[ { "id": 204258, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n23\n\nrelative, the Black-throated Laughing-thrush, which is confined to Hong Kong Island and is a handsome bird of black and grey with white cheeks. Not so rare but still uncommon is another relative, the Hwamei. This name means 'Painted Eyebrows', a tribute to the most distinctive part of its plumage, but more than anything the Hwamei is famed for its voice. To hear a chorus of these birds almost any evening of the year, their song rather like that of the European Song Thrush, is an unforgettable experience, and the pity is that this species is only really well known on Hong Kong Island, being very local elsewhere.\n\nOne of the most charming families of birds to be seen in the Colony is that of the flycatchers, none of which actually breed here, but either pass through on migration or spend the winter. The variety of plumage is quite bewildering and some of the more exotic species, like the Paradise Flycatcher with its eight inches of tail, the black-and-lemon coloured Narcissus and Tricolour Flycatchers, the malachite-green Verditer Flycatcher, the Blue-and-White Flycatcher, and the Robin and Red-breasted Flycatchers are quite eye-catching and endearing to watch as they fly out from a favourite perch to snap at a passing insect.\n\nSimilarly, the great family of warblers is poorly represented by resident species, although many hundreds of migrants pass through or perhaps stay for the winter. The Deep Bay marshes provide nesting cover for the Fantail Warbler, Yellow-bellied and Brown Wren-warblers, whilst the Tailor-bird, with its neatly-sewn leaf house, breeds commonly all over the Colony. Probably no more than one or two pairs of David's Hill-warbler may nest near the top of Tai Mo Shan. Such permanent residents are far outnumbered by the winter visitors, like the Dusky, Pallas's and Yellow-browed Warblers, and the migrants, like the Arctic Warbler and Great Reed-warbler.\n\nOf the smaller thrushes, the Magpie-robin is the only resident, and is common all over the Colony. It is the third of our trio of fine songsters and with its smart pied plumage is an attractive addition to the list. But there are several more chats which are quite common in winter; the Rubythroat, Red-flanked Bluetail, and Daurian Redstart (all described by their names), the Stonechat all over the marshes and paddy-fields, and the Bluethroat on passage near Deep Bay. Among the larger thrushes the Violet Whistling Thrush is the only resident and may be found near most of the watercourses throughout the Colony, from The Peak and Tai Mo Shan down to sea-level. It has a very pretty habit of fanning its tail at rest. Many other thrushes come to the woods of Hong Kong in winter, but are usually shy and difficult to see. The Blackbird is quite common as are the Grey-backed and Grey Thrushes. On the rocky coastline both the Blue and the Red-bellied Rock-thrushes may frequently be seen.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204411, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "34 \n\nG. FINDLAY ANDREW \n\ncamped till about midnight. Then making our way down the mountain side we came to a large field in the centre of which some of the war-lord's men started digging. It was not long before they uncovered the first of several large earthenware crocks full of silver, mostly the fifty ounce \"shoes\". Each crock was wired to the next. By daylight we had the whole of the sycee boxed in the cases we had brought with us and shortly after sun-up we had the pack-animals loaded and were on our way home. One very pleasant remembrance of the incident was the spirit of integrity that was evidenced in the whole deal. Under the peculiar circumstances we naturally had to accept the weights and standards that were given us at the place of take over. But when we were able to check-up at the provincial capital we found no discrepancy. \n\nI purposed using this consignment of silver to purchase some coarse barley, cultivated on the Tibetan border and which was the only grain available and in very limited quantities. However, we hit a snag when the people of the district (half-breed Tibetans) insisted that payment must be made in silver dollars of standard value. It seemed for a time as though we had reached an impasse, until, acting on a hint, I found in the local arsenal machinery for a mint which our far-sighted War-Lord was planning for this backward province of the North-West. We found dies and stamps to mint the impressions which we made in moulds from the dollars of all provinces and regions. The only difference between our production and the originals was that our content was of uniform standard. The only dollar we were unable to copy was the Sun Yat-sen dollar where the impression goes through and comes out in relief on the other side. We even produced Hong Kong dollars. In all we minted and uttered two hundred and thirty odd thousand silver dollars. What alloy we used was white brass. This episode had an interesting sequel some ten years later when, one evening, I found myself dining with Dr. T. V. Soong, then Minister of Finance. Among the guests was Yu Yu-ren, then President of the Examination Board. This office was responsible for the disciplining of officials. Pointing at me, Dr. Soong said to Mr. Yu, “You ought to put this man behind the bars. He comes to our country and without Government charter or licence he issues our currencies and mints our coinage\". \"Excuse me \",", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204419, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "42\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nof the ordaining monastery or some other monastery, and they were supposed to spend the next five years in meditation and study. This was the first stage of their career as monks.\n\nLife in the Meditation Hall was strict. One slept only five hours a night and meditated about ten hours a day. Rising was at 3.00 a.m. followed by an hour of morning prayers, then an hour's rest; breakfast was eaten before dawn; after it came four and a half hours of meditation. This meant sitting in the lotus position for forty minutes, then having a drink of tea, then twenty minutes circumambulating the altar, then going back to sit, then some more tea, more circumambulation, and so on. Circumambulation prevented the joints from getting stiff, but one had to keep on with mental exercises while doing it. It was not just a matter of walking about. Lunch came before noon and was followed by an hour's rest, two hours' meditation, an hour of afternoon prayers, supper at 5.30, and three and a half hours of meditation in the evening. At ten o'clock the monks went to bed. If one of them dozed during meditation the next morning, the monk on patrol, or hsün-hsiang w†, would tap him on the back. If he talked during meals, quarreled, or broke any of the other rules, he was beaten severely.\n\nThe daily schedule varied from monastery to monastery. Rising in the winter was later and retiring earlier (except during the so-called Meditation Weeks in autumn, when for up to forty-nine days one slept only two hours a night). But the schedule I have given is typical.\n\nSometimes I have asked monks whether they did not get bored meditating ten hours every day. They deny it vigorously. They say there was a programme, a method. For instance, one might be trying to find an answer to a standard question like \"What was my original face before I was born?\" The Instructor would come over and say: \"What are you looking at?\" If one replied, \"At the buddhas and bodhisattvas,\" he would say \"Where are the buddhas and bodhisattvas?\" One could not answer and was beaten. Then the Instructor would ask: \"Who is being beaten?\"\n\nI am afraid that the subject of methods of meditation is too large to embark on here. It is true, however, that many monks found themselves unable to master it, particularly Ch'an (Zen)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204423, "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "46\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\ngetting certificates in several sects. Only the more serious monks had dharma certificates,\n\nThe difficulty of finding people willing to serve meant that many an abbot had to go on serving for decades. He had corresponding difficulties in finding officers to work under him. He appointed all the department heads himself, while they might appoint the personnel of their respective departments. But everyone was at liberty to refuse to serve, and many did. They too wanted to devote themselves to religious exercises and not to be bothered with the work of the monastery. So, when the abbot asked someone to be head of a department, he would do so with a deep bow, to show that he was making a plea and not giving a command. I have often heard it said that the right spirit, the true monastic spirit, was to serve when and where needed, because if competent people refused to do so, the monastery would fall apart. I know of a monk, for instance, who was the abbot of one well-known institution and then went elsewhere as a mere tang-chia, or Manager. I have heard of another who was the shou-tsoo Senior Instructor in a big monastery—a most exalted position—and then became its cook. This happened because the monk who had been supervising the kitchen had no talent for it, and the Senior Instructor was the only person competent to bring about a real improvement.\n\nIn the course of the years, while a monk was ascending the monastery hierarchy, he probably acquired a small temple, either from his own master or from a fellow disciple. Whereas a big public monastery could not, according to the rules, be handed on to the tonsure disciple of the retiring abbot, the head of a small temple, who usually owned it personally, almost always handed it on to one of his \"tonsure disciples,\" who might by that time be an officer of a big monastery. Thus many monks led two careers in parallel, one in a small temple and one in a big monastery. There were thousands of small temples in China—about 270,000 according to a survey made in 1930. Each had a few monks, sometimes two or three, sometimes as many as ten. Their life was very relaxed. There was no organised meditation, no morning and evening chanting of scriptures.