[
    {
        "id": 207792,
        "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": 180,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA\n\n165\n\nboats as far as Bhamo, and then partly by land and partly by water into China. Other exports were amber, ivory, precious stones, betel nuts, and edible birds' nests; while in return Burma got raw and wrought silk, velvet, gold leaf, preserves, and chinaware. Similar reports came from other sources. By 1850, the possibility of extending trade from Yunnan into Szechwan was envisaged, and the glowing prospect of an extensive market for British goods in West China became an obsession among many British officials and merchants in Burma and India.\n\nCaptain McLeod's mission of 1836 is the first official British attempt to find an overland route to China. McLeod went from Moulmein, the port in the newly acquired province of Tenasserim, via Kungtang to Kenghang, a Shan state on the border of China. Here he failed to get permission to enter Yunnan, being told that if the British wanted to trade with China they should go to Canton, and that if he still persisted in wanting to enter Yunnan he would require official permission from Peking. McLeod had to admit defeat, and turned back.\n\nAfter this came a succession of other ventures from Assam and Burma, all—for one reason or another—failures. These culminated in the famous and ill-fated Dual Mission of 1874-75, which led to the Margary Affair.* This was a joint attempt to explore West China from the Burmese and Chinese sides. Previous to this the only important attempts to find a route between Burma and China from the eastern side had been Captain Blakiston's in 1861 and T. T. Cooper's in 1868.\n\nThe Royal Navy's expedition of 1861 which went up the Yangtze to establish the first treaty ports on the great river—Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow—continued 153 miles beyond Hankow to Yochow. Here they transferred Blakiston's party to junks in which they continued for another 1050 miles to Pingshan, nearly 1800 miles from the sea and 400 miles above Chungking. It had been intended to follow the Yangtze to its source in Tibet, and then cross the Himalayas into India. Because of unsettled political conditions at Pingshan and beyond, however, they were forced to turn back; but they had obtained valuable information about the Middle and Upper Yangtze.\n\nSee pp. 169-170 below.\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
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    {
        "id": 208356,
        "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": 80,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "64\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nA chronicler of Yuanjiang2 states that people used cut paper 'to hang money on the mountain'. This was called 'to drink wine on the grave and hang up.' The chronicler goes on to say:\n\nIf it is graves of newly buried, then there is affection. On Earth God Day and earlier, one suspends and sweeps. The proverb says: For the new graves one does not pass she. For old graves one suspends when thirty nights have passed.14 A record of local customs in Yiyang tells us that at Qingming to sweep the graves were repaired. This was called sao mu 'the graves'. Paper money was suspended on the graves. This was called gua shan 'to hang up on the mountain'.15 From Baling we learn that, in the Qingming solar period, women hung up cut paper strips on the graves. It was called gua fen 'to hang on the grave'. Paper money was burnt and wine poured out. It is said that this practice gave rise to much mournful thought 哀思.16\n\nIn Anxiang it was the practice that 'scholars' and 'commoners' swept their grave mounds: Officials arrange money, prepare cattle, and arrange in order wine. Thereby are made ji sacrifices.17\n\nIn Hanzhou the graves were swept and there was much offering.18 In Jingshan the graves were visited, there were ji offerings, sweeping, and suspension of paper money on them.19 Similarly, in Wuchang, the old graves were swept and paper money hung up on them. Here people encircled the grave wailing loudly.20\n\nIn Chongyang everyone made ji offerings at the graves. People used 'top branches' with paper money on top of the graves.21 In Yingshan it was the practice to construct offering tables in front of the graves. This was called 'to welcome (the ancestors?) to return'. This celebration was continued up to the end of the moon.22\n\nI said above that Qingming is a period of about fifteen days. When our sources mention visits to the graves we may assume that these were spread out over this duration. It may well be that the visits were initiated on the Qingming day, the first day of the solar period: I will soon provide some evidence for the importance of",
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    {
        "id": 208358,
        "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": 82,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "66\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nearth.30 We are told that in Yingshan there were jiao offerings on the graves in the eighth moon. It is said explicitly by the chronicler to be similar to the practice of Qingming. This Yingshan custom began on the day of the new moon and continued for the next few days. It is said that one 'escorted the departing'.31 On the first day, and continuing through the first half of that moon, people of Tongshan burnt paper (money?) sheets on the burial grounds.32\n\nUnfortunately, we know very little about traditional funeral customs in the Dongting area and the surrounding region. The few notes I have found tell us that in Taoyuan, in the Yuan River valley, people practised an excess of slaughtering at mourning.33 In Baling, it was the custom to have music, food, and Buddhist monks to perform.34 From Zhongxiang, we read that at an instance of death, there was drumming and singing mixed with lamentations.35\n\nI will assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that double burial did not exist in this area of Hubei and Hunan. Further, I will assume that the graves were, in the general Chinese fashion, marked by small brick or chunam structures.36 A later traveller through Hunan reports that graves in the Xiang River valley were cone-shaped and whitewashed. There seems also to have been some concentration of graves into 'yards'.38 I will assume that the body of a dead person was placed in a wooden coffin and interred in a dugout grave, probably covered by a tumulus, on or at which, as mentioned, was erected some sort of structure to mark it. The grave was a permanent one, and it was only for very particular reasons of fengshui* geomancy39 the body might be exhumed. The graves were ritual foci for members of continuous social groups, membership in which was determined by agnatic ascent and descent. Sometimes such kinship groups seem to have formed lineages.