106
H. J. LETHBRIDGE
In 1881, a missionary wrote:
Victoria has been called 'the city of palaces', from the extensive hongs and numerous and elegant residences. The men who principally hold its commerce in their hands are real merchant-princes. They furnish their mansions at great expense, and in the style of the home aristocracy. Their tables abound with every native and foreign luxury, and a liberal hospitality is dispensed toward casual visitors from distant parts of the world,30
The ostentatious and extravagant mode of life adopted by Taipans enlarged the gap between high and low status Europeans, Taipans and pong-paân. The standard was set by the Taipan and all strove to follow, but many lacked the means to put on dog. We are told that every foreigner (a term that signified European), whose salary was above seventy-five dollars gold a month (police, turnkeys, and inspectors were therefore excluded) retained a passenger chair, that is, a sedan chair, carried by either two or four coolies, who were uniformed, often in striking and colourful liveries designed by their employers.* The Governor, imitating the Mandarin style, was borne by eight bearers in scarlet dress. A man's social standing was given not only by his occupation but revealed by such social indicators as the elegance of his private passenger chair, membership of the Jockey Club or the Hong Kong Club (a sanctum sanctorum indeed), numbers of servants retained, sports played, and recreations indulged in.
Much of this extravagance, this open flaunting of wealth, was a direct consequence of the parvenu origins of the Taipan class, many of whom were hard-nosed Scots from respectable but needy Lowlands families, who had done well on the China coast and wished to demonstrate the fact. But another factor operated in the early years - the feeling that life was fleeting and chancy in Hong Kong, with its high mortality and morbidity rates for all classes of people, so that life should be enjoyed to the full.
The European lower orders were excluded from the social world of merchant and official and forced either into isolation within the circle of their own occupational and status group or into a segment
For an illuminating insight into this situation see the Commission on chair and jinriksha coolies in Sessional Papers, 1901, No. 47.
106
H. J. LETHBRIDGE
In 1881, a missionary wrote:
Victoria has been called 'the city of palaces', from the extensive hongs and numerous and elegant residences. The men who principally hold its commerce in their hands are real merchant- princes. They furnish their mansions at great expense, and in the style of the home aristocracy. Their tables abound with every native and foreign luxury, and a liberal hospitality is dispensed toward casual visitors from distant parts of the world,30
The ostentatious and extravagant mode of life adopted by Taipans enlarged the gap between high and low status Europeans, Taipans and pong-paân. The standard was set by the Taipan and all strove to follow, but many lacked the means to put on dog. We are told that every foreigner (a term that signified European), whose salary was above seventy-five dollars gold a month (police, turnkeys, and inspectors were therefore excluded) retained a passenger chair, that is, a sedan chair, carried by either two or four coolies, who were uniformed, often in striking and colourful liveries designed by their employers.* The Governor, imitating the Mandarin style, was borne by eight bearers in scarlet dress. A man's social standing was given not only by his occupation but revealed by such social indica- tors as the elegance of his private passenger chair, membership of the Jockey Club or the Hong Kong Club (a sanctum sanctorum indeed), numbers of servants retained, sports played, and recreations indulged in.
Much of this extravagance, this open flaunting of wealth, was a direct consequence of the parvenu origins of the Taipan class, many of whom were hard-nosed Scots from respectable but needy Lowlands families, who had done well on the China coast and wished to demonstrate the fact. But another factor operated in the early years the feeling that life was fleeting and chancy in Hong Kong, with its high mortality and morbidity rates for all classes of people, so that life should be enjoyed to the full.
The European lower orders were excluded from the social world of merchant and official and forced either into isolation within the circle of their own occupational and status group or into a segment
For an illuminating insight into this situation see the Commission on chair and jinriksha coolies in Sessional Papers, 1901, No. 47.
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