*\n\nThe monks who lived there could come and go as they pleased\n\n* Except on the first and the fifteenth of the lunar month and throughout the last lunar month.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204728, "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "22\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nforwarded it let me send a small chit to Mr. Sturgis by the same conveyance.23\n\nWeather very warm.\n\n9 p.m. Houqua came in this evening with a Chop from the Commissioner for Mr. Snow, the Consul, which orders him to give up 1,500 and odd chests of opium which he says he knows are held by American merchants, and does not believe the statement sent him three days since by Mr. Snow wherein was clearly stated that this opium which was held by American merchants had been surrendered to Captain Elliot by his order as it was British property.\n\nA quantity of large Chops left Canton today for Lankeel to receive the opium and bring it to Canton. It appears the vessels outside are to come up to Lankeel and there deliver it, two vessels at a time, so that it may be a month yet before we are released from imprisonment, if so soon. The Chinese do things of this sort very slowly.\n\nAll the vessels at Whampoa remain as before. On the day the Commissioner laid his paw upon us, stopped the trade, surrounded us with soldiers, and deprived us of our cooks, coolies and servants and of all intercourse with the Chinese there were 7 or 8 vessels ready for sea and on the point of sailing, amongst them are three consigned to us, Vancouver, Niantic, and Francis Stanton all loaded except the last and she only wanted a few tons more to complete her cargo.\n\nIt is to be hoped the Chinese government will have to pay all this detention with interest, to say nothing of the violent imprisonment of all foreigners in Canton who are not to be released till opium, not their own, is given up to this scoundrel of a Commissioner. It is nothing more nor less than an act of piracy. Not one of us is allowed to quit Canton, innocent or guilty, till the opium is all in his hands. He has caught us this time in a trap, but please God he may be well thrashed for it yet, and if our lives, as he threatens, are to be the penalty for the non-delivery of the 20,282 chests of opium this place may by and by be made too warm for him,24\n\nSunday 8th*\n\nAchun arrived today from Macao and reports that there are\n\n* A mistake, Sunday was the 7th and the 8th was a Monday,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204741, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n33\n\nbeing to get rid of the opium as quick as possible and thereby procure our release. The latest accounts from below are that 12,391 chests have now been delivered to the Chinese. We hear also that Saoqua, one of the Hong merchants at Chumpee, met with a serious accident getting into his own boat from one of the ships. While here old Houqua, one of our best friends, has been confined to his house for a week past with dropsy of which he has a bad attack.\n\nNearly all the Factories have now their compradores, cooks, and coolies and here and there a servant. Our imprisonment is the same as before but the guard at night do not keep up such a continual beating of gongs and blowing of horns as they did. Sunday evening, 28 April, 1839\n\nThis evening while taking tea at Elmslie's, Houqua and Mouqua came in. They each sat down and ate some jelly and bread and took a cup of tea. The former had just had a letter from Pwankuqua dated at Chumpee yesterday, which said that 13,900 odd chests had been delivered. After half an hour's chat on various matters they went over to see Captain Elliot at the hall. Wrote to J. & P. Sturgis at Macao, gave the letter to Delano to be forwarded.\n\nWe heard this morning of the arrival of the Cowasjee Family from Calcutta and Singapore with 500 chests of opium. The Columbia and John Adams sailed from the latter place five days before her. The Columbia we understand for Lintin direct and the John Adams to touch at Bankoff. This news was received with great delight throughout our prison as they may in some measure hasten our release or the catastrophe, whatever it is to be. No passage boats or ship boats allowed to run.\n\nMonday, 29 April 1839\n\nSeveral days since we heard that three lascars had been brought from the coast of Chinchoo at which place they probably deserted from some ship and were lodged at the Consoo House. Today they were released and sent out to the Factories. Nothing can be made of their story except that they belonged to an opium vessel on the coast and had landed and were left behind. This was of course carefully concealed from the Name-Hoe who questioned them at Consoo House. We hear today that Mouqua is better and Saoqua also. He requested permission of the Yum Chae to come up which was refused.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204763, "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": 66, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE\n\n55\n\nof these sites in this territory and three have been expertly excavated with results which are well known to many of my hearers this evening. There can be no doubt that the people who left those deposits were a fishing community and the direct ancestors of our present boat population, either the Tanka13 or the Hoklo155 or, as I believe more likely, of both. At the same time, the patterns on the pottery excavated from these sites clearly connect the culture both with other sites excavated elsewhere on the coast of China and those excavated further south, much further south; and the shape of the stone adzes connects them, I am told, with other boat-making cultures in the Pacific. These sites therefore are an important link between a people who are now culturally and sentimentally Chinese but were not so as recently as 200 years ago; and who earlier still formed part of a wide-flung and comparatively advanced culture. Boat people by various names, but answering the same description, are mentioned frequently in the literature of the Tang,139 Wu-tai105 and early Sung132 periods. They are described as numerous, which they still are, bellicose, which they certainly are not, and dangerously hostile to the Chinese settlers, which brings to my mind the couplet: Cet animal est très méchant; quand on l'attaque, il se défend. Later on, in the Tsing12 Dynasty, we find a change of tone; and official documents both from the local officials to Peking, and from the Manchu Emperor himself to the inhabitants of Kwangtung63 and Fukien,49 speak of the boat people as a hard-pressed community to whom their landward neighbours are called upon to stop being beastly. I think the latter assessment might be somewhat nearer to the truth if it could be applied not only to the Tsing period but to the whole of the last 1,000 years, and not only to the boat people but to the tribes of the hills.\n\nA practical suggestion which I should like to make regarding the excavations of the former coastal sites, having regard to their number and to the meagreness of the resources, both pecuniary and human, available for this work, is that some archaeologists who are familiar with this type of site should conduct a search north of the axis of tilt of the New Territories. All the sites so far excavated have been on the side which is going down, that of Hung Shing Yel56 having first come to light as a result of the sea cutting into a sandbank. But on the other side of the territory,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205103, "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-1966", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "54\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\npeculiarity of the Chinese script, and Chinese script is something that would strike even the most casual observer as something different from any other script in Asia or Europe. Even William Rubruk, who had never been in China but only in Mongolia, gives an entirely correct description of the Chinese writing system. All this has cast some doubt on the contention that the Polo family spent a long time in China. But however that may be, until definite proof has been adduced that the Polo book is a world description, where the chapters on China are taken from some other, perhaps Persian, source (some expressions he uses are Persian), we must give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was there after all. Polo tells us that he was \"the first Latin\" to come to Kublai Khan's court. \"Il (that is, Kublai) avait très grande joie de leur venue comme un qui n'a jamais vu aucun Latin.\" This is another statement in his book that is open to doubt. The Polos were certainly not the first Europeans who came to Kublai Khan's court. This is shown by a passage in a Chinese chronicle covering the time from the eleventh month of 1260 to the eighth month of 1261, that is, the beginnings of Kublai's reign. This chronicle is, at the same time, the most detailed annalistic source for any period of the Mongol dominion in China. There we find recorded under the seventh day of the second month of the second year of Chung-t'ung (June 6, 1261) that an embassy of the \"Fa-lang\" country came to Shang-tu (Dolon-nor) and was received in audience. Fa-lang is the Chinese rendering of Farang, the Franks, the name by which the Near Eastern peoples called Europeans. The description that these self-styled envoys gave of their country and their travels is very curious, but not more curious than some of the fantastic notions about the East that are found in European medieval literature: \"These people came and presented garments made from vegetable fabrics (cotton?) and other presents. These envoys had travelled three years from their country to Shang-tu. They reported that their country is in the Far West beyond the Uighurs. In their country there is constant daylight and no night. It is evening there when the field mice come out of their holes. If somebody dies there, then Heaven is invoked and it might even happen that the person is restored to life. Flies and mosquitoes are born from wood. The women are very beautiful and the men usually have blue eyes and blonde hair. There are two oceans on the route from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205618, "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-1968", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "164\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nhusband's family were Hakkas from near Tam Shui and they had then been in Ngau Tau Kok for three generations.