remove to some other part of the country. For instance, the villagers of Hung-tiu changed their name, and adopted that of the powerful clan which inhabited San-keaou. This was done in order to extricate themselves from the endless feuds, which the aggressive conduct of their neighbours involved them in.\n\nThe people are of a quarrelsome nature, and fond of rapine. They will engage in any enterprise which promises them money, or which will give them an opportunity of robbing.\n\nThe mandarin at Fuk-wing once asked me why we attempted to carry out our missionary work, among a people so depraved", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206043, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "118\n\nSerial\n\nK. M. A. BARNETT\n\nUse\n\n1. (a) In numbering off items: ONE!\n\n(b) As a preparatory word of command, as in ONE! TWO! THREE! GO!\n\n2. Item by item, seriatim.\n\n3. (a) One day (contrast Ser. 6c).\n\n(b) One foot (measure of length).\n\n(c) Ten cents (measure of money).\n\n4. The meaning in each case is the unit augmented by 10%—\n\n(a) 11 (Chinese) inches.\n\n(b) 11 cents.\n\n(c) 1,100.\n\n(d) 11 (contrast Ser. 6f).\n\n5. Used bound to a congruence-marker to denote the particular singular. Examples (a) (c) (e) (g) with null ictus denote an unemphatic singular, like the English indefinite article or the Greek (unaccented) τίς. Examples (b) (d) (f) (h) have emphatic singularity.\n\n(a) (b) mark the congruence class of thin rigid objects like sticks, bottles, small growing plants (sometimes including bamboo but seldom rice), spears, arrows; and some special ones like songs and flags. There is also transference from the bottle to its contents.\n\n(c) (d) mark the congruence class of thin non-rigid objects like strings, rivers, roads, reptiles, fish, footless and wingless insects; and some special ones like split firewood, dreams, lives, live naked human bodies, towels, handkerchiefs.\n\n(e) (f) mark the congruence class of articles which can be folded away when not in use, like tables, chairs, beds, bed-clothes, documents.\n\n(g) (h) mark the congruence class of articles which generally form one of a pair, like hands, feet, eyes, ears; also animals, birds, flying or walking insects. And some domestic utensils like cups and cooking pots.\n\n6. (a) The common ordinal adjective \"first\"; used also to mean first in quality,\n\n(b) The same as TRAW-DARNG, which has the same superfixes.\n\n(c) (d) The first day of the lunar month (contrast 3a, with different superfix).\n\n(e) The first day of the lunar year.\n\n(f) The 11th day of the month (contrast 4d with different superfix).\n\n(g) Denotes the first of a series of arguments or considerations.\n\n7. This group indicates that the action described was immediately followed by another.\n\n(a) learns off at a single lesson.\n\n(b) wakes at the first sound of the bell.\n\n(c) as soon as I heard this I was afraid.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206053, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "A BRITISH MARITIME CHART OF 1780 SHOWING HONG KONG\n\nHENRY D. Talbot*\n\nA recent acquisition by the Map Library of the Department of Geography and Geology of the University of Hong Kong is of some interest as it appears to be the earliest known British map or chart depicting the island of Hong Kong.\n\nThe title is \"A Chart of the China Sea from the Island of Sancian to Pedra Branca with the course of the River Tigris from Canton to Macao from a Portuguese draught communicated by Captain Hayter and compared with the Chinese Chart of the Macao Pilots\".\n\nThe places mentioned need little explanation as they are names still used today. Sancian is also called St. John's Island and is to the west of Macao, while Pedra Branca is today called Pedro Blanco and is an isolated rock, used as a navigational landmark, to the east of Hong Kong. The River Tigris is the name given to the river up to Canton, derived from the name of the narrows called \"Bocca Tigris\" (Tiger's Mouth) in Portuguese, a translation of the Chinese name.\n\nThe Captain Hayter is evidently Captain George Hayter of the East India Company Ship York. This ship was in Chinese waters frequently from 1741 up to 1786 and Hayter was compiler of another chart dated 1787.\n\nThe chart was \"... Printed for R. Sayer and J. Bennett Map and Chart-sellers No. 53 Fleet Street, as the Act directs, 29 Nov. 1780\" Robert Sayer (1725-1794) and John Bennett were well known as map-sellers at the end of the eighteenth century. It is recorded that Robert Sayer retired in 1794 after almost half a century in the map chart trade.\n\nThe size of the chart is 950 × 640 mm., while the size of the map itself is 781 × 596 mm. The latter is the length along the neatlines, the inner border of the map.\n\n* Mr. Talbot is Lecturer in the Department of Geography and Geology in the University of Hong Kong. He was Hon. Editor of this Journal in 1964.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206073, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "148\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nthey made the primitive links in the chain of commerce before the foreign traders from India and Persia arrived about the 4th century A.D. In the present state of archaeological knowledge we do not know how far east this early trade route spread. It may have linked up Japan and Korea for instance. It seems certain that it spread to the Tonkin delta, down the coast of Annam and possibly to Malaya, Java and Sumatra. Very likely, also, is the existence of the trade routes inland by the great rivers throughout South China and Tonkin. There is unfortunately no Chinese historical record of this trade.\n\nThe Chinese accounts of aboriginal life in South China are very indefinite and unsatisfactory. In very early times (in the book of Chuang Tzŭ and the Book of Rites) the South of China was called Nan Yüeh or South of the Mountain Barrier. Texts of the Han dynasty give in greater detail the geographical divisions of the coast. The South of Fukien was called Ou, Fukien Min Yüeh, Kwangtung and Kwangsi South Yüeh and the western part of Kwangsi with the Tonkin delta Lo Yüeh or Ou Lo. These divisions cannot be taken as based on any real knowledge of racial distinctions. A few texts give us a meagre description of the natives. The Han history describes the inhabitants of Min Yüeh as \"cutting the hair short, tattooing the body, possessing neither towns nor villages but living in valleys of bamboo, expert at fighting on the water but of no use on land, having neither chariots nor horses nor bows and arrows.\" We also know that in 180 B.C. Chinese traders were forbidden to sell iron to the natives of South Yüeh which indicates that they were using stone weapons. Another text of the Han history connects the people of South Yüeh with those of Lo Yüeh or Tonkin by saying that \"they are both of the Mi tribe\". It is tantalising that in spite of much account of battles and biographies of chieftains the Chinese historians have left no real description of aboriginal life. Such was their dislike of barbarians that they either ignored them completely or wrote about them as if they were pure Chinese.\n\nAccording to the San On topography the tribe of Yao, a people of Sino-Tibetan stock affiliated to the Miao, existed to the north of our region some 200 years ago. They live now in Kwangtung and Kwangsi besides other places such as Hainan Island. They tattoo their bodies and use stone implements. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206083, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "158 \n\nS. F. BALFOUR \n\nwant to avoid the mandatory officer of the Emperor, to betake their horrid presence to the South within three days. If they do not do so in three days, I shall wait five days. If they do not do so in five days I shall wait a week. If they do not do so in a week it will mean that they definitely refuse to go, and therefore that they do not recognise the prefect nor obey his words. In other words, they are so stupid and bestial that although their prefect speaks to them they neither listen nor understand. Now those who disregard the words of the mandatory officer of the Son of Heaven and who refuse to go away, and those who are too stupid to listen and harm the people deserve to be put to death. Therefore I, the prefect, shall select good archers among the soldiers and people who will use their bows and poisoned arrows to shoot the crocodiles until they are all dead. And let them not complain then, for it will be too late.” \n\nA year after, Han Yü was pardoned and allowed to return to North China. His passage in these parts was remembered by the first educated Chinese immigrants and Mount T'un Mun was provided with an inscription (§4§—)13 signed with his name which still stands on a rock at the summit in commemoration of his visit. \n\nDuring the period between the T'ang and Sung dynasties our region was governed from Canton by local kings who styled themselves emperors of the Southern Han dynasty. During this period one or two facts about this region are recorded. One is that in 969 Mount T'un Mun was named as a sacred mountain. The ceremony may have been conducted by the Emperor himself performing the sacrifice. From then onwards Mount T'un Mun was called Shing Shan or \"sacred hill.\" Its modern name of Ts'ing Shan or Green Hill dates from much later. Its Buddhist name is Pu Tu Shan. \n\nFrom another source we learn for the first time that pearl fishing was carried on in this region during the Southern Han dynasty. The text is a petition from a local Chinese of the Yüan dynasty to the Government saying that pearl fishing and the enslavement of the fishers was reviving in the Taipo Sea where it had not been practised since the Southern Han dynasty, and that a repetition of \n\n13 It was written by the ancestor of the Tang clan. See the next section.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206094, "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": 174, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH\n\n169\n\nwhich had belonged to the last Emperor and in it the seal of the dynasty which was brought back as a token of the complete extinction of Sung. At Ch'ek Wan on the peninsula called Nam Shan just north-cast of our region there is a tomb which purports to be that of Ti Ping. It bears the inscription \"Grave of the Little Emperor Hsing Hsing24 of Sung\" and it is tended by a family named Chiu which was the surname of the Sung emperors. There are graves of both Tuan Tsung and Ti Ping in other places along the coast of Kwangtung province and it is not certain that this one is genuine. Most likely it was a \"garment grave\" containing some relic of the Emperor and made to deceive his enemies as to his real burial place.