\n\nIn our present attempt at understanding the essential features of the semantics of the grave, we are helped by some local terms, names of customs, and other phrases. We have already met the expressions 'to hang money on the mountain' and 'to suspend on the mountain'. From such instances, it seems permissible to say that they represent some conceptual link between graves and mountains. How is this? Graves look perhaps like small mountains or hills—but I think there is more to the grave-mountain association",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208363,
        "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": 87,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n71\n\nAll this is guess work, but as guess work goes it seems to account for the given data in a systematic way. As I see it, the only way to challenge this interpretation (given, of course, that my understanding of the source material is correct) is for those who doubt to produce an alternative way of thinking on this matter, and to provide a new and different explanation which could account better for the data discussed here—and any additional data—in a more interesting way.\n\nFinally, the top branches planted on the graves could be interpreted also as a kind of beacon. Biao means not only 'top branch' but also 'beacon' or 'mark'; such an implication does not necessarily contradict our earlier hypothesis. But if the bamboo arrangements led the way to the graves by marking them and making them conspicuous, we must ask who benefitted from the presence of such signs? Here is another guess. It may be that the yang ancestors are led to the graves of their bones, but I cannot substantiate this at all. It may be mentioned here as a possible interpretation, a vague hypothesis which could be tested at some future stage.\n\n6. Rice Wine\n\nAnother prominent feature of the visit to the graves was the offering of food and wine. The worshippers ate and drank also. The general term used for offerings is ji, or in some notes si. In some cases libations are indicated by the use of the words dian and jiao. Rice wine was an important sacrificial gift used in many contexts. Apart from general wine drinking on various festive occasions, and medical use of wine when it was drunk mixed with herbs and spices on particular days, wine was used in sacrifices. So for instance, on the 24th day of the twelfth moon in offerings to the spirits of the kitchen and the fields in Baling,55 and Jiangling;56 on New Year Eve to the ancestors in Jingshan; On the Lantern Festival in the first moon it formed part of the ji offerings in Jiangling;58 and in the offerings to spirits and ancestors on the Buddhist festival of Zhongyuan, the 15th of the seventh moon, wine was part of the sacrificial gifts, as in Wuling,59 Hangzhou,60 Chongyang,61 and Yingshan.62 Wine was used also in sacrifices to gods like 'General Goan' (Goan Di) in his temple in Mianyang on the 13th day of the fifth moon,63 and to ‘Shui Goan'64 on his birthday on the 15th day of the tenth moon in Zhongxiang;64 Two words",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208364,
        "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": 88,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "GÖRAN AIJMER\n\nfor wine are used, jiu H, and it's 'sweet wine'. It is hard to tell from the data whether different kinds of wine were used on different occasions. More generally, we may remember that wine is manufactured from rice; in fact, it is rice transmuted into liquid form.\n\n7. Food\n\nFood was sacrificed and eaten on the graves after they had been swept. Again, the lack of detailed data makes it difficult to interpret the presenting of food as a ritual act. Some notes could be observed here. In Yiyang people ate 'stalks and grass', which, being unusual food, probably signified 'non-rice' or 'non-food'.65 We are told that in Anxiang officials prepared 'cattle'. The term may have a more narrow sense of 'beef'. Meat seems to have been paired with rice wine in many sacrifices throughout the area: on the Lantern Festival (in the first moon) in Jiangling, on Earth God Day in Wuling and Zhongxiang,7 on the Dragon Boat Festival (in the fifth moon) in the Yozhou prefecture (around Baling), and Yunmeng #,68 on Zhongyuan (in the seventh moon) in Wuling,69 and on Churia, New Year Eve, in Jiangling, Hanzhou, Jingshan, Chongyang, and Yingshan.70\n\nAgain, in the temple dedicated to General Goan in Mienyang, mentioned above, the offerings on the 13th day of the fifth moon consisted of 'cattle' meat and sweet wine. A chronicler mentions that in Tauyuan, at mourning, there was an 'excess' of slaughtering.71\n\nIf we assume that the wide category of sheng-cattle-indicates that cows, oxen and buffalos, and such bovine animals were of primary interest as slaughtering animals on Qingming (although pigs may have been included in the category), it may be interesting to associate that circumstance not only with the excessive slaughtering which was part of the mourning practices in Tauyuan, but also with the display of a clay oxen at the Lichum 'Establishment of Spring' festival around the 5th of February in the solar calendar.72 In Chongyang the 5th day of the fifth moon was called niu ri ✈ a Ox Day. Then the buffalos or cows were fed, and it was not allowed to whip the beasts or swear at them on this day.73 These practices seem all to have a close link with agriculture.74\n\nThe fact that cattle was modelled in clay seems to indicate that the nature of cattle was earthly. The breaking of the clay oxen may,",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208366,