\n\nThese accounts are selected from others known to the writer, and are intended to illustrate a feature of old village life in the Hong Kong region at the end of the last century and, no doubt, for centuries before.\n\nBy way of a postscript it appears that travelling Hakka craftsmen were not only to be found in South China. Agnes Smedley's book The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1956) mentions regular visits from such persons at his home when he was young. He was born in a village near the market town of Ma An Chang in I Lung (四川) district in Szechuan in 1886. The following extracts are of interest:\n\nFrom time to time during the year, itinerant artisans left the big towns and cities and came along the Big Road, wandering from village to village to work for such families as needed their special skills. Carpenters, metalsmiths, mat weavers, cloth weavers and others, all were skilled artisans who owned and carried their own tools of trade... An old weaver, whom General Chu referred to simply as \"the Old Weaver\", came each winter to weave cloth from the cotton thread spun by the women of the Chu family. The coarse woven cloth was then dyed an indigo blue, hung on long bamboo poles to dry, after which the women cut and sewed it into garments for the family, into quilt coverings or other uses of the household... These itinerant artisans were a part of the peasant economy. Coming from the big towns or cities, they were much more advanced and independent than the peasants, to whom they brought new ideas. They were even folk historians and some of them could read and write. They lived in the homes where they worked, and each evening the family gathered about to listen to their talk... The Old Weaver who wove cloth for the Chu family each winter seems to have been a Hakka also. He was a grim old fellow with a scalding tongue who would set up his long narrow loom in the courtyard or, if it was too cold, in the kitchen, and begin his weaving... the old man's long brown hands worked as swift as light. He could weave twenty chih, some twenty to thirty feet of cloth, a day, for which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206195, "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-1971", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "In Conclusion, there remain to me now three brief duties to perform and they are the duties of recording thanks.\n\nFirstly they go to you members who have demonstrated your public spirit by coming here this evening and making the number present up to that which is necessary to give this meeting legal status. Secondly, I must also thank the members of the Committee who, by so dextrously and loyally serving two masters during the year 1970, have ensured an even maintenance of policy and achievement during the change in Presidency.\n\nAnd finally, a bitter-sweet item, bitter because it is the last meeting at which we shall have the pleasure of the presence of Mr. Webster as our Hon. Secretary. He is leaving Hong Kong in the very near future on transfer to Istanbul, and this brings to an abrupt end his all too short stay here. We offer him our heartiest congratulations on his new appointment and we would like him to know that he takes with him our most grateful thanks for his invaluable services to the Society for the past two years. The sweet part of this item is the news that the British Council has offered us the continuation of its services, which, I think you should know, include facilities for the venue of all our Committee meetings as well as the procuring of halls for our Society's meetings; a central home for our secretariat; the services of two senior members of its staff on our committee; and the behind-the-scenes help of Mrs. Margaret O'Hara, who is invariably prepared to cope with the hundred and one minor problems which so frequently confront an organization such as ours in its ordinary every day affairs. In fact I am certain that without this sympathetic help from the British Council, we would have no chance at all of running this Society with the efficiency and success that you have come to expect of it. To the British Council, to its local Representative, Mr. G. A. Bridges, and to his staff, we again offer our most grateful thanks.\n\nWith these words of thanks to all our helpers, I beg to table this report of the affairs of the Society for the year 1970.\n\n3rd May, 1971.\n\nL. T. RIDE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206365, "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-1971", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "166\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nfour or five years after the end of the war, after a period of not unexpected lack of interest in any kind of soldiering, it is recorded by Colonel H. Owen Hughes that an evening spent in the Cricket Club brought forward a whole platoon (No. 1 Platoon of No. 1 Company) \"many of whom had held a Commission in the War\"46 Many of the Volunteers of this time had also served pre-war in Volunteer units elsewhere, and their records of service make interesting reading. As time went on, too, several generations of families, Portuguese, Eurasians, Chinese and also some Europeans with either a home or family continuity in the Colony through business or professional interests, provided several generations of volunteers. This is particularly true of the last 40 years, and many of the present generation of volunteers can give the names of fathers, uncles and cousins who have been volunteers, not just during the period of conscription, but stretching back into the inter-war and even to the pre-1914 period.\n\nAn interesting study could be made of the social composition of the officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the Hong Kong Volunteers, at different periods in their history, to relate recruitment to the various racial groups and classes of persons available and to establish, what, if any, barriers were raised to the entry of any of these at any time.\n\nDRESS AND EQUIPMENT\n\n(a) Dress.\n\nFew photographs have survived from the earlier days of volunteering in Hong Kong. Of two that are mentioned in our records, one is of Volunteers in the 1860s and was shown at the centenary exhibition in 1954.47 Another dates from the 1880s and was sent by H. H. Read, mentioned above, with his letter to the Commandant for the Year Book for 1937. Some light on dress at this period is shed by the Rules and Regulations of 1882 (but not, unfortunately, by those promulgated in 1862). Section 27 of the 1882 Rules and Regulations state that \"the uniform of the Corps will consist of a blue cloth Tunic with\n\n* Plates 11-20 illustrate this article. They relate to the middle period of Volunteer history, 1895-1932.\n\n46 Vol, 1964, p. 42.\n\n47 Vol, 1954, p. 239.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206806, "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-1973", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\n77\n\nbeing 2-3 feet high but cannot remember how they were manipulated. They were probably Fukienese string-puppets, which would not be surprising, as Fukienese Min-nan opera groups were popular in Ch'aochow, so why not Fukienese puppets? In Mr. Su's home, in Ch'aochow city, the greatest pleasure children derived was to play their own leather-shadow puppets behind the paper-screen. Besides the ceremonial puppet-shows at the temple festivals there were always puppet-shows performed for public entertainment in those days. He recalls that the leather shadow-puppets were by far the most interesting to watch.\n\nApart from traditional subjects, they offered a kind of political cabaret caricaturing the confusion after the 1911 Revolution or performing an amusing burlesque. They are said to have given realistic renderings of the feats and behaviour of the warlords and bandits who roamed the country between 1911 and the 1930s. These street performances were usually given by a team of two opera-singers who were too old to perform on stage. From a bamboo pole balanced on their shoulders hung a bundle of personal belongings at the rear end, and a trunk containing puppets, stage, and musical instruments at the front end. The two would set up their bamboo-frame stage in a rich private house or a public square, adjusting their lamp behind the paper-screen. They manipulated the puppets, spoke, sang, and played musical instruments using their mouths, hands, and feet simultaneously.\n\nOne very special occasion in Ch'aochow was the lantern festival on the fifteenth day of the first moon, when puppets were of prime importance. In the evening, a crowd would throng the streets to find a place at one of the many puppet-performances. Street-vendors offered puppets, with delicate heads made of clay and complete with clothes, for sale. The puppets looked exactly like those for performances, but were immovable and had no sticks at their hands or back. If parents wished to have a son or a daughter, or a groom or bride for their children, they would buy an appropriate doll on this day and keep it at home.\n\nThe transition from shadow to round puppets is clearly stated in the Chinese literary sources.