\n\nMany Chinese families in the district claim to be descended either from royal blood or from ministers and soldiers of Sung. These claims may be unsubstantiated individually but the fact that they are made in the mass points to a tradition that much of the Sung army settled in South China after their defeat. It may be asked whether the Tang family helped the Emperors whose kins-men they were. Tang Shou Tsu who lived about this time was a minor officer in the Yuan armies and probably fought against Sung. The Tang family nevertheless lost its paramount influence in Tung Kun district after these events, and this may be the reason why members of the elder branch settled more permanently at Kam Tin and in other parts of the region.\n\nVIII. T'UN MUN AND THE PORTUGUESE\n\nMention has been made in a previous section of the prevalence of pirates in the South China Seas in early times. The earliest record of any piratical action within the region is as early as the 10th century when a pirate named Wu Ling Kuang attacked T'un Mun but was defeated. A later event was a revolt of the population of Lantau Island in 1278 when the Yuan government attempted to enforce a monopoly of the salt production and arrested the private salt makers. It is recorded that soldiers tried to land on the island but were prevented by means of wooden stakes placed along the coast, and that the Tanka inhabitants then sailed up the estuary and attacked Canton. The civil population fled, but the sailors defending Canton, by using incendiary arrows\n\n24 The reign title of Ti Ping.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206625, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "ARCHAEOLOGY IN H.K. AND SOUTH CHINA\n\n167\n\nof it with designs in red and green overglaze enamel, and some with underglaze blue, was discovered.\n\nA short description of the leading types of objects discovered in Hong Kong will be of interest. They may be classed according to their probable uses as follows:\n\n1. Tools: a. agricultural\n\nb. woodworking\n\nc. general use.\n\n2. Weapons: a. for hunting or fishing\n\nb. for war\n\nc. for ceremonial and burial purposes.\n\n3. Ornaments: a. for dress\n\nb. for ceremonial, especially burial purposes.\n\n4. Domestic utensils, including pottery.\n\n5. Miscellaneous objects, including playthings and possibly currency.\n\n1. a. A number of roughly-flaked tools have been discovered, many of them at frequented sites. These have various forms: some are large, heavy triangular-pointed things that might almost be called 'rostrocarinates'; others are 'short axes' with a hand-hold on the blunt edge; but a large proportion are triangular, weigh a pound or two, and have one edge flaked sharp, and one of the points adjacent to it bruised. Whether these are the teeth of primitive harrows, hand drills for planting mountain rice, or picks for knocking oysters off rocks, is uncertain, but I class them as agricultural tools. A more probable one is a sharp-edged polished stone blade which can be held hidden in the hand; it is almost certainly a reaping-knife.\n\n1. b. The adze was the chief woodworking tool. It varies almost infinitely: the shouldered, the stepped, the rectangular (with squared sides), the cosmopolitan (with rounded sides), the cylindrical (with pointed butt), the lentoid, the trapezoid, and the boot-shaped forms have all been found, with sub-varieties. All these are in stone, flaked roughly into shape and then partly or wholly polished, but in almost every case a chip or two of the original flaking remains. Undoubtedly, the chief use of these tools was to shape the planking of boats, for their dwelling-sites give clear proof that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206629, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n171\n\ndated either about the turn of the second millennium BC, or mid-eleventh century BC (ca. 1121 BC) about the same time as the Trojan wars. King Wu's victory is the theme of many Chinese legends and also forms the plot of the Deification of the Gods, which was recounted by story tellers the length and breadth of China. Woven into its historical background are a multitude of supernatural events involving the heroes before they were deified. They were divided into two forces: the benevolent under King Wu, and the malevolent under King Chou. The battle was fought with practically every form of weapon known to man and included the use of flame, gas and germ warfare, together with the conventional swords, spears and arrows.\n\nThis long Taoist novel is known, either in part or in whole, by the Chinese peasants, many of whom believe quite genuinely that the gods, both Taoist and Buddhist, were first deified at this juncture. It portrays many of the Buddhist and Taoist heroes, describing the events leading to their deification, and it played an important role in Chinese iconography, crystallising the beliefs and characteristics of the Chinese deities. Although several major characters link the events together and provide the thread for the story, most of the heroes appear only in one or two episodes.\n\nFrom this mixture of Buddhist and Taoist heroes in this fifteenth-century novel may have developed the practice of worshipping Taoist deities side by side with Buddhas and other Buddhist religious figures in Chinese temples; and in many a Chinese mind these Taoist mythological and folklore deities are inextricably involved with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.\n\nGENERAL YIN CH'IAO\n\nXHT\n\nThe President of the Ministry of Time and The Supreme Ruler of the Year and the Seasons.\n\nAlso known as T’AI SUI (★A)\n\nBackground\n\nIn the spirit world of Chinese folk religion, the Ministry of Time is ruled over by the deified hero, General or Marshal Yin Ch'iao, who bears the title T'ai Sui. He is a stellar deity particularly connected with the planet Jupiter, worshipped China-wide, and is said to be one of the fiercest gods in the pantheon who has to be placated if one is moving, building or when the ground is disturbed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207802, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA\n\n175\n\nthe Upper Yangtze-eight British, seven American, three Chinese, six French, five Italian, and three Japanese.\n\nPolitical troubles, however, had forced the pioneering Szechwan Steamship Company out of business in 1920. During the previous few years its Shutung and Shuhun had so often been forced to carry troops for the different war lords as to make their operations uneconomic. After 1920 the Chinese flag was flown by the China Merchants Steam Navigation and the Ming Steamship Company, both of whom seemed more able to accommodate themselves to the political changes. Captain Plant, however, was still active on the Upper Yangtze, but in a different capacity. He had left the Szechwan Steam Navigation Company in 1913 to become River Inspector in the Chinese Maritime Customs, and his work was one of the factors contributing to the development of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze in the early 1920s.\n\nThere was a period during the brief heyday of the Kuomintang government between 1927 and the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, when shipping on the Upper Yangtze almost settled into a regular pattern. Probably 1928 was the peak year, when there were seventy small steamers in regular service between Ichang and Chungking; the smallest about thirty tons and the largest just over 1,000 tons. The average time between Ichang and Chungking was three days, as against an average of a month by junk. Britain had fifteen ships of 5,357 tons; China twenty-six of 3,672 tons; and America eleven of 2,934 tons.\n\nLosses, however, were heavy. Several of the smaller companies were forced out of business, some selling their ships to the China Navigation Company. In this manner, the latter acquired the famous Loong Mow in 1923, which was renamed Wanliu I, and the Alice Dollar in 1926, which was renamed Wantung. This company also built six ships at Yarrows on the Clyde between 1922 and 1926. These included the Wanhsien, 210 feet long with a loaded draft of eight feet and reciprocating engines of 3,000 indicated horsepower, the most powerful ship on the Upper Yangtze; two turbine steamers of less than half this tonnage, the Kiating and the Kintang, for the low water season; and two small motor ships, the Siushan and Suiting, of 296 gross tons for the Top River above Chungking. British shipping was supreme on the Upper Yangtze for the last few years of the treaty port era, since political troubles hampered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208308, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 32, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "RICHARD J. SMITH\n\nBut Bannermen were not the only ones encouraged to avoid literary pursuits and concentrate on riding and shooting. The official military examinations, which paralleled, but did not come close to equalling in prestige, the civil service examinations, tested these and related skills almost exclusively, requiring only the reproduction of a hundred or so characters from one of three ancient military classics as a literary \"test.\" At none of the three basic levels of examination did the literary exercise determine whether an individual would pass or not. Overall, there was simply no premium placed on the acquisition of knowledge concerning military history, strategy, tactics, and so forth.\n\nAside from a few so-called academies for Bannermen in Peking and other key locations, there were virtually no institutions that provided systematic military education for Chinese officers. Local \"schools\" for military examination graduates in the provinces provided much less educational breadth and depth than their civil service counterparts in the shu-yuan system; and many, if not most, of these schools were overseen by literary men who had little interest or expertise in military affairs. Private tutors were available to give military instruction to examination hopefuls, but the cost of equipment—bows and arrows, stones, swords, horses, and practice facilities—often put tutorial assistance beyond the financial reach of many individuals. By default, the most valuable form of military education in China was army service itself.\n\nContrary to accepted opinion, most Ch'ing officers were not military examination graduates. The reasons are not hard to find. In the words of Shen Pao-chen: In the consideration of military promotions, \"those selected by examination are... put after those who began their career in the rank and file, or have risen because of military merit. The knowledge of military affairs among the former group cannot at all be compared with those from among the rank and file. Their spirit and bravery and ability to bear hardship cannot at all be compared with those who rise because of military merit. The reason is that what they learn is not of practical use.