        "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": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "74\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nconnection between the rice growth cycle, the agricultural activities and the grave ancestors, a connection suggested already by the information from Wuchang and Chongyang, quoted above, that grave worship was conducted on She ri.\n\n9. Willow Twigs.\n\nIn Wuling people inserted willow twigs over their doors and also carried willow twigs in their hair. There was a term for this custom: neng pixie 'ability to punish evil'. The same convention was observed in other places in the Dongting area, like Taoyuan,80 Hanzhou,81 Jingshan,82 Chongyang, where it was called 'nun lo'83 'tender willow', and Yingshan.84 It seems as if the twigs were protective and their function was to guard the house, or doorways, and the individuals living behind them. It is hard to say against what willow provided protection. It is interesting, though, to note that willow twigs were used in Jiangling on the full moon day of the first moon when, again, they were inserted above the doors.85\n\n10. Strolling in the Wilderness and Treading on the Green.\n\nSeveral chroniclers report that Qingming was an occasion for strolls and wanderings away from built-up areas. These excursions may well be seen in connection with the visits to the graves, the latter being situated outside the villages. Such ramblings in the countryside are recorded from the prefecture Changde (around Wuling),86 Hanzhou,87 Chongyang,88 and Wuchang.89 From the latter two places it is also reported that men and women 'tread on the green', ta qing, in connection with their strolls in the 'wilderness'. The latter term seems to be a name for strolling and eating al fresco. Earlier I have interpreted this practice as a feature which stresses periphery as contrasted with centre, the latter being emphasized, for instance, at Duanwu. It is interesting to note that the chronicler of Changde says that there were no such customs in that area as ta qing or qui qian 'swinging'. Swinging is reported as part of the Lantern Festival in Zhongxiang,91 Swings are referred to in a Liang dynasty calendar, Jingchu suishi ji,92 in connection with the Cold Food festival. Ta qing was part of the Flower Dawn celebrations in Zhongxiang,93 in this area generally observed on the second full moon of the lunar year. It is probable that a number of notions were expressed in such\n\n90\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
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    {
        "id": 208367,
        "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": 91,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA \n\n75\n\nlinguistic terms and customary conduct. Ta qing may not only have been an expression of periphery, it may also have been a ritual activity of visiting non-agricultural, non-productive land: 'the people tread on the green on the outlying wastelands'.94 It is a visit to the yin ancestors in their graves and the yin ancestors are, by virtue of the location of their graves, part of nature.\n\n11. Worship to the Family Spirits.\n\nOne piece of information tells us that in Yingshan people made gong & offerings to the jiashen, 'the family spirits'.95 This may be an offering in the ancestor hall but jiashen might also mean something like 'household gods'. The latter interpretation is the more likely. However, if jiashen should mean 'dead forefather' it must then be an offering in the ancestor hall. The term shen indicates this, and furthermore, the grave offerings are described after this entry, so the gong and the jiao to the graves must be different. According to my previous preliminary analysis of the Chinese calendar system as a system of ancestor worship, Qingming should definitely not be a day for worship to the tablets in the hall. Curiously enough, it may be that this gong is linked to the willow twigs. The chronicler says:\n\nthis day people collect willow twigs and make offerings to the family spirits. Some insert [willow] in the hair at the temples.\n\nSo it may be that this note should be interpreted in such a way that the use of willow was a gong offering to the jiashen, probably the protective godlings of the household.\n\n12. A Hypothesis.\n\nWhat bearing have these data on my earlier studies in the calendar system of ritual events in traditional Chinese society? Arguing from materials from the middle Yangzi valley I have maintained that the Qingming festival is a symbolic statement on the sowing of rice, and I have pointed to some similarities between the spring practices and the customs of Chongyang in the autumn. In both cases we deal with ritual gatherings of people away from built-up areas in natural surroundings. The main difference is that at Qingming activities were focussed on the ancestral graves, at Chongyang on mountain tops. I proposed that Qingming had affinity with yin ancestors, graves, earth and underground. Chongyang,",
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    {
        "id": 208373,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 97,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n81\n\n39 See Maurice Freedman: Geomancy. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for 1968. London\n\n1.15.\n\n40 Aijmer, A Structural Approach...p. 95,\n\n41 GJTSJC VI:1223 *** 126.\n\n42 Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 33. London: Athlone Press, 1966.\n\n1* For instance, Lewis Hodous provides an account in his Folkways in China, London: Arthur Probstain, 1929, p. 92. Hodous draws mainly on his long Fujian experience.\n\n44 Aijmer, A Structural Approach\n\np.96.\n\n45 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, p. 77f.\n\n46 GJTSJC VI:1193, &$ 26.\n\n47 GJTSJC II:51, 6a. A Similar arrangement occurred in Youxian, GJTSJC II:51, 19b.\n\n48 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, pp. 78f.