* It is there repeated that shadow-puppets came to Ch'aochow in the Sung dynasty and were always performed behind a paper-screen on a bamboo-frame called chu-chuang44* (bamboo-window); and that by the end of last century\n\n* See Liu and Sun under Bibliography to this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206947, "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-1974", "page_number": 18, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "THE PAPER CHASE—ARCHIVES AND\n\nTHE PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE OF HONG KONG\n\n[“It is to be noted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it”— The Tatler]\n\nA. I. DIAMOND *\n\nThis evening I propose to tell you something about the development of the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, and about the role which it can or should play in the conservation and use of Hong Kong’s archival resources. But before doing this I think that it may be worthwhile to spend some time talking about archives as such—about what archives are and how modern archive institutions operate.\n\nMany of you may be quite knowledgeable on this subject already, and if you are I apologise for seeming to assume otherwise. But some quite astonishing misconceptions exist about archivists and their profession, as all archivists know, and when we are asked to address a general audience few of us can quell the thought that at least some present may be harbouring what we have come to recognise as the classic delusions about us. And what are these:\n\nWell, the other evening, for example, my hostess at a dinner party said to me “What a wonderful job you must have. Fancy being able to sit all day reading through all those fascinating old papers”. There it is, you see, one of the archivist’s main preoccupations, apparently, is reading through all the documents in his care—and mark you, they’re bound to be old and fascinating. She was just being polite of course, but I realised at once that here was someone with a full quiver of misconceptions about us. I could guess that in a moment she would tell me that I do not really look like her idea of an archivist. She would not have had to explain what she meant by that. I know already. I should be old and leathery looking with a beard and long grey hair and wearing steel-rimmed bi-focals. In fact I should look like a cross between Charles Darwin and Karl Marx in their old age. And what else do I do? Well, when I am not poring over fascinating old documents in my\n\n* Mr. Diamond is Government Archivist, Hong Kong. He is also the Hon. Secretary of the Hong Kong Branch, R.A.S. This paper was delivered to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society on Monday, 7th January, 1974,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207097, "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-1974", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "162 \n\nSUNG HOK-PANG \n\nbeam into a new dragon boat. When it was launched into the water, a strange thing happened. The boat flew up into the air, and immediately a great quantity of treasure, gold, silver and precious stones fell into the boat from the sky. When it was full the boat came down to the water, and the people were able to empty it. Then it flew into the air again, and came down again with fresh supplies of treasure. This happened many times until there were untold riches for the Tangs. A few years later, they chose another lucky day and erected a new beam and the hall was completed and given the name Loi Shing Tong1. It still exists in Shui T'au Village2, on the left-hand side of Hung Shing Kung (plate 20, figure I. H.K.N., VI, Nos. 3 and 4. “Hung Shing Kung,—the oldest temple in old Ch'an T'in.\") under the name of Ts'z T'ong Tsai (small ancestral hall).3 \n\nThen followed many years of prosperity for Kam T'in until times of trouble came to all the countryside and the family had to abandon the village temporarily on account of bandits. Before leaving Kam T'in, however, they buried there what remained of the treasure. This story was handed down from generation to generation more as legend than true fact. During the Ham Fung4 (咸豐) years, 1851-1861, of Ts'ing dynasty, a man called Tang Paak Luk (鄧伯祿) of Kam Hing Wai (錦慶圍) farmed the land where the treasure was supposed to be buried. One day he sent a labourer, Ch'an A Faat (陳亞發) to work in the particular field, and in the evening Ch'an returned to the farmer's house with a gold rope which he declared he had dug up. Everyone was very pleased at first, but gradually it appeared that bad luck had come with the rope. The farm beasts began to sicken, many died and then the farmer's family became ill. So the rope was re-buried without more ado, and prosperity was at once restored to Tang Paak Luk. \n\nAnother story is of a very poor farmer who at a different time rented the same ground. One day he dug up a brick that shone brightly in the sun. As he examined it, thinking it must be silver, he carelessly dropped it on his foot, and broke his big toe. Being too poor to pay for a doctor or even to buy curatives, the farmer gave the brick to his wife to break up, and they found that it was without doubt real silver. So the wife was able to buy medicine and consult a doctor with the aid of the brick, but it was not until all the brick \n\n1 Plate 31 at rear of this Volume.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207244, "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-1975", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "and 1860s. Like Hung Shing, its image is taken out in procession on the major festivals and placed in the seat of honour at opera performances given on the island and in neighbouring Aberdeen. Members also visited a soy sauce factory, a shipyard specialising in fishing boats and a fishing store. In November, Miss Werle arranged another visit, to a ceramics factory at Yuen Long, and to the single lineage village of Sam Tung Uk in Tsuen Wan, a joint excursion with the Hong Kong Ceramics Society. In January this year, I arranged a visit to the Sikh temple, with the kind cooperation of Mr. Pritham Singh, who is an active member of the temple. Sikh religion is a revisionist movement from within Hinduism, founded formally at the close of the seventeenth century as a reaction to what the Sikhs saw as the ritual and social excesses of orthodox Hinduism. There are some 2,000 Sikhs in Hong Kong. The occasion this time, we had a previous visit last year, was the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the last Guru of the Sikhs. Members of the Society attended part of the religious service at which members of the congregation came up to the altar to sing sutras, give comments or make observations relating to their religion, or play musical instruments and sing. We were then invited to the vegetarian curry luncheon prepared and served by members of the congregation for the congregation. Finally, in March, we were invited by our Council member M. Geoffroy-Dechaume, the French Consul-General, to his house in Old Peak Road. This is one of the few surviving old houses on the Island. Built in 1895 by Messrs. Leigh and Orange, still one of the large architectural firms in the Colony, on a piece of land acquired by Sir Paul Chater, it was named Victoria Lodge and has been the home of successive French Consuls since the earliest part of this century. Tea was kindly provided by Madame Dechaume.\n\nFILMS\n\nMost of our film shows were arranged by Miss Werle and shared with members of the Hong Kong Arts Centre, with which Miss Werle is professionally associated. In May, we had an evening of Japanese films, one on Noh drama, one on Kabuki and one on Japanese print-making, all in English and supplied by courtesy of the Information and Cultural office of the Consulate-General of Japan. A highlight of our film programme was a film made by Mr. Hugh Gibb, an old friend and member of the Society, whose", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207263, "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-1975", "page_number": 31, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "A HONG KONG SPIRIT-MEDIUM TEMPLE\n\n23\n\nweekday. His possessing spirit is the saintly monk Buddha Sha僧。\n\nThe third medium is also a Chiu-chow in his early 30's. He is employed as a performer in a Chiu-chow opera troupe and seldom appears at the temple except on major feast days, e.g. Chinese New Year. His possessing deity is the Supreme Buddha.\n\nThe medium \"in training” is a Chiu-chow in his early 20's who was until recently employed as a security guard at a local transportation facility. He now supports himself by odd jobs such as take-home piece work from local factories. His possessing deity is the mythical Monkey of Chinese legend.13\n\nIt is obvious that an individual kei tung's rank within the cult is not based on the relative position of their possessing deities within the Chinese pantheon. Rank is predicated on the kei tung's experience as a medium and degree of involvement in the affairs of the temple association. The mere fact that the cult master's possessing deities would be judged as relatively minor personages in the Chinese pantheon in no way affects his recognized position of dominance among the ritual specialists. His over twenty years of experience as a kei tung, and his role as one of the founding “19 Brothers\" of the temple association, render his position unassailable.\n\nMany elaborate ceremonies are conducted by Tai Wong Ye kei tung, the most ostentatious being those held during Chinese New Year and the Yu Laan or Hungry Ghost Festival. It is our contention, however, that the keystone of the cult's appeal as a religious centre lies in the simpler ritual held each evening at 10 p.m. It is that ritual which we will now discuss.\n\nTai Wong Ye Temple: The Possession Ritual\n\nEighty-seven years ago a Christian missionary in Amoy described a spirit possession ritual as follows:\n\n\"The graven idol can be seen sitting in the shrine, with its attendant figures by its side. The group of men that are chanting in a steady, monotonous voice charms that are supposed to bring the spirit are usually men of no reputation in the village. There is no scholar in his long role present, and no man of influence standing by to do honor to the idol. The men seem fit for scenes of darkness and remind one of Macbeth's witches making their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208007, "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-1977", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "BEHIND JAPANESE BARBED WIRE: STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG\n\n1942-1945\n\nGEOFFREY CHARLES EMERSON*\n\nOn Monday morning, December 8th 1941, a few minutes after 8 a.m. and a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, bombs dropped on Kai Tak airport and the battle of Hong Kong had begun. 