\" In short, military graduates who had not come up through the ranks were viewed by most of their peers as incompetents and outsiders. Ichisada Miyazaki notes: \"The influential leaders in the army were generals who had worked themselves up from the ranks and had shown their mettle in actual combat. The army was a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208804, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 261, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "234\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nIn providing this detailed and thoughtful account, the writer has done an immense service to the present governments of Malaya and Singapore — indeed of the region — as well as to students of Chinese society old and new. It is of greater value because of his own personal involvement in the business of government and in the fact that, as stated in his preface (p. xiii), he had the enthusiastic support of police officers of all ranks and officers of the Chinese Affairs Department throughout Malaya and Singapore who conducted enquiries, collected information and translated documents. It is doubtful whether this work could be done again — it is mentioned that many of the police documents of the last colonial period have been destroyed and we should be deeply thankful that Blythe was available to undertake it at the time he did.\n\nT\n\nThe book is well produced, on good quality paper with solid binding and clear large type. The 18 illustrations are as notable as the contents.\n\nHong Kong, May, 1980.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\n'Friendly Societies are very good,' said Mr. Van Dyke. “But I am referring to secret and dangerous Societies.\"\n\n'These qualifying names are purely arbitrary,' said Tek Chiu. “All Chinese Societies are professedly good, and they, all of them, are just what members choose to make them. There is no fixed principle according to which you can draw a distinction between those that are exclusively benevolent and friendly, and those that you call secret and dangerous societies.'\n\n'Is the Broken Coffin Society entitled to be called friendly, or is it justly designated secret and dangerous?'\n\n'It is justly designated secret and dangerous. It is the fault of our Triad Society, certainly, that such a dangerous and criminal clique is not exterminated at once. Such bad sets of men are like bad teeth that ought to be pulled out. But because a man has a bad tooth in his head, he should not be prohibited from eating.\"\n\nLamont continues: A Chinaman is a social being—a tool rather than a member of his community. If he were to cease living a social life, he would cease to be a Chinaman. The Chinaman abroad lives a large part of his being in the 'hoey. The hoey unites men more closely even than the sons of one father in a family. So powerful is the bond of this Freemasonry of China, that if two brothers in a family belong to different hoeys their relationship in such a set of circumstances is more distant than is that which subsists between those members of one hoey who are not relatives in the ordinary sense at all.\n\nTek Chiu's view, that Chinese societies are what members choose to make them, can also be found in Leong Gor Yun's Chinatown Inside Out (New York: Barrows Mussey, 1936), especially Chapter Two.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209806, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "43\n\ntime at Tai Po (1949-51), a separate District Officer (now Sir Donald Luddington) had undertaken the Court duties. My Court duties in Yuen Long provided yet another insight into local custom. For instance, if it were not for the several cases that arose in the Small Debts Court, I might never have understood the workings of money loan associations. The frequent Land Courts (often two a day in 1955) provided a wealth of information about agricultural leases, inheritance, graves, and fung shui,\n\nIn 1951, I served for a time in the former Secretariat for Chinese Affairs where my duties required me to spend part of every day attempting to resolve family disputes, mostly matrimonial. This provided much background material on the status of parties.\n\nIn those more settled days, when communications were difficult and New Territories villages lacked newspapers, radio and television, tradition tended to rule the conduct of villagers, just as rice cultivation ruled the village economy. Traditional customs no longer carry the same weight these days, and in some cases are all but forgotten. Rice cultivation continues in only a few remote corners of the New Territories. Its implements and associated equipment (such as ploughs, harrows, winnowing machines) are hardly recognised by the new generation which may have little idea of how their grandparents lived. Wealth in those days was equated with the number of rice fields owned, and rice depended on a plentiful supply of water. Hence the old Chinese saying \"Shui wai choi\" (**水為財**), meaning \"Water makes riches\". The English reply might be that, since then, much water has flowed under the bridge.\n\n2.\n\nSuccession\n\n(a) By Chinese custom there is no such thing as testamentary disposition of property. All a man's \"will\" can do is permit his widow(s) to remarry, and to moralize for the sons' edification. There may have been some doubt in the past whether by English law a New Territories domiciled person can make a valid will disposing of New Territories property otherwise than as custom would have directed anyhow. But this of course is no", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210061, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "11\n\nseemed to be favourable. But our human eyes do not see all the factors involved, we only see the externals. Matsu, powerful and wise, knows better. This is her oracle:\n\nDo not implore blessings nor pray for luck\n\nYour scheme and efforts will get stuck\n\nThe world of the living knows not the realm of death: A burning furnace is its law: no freedom is granted.\n\nIn small print the leaflet gives details about the major concerns of human life: here, the section ‘marriage' is the one that counts. But the expectations are not too good: “difficult to succeed\" is the verdict. After reading the slip for herself, the woman had consulted one of the temple diviners: his view was that powers from beyond the grave are causing trouble and for some reasons trying to oppose the union. The woman is disappointed but her faith in Matsu is not shaken; the oracle has at least helped her in opposing a wedding that would end in failure, or would even never materialize. Where human eyes cannot see the truth, the gods and goddesses will offer guidance to help men follow the path of correct action.\n\nHistorical Precedents of the Temple Oracles\n\nThe above narrated scene took place in 1978: a thousand years earlier, in A.D. 978, the 3rd year of the Sung Emperor T'ai-tsung, a similar scene could have taken place anywhere in China, with a different worshipper addressing a different deity concerning the same frustrating problem.2\n\nAgain, another two thousand years before that, in the year 1022 B.C., in a different situation, a similar question could have been addressed to the imperial ancestors or the divine spirits of the Chinese realm. The divining technique used at that time must have been different: either the old Shang method of heating up animal bones (scapulomancy or osteomancy), or else the manipulation of yarrow stalks or milfoil sticks, later replaced by bamboo (achilleomancy).\n\nIn any case divination combined with ancestral sacrifices is one of the oldest expressions of Chinese religiosity. Whereas the Shang", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210062, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "12\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\n(Yin) oracle practice is well documented, there is up to now almost no evidence about the assumed transition from osteomancy to the use of I ching related divination. And yet many authors believe that there was a transition or change from the use of oracle bones to a different, yarrow stalk related type of divination, which ultimately crystallized into the Book of Changes.3 One can, however, with equal or even more probability assume that consultation by means of the dried stalks of yarrow or milfoil had an independent origin and that the I ching type of divination somehow resulted from a combination of scapulomancy and achilleomancy.\n\nThat the ancient form of divining from oracle bones was not completely or immediately abolished by the use of milfoil stalks, is evident from texts such as the Shu ching: it is stated there several times that rulers resorted to the double consultation of the tortoise and the milfoil stalks.4 During the Chou, however, the diagrams of the I-ching started to prevail. It is believed that King Wen and the Duke of Chou had a role in the creation of the diagrams, although legend holds that they go back to the mythical ruler Fu-hsi. The origin of the linear patterns is not known. Few researchers have come up with a probable hypothesis concerning the original meaning of the basic diagrams -- and --. Their identification with yin and yang is almost certainly secondary; even their description as \"whole\", and \"broken\" or \"divided\" does not seem to correspond with their origin. In my view, the most plausible theory is to see them as an early expression of number symbolism related to the use of sticks or stalks as counting tools. This is the assumption made by Miyazaki Ichisada, who admits that he does not understand much of the I ching, \"the most difficult and the most unintelligible” book among the Confucian classics.5 I agree with him that the figures called kua are the basis of the whole text, and that the later commentaries are philosophical rationalizations of an ancient simple divination technique.\n\nHis main argument consists in the etymological analysis of several Chinese characters related to divination: for example the characters chi “good luck, good fortune\" and hsiung, “bad luck” actually express an odd and an even number respectively. This indicates that originally the yarrow stick divination proceeded as follows: \"a certain number of sticks were placed in a box; one took", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210063, "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "13\n\n \n+ + +\n\n \naway some at will; the remaining ones were counted to see whether they were even or odd. To avoid making a mistake, they were arranged by twos, each pair in the shape of a cross. If at the end one cross remained (an even number), the result was a bad indication, hsiung (†4: 2 sticks inside a container); if only one stick remained, it was a good omen, chỉ (l'¡ : the top shows 3 sticks, which is clearer than just one; the bottom shows a ‘mouth', probably replacing an older writing of a container)”*\n\n \nThis originally very simple technique, in which only 2 kinds of answers were obtained, “yes” and “no”, developed into more complex forms: perhaps the question was repeated several times (cp. the present-day \"moon-block\" divination) and the results written above each other. In that case, an even number was expressed by two short lines written in a horizontal way: - - It had nothing to do with yin or a ‘broken line'. An odd number was expressed by just one line. The Iching philosophy started from the trigrams: at one time the eight different answers obtained by repeating the oracle three times were interpreted in a cosmological way. That left the door open for further speculation and resulted in the 64 hexagrams. At this stage, numerology lost its meaning. The only trace of the older method of counting sticks in a container is found in the use of 50 yarrow stalks: they are still counted, but merely to obtain one of the 64 hexagrams, not any longer to find a positive or a negative answer to one's question.