\n\n49 There were probably several kinds of paper money in use. The yellow kind referred to above was in all likelihood the 'gold variety. As our sources do not carry information in detail on this subject we must leave such further implications aside.\n\n50 I have notes from Gongan (GJTSJC VI:1193, * 36), Hanzhou (VI:1130, 風俗长 Ib), Zhongxiang (VI:1142: #6# 1b, 2b), Jingshan (VI:1142, & 3a) Chongyang (VI:1120 † 4a, 5a), and Tongshan (VI:1120, Afb† 6a).\n\n51 I have found notes from Baling (GJTSJC VI: 1223, K## 2b, ennt juan 11:6a), Wuchang (GJTSJC VI:1120, ✩ 26), Chongyang (VI:1120, £#* 46), Tongshan (VI:1120, ### 6b) and Yingshan (VI:1166, BB‡ 4b).\n\n52 Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society. pp. 140f.\n\n53 Other names for this festival used in the region are Yulan dahui, 王蘭大會 Yulan penhui 盂蘭盆會,and Duwang dahui 度亡大會\n\nAll are Buddhist terms.\n\n54 I have, at present, no information from the Dongting area on the handling of paper money at funerals, for instance.\n\n55 GJTSJC VI:1223, # 2b.\n\n56 GJTSJC VI:1193, £&$ 26.\n\n57 GJTSJC VI:1142, R&* 3a.\n\n58 GJTSJC VI:1193, # 2a.\n\n59 GJTSJC VI:1259, 6 2a.\n\n60 GJTSJC VI:1130, &‡ 2a.\n\n61 GJTSJC VI:1120, K✩‡ 4b.\n\n62 GJTSJC VI:1166, ### 46.\n\n63 GJTSJC VI:1142, ‡ 4a.\n\n64 GJTSJC VI:1142, &* 2ab.\n\n65 mm, juan 2:96.\n\n66 GJTSJC VI:1193, R 2a.\n\n67 GJTSJC VI:1259, ✩ lb; 1142, * 2a.",
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    {
        "id": 208374,
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 98,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "82\n\n68 GJTSJC II:51, 19b.\n\nGÖRAN AUMER\n\n69 GJTSJC VI:1259, RG 2a.\n\n70 GJTSJC VI:1193, 風俗考 26; 1130, 風俗考 2a; 1142, 風俗考 38; 1120, 風俗考 5a; 1166, 風俗考 5a.\n\n71 GJTSJC VI: 1259, + 2ab. For two interesting discussions on foodstuffs as part of offering rituals, and in terms of cooked and raw food, see Emily M. Ahern, The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973, pp. 167-170, and Arthur P. Wolf: Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors, pp. 131-182 in Arthur P. Wolf (ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1974.\n\n72 Chroniclers report this custom from Hanzhou (GJTSJC VI:1130, 1b), Jingshan (VI:1142, 3a), Zhongxiang (VI:1142, 6b), Chongyang (VI:1120, 4a), and Yingshan (VI:1166, 3b, 4a).\n\n73 GJTSJC VI:1120, 4a.\n\n74 A local tradition from Daye (GJTSJC VI: ... 17a) tells of a persecuted jiao dragon that turned itself into an ox island in a river; this was henceforth called Bull Island. A similar transmutation is mentioned in a legend referring to the Yuan River; see E. T. C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh Ltd. 1932, p. 116f.\n\n75 In Tongshan, there was an idea of a pair of Earth Gods, She Gong and She Mu. I have no other evidence for ideas of a female counterpart in the Dongting area; GJTSJC VI:1120, 6b.\n\n76 GJTSJC VI:1193, 2a. This may be compared to the use of a mixture of rice and red beans, sometimes contained in a pot, on other ritual occasions; see Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, p. 76.\n\n77 GJTSJC VI:1259, 1b.\n\n78 GJTSJC VI:1142, 2a.\n\n79 GJTSJC VI:1259, 1b.\n\n80 #Ma juan 3: 8a. 風俗考\n\n81 GJTSJC VI:1120, 4b.\n\n82 GJTSJC VI:1142, 4b.\n\n83 GJTSJC VI:1120, 3a.\n\n## 4b.\n\n84 GJTSJC VI:1166, 4b. 風俗考\n\n85 GJTSJC VI:1193, 2a. 荆楚歲時記 Seasons in Jing and Chu. Auth. Tsung Lin\n\n86, juan 13:4a.\n\n87 GJTSJC VI:1130, 1b. 風俗考\n\n88 GJTSJC VI:1120, 4b.\n\n89 GJTSJC VI:1120, 2b.\n\n90 Aijmer, A Structural Approach... p. 95.\n\n91 GJTSJC VI:1142, 1b, 2b.\n\n92 荊楚歲時記 7b. 風俗考 16, 2b. M16\n\n93 GJTSJC VI:1142, 2a.\n\n94 loc. cit.\n\n95 GJTSJC VI:1166, 5b. Records of the ... Ed: MELAR‡ n.d.",
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    {
        "id": 212698,
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        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1992",
        "page_number": 7,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT.\n\nARTICLES:\n\n1 Keith Stevens A Jersey Adventurer in China: Gun Runner, Customs Officer, and Business Entrepreneur and General in the Chinese Imperial Army, 1842-1919 ... Vii\n\nP.H. Munro-Faure - Behind the Front Lines in Burma, The Marches of the Salween Border, 1942-1944... 113\n\nWei Peh Ti A Peek Backwards into the Jewish Community of Shanghai. 149\n\nJames Hayes - Old Chinese Graves from the Tsuen Wan District of Hong Kong's New Territories ... 164\n\nDavid Faure An Exploratory Study of Pingshan, a Hakka Village Cluster to the East of Shenzhen ... 180\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES:\n\nDavid Faure - China Resurgence of Folk Religion in Western ... 193\n\nDenis Bray - Growing up in China: Lecture to the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, 14 May, 1993 ... 199\n\nP.H. Hase Bandits in the Siu Lek Yuen Yeuk ... 214\n\nAlvin P. Cohen First Meeting of the Warring States Working Group, University of Massachusetts ... 216\n\nBOOK REVIEWS ... 218",
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    {
        "id": 212886,
        "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": 195,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n180\n\nVol. 32 (1992)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nAN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF PINGSHAN,\n\nA HAKKA VILLAGE CLUSTER TO THE EAST OF SHENZHEN\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213803,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1996",