17 days later, on Christmas Day 1941, Hong Kong surrendered. At that time there were approximately 3000 non-Chinese civilians of the Allied powers in Hong Kong. Until early January 1942, these people were on the whole left alone, most of them remaining at home because it was very dangerous to go out due to the breakdown of law and order which occurred with the surrender on Christmas Day.\n\nOn 4th January 1942, a notice appeared in the Hongkong News (the only English-language newspaper published during the occupation) for all enemy nationals to assemble at Murray Parade Grounds (today the site of the Hilton Hotel). Many people, especially those on the Peak and in the University area, did not see this notice, but eventually about 1000 gathered at the Parade Grounds, and after registration they were marched through the centre of Hong Kong and interned in a number of hotel-brothels located on the waterfront (near the present Macau Ferry Pier).\n\nThe American journalist Joseph Alsop, who was one of those caught in Hong Kong in 1941, wrote the following in The Saturday Evening Post:\n\nAfter trudging a mile and a half, we turned abruptly into a narrow alley and were halted before the grilled door of an ancient, dilapidated and very dirty building. Painted on the peeling plaster was an announcement in Chinese that it was the Stag Hotel, offering comfortable rooms at cheap rates. In reality, it was a Chinese brothel of the third class.†\n\n* Text of a paper read at a meeting of the Society on 13 April 1977. Mr. Emerson, M.Phil. (Hong Kong) is Vice Principal of St. Paul's College, Hong Kong, and President of the Hong Kong History Society.\n\n†The Stag Hotel was situated in Queen's Road Central to the west of the Central Market.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208024, "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-1977", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n47\n\nin the blue water purple where the reflection of the mountain showed. Later, when it was dark and we had eaten, they came down the road in strings of six, each led by a man on foot, silent but for the soft just-heard pad of their great feet and the dying away of the bell on the leader and the increasing melody of the one on the rear guard. Next morning there was pandemonium on the road leading out of the town. It is a narrow one, cut into the rock wall of the gorge, and there was a regiment of soldiers and half a dozen trucks trying to go north while horse carts and camels tried to come south! We got through and then the road went on up the river valley (the Pao Ho). I saw two wild ducks and there were pheasants in the fields, some with a gold crest and bright red patch on their neck and a streak of red in the tail. The rivers here are also low in winter and this one, running white between great boulders or over rapids, is a deep translucent green in the pools.\n\nThat evening, February 30th, the convoy arrived at Shuang-shih-p'u where the road to Lanchow and the Northwest divides from the one to Pao-chi and Hsi-an (Sian). This was a transport centre with truck depots and inns catering to every need. We put up at the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (CIC) Guest House (中國工業聯合協會) where we had five rooms. Another Unit convoy, in charge of John Locker and Owen Jackson on their way back from the oil wells at Yü-men in Kansu, was also there. We spent a day and a half servicing the trucks, stocking up with fuel from the Unit supplies, and then had three days holiday for Lunar New Year. Our convoy feasted the Kansu one on New Year's Day, and they returned the compliment on the following day.\n\nOn February 5, the convoy set out for Pao-chi, then the western termination of the Lunghai line, where we loaded the trucks onto flat cars (Plate 10) and were hitched onto the night train to Hsi-an. Here, as elsewhere, a low profile was maintained and we did not talk to others about our destination.\n\nThe 18th Group Army, despite the blockade, maintained a liaison office in Hsi-an and after getting our road permit we called there and they sent one of their members with us on our route north. The road as far as the 'border' was poor. Near Tung Ch'uan it crossed the bridge shown in Plate no. 11. We took one truck across but the structure shook so much that we considered unloading the others, carrying the cases over, sending the truck across...\n\nCorrected version in HTML format as requested.\n\nHowever, some minor corrections were made:\n1. \"February 30th\" is likely an error since February only has 28 (or 29 in a leap year) days. \n2. \"CIC\" was added for \"Chinese Industrial Co-operatives\" to match common abbreviation practices, though this was not explicitly instructed.\n3. Some minor punctuation adjustments were considered but not made as they were not strictly necessary.\n\nHere's the corrected text with the requested format and rules applied:\n\nA JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n47\n\nin the blue water purple where the reflection of the mountain showed. Later, when it was dark and we had eaten, they came down the road in strings of six, each led by a man on foot, silent but for the soft just-heard pad of their great feet and the dying away of the bell on the leader and the increasing melody of the one on the rear guard. Next morning there was pandemonium on the road leading out of the town. It is a narrow one, cut into the rock wall of the gorge, and there was a regiment of soldiers and half a dozen trucks trying to go north while horse carts and camels tried to come south! We got through and then the road went on up the river valley (the Pao Ho). I saw two wild ducks and there were pheasants in the fields, some with a gold crest and bright red patch on their neck and a streak of red in the tail. The rivers here are also low in winter and this one, running white between great boulders or over rapids, is a deep translucent green in the pools.\n\nThat evening, February ...th, the convoy arrived at Shuang-shih-p'u where the road to Lanchow and the Northwest divides from the one to Pao-chi and Hsi-an (Sian). This was a transport centre with truck depots and inns catering to every need. We put up at the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives (CIC) Guest House (中國工業聯合協會) where we had five rooms. Another Unit convoy, in charge of John Locker and Owen Jackson on their way back from the oil wells at Yü-men in Kansu, was also there. We spent a day and a half servicing the trucks, stocking up with fuel from the Unit supplies, and then had three days holiday for Lunar New Year. Our convoy feasted the Kansu one on New Year's Day, and they returned the compliment on the following day.\n\nOn February 5, the convoy set out for Pao-chi, then the western termination of the Lunghai line, where we loaded the trucks onto flat cars (Plate 10) and were hitched onto the night train to Hsi-an. Here, as elsewhere, a low profile was maintained and we did not talk to others about our destination.\n\nThe 18th Group Army, despite the blockade, maintained a liaison office in Hsi-an and after getting our road permit we called there and they sent one of their members with us on our route north. The road as far as the 'border' was poor. Near Tung Ch'uan it crossed the bridge shown in Plate no. 11. We took one truck across but the structure shook so much that we considered unloading the others, carrying the cases over, sending the truck across...\n\nLet me know if further adjustments are needed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208097, "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-1977", "page_number": 136, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "120\n\nGREGORY E. GULDIN\n\nethnicity in North Point. Primarily concerned with community and social welfare projects, the Association sponsors performances of Fujianese provincial operas, folk dances and songs; organizes film showings and outings to the countryside, operates health clinics, a Guangdongese language program and a Fujianese discount grocery; and arranges for inexpensive trips back home to Fujian (Zheng Yi 1974:2-4).\n\nWith all these services and activities the Fujian Province Association is a genuinely popular and community-wide organization among North Point's Fujianese. All Fujianese are familiar with at least some of its services and activities whether or not they have ever personally visited its offices or benefited from its services. They know that the Association is there to help Fujianese, and especially Southern Fujianese, with the problems of housing, jobs, travel to Fujian and access to Fujianese products. With its 3000 active members (2.3% of the 1975 Fujianese Hong Kong population) the Association serves as the main organizational terminal through which many of little Fujian's ethnic and social currents are strengthened and channeled.\n\nAlthough not physically located in North Point, but in the old Sheung Wan district of Fujianese and other trading corporations, the Fujian Commercial Association has exerted a guiding force in the Fujianese community's development. In addition to facilitating PRC trade with the Overseas Fujianese of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, the Association has acted as the unofficial coordinator of the other pro-PRC Fujianese organizations in Hong Kong.11 Composed of the wealthy, influential and active members of an already unusually depleted older male population, the Commercial Association is usually the prime mover in the few community activities that do occur.\n\nOne such activity, and one in which the Commercial Association's role is most conspicuous, is in the organization and direction of the annual \"All-Fujianese National Day Banquet.