\n\n \nThere are many other ways of using a number of dried stalks in divination: several methods are found in China as well as in other cultures, and it is not certain that the old milfoil method has always been a uniform technique. One other hypothesis is that a number of sticks were thrown at random on the ground and the diviners would draw interpretations from the configurations obtained. This is suggested by the definition of “geomancy” as given in Webster's dictionary: “a kind of divination by figures or lines formed by a handful of earth cast on the ground, or by dots or points drawn at random.””\n\n \nOne can clearly see how lines can be obtained by throwing a handful of stalks. To go even one step further: one can find a strong similarity and perhaps a historical link between oracle bone", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210064, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "JULIAN PAS \n\ndivination and the use of milfoil. The former method as practised by several Mongolian tribes produced various linear patterns in the shoulder blades of sheep when they were roasted in fire. These lines, caused by fissures and cracks due to the heat, appear to be much more complicated than the ones found on the Shang oracle bones and show a strong affinity with lines obtained through the use of stalks. The milfoil may have been an alternative method used whenever bones were not available.\n\nYet another method of using sticks or stalks consists in numbering or marking a certain amount of them, and then drawing one at random. This technique is also called sortilege or \"the act or practice of drawing lots; divination by drawing lots.\" A related method is called belomancy: \"drawing an arrow to obtain an answer to a problem. The ancient Babylonians used this technique: they put arrows in a container; after shaking they took one out at random to determine further action. These arrows had previously been marked with signs.\" Moslem authors describe the same method as used by the Arabs; seven arrows without points or feathers, each marked with a significant word, were put in a container and mixed. After prayers to the main temple deity one arrow was drawn.\"2 The use of sticks was common to all tribes of Scythians in Asia, and from there was transmitted to the Chinese.\n\nAlthough this type of divination with stalks is quite different from the more complex I ching consultation, there may have been a definite connection between the two. I would like to presume that the simpler way of using numbered sticks was a popular adaptation made available to the non-specialized layman. The I ching developed into a very complex system not only in its philosophy but also in its manipulation of the sticks. The common people needed a simpler way for obtaining answers in difficult situations. All the data were on hand in the I ching system: what was needed was a simplification of the texts and an easier technique. At what time such an adaptation was first attempted, is as yet not known. But the still surviving and in some places of the Chinese world very popular custom of consulting the temple oracles is very likely an offshoot of the old I Ching related methodology.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210090, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "JULIAN PAS\n\nAPPENDIX II: CHINESE DIVINATION TERMINOLOGY\n\nThe terminology used in the context of ancient Chinese divination practices is often conflicting and confusing. It is therefore appropriate to define the terms, both in English and in Chinese.\n\nA. English Terminology\n\nThe two basic types relate to bone divination and to plant (stalk) divination.\n\n1. OSTEOMANCY, general term for Bone Divination\n\nDates from the Shang period or even from earlier times, and includes divination types using a variety of animal bones, especially bovines, sheep or pigs, later also tortoises. Subdivisions, using specific kinds of animal bones:\n\n(a) SCAPULIMANCY or SCAPULOMANCY: using the shoulder blades of sheep, oxen, etc. This term is often inaccurately used for bone divinations in general,\n\n(b) CHELONIOMANCY: using the carapace of tortoise or turtle;\n\n(c) PLASTROMANCY: using the 'plastron' (lower bone) of tortoise.\n\n2. ACHILLEOMANCY: divination of Chou origin (probably) using a number of stalks derived from the milfoil plant, also called yarrow. One of the methods using stalks is the ICHING consultation, which is perhaps an early ancestor of the popularized temple oracles.\n\nB. Chinese Terminology\n\n卜 pu (Karlgren or K. no. 757) to divine by tortoise shell; to divine (shows fissures in heated shell).\n\n兆 (K. no. 1182; Mathews or M. 247) prognostic, omen (cracks in burnt tortoise shell, read as prognostics) a sign, omen.\n\n爻 (K. no. 217; M. 2583) Yao— intertwine; change; lines in the hexagrams of I-ching.\n\nMiyazaki (p. 162); this character yao \"is nothing else but the figure of two of those crosses\", obtained by counting divination sticks, to see whether their number was odd or even.\n\n夬 (K. 161) (accident), calamitous, unfortunate, sad; of bad omen; cruel [a man falling with legs upwards into a pit]\n\nMiyazaki: (p. 162); two sticks remaining in a box or container: means \"bad omen, unlucky”, since representing an even number.\n\n吉 (K. 325) auspicious, lucky, good, (an affair: which may be spoken of, not taboo).\n\nMiyazaki: three sticks (odd number) remaining in divination: therefore 'good omen, lucky'. For unknown reason, \"container' replaced by 'mouth'; perhaps pronounced aloud.\n\n卦 (K. 433): 8 trigrams, basis of I ching (from 2 x three yao plus 'divination')\n\n占 (K. 1162; M. 125) to discern omens, inquire into prognostics, prognosticate, to divine; a lot (to interpret prognostics); to divine by casting lots; to observe signs, to foretell", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210443, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "31\n\ndeep indentations. There are [more than 230] islands.\n\nOne of them, placed almost in the centre of the Port Shelter area on the eastern side of the Colony and separated by a strait less than fifty yards wide from its neighbour, is Kau Sai island. The sheltered area lying between the two islands westward of the narrows (Kau Sai Strait) is Kau Sai Bay, referred to by the locally based fishermen always as “our own bay” (boon waan). Stretching north along the western shore immediately proximate to Kau Sai Strait is the village of Kau Sai. In 1950 it comprised 17 houses, all but two occupied by 50-plus speakers of the Hakka language, and was regarded as a home anchorage by the almost 500 Cantonese speaking inhabitants of some 61 boats. The two non-Hakka households contained 6 ex-Boat People.\n\nThe largest, most elaborate and best kept building was a temple dedicated to Hung Shing Kung, a deified official of the T'ang dynasty who holds a watching brief over the fortunes of all manners of men, particularly those who have to do with boats and the sea. An unroofed patio on the left side of the main hall of the temple was used as a schoolroom, weather permitting. Unswept and dirty it contained about ten clumsily botched-up desks and a few equally ramshackle chairs. The rest of the temple building was fairly regularly swept and dusted by one of the shore dwelling ex-fishermen, an elderly fellow, no longer capable of work at sea, who had been given the post of caretaker a few years before. The temple had a concrete floor, a gilded inscription over the entrance, and contained a number of images and the usual ritual appointments. Its granite block walls were surmounted by an upward curving roof of blue-green porcelain tiles.\n\nSome of the houses were built or partly built of granite blocks, too, but more were constructed of once-whitewashed mud or mud-bricks. Their floors were all of beaten earth. Near each Hakka house stood a pig-sty, often tumbledown and usually doubling as a latrine for humans. There were two shops. The larger was owned and run by an ex-fisherman, with the help of his wife and daughter; the smaller one, next door, was in the hands of the younger brother of the Hakka village \"headman\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210582, "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": 189, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "170\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nRees made that right. And then when we arrived at Yangchow it was as dark as any night could be and only two or three little Chinese lanterns that were not more than will-o-the-wisps in the darkness. We were soon surrounded, when we landed ourselves and our much luggage on the muddy bank, and then if it had not been for Miss Rees I would have felt like turning back in despair. The missionaries at Chinkiang knew what we would have to encounter and I suppose laughed at me when I said it was too bad to take Miss Rees.\n\nWe found our way or rather our chair bearers did through the gate of the city and through such narrow streets that the poles grazed the walls as we turned the corners, and we, in sedan chairs and our luggage on barrows, arrived safely at the Yangchow House Friday night, December 26th and our long journey was at an end.\n\nThere are nineteen girls here, most all from England. And we have everything as comfortable as can be in China, and what we appreciate most of all is a large garden enclosed in a high brick wall, where we take our exercise without going on the street. So I do not come in contact with the people yet, except as I go to the Chapel every other Sunday. Then I see that the streets are mere alleys, very dirty, sometimes blocked with a pig and full of small boys looking like dirty rag dolls in their wadded clothes. Today as they have come here they are quite elegant; for the day before New Year is the day for the annual bath and new clothes to celebrate the event the next day. The people dress in blue and you see nothing but blue, except on New Year's day when red is a favourite colour or pink or green according to the wealth of the family. I can see from my room a thoroughfare, it can hardly be called a street, and I get so interested in the people sometimes that it is hard to study. Chinese material is very cheap here and they think cloth must be very dear in our home countries because the people wear their clothes so tight. I could tell you some very funny stories if I had the time to write them all out. When we look at home customs with Chinese eyes they seem very queer even to us.