        "page_number": 155,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "126\n\n47\n\nform of incense ashes rather than tablets suggests that the ancestor halls did not use tablets to represent ancestors individually. It is also found in the Yingsheng (\"Reception of the Holy\") dedicated to the main honoured gods during the Jiao festivals, and the Yingshen Guiwei (\"Escorting gods to their places\") during the Hongchao festival of Fanling, both conducted by Cantonese Daoist priests in the New Territories. An elder of Kam Tin compared the Yingsheng ritual with the ancestral hall ritual found in the Qingle ancestral hall of Kam Tin, to which I shall refer below. I am not sure if a cloth “bridge” is used in this ancestral hall ceremony.\n\nOp cit pp 142-144. In a recent visit to Cheng Tau, a woman in her 60s referred to the ancestral hall as a-gong ha (\"the Place of Ancestors\"), which seems to have been the more usual expression for ancestral halls among the Hakka. Compare the expression with Bak-gong ha ('the Place of the Bak-gong earth god'). It is interesting that the title of this category of earth god, whose territory is more limited than the dawang, shares the expression for \"elder brother of grandfather\".\n\nibid p. 224 » 10\n\n174\n\nibid p 160\n\nDiscussion of this aspect of ancestral worship is summarized in C Fred Blake, Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, The University Press of Hawaii, 1981, pp 92-93, 115 n 1, 116 n 2. A possible example is the case of Wo Hang, N. T. where an ancestral hall of the second fang houses the spirit tablets of the first and second generation. See Allen John Lueck, Lun Chun, Land is to live: A study of the concept of isu in a Hakka Chinese village, New Territories, Hong Kong, unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1985, p 273.\n\nCompare H G H Nelson, \"Ancestor Worship and Burial Practices\", in Arthur P. Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 263-267, on the shen-ting which fulfilled the functions of domestic altars for the households in each area” in a Cantonese village in the New Territories. He observes that the shenting \"occupy a place half way between [tang ancestral halls] and domestic altars”.\n\nVol under Donga jie (\"Winter festival\")\n\nTON Op cit. pp 147-148\n\nOp cit. p 12\n\nOp cit. p 176\n\n100\n\nIt is interesting to note the distribution and context of Mountain Songs. It is interesting to note that Mountain Songs were sung only by the male villagers (in some festivals with women hired from other villages) in the Cantonese villages whose dialect is known to others as daaih ga wo (\"big family language\"), and which correspond to the area of the five big clans. In some of the other Cantonese villages, e.g. in Shatin and Saikung, Mountain Songs were sung by the women on the eve before a wedding at the bride's home. Mountain Songs, and related pre-marital courtship, was more popular among some female Cantonese villagers in the Kowloon area who cut grasses for sale as fuel. The livelihood of these women, like that of the Hakka immigrants, depended more on the city. I know much less",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215009,
        "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": 105,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "61\n\nChinese Labour Corps. A native of Pudsey, he died on 16th February 1919. And also the grave of Lt AE Player of the Labour Corps, attached to the Chinese Labour Corps. He died on 10th July 1919.\n\nWe also saw the graves of twenty-three seamen from the SS British Sovereign, amongst which were those of Ah Ling and Doe Gai [no Chinese characters on their gravestones] who died on 7th September 1918. There is also a grave of a member of the Japanese Merchant Marine Service, 1st Class Engineer Yioshto [or Yiosto as it appears on the gravestone], who died on 31st December 1918. His name is not listed nor his grave location shown in the cemetery register which, I believe, is only used for British and Commonwealth personnel. It is listed on the CWGC Foreign National register database. The CWGC has written to the Japanese Embassy, London, to ascertain the correct spelling of his name and await their reply.\n\nIn our wanderings in this cemetery, my wife and I also saw the grave of a young civilian who was buried alongside those who had fought and died in the War. He was Joseph Leng, who drowned at Audricq on 2 October 1917 whilst visiting his father, Sapper J Leng. He was only seven years old and on his gravestone his parents have had carved the epitaph 'Suffer little children to come to me.'\n\nAlso in this cemetery are five graves containing the remains of men of the CLC who were 'shot at dawn'. Their gravestones carried the usual epitaphs and were in every way indistinguishable from other CLC gravestones. Wang Enrong (Wang En Jung in Wade-Giles romanisation) [10299] 29th Company CLC was executed on 26 June 1918, together with Yang Jingshan (Yang Ching Shan in Wade-Giles romanisation) [10272] also of the 29th Company CLC, from Liaocheng county of Shandong province, for murdering a French woman at her estaminet [coffee house] during a robbery. The former's gravestone only carries his number and the inscription ‘Faithful unto Death' whilst that of the latter bears the inscription ‘A Noble Duty Bravely Done.'\n\nSt\n\nZhao Gongyi [Chao Hsing I (Chao Kung-i) in Wade-Giles romanisation] [46090], 161 Company CLC, from Jinan county in Shandong, having murdered a fellow-countryman, possibly as a result of gambling, was executed on 9th August 1918 and Hui Yihe [Hui I He (Hui I-ho) in Wade-Giles romanisation] [42476], 112th Company CLC,\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215302,
        "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": 79,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "27\n\n'Establishment of Spring' starting on the fifth of February, Gregorian reckoning. A wu day would have been a day which showed a stem-branch combination that contained the character wu. The day of interest here would occur some forty to fifty days after the first day of the Li Chun. So this day would have fallen sometime by mid-March, generally in the second moon, but at varying dates there. This day was called She Ri 'She Day'. It seems likely that it was celebrated according\n\nto the date provided by the official calendar-chronicles from Yingshan Magistracy (in De'an Prefecture), Suiyang Magistracy 陽縣 (in Wuchang Prefecture 武昌府) and Wuchang Magistracy 武昌 (also in Wuchang Prefecture) place the festival in the second moon.3\n\nIt is not so easy to say what the She was in late imperial times in this lake land in Central China. In terms of State rituals there was still an imperial sacrifice in the spring on an altar southwest of the palace in the capital, devoted to She Ji *. Sometimes this two-character name is understood as referring to one deity, sometimes as to a combination of two-She being the god ruling the land and Ji