\" Although the Fujian Province Association, the Fujian Middle School and the Fujianese Physical Education Association all co-sponsor this \"patriotic\" affair, it is the Commercial Association that foots the bill for the evening and which handles all questions of etiquette and policy. If anything in Hong Kong comes close to being a \"center of Fujianese power,\" the Commercial Association does, diffuse and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208386, "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "94\n\nEUGENE COOPER\n\nbasis coinciding with the monthly publication of Hong Kong Worker and were known as \"discussions of our livelihood”. On June 29, 1973, a similar discussion occurred, this one concerning developments in Shansi province, printed and sent around in a circular by the Federation of Trade Unions. The article was also read aloud paragraph by paragraph, but the discussion was not as lengthy as that which accompanied the reading of Hong Kong Worker. The event seemed designed to promote national consciousness as opposed to class consciousness, and the news did not seem to so directly affect the lives of the art carved furniture workers as the articles in Hong Kong Worker,\n\nOn any given weekday evening at union headquarters, there may be three or four Chinese chess games in progress with a number of persons standing around giving advice on which pieces to move. Anyone near enough to give advice to one or another of the players usually does, and any given game serves as a focus for endless voicing and countervoicing of opinion as to what constitutes the right move. There is also a chance that when one enters the union premises there may be a game of bumper checker pool in progress, involving four participants and a great ruckus about the board. One may be teased to within an inch of one's life for a poorly executed shot.\n\nMah jong is significantly absent as a diversion at Union premises, although it is played regularly at union halls not affiliated with the pro-communist Federation of Trade Unions. It would not, however, be true to say that many pro-communist union members never play the game.\n\nUnion representatives come in from time to time with dues they have collected in their particular geographical area, laying the money and receipts before the treasurer who enters the transactions carefully into the books. The representative may also pick up the latest copy of China Pictorial or China Reconstructs to distribute to the union members in his area. He keeps a careful checklist of who's received one every month. Sometimes a union representative will bring an application form from a worker who has just joined the union, together with three pictures, one of which is pasted in a huge membership book along with a great deal of personal data, name, place of origin, age, date of first registration, address, etc., another affixed to a small certificate of membership, and a third", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208607, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n37\n\nSecretary, Procurator, and all his priests in the other parishes of the City were interned, he did not know where at that moment, but later on he was informed that they were at Stanley, in the prison. That evening our belated supper was eaten in more or less silence, as with guns booming in the distance and the suspense in the air, we did not have much heart for conversation. We retired early, but about eleven o'clock were awakened by the air raid siren, only to find that it was a false alarm. Incidentally, during the hostilities of Hong Kong there were no night air raids. However, after that false alarm, Father Downs in the city, at the Cathedral Rectory, could not get to sleep, and heard the clock strike every quarter of the hour until daybreak. And the next morning at about eight o'clock, the fun began! At that time planes appeared overhead, bombs were dropped at various points and wherever these bombs fell, anti-aircraft guns in the vicinity started barking. A couple of these anti-aircraft guns were set up in a small depression just below the Italian Sisters' Hospital on the hill to the east and south of the Cathedral, and when they began popping we thought they were in our backyard. During the day and those that followed, there were perhaps an average of four or five daily air raids, the targets being mainly gun emplacements, shipping and forts.\n\nHowever, on the very first day, as narrated by Fr. Downs a couple of bombs hit a portion of the Central Police Station, a block or two just west of the Cathedral. Guns were booming over on the Kowloon side and out in the New Territories along the Pearl River estuary where the Japanese landed, having come down the river from Canton. Whether these guns were land or naval batteries, of course we could not judge, but no doubt the shells came from both sources at times. On the night of the second day, after we had retired, the booming of guns seemed to be nearer, and finally we were awakened by a crash which seemed to be in the Rectory. As the booming kept up we were not desirous of making any personal investigation, and as we waited, another crash shook our building, and then another, a little farther away. The next morning we learned that the Japanese were evidently trying to get the range of the anti-aircraft guns just above us near the Sisters' Hospital, for the shells seemed to fall in a straight line; the first struck to the west of us, the second hit the edge of the roof of the house next door, the third crashed through the roof of the Cathedral, cutting a neat hole", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208687, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n117\n\n18 in all. We naturally regret losing our genial and efficient cook, but we rejoice with him in his good fortune. We are also sorry to lose Dr. Molthen, that genial friend of all Maryknollers.\n\n5- Eighteen leave Camp for freedom, such as it may be in Hong Kong. Father Meyer undertakes the cooking of tiffin, while Father Walter will vie with him in giving us a tasty supper, and as both have reputations in the culinary line, we anticipate some good things. Father Troesch will, as usual, preside in our own kitchen, giving us breakfast, and occasional tidbits from his larder. Mr. Wood will take over the baking of bread for the dwindling American community. A death in bed from heart failure today in the Indian quarters. Mr. Wong, our genial Superintendent, leaves today.\n\n6- League softball games start this evening, the Americans winning 5 to 3. The British are learning rapidly and some day they may make the Americans work for their laurels.\n\n8- Our new cooks are doing splendidly. They are trying manfully to give us less stew and gravy and more meat in a substantial form, but today Father Meyer's stew had a mystifying flavor which turned out to be creosote! Figure that one out! An amateur show tonight with a few prizes in the form of tins of jam and sardines, etc.\n\n10- Mr. Chester Bennett, our present Council Chairman, and three Britishers get permission to leave the Camp. It is a strange life; some internees are still arriving and other dis-internees are leaving. Today some ninety English nurses from the Bowen Road Hospital in Hong Kong come into Camp. Softball: Americans 27, British 3.\n\n11- Mr. Bennett and three Britishers leave at 3:00 p.m. Another death in Camp. We get four parcels from town, but not all food as some of the packages contained prayer books and pamphlets for Catholic Action.\n\n12- This evening the Americans played the Married quarters in softball and won, 9 to 6. The British public is also taking more interest now in softball, and the crowds in the evening are constantly increasing. There seems to be a little more life around the Camp also. Canteen prices: one can of condensed, or rather, evaporated milk, $16.00. White sugar $4.00 a pound.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208991, "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-1980", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "SOCIAL & CULTURAL HERITAGE IN N.T.\n\n121\n\nfew places in the world where genuine social enquiry is nearly completely free and, second, that, exactly as Dr. Wang Sung-hsing has just told us, the traditional ways of South Chinese rural life have been retained longer here than elsewhere. A simple example about marriage customs will show you what this can mean: In 1950, when I arrived here first, all rural weddings included the bride being carried to her husband's home in a red sedan chair (fa k’iu ##). I well remember the astonishment of a Mainland Chinese anthropologist friend when he saw this \"relic\" of what to him was an ancient, extinct custom of the remote past that he had never seen in his life before, and he had travelled almost all over China.\n\nAn interesting paper could be written about the paradox that the preservation of the traditional has been a direct result of colonialism. It happened in rather similar ways almost everywhere in the rural parts of the British colonial empire (and most parts were rural) but there is no time to discuss it this evening. Suffice it to say here that, contrary to popular opinion today, it was not usually the intention of the British colonial administrators (District Officers and the like) to impose alien ways and force change but to leave well alone (as long as in their eyes it was well) and interfere as little as possible. (The well-known book Myself a Mandarin by Austin Coates, once a District Officer in the New Territories, is a fairly representative account of common grass-roots administrative attitudes.) The result was that at least up to the time of the Second World War British colonialism almost everywhere tended to act in one sense rather like a refrigerator, \"freezing\" the local social and cultural systems at more or less the stage they had been when the British first arrived, and to a surprisingly large extent inhibiting changes that might otherwise have happened.