\n\nI have made slow progress with the language and I have been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211513, "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": 230, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "206\n\nhand in their rent. These turned into very serious conflict. The Hakkas made themselves bows and arrows and started a war with the village. They shot arrows into the village and used stones to bombard it. But the village was not easily conquered. It had a moat, four strong towers and a citizen force to defend the village, so the Hakkas could not achieve much. But then they thought of a method, a way which is still used by Chinese to get enemies into trouble.\n\n\"Among the Hakkas there was an old childless couple. The husband was named Tai and his wife was of the Lo family. They were too old to work and tried to get money by begging. It was proposed to them that they take poison and die in front of the village gates, then the Puntis would be accused of their murder. The old couple were told that they would have to die anyway in the course of events and they had no descendants to sacrifice at their grave. If they accepted the plan of their fellow Hakkas, a temple would be built in their honour and every two years a theatrical performance would be held for them. The old couple were at first not willing to agree to the proposal, because they wanted to continue to live and not die so early. Repeated requests finally caused them to agree. So one evening they were given a very good meal and afterward they took poison and died before the village gate. Immediately all forty-eight Hakka men attacked the village and brought the villagers before the judge who lived at Schau Kin, accusing them of murder.\n\n\"There was a long court proceeding because accusation of murder had great consequences in China. The Puntis paid over a lot of money and went to court to defend themselves. While they were there, their village was burned down by the Hakkas who took over the place. The Puntis became impoverished by the court case. They dared not return to Pu Kak. They settled in [place not given in manuscript] where their descendants again became wealthy and respectable and they produced literary graduates. Many congratulated themselves that their ancestors had been driven out of the village as they have now much better land.\n\n\"The Hakkas took over the village and surrounding fields. As they had promised the old couple, they built a small temple and honoured the Fuk tei kung and Fuk tei poh, the grandfather and grandmother who give blessings. Later a new temple was built for them near the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212203, "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": 145, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "122\n\nOur office had removed to a new building, a tall building with lifts and American plumbing. But the old office was still there, a little way down the Bund, in the French Concession, built of red bricks in a style which can only be described as Sino-Edwardian, though decked with a hangover of that rococo embellishment, which was not one of the glories of Queen Victoria's reign. It was in that office so many years ago that a dear old Chinese merchant had patiently explained to me how in Hankow the yolks of all the eggs were in the centre of the egg, because Hankow was in the centre of China. Not a little bit up the egg, or a little bit down, but just in the centre. I asked him where the yolk of the egg was up in the north at Tientsin, but he said he did not know as he had never moved far from Hankow; and, I fear, he attributed my ill-concealed scepticism to callow youth. I do not suppose all those young Chinese officers who now walked briskly along the road worried where the yolk of the egg was. For since the fall of Nanking, eight months earlier, Hankow had been the capital of China, and also the headquarters of the army. The Japanese were held up at the Mateng bluff, where the Yangtze narrows some miles below Kiu Kiang, but the pressure was increasing and it was thought that Kiu Kiang might fall soon.\n\nBefore leaving Hongkong I had taken the precaution of providing myself with six bottles of whisky, as I had heard that supplies were running short in Hankow. My information was not quite accurate. I found there was plenty of whisky, but it was a green colour, derived from the solder-flux of the Kerosene tins in which it was despatched from Hongkong. Freight on the railway was reserved for war material, and it was easier to bring up an odd tin of whisky than to find space for a case. The green whisky, it was discovered, could be taken, in the usual small doses, with impunity. Nevertheless my six bottles, containing liquid of a more agreeable shade, were acceptable. They unfortunately did not go far. I heard afterwards that an enterprising chemist found a way of removing the green colour from the imported whisky to the joy of patrons who had qualms regarding the effect of solder-flux on gastric juices.\n\nHankow was a very busy place. Amongst other things the rolling stock, which had been salvaged from the north China railways, was being ferried as quickly as possible over to the south bank. Locomotives of diverse size and vintage were shunted down to Hengyang onto sidings where they were held for spare parts or for...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212673, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "208\n\nthe photographs on the period between 1956 and the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (Rihoud was again there in 1964 and 1965, and also Rene Rurri) may serve as an example that will encourage purchasing, or at any rate borrowing, this fine book. Of and about these in the context of their time, Professor Spence has commented as follows (pp. 12-13):\n\nThis was truly a time in which revolutionary changes were being attempted by China's leaders, and with the Communist party already close to twenty million people in numbers one would expect dramatic evidence of the new society, or at least of its emerging foundations.\n\nBut as we scan the photographs, we realize how hard such evidence is to capture. Without deep and intimate knowledge of the past realities, how can we truly gauge the depth, the nature or the meaning of the attempted change from the visual record? What we do get here, and often brilliantly or poignantly, is the sense of a country and a people with very little to rely on, where everything is scarce so everything is valued.\n\nThe word poverty seems the wrong one, in the context, for to China's leaders and surely to many of the people themselves after what they had gone through it was survival that was the first priority. Yet the paradox here was that the Great Leap Forward brought not survival but death to millions.\n\nAt other levels, the images speak to us of ordinary things, of children and their games, of the quiet affections of age, of eating as shared relaxation. They speak also, insistently, of organization, of people in lines, of people listed, people marched to orders, people drilled. This the state was proud of, this the state allowed to be filmed, along with the work, the heavy manual work, whether of intellectuals or peasants, backing endlessly at the heavy soil of China with mattocks and hoes, hauling barrows and sacks, pitting muscle against the land. So have farmers the world over laboured, but here the Chinese seem assembled in larger numbers than ever before, and their labour is in a context that is politically orchestrated.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212914, "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": 223, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "208 \n\n'breaking up storm'; a wild blow whose climatic explanation I cannot remember. Then came the first snow and the wooden frames for the verandahs were brought out again.\n\nWhen I was at the school a new building was completed for the Prep School and a new classroom block was built where the boys from the Boys' School and the girls from the Girls' School could take co-educational lessons. Reading Jean Moore's account of her days at Chefoo I learned that boys and girls were not only kept apart in their sleeping accommodation but also for lessons. This had been dropped by the time I went so it was strange to find myself in a school for boys only when I went to England later on. We only mixed for lessons and church (where we sat apart except in the choir which I joined) and for the rest we existed in entirely separate schools.\n\n—\n\nIn this school we were also kept pretty isolated from the local population. We did not learn the Shantung language, though the teachers were entirely bi-lingual. We did not go into town but would come across Chinese on our walks in the hills. Here we would see men pushing incredible loads on massive wheel barrows or carrying loads on bamboo poles. Mules were the beasts of burden as there were no motorable roads outside the town.\n\nWhen the Japanese overran Chefoo they set up a road block right outside the school and we would try to engage the soldiers in chat. The Japanese controlled the town but the hills were infested with guerrillas and we could occasionally hear firing in the night. The Japanese left us alone at that time for they were not at war with Britain. I had left China before Pearl Harbour but once the Japanese were at war with the British and Americans the school was closed down and shipped off to another location as part of a prison camp.\n\nOut of School\n\nIn the Prep School our lives were confined to the school area and, in the summer, the beaches in front. We also went for long hikes in the hills behind the schools but it was the beach that was most fun. On Sundays we walked in crocodile the couple of miles along the waterfront to a church in the town most going to the Union Church but some went to the Church of England. I do not recall any Roman Catholics among us and doubt whether I had heard of them then.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213258, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "60\n\nEnglish mile) long, Great Wall (Needham, 1971:53). General Meng Thien is said to have swallowed poison because of concern about this; undue interference with the given pattern of nature. It was not possible [during the wall's construction] not to cut through the veins of the earth. This is my crime.\n\nNeedham also writes, however, that this tale could have been a 'literary invention'.\n\nFung shui can loosely be described as being partly composed of 'mana', het shai (?), yeung (?) or lucky forces, while, as its antithesis, shaat het (?) (meaning to kill or slay) connotes bad currents, the breath of ill fortune, noxious vapours or harmful 'arrows' or forces. Fung shui, which has been likened to man's 'spiritual compass', guides lives and promotes balance relative to nature throughout the universe among both the living and the dead. Thus the purpose is to avert disharmony wherever it exists; be it in the home, the workplace or the grave. 