the divine controller of grain crops. There was a hierarchy of provincial, prefectural and magistratial She Ji, who were all part of the imperial official state cult. The imperial offering was the exclusive privilege of the Emperor. Before his sacrifice the altar was covered with earth of five colours - a colorific togetherness which expressed the total universe, and thereby the generative and destructive power of the five activities, wu xing 4. A special stone tablet was erected in the middle. After the ceremony this was taken down and buried in the ground until the next occasion for worship.4\n\nIn some areas in the south, present-day villagers tend to see the She as a chthonic registrar of deaths and births, an earth god who is thus associated with both death and human fecundity. More generally it appears as if the She in many areas of China signified a notion of locality. Both the Imperial cult and the present day Cantonese example may serve us as pointers, but what the demotic ideas about the She, and the She Day, actually were in the area surrounding Lake Dongting a few hundred years ago, is something we must try to glean from the\n\n3 古今圖書集成.1888. VI,1166: 風俗考毯4a; 1120:風俗考2b4b.\n\n4 Bredon & Mitrophanow 1972: 63-64.\n\n5 Aijmer & Ho 2000: 37-41 and Yang 1961: 98-99.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215303,
        "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": 80,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "28\n\nsparse evidence we have from local chronicles.\n\nIn Gong'an Magistracy (in Jingzhou Prefecture) people hoped for rain on the She day as this was a good omen. In the same vein we find a note from Tongshan Magistracy (in Wuchang Prefecture) to the effect that if it rained on the She Day, it was said: 'She Weng yu rain of the Worthy She'. A rustic proverb had it that 'She Gong Mr. She'--and 'She Mu Lady She'--'do not drink old water'. The metaphor here was that the fresh water of the spring rains was drunk by the earth. It is interesting to note that the proverb insists on a female counterpart to the She.\n\nIn Yingshan Magistracy there were si offerings to the She; these were spoken of as qi gu 'prayer for grain'. Similar offerings, but this time described as jiao libations, occurred here in Yingshan on the third day of the third moon, later on in the spring. On the She Day we encounter offerings taking place in Zhongxiang Magistracy, the capital in Anlu Prefecture, and here we get some more detail concerning the rustic population. The chronicler describes how the celebration engaged wu and xi male and female sorcerers-who appeared with drums and singing, thus welcoming the shen spirits. With 'arms joined' they were stamping on the ground, all this being a ge jie ji 'an offering of rhythmic singing'. Everyone drank She wine and shared She meat. The wine was supposed to cure deafness. Sacrificial meats (sheng) and sweet wine (li) are also mentioned from Wuling Magistracy, the capital of Changde Prefecture. From Jiangling Magistracy, the capital of Jingzhou Prefecture, we get a description of She fan 'She food' -which was a mixture of pork and mutton put inside a pumpkin. The magistracy of Suiyang is said to have been a place where four neighbourhoods combined to ji offer to ben jing She shen 'the local She spirit'. People shared out delicacies\n\n6 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1193: 風俗考 3b.\n\n7 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 6ab.\n\n8 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1166: 風俗考 4a.\n\n9 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1166: 風俗考 4ab.\n\n10 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a.\n\n11 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1259: 風俗考 1b.\n\n12 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1193: 風俗考 2a.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215304,
        "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": 81,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "and sacrificial meats (zuo IF) that had been used in the ji sacrifice.13\n\n29\n\nThe oldest source we have is from the Liang dynasty (502-556 AD), a thematically organized chronicle accounting for the customs of the lake land in Central China, called Jing Chu sui shi ji, or Records of the Seasons in Jing and Chu. It is very apparent that this text has had an influence on later scribes. For instance, it is quite clear that the compiler of the record of Suiyang has copied from the old Records the note saying that four neighbourhoods combined to celebrate the She. This description of social organization might not have been very accurate in late Imperial times, nor can we assume that it was anything more than an idealized picture in early medieval China. Perhaps it only means that a vicinage had one centrally located She altar. The Liang source also mentions sacrificial meats and strong wine and in this there may have been more of a true historical continuity through the centuries.14\n\n16\n\nThe chronicler of Wuling magistracy juxtaposes the celebrations of the She with the vernal breaking of the earth in agriculture and the inundation of the fields in the second moon.15 Some names also indicate an agricultural connection: In Yingshan the offerings to the She were called qi gu 'prayers for grain'16 and the day seems to have been known as gu ri—'grain day'. As was noted above, the peasants of Suiyang were on this day forecasting inundations, droughts and tao rice growing in the fields'. There was a saying here: She zhong xin *£*—'to sow the new [crop] at She [time]'. There can be no doubt that the day of the She and its celebrations were connected with the new agricultural season, the breaking of the earth in the spring and the sowing of the rice grains.\n\nIn a sense the Li Chun festival was a precursor of the She Day. The latter was officially calculated on the basis of the occurrence of the former. Both festivals were concerned with the breaking of earth, but it seems clear from this juxtaposition that Li Chun was more 'prospecting' and anticipating—an official recognition of the arrival of\n\n13 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1120:風俗考4b.\n\n14 On the Jing Chu sui shi ji, see Turban 1971: 3-46.\n\n15 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1259:風俗考1b.\n\n16 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1166: 風俗考4a.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215305,
