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punctuated by periodic transfers from port to port, station to station, and they still recalled memorable events and personalities they encountered on their various postings. What follows is a summary of the more notable points that emerged during the interviews. It might be noted that the dialect used on these occasions was Cantonese, the interviewees being all from the Canton area in Kwangtung. Yet, these elderly gentlemen's flair for English expressions was given ample opportunity to manifest itself.
Indeed, knowledge of the English language was, in those days, an essential requirement for any Chinese who wanted to join the Customs' clerical staff. In view of the Service's cosmopolitan character, illustrated by its multi-national personnel composition, this emphasis on an international language seemed only fitting. Facilities for learning English in early twentieth-century China, though limited, were nevertheless available. Despite their somewhat disparate educational background, somewhere in their early training the interviewees had all studied the language. One learned it for two and a half years at a school in Tientsin. Another attended St. Francis Xavier's College in Shanghai, where English was an instruction language. The third actually graduated from the Customs College in Peking, where students were required to attain a certain proficiency in a second foreign language, English being counted as their first (consequently, he knows French, as well). Invariably, they had had to demonstrate a sufficient mastery of English before entering the Service in 1910, 1917 and 1919, respectively.
Competition for Customs positions was always keen. For a post with the Customs was not just any job. It had a number of superior features. One was security. Once inside the Service and beyond probation, and as long as he did not commit any serious legal offence, a Customs employee could consider his job as secure, in colloquial parlance, as an “iron” or even "gold rice-bowl." Another was its liberal pay. It was recalled that even a janitor working in a Customs office made three times as much as he would working for a private firm. There were fringe benefits, as well. At the end of every seven years of service, an employee received a gratuity as "retiring allowance" and on retirement would be provided with "pension benefits” in a lump sum. Moreover, high-ranking officials on transfer to duties elsewhere were to travel first-class with their families. One of the former commissioners
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LUKE KWONG
punctuated by periodic transfers from port to port, station to station, and they still recalled memorable events and personalities they encountered on their various postings. What follows is a summary of the more notable points that emerged during the interviews. It might be noted that the dialect used on these occa- sions was Cantonese, the interviewees being all from the Canton area in Kwangtung. Yet, these elderly gentlemen's flair for English expressions was given ample opportunity to manifest itself.
Indeed, knowledge of the English language was, in those days, an essential requirement for any Chinese who wanted to join the Customs' clerical staff. In view of the Service's cosmopolitan character, illustrated by its multi-national personnel composition," this emphasis on an international language seemed only fitting. Facilities for learning English in early twentieth-century China, though limited, were nevertheless available. Despite their some- what disparate educational background, somewhere in their early training the interviewees had all studied the language. One learned it for two and a half years at a school in Tientsin. Another attend- ed St. Francis Xavier's College in Shanghai, where English was an instruction language. The third actually graduated from the Customs College in Peking, where students were required to attain a certain proficiency in a second foreign language, English being counted as their first (consequently, he knows French, as well.) Invariably, they had had to demonstrate a sufficient mastery of English before entering the Service in 1910, 1917 and 1919, respec- tively.
Competition for Customs positions was always keen. For a post with the Customs was not just any job. It had a number of superior features. One was security. Once inside the Service and beyond probation, and as long as he did not commit any serious legal offence, a Customs employee could consider his job as secure, in colloquial parlance, as an “iron” or even "gold rice-bowl." Another was its liberal pay. It was recalled that even a janitor working in a Customs office made three times as much as he would working for a private firm. There were fringe benefits, as well. At the end of every seven years of service, an employee received a gratuity as "retiring allowance" and on retirement would be provided with "pension benefits” in a lump sum. Moreover, high- ranking officials on transfer to duties elsewhere were to travel first-class with their families. One of the former commissioners
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