'If a person's lucky that's fine. But the fung shui master can make his luck even better,' some Chinese will tell you.\n\nWith faith in the divine powers of nature and the beauty of the landscape, a golden thread of spiritual life can be perceived running through every form of existence. This binds together, in harmony, everything that exists in heaven or on earth. A man and his family can be influenced, for good or evil, depending on the siting of an ancestor's grave (Chinese do not like the Vietnamese practice of siting graves in flooded paddy). It is widely believed that the principles of fung shu were first applied to graves by Kuo P'o a scholar who died in 324 AD (Williams, 1931: 144).\n\n'Woe betide anything or anybody who does not conform to the principles of fung shui,' is the common belief.\n\n'It is a great pity that more gweilos (loosely translated as \"foreign devils\"), and Chinese as well, do not believe in fung shui,' wrote Richard Webb of Kowloon, in the South China Morning Post on 10 July 1991. This was in reply to a journalist's (Stuart Wolfendale's) jibe, in a previous letter to the editor. Wolfendale wrote, '... there is nothing more ridiculous than a gweilo who believes in fung shui'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213267, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "69\n\nthe views expressed right at the start of this paper by Dr Ernest J. Eitel, sometimes titled Hong Kong's first historian and for some time a Hong Kong civil servant, were by no means unusual.\n\nToday, far more empathy is shown towards Chinese culture in general by Westerners. For instance, many Caucasian firms believe aquariums enrich the fung shu of an office. It is not just Chinese who can relax, Westerners will tell you, when they lie back and watch fish swimming. It gives everyone a special feeling and lowers their blood pressure by a few degrees.\n\nOf course, certain rules have to be followed. The number of fish kept is often six or nine. Three multiplied by three equals nine (a lucky number); and a homonym of three, in Cantonese, sounds similar to the character meaning 'lively'. Because of colour symbolism, one fish may be black (a Black Molly), another reddish (a goldfish), and the rest any other colour. Because the fish are supposed to act as a shield against bad fung shui, sometimes a fish dies. But better a dead fish than a dead customer.\n\nHigher up the hill above Central District, at the Albany in Albany Road, residents were concerned about the 70-storey, new, People's Republic Bank of China Building 'giving off vibes'. They feared the sharp edges of its structure with their negative forces would menace the abode of some of Hong Kong's rich and famous. In the West, the new Bank of China building would perhaps be described as 'ominous', 'overshadowing' or 'overpowering'. Many Chinese, however, liken the sharp edges of the Bank of China to a knife pointed at, or arrows cast at, Government House and Central Government Offices, namely, the heart of the British Colonial Administration. These 'weapons', together with the flyovers close to Government House, tie the decision-making hands of the British Governor and threaten the prosperity of Hong Kong. The fung shui 'dragon vein', with the dragon's head turned to face its ancestors, serpents down from Victoria Peak, close to the Albany, concealed by a carpet of vegetation. It passes close to the Albany apartments. The dragon thrusts and turns as the topography changes. The earth surges with natural energy. Chinese dragons are more serpent-like and sinuous than those in the West. And, as the vein gathers strength, it proceeds vigorously on to the 'dragon sites'\n\nsuch as the home of the Governor and down to the Hong Kong Bank. It then dips into the harbour, the 'dragon's lair'. Although now the slope up the Peak is largely obscured by high-rise buildings, on some hills and\n\n70", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213486, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "50 \n\nto the new comers? I have come up with four logical reasons: \n\n(1) In the actor's psychology, his role on the stage is to entertain, and as long as he can keep the audience amused, everything will be O.K. Sometimes, he forgets, as when he puts his whims and fantasies into practice, and he throws logic out of the window. \n\n(2) The theatrical people may be inclined to think that the audience's mind cannot be rushed. The action has to be brought about in such a way that they can gradually grasp the meaning and importance of the story being told. \n\n(3) One way to highlight the importance of the story is to prolong the time of the fighting scene. In other words, the more you fight, the more important that fight will be. \n\nThings can turn sour if you run counter with this theme. Take, for instance, the following example which amply proves my point: \n\nIn the play \"Jie Dong Feng\" (f) which literally means \"Praying For The East Wind\", people spend hours acting out the story that leads to the \"The Battle Of The Red Cliff” (EZ). The story has it that strategists of both the Wu (R) and the Shu (S) States are scheming how to defeat the mighty Wei State's fleet that was anchored on the upper reach of the Yangtze River. Since the Wu's forces were in the lower reach of the Yangtze River, they needed the \"East Wind\", in gale force, to help them to win. \n\nWell, when the East gale force winds do come, you would expect that thousands upon thousands of soldiers would throw flaming arrows across the sky aimed at the Wei's fleet, which was tricked to join together with iron chains by internal spies. Then, when the fleet was destroyed and the smoldering ships were cold enough to board, the Wu and Shu strategists would send soldiers to mop up and put a finishing touch to it. \n\nNothing of the sort happened! What they did was to send a couple of men, with maybe two dozen arrows (not even the flame carrying ones), and throw them in the direction of the enemy. Before you even knew it, the war was over! What an anticlimax! So everyone who sat", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214006, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "41\n\nheroes of the Yang-chia Chiang, [the Romance of the Generals of the Yang clan), the novel in which elements of fact are linked and held together by chunks of fiction, embellished over the generations by public story tellers and opera. The title by which several of the family are known individually is Yang Fu Ta-shih. This is also the group title in the few temples in which the whole family of the Yangs are revered as protective deities. The family in the novel includes not only the mother, but also a daughter-in-law, two daughters and a serving maid, all of whom served as generals during the Sung dynasty, as did all seven sons.\n\nIn one of the numerous episodes in the novel, P'an Jen-mei is said to have planned during the martial promotion jousts to promote his soldier son, P'an Pao, by unfair means. He caused the sons of Yang Yeh to be forbidden to compete and also eliminated other major contestants by having them killed. The Seventh Son of Yang Yeh was furious and despite the ban, entered the jousts and killed P'an Pao. Yang Yeh and two of his sons were sentenced to death but had the sentence commuted to banishment.\n\nAt one stage P'an Jen-mei, who hated Yang Yeh, had him beaten for disobeying orders and then ordered him and his sons to attack the Liao forces. Unfortunately for Yang Yeh during the battle he and his sons were cut off on Liang Lang Shan [the Mountain of the Two Wolves]. The Seventh Son managed to escape and on returning to P'an's headquarters to seek help was accused by P'an of desertion and shot to death with arrows. Yang Yeh, surrounded and without hope, killed himself by banging his head against a tombstone whilst the Sixth Son managed to get away and back to the capital at Kaifeng. There he laid charges against P’an Jen-mei who was brought back to the city and put on trial. After various machinations he was finally convicted but attempted an escape to the Liao only to be caught and killed by the Sixth Son and his sisters. As a result the Sixth Son was banished by the Sung Emperor.\n\nOn his way to Ho-tung [Taiyuan] and banishment at his old family home, the Sixth Son by chance met his elder brother, the Fifth Son, who had become a Buddhist monk on the holy mountain, Wu T’ai Shan. The Fifth Son listened to the story of the fate suffered by members\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214010, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "45\n\nas a Buddhist monk. The problem of identifying which members of the family are portrayed by images on altars has been complicated by temple keepers having their own personal views of the exact identity of each deity on their altars. At least four of Yang Yeh's other sons are individually revered on altars, with the complete family, usually seven sons, revered in at least four temples, though in two of these there are eight sons, together with Yang Yeh's two young daughters and several of his sons' wives.\n\nLegends recounted by tea-house story-tellers claimed that General Yang Yeh defeated the Mongols near Heng Shan in Shansi early in the Sung dynasty becoming one of the most powerful supporters of the Sung. Later he, together with his heroic sons, tried to save the emperor from the invading hordes, and with his wife chose to die rather than surrender. All but two of their sons died with them. The Fifth and Sixth made their separate ways home after many adventures. After falling in battle fighting the enemies of the Sung, Yang Yeh was awarded the title of The Marshal who Protected the Sung, Sung-pao Yüan-shuai*. His body was recaptured from the enemy, so legend relates, by a valorous captain who had used a secret weapon to defeat them. He caused fire to flow from a pot thereby scorching the hillside and then, having exhumed the general's corpse, he returned to the capital at Kaifeng where it was buried in state. A temple keeper in Kowloon Tsai in Hong Kong claimed that General Yang Yeh was killed by the Tatars who hung his body on a gate tower where, daily, Mongol soldiers fired arrows at it to cause pain to his soul.\n\nA popular opera describes how the Commander-in-Chief of the Sung forces, General Yang Yeh, was encircled by the Tatars and seeing no other way out defied capture by knocking out his own brains on a stone monument dedicated to the loyal Su Wu, the unyielding plenipotentiary of the Han dynasty. The Tatars recovered his remains and honouring his bravery built a mausoleum in the Hung-yang cave, but covertly buried his remains in a secret place elsewhere to avoid the Sung forces taking the corpse back to be buried in the family grave. Meng Liang, a junior officer serving with the Yangs [and possibly now represented by the image of the unidentified deity on the temple altar beside the main altar bearing the images of the Seven, near Taichung] bravely recovered the corpse from the false coffin which, as the Tatars had feared, then was buried back home. However, Yang Yeh's spirit", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214293, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "114\n\nMarines and it was not until an action at Amoy on 26th August 1841 that the British Army (Her Majesty's 55th Regiment of Foot) used them in anger.