        "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": 82,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "30\n\nspring within the wider New Year duration.\" At Li Chun ritual acts signalled various agricultural tasks. The She festival was more timely in relation to actual agrarian operations starting up at this season, but rituals did not directly depict the cultivation of the earth.\n\nShamanistic activities were common at several ritual celebrations in the area under scrutiny here. A chronicler from Hanzhou Magistracy in Hanyang Prefecture says that the people along the Jiang and the Han18 love wu sorcerers and regard demons as important.19 Singing, dancing and drumming wu and xi contributed to the efficacy of the rituals in that they summoned the shen spirits. The mention here of both wu and xi is best understood as indicating that the shamanistic acts were performed by officiants recruited from both genders—but we cannot be sure. What kind of shen spirits were invited by their activities is, again, not clear. If in the singular, the word might refer to the She, if in the plural, it might have been spirits in general, or, perhaps, the spirits of the dead. We have seen above that sometimes the She was connoted with death and the dead. Invoking and inviting the dead—should that be the correct understanding—would then, no doubt, have had further agricultural connotations.20\n\nWhat speaks in favour of the former interpretation is a note deriving from Yiyang Magistracy (in Changsha Prefecture), but which actually refers to a practice of the third day of the third moon, a day called Shang Si E or 'Upper Si'. On this day there were splendid processions in the country villages by the She altars where people sacrificed to the du shen 'the earth spirit(s)'. Droning drums were prominent instruments in these processions. This was called qi nian—'to pray for the year'.21 A similar report, already mentioned and referring to the same day, is found in the records of Yingshan where it is said that people worshipped the She by jiao libations.\n\n17\n\nWe may note that there was another occasion for celebrating the\n\nAijmer 2002, Chapter. 15.\n\n18 Hanzhou is situated by the confluence of the River Yangzi (the Jiang) and the River Han.\n\n19 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1130: 風俗考 1b\n\n20 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a\n\n21 益陽縣志. 1874. 卷 24b.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215308,
        "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": 85,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "33\n\ncould also be a day for worshipping at the graves—a spring practice spread over several possible days. There is likely to have been a link of association between the She and the dead—in a way similar to what can still be discerned in some southern parts of China today. The offerings on this day were sometimes made in a grand style with cavalcades and officiants engaging the spirits. It was an occasion for feasting, drinking and games.\n\n31\n\nThere was another festivity in the second lunar month of the year which was called Hua Zhao or 'Flower Dawn,' which occurred on the full moon day, the fifteenth of the moon. The festival is mentioned in chronicles from Tongshan, Baling,32 Yingshan,33 Zhongxiang,34 and Gong'an.35 If the sky was clear on this day in Baling, then the cotton plants would have a good harvest.36 In Gong'an there were similarly good prospects for cotton if there was a clear full moon on this night.37\n\nThe Flower Dawn as a social event is not extensively described, but we learn that in Zhongxiang there were outdoor activities in the open country outside the town, and so there were presumably also picnics. It is said that gentry and commoners ta qing—‘trod on the greenness’—and they dou bai cao ‘gathered one hundred grasses.’\n\nTa qing is a name for a spring outing, and the designation for this festive picnic is in the wider Chinese world associated with various dates, like the eighth day of the first moon, the second day of the second moon and the third day of the third moon. It is also generally held to be among the customs of Qing Ming in early April, even signifying grave visits. In this present corpus of ethnography we find mention of ‘treading on the greenness’ at the Flower Dawn. Dou bai cao was a game in which people armed themselves with stalks of grass. From each of a pair of stalks was pressed a drop of liquid and the two drops were\n\n31 古今圖書集成,1888.VI,1223:風俗考2a.\n\n32 古今圖書集成,1888.VI,1166:風俗考4a.\n\n33 古今圖書集成,1888.VI,1142:風俗考2a.\n\n34 古今圖書集成,1888.VI,1193:風俗考3b.\n\n35 古今圖書集成,1888.VI,1223:風俗考2a.\n\n36 古今圖書集成,1888.VI,1193:風俗考3b.\n\n37 古今圖書集成,1888.VI,1120:風俗考6ab.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215309,
        "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": 86,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "34\n\nbrought into contact. The stalk which in this way drew up the drop of the other was declared the winning party. Perhaps this was an élitist thing to do and we have no description from the central lake land to improve our knowledge. At least the name suggests games in the open under festive conditions. Another designation used for this day was, in Tongshan, pu die hui 'the meeting of the fluttering butterflies.'38\n\n撲蝶會\n\nA note from Yingshan claims that Hua Zhao was a day when young women got their ears pierced. It was also a day when girls who had reached the age of twelve, thirteen or more, started allowing their hair to grow long. In the same place, this day of Flower Dawn was also an occasion for sending presents to a (future?) bride's home, and to arrange- or confirm-betrothals (na bian). Alternatively, it was a day for wen ming or 'to ask names.' This was a preliminary ceremony leading to a likely engagement to be married, generally implying a comparison of the two candidates in terms of the combinations of celestial signs going with their respective birthdays. The Flower Dawn was generally regarded as an auspicious day for this.39 We can see that this festival was marked by femininity-girls were coming of age, passing into womanhood by starting using jewellery and letting their hair grow long. Female reproduction is also stressed in the arrangements for coming marriages. Also, full moon days were generally associated with femininity.