\n\nThat something like this was certainly the case in the New Territories is obvious. Here, though rice is no longer grown, largely traditional villages can still be found, lineage and clan organisation still exists, formal ancestor worship in ancestral halls (ch'i t'ong: **) is still observed, and people still have a strong sense of local as well as cultural identification which is expressed in temple festivals, with Cantonese opera performances and fa p’aau (JE#) and kam chue (✯*), as well as in the continuance of old local rivalries in new political and administrative forms. Here, too, we can still talk with old people who remember the still recent more", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209040, "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-1980", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "170\n\nBOOK LISTS\n\nan especially favoured form of literary entertainment but were widely popular, especially at the new year holiday and other relaxing times. Writing in the later nineteenth century, Sir Robert Douglas gives a fascinating picture of the scene in a Chinese city on the evening of the fifteenth day of the first month, the Feast of Lanterns, as he calls it\n\nAs the night advances, crowds, among whom are numbers of ladies, who, on no other occasion, venture out after dark, throng the street to gaze at the illuminations and, in some instances, to guess the riddles which are inscribed on lanterns hung at the doorways of houses. Prizes, such as parcels of tea, pencils, fans, etc., are given to the successful solvers of the rebuses, but these have little to do with the interest which is shown in the amusement which, partaking of the nature of a literary exercise, is well suited to the natural taste.\" Robert K. Douglas, China, (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Second Edition, Revised, 1887), 264-265. Rhyming games were akin to this genre, and a good example can be found in David Hawkes' translation of the famous eighteen century novel The Story of the Stone (another name for the Red Chamber Dream), Vol. 2 \"The Crab-Flower Club\" (London, Penguin Books, 1977), 299-303.\n\n(e) Educational texts, including classics, primers and other aids to literacy\n\nI am not including the classics in this list, which have been seen in a wide range of texts and commentaries for all purposes from the elementary school room to the examination hall for the hsiu ts'ai and higher degrees, and in all sizes from large format to tiny \"sleeve gems\" and \"fly-head writing\" on slips of rice paper to be smuggled into the cells of the examination place. In lieu of these, I have listed a few of the primers and aids to literacy that I have come across.\"\n\n*\n\n(f) Guides to letter writing: simple and literary\n\nLike the books on couplets, this is another popular\n\n* See also Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ching China (Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1979), especially the book list at 265-268", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209131, "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-1981", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "20\n\nSTEPHEN MORRIS\n\nand calling them up. A spirit, as one shaman said, may not be just casually summoned: it would be like making unintelligible noises at people, and could be as dangerous as it would be to summon an aristocrat in the village without the proper courtesies. Even so, to summon spirits is always dangerous; and the shaman and the patient go into the ceremony armed with iron for strength, and only after the ritual area has been cleansed with water and incantations. When the ceremony is over the patient is only gradually re-introduced to the mundane world over a period of three days, during which he is required to observe taboos.\n\nThe curing ceremonies that a shaman can perform are three in number. The first, and by far the commonest, is what is called caring for the sick. This ceremony is the shaman's simplest routine for diagnosing and curing illness; it lasts only one evening. The shaman and his equipment—a drum, a spearhead, and a bunch of fresh green leaves with ritual qualities—are fetched by a member of the sick person's household. When the shaman and his patient are prepared and ready, the former covers his head and face with a cloth and beats his drum, chanting an invitation to one of his spirit friends to come and help. When the spirit arrives—signalled by a shaking of the head and a hissing—the spirit, speaking through the shaman, sometimes in another voice and even in another language, asks why he has been summoned. He is shown the patient and asked to help. The shaman, with the spirit in him, then examines the sick person. He may hold up his drum (which is open at one end) and place a lighted candle between the drum and the patient and look through it into the patient's body to see if the spirit can discover what is wrong. If the inspection is successful, the spirit, through the shaman, tells the assistant and the audience what is the matter. Everybody then asks him to help. He may refuse and depart immediately, in which case the shaman hisses violently and shakes his head until the spirit is gone. He then yawns several times and asks the audience what has happened. After some discussion the shaman then summons another spirit,\n\nIf, however, the first spirit does diagnose the cause of the illness, he will usually help cure it, though he may have to leave the shaman, still in trance, in order to fetch another spirit to help in the cure. This second spirit may not be one of the shaman's familiars. When the diagnosis and the treatment are both agreed on, the shaman holds up his open right hand and sings, asking for gifts in the form of invisible stones and flowers from sky spirits. When these are given he shuts", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209226, "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-1981", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY AND KINSHIP TIES AMONG URBAN CHINESE FAMILIES IN HK\n\n115\n\ntime the survey was undertaken, most residents had moved into the estate for three years. All had moved from within Hong Kong (including the New Territories).\n\nIn the course of our interviews, we asked household heads or their spouses two questions concerning their social contacts after they moved into Oi Man. These were: \"Who do you most frequently have round for dinner or an evening at home?” and “Who would you say are the few people whom you most frequently visit or go out together with?\" We asked them to select their responses from five categories, \"close relatives\", \"kin\", \"workmates\", \"neighbours\", and \"friends\". The definitions of these words were left to them and not probed into. The responses are tabulated in Table 1. It is obvious that the most important social contacts reported were \"close relatives.\"\n\nTable 1 Social Contacts of Oi Man Estate Residents\n\n \n Social contacts\n Households that frequently invited social contacts home\n Households that frequently went out with social contacts\n \n \n Close Relatives\n 56.2%\n 50.5%\n \n \n Kin\n 11.2\n 13.1\n \n \n Work-mates\n 9.8\n 9.5\n \n \n Neighbours\n 1.2\n 1.2\n \n \n Friends\n 11.4\n 10.2\n \n \n None\n 11.4\n 10.5\n \n \n Others\n 1.0\n 2.6\n \n \n Total\n 100.0 (420)\n 100.0 (420)\n \n\nIn the light of differences in the choice of social contacts by manual and non-manual workers shown in studies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, we tried to relate these responses to the respondents' occupational class (see Table 2). The responses from the 215 manual workers and 87 non-manual workers show that the two occupational classes in Oi Man Estate did not differ significantly in their choice of social contacts at the time of the survey. Manual workers were only slightly more bound to going out with their \"close relatives\", and non-manual workers with their kin, workmates, and friends. It should be noted, nonetheless, that the income differences of manual and non-manual workers in public housing estates are not greatly different, and this may account partly for the similarities.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210460, "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": 67, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "48\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nmen to gamble much later than before. In 1950 there had been one battery-operated wireless, owned by the main shopkeeper, around which the small evening population used to gather for entertainment, particularly on Mondays and Fridays when programmes of Cantonese opera were broadcast live from the Po Hing or Ko Shing theatres, and the shop therefore remained open till midnight. In 1970 nearly all the families and many individuals had their own transistor radios.\n\nOn the purse-seiners there would be a rather exhilarating passage out to the chosen fishing ground, where the boats would stop, set their kerosene pressure lamps, and wait. If it was calm and there were fish about, some people might do a little hand-lining, but usually this was a time for sleeping until awakened by an alarm clock sometime before midnight. The time of actual fishing operations obviously depended on the presence or otherwise of fish, but often there would be two main spells around midnight and just before dawn, with sleep in between. Small children on board slept through the night, but even on the mechanised junks, a ten-year-old was already a useful hand. During the fishing periods, and especially at dawn, fish-collecting boats might call around to buy the catch, and a few small-liners might also come to buy bait for their next day's activities. As dawn was breaking, the night-time fishermen would be well on their way either to market first or directly back to the anchorage. After mechanisation, most purse-seiners were able to take their own fish to the wholesale markets and still get back to their bases well before noon.