\n\nApart from the musket itself, the soldier was also equipped with a bayonet which extended the musket into a thrusting weapon equivalent to a short pike. It had an overall length of about six feet, and time and again proved itself to be a formidable weapon. This was used both defensively, as in a formed square fending off cavalry, and offensively as in the charge. Its offensive use was considered by some commanders to be more effective than firing the muskets, and it was common to describe the number of troops by the number of bayonets.29 Officers would carry a sword and perhaps one or two single shot pistols. Swords (cutlasses) and pistols were also the weapons of marines when boarding opposing ships, and some may have been carried by those operating on land; however, they were more likely to have been equipped with muskets.\n\nOn the Chinese side, there were a wider variety of arms. Lord Jocelyn describes a display put on by the Manchu Tartars, who were the elite of the troops in China, where the: \"Tartars were dressed in white cotton garb and black cap, and their weapons were swords and matchlocks, or bow and arrows.\"30 Ouchterlony31 illustrates a Chinese swordsman brandishing a sword, but also holding in his left hand a matchlock and with a powder horn slung from his waist. Hence, it can be seen that the projectile arms were matchlocks and bow and arrows. The matchlock musket uses a form of ignition even earlier than a flintlock. It derives its name from the match, which is a hemp cord impregnated with saltpetre and spirits of wine such that it burns steadily without going out. The mechanism is simple in that the match is held in an arm which, on pressing the trigger, descends onto the priming charge and, hence, ignites the main charge. At this time, it was archaic, and it was also a danger to its user, as the burning match could set fire to clothes or, more seriously, to the powder pouch which the user carried round his waist. Also, when wounded, the danger was compounded, and there are reports of troops being burned to death after falling with otherwise non-lethal wounds.32 Perhaps this had helped to preserve the use of the bow, although it continued in use well beyond the adoption of more modern firearms. Photographs33 of the Taku forts taken after their fall in 1860 show crossbows34 amongst the debris. Also Arch-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214294, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "deacon Gray35 finds shops in Canton still producing bows and arrows in the late 1860s showing that they continued to be used. This retention of the bow was probably also due to a feeling that it was a gentleman's weapon and more honourable to use. Indeed, proficiency with the bow was one of the attributes required of a military mandarin.\n\nWhilst such weapons as the matchlock and bow could be effective, they did not generally cause many casualties. This may have been due to lack of deliberate aim, although none of the projectile weapons, either side, were very accurate. The tactic used by the Europeans to overcome this was the use of volley firing. Then, even with the inherent inaccuracy, there was a fair chance that enough bullets would find their mark. Of course steady troops that could reload and fire almost continuous volleys, and only charge when ordered, were a necessary part of the tactic. As mentioned in the introduction, it is this training and disciplined use of troops, that the Chinese forces seemed to have neglected.\n\nThe cut and thrust weapons were also varied and covered a wide range of spears, pole arms and swords. As might be expected, when it came to hand to hand fighting these were the equal to the bayonet, although again the training and discipline of the European troops would have been an advantage.\n\nFinally the Chinese had a number of arms that almost defy classification. These were used in defending forts against storming parties. There was a form of grenade, made of clay filled with combustible material, and a similar weapon that relied more on its bad smell than its explosive power.* And Lt. Colonel Fisher reports that at one fort they found: \"Their construction was as follows:- A pit was dug in the ground, and in it was placed large iron shells loaded with powder; a match communicated between the shell and a flint-gun lock, which it was intended to fire, by a string attached to the trigger, and crossing the pit-fall. Over the whole, was laid a mat lightly strewed with earth. The modus operandi was, that on entering the fort, we should run over the mat, which would let us down; falling on the string, we should pull the trigger, and be blown up.\"38 It appears that the land mine has to be added to the list of ancient Chinese inventions, even if it is not one to be proud of.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214298, "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": 156, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "119\n\nmust have been dreadful. For whenever they were wounded and fell, the match-lock set fire to their cotton clothes, and I saw several instances of their being literally burnt alive.\n\n33 C.Worswick & J.Spence. Imperial China, Photographs 1850-1912. London, 1979,\n\np.36 shows a photograph by Felix Beato.\n\nMackenzie, op. cit., p. 144 reports that \"The Tartars and Chinese troops use bows of different sizes and strengths, the Tartars use a peculiar kind of cross-bow, throwing three arrows..\"\n\n35 John Henry Gray. Walks in the City of Canton. Hong Kong, 1875, p.527.\n\n36 Ouchterlony, op. cit., p. 98 reporting the taking of the fort of Tycocktow says \"More resistance, however, was offered here than at Chuenpee, for the Chinese were not forced from their ramparts until the boats' crews had gained the summit, and the bayonet and cutlass had clashed with the spear and the broadsword. Several of the assailants received wounds from the cold steel, a rare occurrence in the Chinese war.\"\n\n37 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 151.\n\n38 Lt. Colonel Fisher, C.B. Personal Narrative of Three Years' Service in China. London 1863. p.383.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215117, "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": 213, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "170\n\nThere would appear to be two minor generals also in this story. Several temples in the Chia I and Yunlin coastal strip of Taiwan are dedicated to the Three Princes, San Wangye Zhang, Li and Mo. These were identified in the temples as Zhang Xun with two of his subordinate generals, Li and Mo, both of whom died with him at Suiyang5 One temple keeper related the story of how Mo Ying15, whose real name was Gai TuoE, was one of the generals at the siege of Suiyang with Zhang Xun and his sworn brother, who committed suicide when Zhang was executed and quartered.\n\nTwo further minor soldiers, again generals who served under Zhang and Xu whose images have also been seen on altars in Taiwan and Fujian province beside those of Zhang and Xu, are Lei WanchunS, an image either with a black face with six or seven golden stars on it or with a red face, and Nan JiyunE, an image with a blue face.\n\nNothing is known about General Nan; however, General Lei Wanchun, a native of Hebei province, was a military officer who served under General Zhang Xun in the first half of the 8th century AD, commanding the garrison in the area to the north of Xi'an, within the loop of the Yellow River. During the An Lushan revolt Lei was besieged by rebel forces in Luoyang, the secondary capital of the Tang. He remonstrated with An's forces from the garrison walls accusing them of being traitors to the Tang and remained there even though six rebel arrows had struck him. He continued to exhort the rebels to surrender until his forces were overcome and he died with them. His image usually has six or seven spots on the face where, so it is claimed, the arrows pierced him. During the reign of the Qing Kang Xi emperor a military officer named Zai carried an image of Lei over to Taiwan where his cult developed and he is now revered in some dozen or so temples in and around the central plain of the West coast.\n\nA protective Wangye, a pestilence deity, in Jiali, a town just north of Tainan city, better known as the General of the Lei clan, Lei Fu Jiangjun, is the secondary deity on the altar of a small temple. The history as recorded in the temple explains that the original temple, having been badly damaged by an earthquake in 1862, was rebuilt and enlarged by devotees. During the hard labouring necessary to achieve their aim the spirit of the then main deity, General Lei, having transformed himself into an old man dressed in a feather coat, went", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215130, "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": 226, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "Lei Wanchun was a minor general who served under General Zhang Xun, and refused to surrender, dying with his men. The gold spots on his cheeks represent where the enemy's arrows struck him. This image portrays him as a pestilence deity [Wangye], with his demonic face, and stands on an altar in a temple on the outskirts of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan.\n\n183", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215480, "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": 257, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "206\n\nto the north? It turned out to be neither of these, although weapons were certainly involved. What we had heard was an archery contest in progress. Archery is Bhutan's chief sport (although we were delighted to see some cricket being played once or twice.) The bows are made of two pieces of bamboo, lashed together, and the arrows are also of bamboo, with steel tips and plastic flights. The target is the size of cricket stumps and is aimed at from an incredible 150 yards away, or the equivalent of seven cricket pitches. About twelve young men were competing against each other. I have to say that the scoring system seemed particularly mean. The archer was awarded one point for landing his arrow near the target, and a measly two points if he hit it. I would have thought an audience with the king and a pension for life would have been a more fitting reward. For the 20 minutes or so that I was watching, not one arrow hit the target. Once an archer had shot his arrow, he rushed to the target end of the pitch, where there were already a couple of umpires, the better to see where his fellows' arrows were landing. ‘See' is an interesting word in this context. Not one of us visitors could see anything at all until we heard the thunk of an arrow hitting the ground - and this was usually within a foot of the feet of the encouraging crowd of archers. Although not understanding a word of Bhutanese, we knew that the shouts of encouragement were along the lines of: 'I say, Jack, you were a tad off target there,' or perhaps some colourful local equivalent.