\n\nTurning to Zhongxiang we find that the full moon day of the second lunary was an occasion for the flying of paper kites (feng yuan) and this custom implied some games-but we are not informed as to the rules of these. There is the possibility that these competitions were in terms of appearance and beauty.40\n\nThe flying of paper kites in southern China was not only a children's pastime, but was done in a ceremonial way in certain seasons and on specific days. In Fujian Province, around the city of Fuzhou it was an activity associated with the autumnal Chong Yang festival on the ninth day of the ninth moon. In a different context I have suggested\n\n38 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1166:風俗考4a.\n\n39 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1142:風俗考2a.\n\n40 Hodous 1974: 190-92; Bredon & Mitrophanow 1927: 430-35.\n\n41 Aijmer 1991.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215347,
        "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": 124,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "72\n\nuniquely Hainanese. In practice of the seventeen only one was Hainanese and that bore the odd title. It was Li San Shengmu, literally the Saintly Mother Li the third. This is obviously Li Shan, misheard with the 'san' assumed to be the 'Third'.\n\nThe most widespread claim is that Lishan Shengmu or Lishan Laomu24 was a ferocious lady general of the Tang dynasty known for her love of fighting, and is now a popular character in Chaozhou plays. However, to many Chinese she is better known by the maiden name of Fan Li-shan as merely the wife and mother of two famous generals, Xue. Several stories told about her contain in addition to common factors, others involving unconnected genuine historical heroes, some from entirely different eras. The composite story of the best known legends about Miss Fan25 begins with her warrior father giving her a 'sword to execute Immortals' and a 'whip to beat the spirits' and after she had completed her military training and prior to her going off to help General Xue Dingshan26 to pacify the west. In one version she joined up with him, served and fought alongside winning his trust and favour. In another Xue met and fought her on the battlefield. She defeated him but, because he was a handsome general, and with a bit of persuasion, she married him. A photocopied broadsheet distributed by the temple keeper in a small immigrant settlement shrine above Kowloon claimed that the Lishan cult had been popular in central China, and that her story, described in the 'Conquest of the West,' ostensibly written by Xue Dingshan himself, explained that she had been the wife of Xue, later transformed into an Immortal as a reward for her miracles and achievements.\n\nThere is also a Lishan Laomu who is also a definitive goddess appearing in the great novel The Journey to the West, the story of the fantastic journey made by Xuanzang, together with Sun, the Monkey, Sha the monk and Pigsy. In part of the story it appears likely that Lishan was Monkey's elder sister, a courtesy title rather than a blood relationship. She, together with her three daughters, all Bodhisattvas, named Truth, Love and Pity, transformed themselves into beautiful women in order to tempt the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang and his entourage of Monkey, Pigsy and Sha with their beauty. She changed herself into a widow and proposed to Xuanzang who rejected her. She and her daughters teased Pigsy, who after many adventures found that they were merely figments of his imagination. This goddess would",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215355,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 132,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "80\n\n21 This is present day Maoming in western Guangdong province, not too far from the Liaozhou peninsula leading down to Hainan.\n\n22 A city in south eastern Guangdong province, half way between the Liaozhou peninsula and the Pearl River.\n\n23 Note that there are two different deities, Longwei Shenggong worshipped by the Hainanese and Longwei Shengwang worshipped by the Chaozhou people. The latter is, to all intents and purposes, a local Earth God.\n\n24\n\n25 Laomu, Old Mother [or Elderly Matron], is a title often mentioned in popular stories. In Xue Dingshan's Campaign to the West Laomu was Fan Lihua's teacher who, in eight years, taught her the art of moving mountains and raising armies from a handful of beans.\n\nAn elderly Chaozhou man in a Kowloon temple confided that Lishan [‘Fan Lihua' he called her] is a fictional character to support the story of the two generals Xue, and that much of their legends have little or no historical basis.\n\n26 Xue Dingshan's father, Xue Rengui, also a general, was an early Tang hero who not only also led an expedition to the west, he also served in the Korean campaign of Tang Tai Cong. Xue Dingshan, otherwise known as Xue Gang, is claimed to have saved the life of his emperor and is now a Fukienese cult deity, the face of whose image is characterised by extraordinary and colourful decorations.\n\n27 William Mesny relates that recumbent iron images of oxen were believed to be a protection from floods when these images were placed along the banks of river courses and lakes likely to overflow. He noticed several along the banks of the Grand Canal in 1874 and was told that they had been placed there by Liu Bowen Mesny's Chinese Miscellany: Vol. IV: Shanghai: 11 February 1905.\n\n28 As in Taipan, the Senior Boss.\n\n29 The shrine and its images disappeared, doubtless into a high rise flat, though it could have gone the way of so many minor cults and disappeared due, perhaps, to the aged temple keeper's demise.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]