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THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH
JAMES HAYES*
Basically, traditional Chinese civilization fascinates outsiders because it is one of humankind's vastest treasuries of cultural achievements and social experience, and to be ignorant of it would greatly diminish our appreciation of the wondrous variety to be found in the historical life of man.
I have begun this paper with this quotation from a fairly recent work on China, because it provides the rationale for our continuing interest in, and fascination with, China and "Things Chinese"; and because, though written long after the event, the formation of our parent body in the opening decades of the 19th century was surely prompted by similar feelings.
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in 1823, receiving its royal charter the following year. It may justly be described as one of the leading cultural bodies of its kind in the world, a reputation it has retained over its long, continuous history with the help of its many branches in the East.
A Brief History of the Hong Kong Branch
Among these various offshoots, there had been a short-lived but productive "China" Branch in Hong Kong between 1847 and 1859. Thereafter, in line with the gradual expansion of British interests in China, the focus had shifted further north. A North China Branch flourished in Shanghai for almost ninety years between 1862 and 1949. Its heyday had been in the 1930s, before Sino-Japanese hostilities began in earnest in 1937, when it had over 8,000 members and owned its modern library and museum premises. Both these earlier Branches of the Society provided a lecture programme and issued Transactions, Journals, and other publications, contributing significantly to the study of China in all its rich complexity.
*The RAS, Hong Kong Branch has just celebrated its 35th anniversary with its publication on Hong Kong villages. It is hoped that a volume on the history of the Branch will be provided on a future occasion. In the meantime, these notes on my time with the Society to date may be of interest to Members and may even encourage someone to undertake the "History".