\n\nSurfeited with excitement, and dodging the missiles, we had a half-hour's walk, over a wobbly bridge, to visit the 17th Century Tamshing Monastery. Although again beautiful, placid and very atmospheric, I was getting to the stage of not being able to tell t'other from which.\n\nHow now brown cow?\n\nBack on the 'bus, the guide pointed out in the adjacent fields a herd of Swiss brown cows. 'How now?' we thought. The herd is a present from Switzerland and is used to make cheese. This was available for sale in a nearby shop and was excellent. But we must not eat too much, though, as lunch was waiting for us down the road, courtesy once more of Mr Fresco. The usual long table and chairs had been set up on the grounds of a deserted royal palace, the Wangdichholing Palace. This rather cute but still impressive building dates from 1856 and is the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215489, "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": 266, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "215\n\nthey were a bit more accurate, and secondly, being faster, the trajectory of the arrows need not be so high. Arrows were whizzing past us at just about head height. It reminded me of the old line: 'Do people get killed here often?', to which the reply is: 'No sir, only once.' \n\nThe Wangdi Dzong was built in 1638, and that in Punakha in 1637. Both are massive structures and it can only be wondered at what effect all this building activity had on the local economy and employment market. Perhaps similar to the time in England when vast stone cathedrals were going up, many at the same time. More comparisons to mediaeval England and building methods were to follow, but first there was dinner and bed.\n\nDay 9 brought us to what for me was the absolute highlight of the entire trip. So overwhelming were the sights and sounds that faced us that I knew neither what to write, nor how to write it. As I am afraid you will find out on the following pages, however, I soon found some words - although it is impossible to capture anything more than a few personal observations.\n\nWe knew already that the usual ‘no hats, no scarves, no cameras’ rule applied, and this was in many ways a blessing - we were indoors mostly, it was fairly warm, and the absence of a camera meant that I was not distracted by apertures and shutter speeds. Immediately inside the first courtyard, the atmosphere struck like a blow in the face. Red-robed monks standing about in twos and threes; a deep horn blowing its long steady notes somewhere off-stage; sounds of many heavy footsteps on bare wooden floors; a small crowd cheering somewhere from within a building; a stone mason chipping a hole in a flagstone; men carrying impossible loads of stone on their heads, on their backs or in their arms, up an equally impossibly steep flight of stairs into an inner sanctum (whether they were doing so to gain merit, or because they were contract Indian labour doing what Bhutanese chose not to do we did not manage to find out). Something was clearly happening. No - Something Was Clearly Happening.\n\nThis was, after all, the beginning of Day One of a four-day festival, one that has been going on for so many centuries that it is now by no means clear what it is all about. The triumph of the Bhutanese over the marauding Tibetans. The triumph of Buddhism over evil. Whatever it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216014, "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": 313, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "247\n\nenemy were the people named the Qiang. Although superficially one might take it for granted that the Qiang were an enemy tribe waging war against the Shang, there is nevertheless a close similarity between the way animals were listed as prey in hunts and the way the Qiang recorded. Both Qiang and animals were similarly used as sacrifices to the ancestors. We should not exclude the possibility that the Shang nation regarded the Qiang as half-animal, and hunted them for sport and to provide material for sacrifices.\n\nSima Qian's Yin Ben Ji (Shiji: Yin Ben Ji: Di Wu Yi. Selby: 3D.) relates how Wu Yi resorted to black magic (“shooting at heaven') with the bow and arrow. Tentatively, I put 'magic' as one of the cultural attributes of archery in the Shang period.\n\nArchery and education in the Zhou period\n\nThe tradition alluded to in the Zhou Li, in which archery formed part of the syllabus of the xiao xue education curriculum (Zhou Li: di guan - Bao Shi, Zheng Zhong's note.), as well as the rich ritual tradition of archery first recorded in the 'Rites' (Yi li, Li ji. Selby: 4D) and elsewhere, were probably recorded in the Spring and Autumn Period. But the ritual practices recorded would reflect Western Zhou usage.\n\nArchery in Zhou tradition had a number of ritual expressions:\n\n* the three-tier archery competition rituals (she li)\n\n* the sou hunting ritual\n\n* the 'bow and arrow dance'\n\n* the ritual presentation of bows and arrows as tokens of office\n\nThese expressions can all be regarded as a natural out-growth of the use of the bow and arrow in hunting and warfare. Logically more remote, however, are the claims in the Confucian 'Archery Ritual' (Li Ji: She Yi. Selby: 5B.) that the shooting of a bow was a right of passage (at birth and puberty) and was the proper method of selection of officials. Key to the explanation is the use of two sets of puns: the She pun and the Ze pun. In one we see 'shooting' punned with 'release of emotion,' and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216016, "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": 315, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "249\n\nChinese as a response to Hun incursions is attributed to King Wuling of Zhao (325-298BCE). The crossbow had become the weapon of choice in infantry tactics, as can be seen from the Qin terracotta formations at Xi'an. But except for a weak version, crossbows did not translate to horseback tactics because they were loaded using the feet.\n\nIt requires intensive training to become sufficiently proficient with a traditional Asian bow to be able to rely on it in a life-threatening situation. The aristocratic elite maintained their command of the bow and arrow through their practice of hunting with chariots and from the leisure time they could devote to perfecting their skills. The aristocracy were also the ones who had stocks of horses. Thus it was that the debate that is recorded (Yan Tie Lun, Zhan Guo Ce (Zhan Guo Ce: Wuling Wang Ping Chen Jian Ju. Selby p. 175 fn 17.) about adoption of mounted archery by the Chinese involved the question of putting the aristocrats on horseback: not the ordinary soldiery.)\n\nIn the Eastern Zhou, therefore, tactical and technological developments pushed the aristocracy with their bows and arrows onto horseback, and placed crossbows into the hands of the common people in the rank-and-file. (The very reverse of what happened among the English and French aristocracy in the Middle Ages.)\n\nThe Militarization of archery\n\nThe Confucians had, at some point, chosen to stress the non-military aspect of archery. That trend is summed up in Jun zi wu suo zheng; bi ye, she hu (Selby: 5A). I believe that in the Eastern Zhou, archery had been received from previous eras as a semi-religious, ritual experience with further expression in hunting (to gain sacrifices for the ancestors) and warfare. Even in warfare, if the account of the Battle of Yanling (Zuo: Cheng Gong 16. Selby: 71.) is to be believed, archery was fraught with taboos. Contrast Yanling with the crossbow tactics at Maling (Shiji: Sunzi Wuqi Liezhuan. Selby: 8E)\n\nDespite Wang Meng's belated attempt to revive the rituals prior to his interregnum (Hou Han Shu: Liu Kun Zhuan. Selby: 8H.), the ritual aspects of archery were almost forgotten in the Han period. Nevertheless, there is abundant archaeological evidence of archery in hunting, warfare and funeral imagery (where Yi shooting the Suns in\n\n+\n\nPage 315\n\nPage 316", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216480, "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": 239, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "189\n\nbair mentioned in the letter in the pocket of her New Ladies Companion Book where it is still kept.\n\nPersian adventures\n\nCornell Plant remained in the Reigate for another two years leaving her as an Ordinary Seaman in 1883. He then spent a year in the SS Iberia on the Pacific Steam Navigation Company's Australian Service and another year in the iron ship Mermerus as an Able Seaman. In 1885 Plant returned to the Reigate as Third Mate and left the following year after having obtained his Second Mate's certificate. From there he joined Lynch's Euphrates and Tigris Shipping Company, serving in the River Steamer Khalifa.\n\nIn 1891 he was offered the command of Shushan, a stern wheel paddle steamer, built by Alfred Yarrow on the Thames and shipped out in parts to Egypt for the expedition up the Nile to relieve General Gordon at Khartoum.\n\nShushan was 98 feet in length including the paddle wheel, 18 feet in width and had an eighteen inch draft. A boiler with a tall funnel was at the bow end of the flat main deck with the engine that drove the stern mounted paddle wheel at the after end. A wooden saloon containing some cabin accommodation stood in the centre of the main deck with the conning position above it from where the wheel controlled a triple rudder. Access to this position was by a wooden ladder and awnings to protect the main deck were spread forward and aft although how they were kept clean and white just astern of a wood fed boiler is hard to understand. No photograph or drawing of the Shushan has yet been found although there are representations of many of the other similar river craft built by Alfred Yarrow. He was acknowledged at the time as the best builder of those vessels that were used to extend and protect British interests along the rivers of Africa, Asia and beyond. They were built to a standard pattern in watertight sections that could be shipped anywhere in the world and bolted together on site. It was claimed that those required by the expedition to rescue General Gordon were ready for shipment within 17 days of the order being placed. (Yarrow - the first 100 years)\n\nIt is quite evident that young Cornell Plant was immensely proud", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]