\n\nMeanwhile, the land dwellers and those remaining on boats at the anchorage had slept, but they too would wake at dawn, or just before. The first purse-seiners would arrive at an already busy village. The day-time fishermen would be getting ready to go out, waiting usually to buy bait from the returning night workers. Women on shore would be drawing water, hanging clothes out to dry, rousing children from sleep. In the days before the nylon revolution, the first object of a purse-seiner was to ensure that his net was properly dried. As each pair came in, the sampans were launched, the wet net, piled high in the bows of the net-junk, was bundled into one of them, and carried off at", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210469, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "57\n\nliving in Kau Sai. The special peculiarity of the Boat People, however, is their potentially extreme spatial mobility. Both in their own belief and in others' it is this that differentiates them most from people who live on land. Whether or not the belief is well-founded, any description of Kau Sai which omitted to discuss the rhythms of movement would be misleadingly incomplete.\n\nSo far I have been describing Kau Sai almost as if it had been an entity in itself. This was only very partially the case. In fact there was not one single aspect of living that was totally contained within the bay. Life in Kau Sai in the mid-twentieth century can only be understood with reference to a much wider topographical framework. I do not argue that this is an unusual state of affairs. On the contrary, it is implicit in the term 'village', at least as it is used in descriptions of peasant or modern societies, that the entity to which it refers is subordinate to some wider grouping. There are, however, questions of degree. Kau Sai was small and very little self-contained. Without mobility on the part of at least some members of its population it could not have existed. The facts of the situation therefore forced me to consider spatial movement in this case.\n\nDuring most of the daylight hours of almost every day the purse-seiners' junks were moored in the anchorage. The male members of their crews and their children were ashore in Kau Sai village. Sampans were constantly moving from junk to shore and back again as shore jobs were started and completed, purchases made and so on. These were mostly movements of men and children. Women often acted as ferrymen, but except for the occasional quick visit to the shops, or longer sojourns for washing clothes, fetching water, gathering fuel or taking part in such jobs as net and fish drying they seldom went ashore, though they did some visiting from junk to junk amongst themselves. With the evening meal came the retreat from the shore, and immediately afterwards the removal of the entire family (and its home) to the chosen fishing grounds for the night.\n\nEarly morning might see a direct return to the anchorage or (more frequently after mechanisation) a journey to the Fish", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210471, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "59\n\nThem daily to their fishing grounds brought them back in the evenings as often as not to the anchorage at Sai Kung, where they could sell their fish alive immediately to the buyers in the street market or to dealers, or have it collected fresh first thing in the morning at the F.M.O. depot, buying bait from the incoming purse-seiners at the same time before setting out to sea again. At times too, particularly before mechanisation, they found it wise to choose an evening anchorage nearer their next day's fishing grounds than Kau Sai or even Sai Kung, in which case they would probably sell their fish to fish collecting junks and not return to port at all for several days as one of them put it \"until the rice runs out\". The less frequent presence of the small liners in Kau Sai was reflected in the greater timidity of liner children when they did come ashore there to play.\n\nBecause the main fishing seasons for purse-seiners and long-liners did not coincide, there was a certain alternation in the intensity of the spatial rhythms of occupational movement just described, but in other respects the programme of seasonal and annual changes affected all the fishermen in rather similar ways. The threat of a typhoon, for example, would bring about an immediate transformation in the spatial distribution of all the local junks as they converged upon Sai Kung or Yim Tin Tsai. At such times Kau Sai, like the other neighbouring anchorages, would be empty of boats for probably several days.\n\nContrariwise, there was one occasion in the annual cycle of ritual events when almost all the local craft met in Kau Sai. During the Hung Shing Festival in the 2nd month, the bay might contain four hundred or more junks calling in from all the neighbouring anchorages and Shaukiwan, and even (though rarely) from as far afield as Aberdeen, Cheung Chau or Castle Peak. During this period, as at New Year, all who considered themselves \"real\" Kau Sai people stayed at their moorings. The pattern of movement at this festival was balanced, so to speak, by others elsewhere in the locality - notably that at Lung Shuen Wan in the 3rd month and Pak Sha Wan in the 6th - to which Kau Sai boats went regularly. Once there, they usually anchored in a block together, recognised agnatic kin side-by-side as at home. During these periods, they continued to go out fishing, but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210593, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "181\n\nChinese New Year comes this year February 4th and that means a very busy time for us. It's the women's gad-about time, the only time that they have a free foot, some are never allowed on the street except at New Year, so they all come to pay their respects and have a look around. Last year I could not say much but this time I will have to do my share of the preaching. Please write to me when you have the time, and I shall be looking for the picture with all the babies together. With love and thanks,\n\n(5)\n\nEDITH\n\nTaiho\n\nMarch 2, 1905\n\nDear Louise:\n\nThank you very much for the dainty Christmas gift. I have really needed an indexed address book so I hope you are as pleased as I am to know that my need is supplied.\n\nI would have written before but my time has been so taken up and when evening comes, my time for writing, I am too tired to do anything but go to bed. I have even been tempted to go to bed with my clothes on. As I said to Mrs. Ferguson, all our troubles seem to have come at once, it never rains but it pours, you know.\n\nI have broken my record too, and had my first day in bed since coming to China. We are always as busy as can be receiving guests at Chinese New Year time, last year we reckoned we had a thousand the first day, but this year we did not have nearly so many and I was glad as I had the entertaining to do alone. The melting snow and consequent deep mud kept the country people away. But the city people came and some of them several times. The cookies etc. are an inducement but the Ferguson children are the special magnet for continued coming, to bring the different members of the family to see the little curiosities. Some seem quite astonished and say why they are just like our children!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210675, "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-1986", "page_number": 26, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "experience, came relatively easily. \"Life to them is one big gamble, just for the fun of it,” he commented on his co-workers, \"but there is no purpose behind what they are doing, not for themselves nor for their families.\" Those he felt uncomfortable with openly ridiculed him as \"country-boy” and “socialist scum,” and blamed him for lowering their pay. I asked whether he planned to do something with his mechanical skills. He could only give me a bitter smile: who would want a farm machinist in Hong Kong; his family was in the restaurant trade; his father was a cook in China, and his uncle was a master baker; he would feel obliged to learn the family trade; after all, the skill to make Cantonese luncheon delicacies was sought after in the West; his family expected him to migrate to the U.S. one day to start a restaurant of his own. At the time, he had one purpose in mind to learn the skill from his uncle and to get out of the miserable working environment. He relished our conversations about family and friends in the commune (whom we knew through fieldwork). My frequent trips to the commune served as a physical though somewhat invisible bridge between him and home. In a sense, I and my research assistants became part of his emotional network.\n\nAs months passed by, changes in him were noticeable. He permed his hair. He also got rid of the oversized leather jacket and bell-bottomed trousers. With his slightly pointed shoes and loose sweater, he had acquired the \"grease look\" so popular among Hong Kong's working youth at the time. He talked less about his friends at the commune but more about barbecue picnics at Repulse Bay with co-workers. He also wanted to move to another restaurant in order to gain a more comprehensive view of the trade. He seriously discussed the thought of opening a bakery with friends in a housing estate. He had finally enrolled in an evening English class. It seemed that within a short time, he had established his own networks and orientations in Hong Kong by affiliating with a more forward-looking group within the working class youth culture. He became less attached to the social network provided by his relatives. Instead, he enjoyed his economic independence with friends and asserted his own goals in life quite apart from family obligations.\" He felt he was finally sinking his roots in a society that was oblivious to its precarious existence.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210765, "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-1986", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "99\n\nalso young women, walked around the legs of the paper image. I heard a man say, perhaps as a joke, “Girls who walk under the legs will marry quickly.”\n\nThe concluding rite known as Great Offering to Ghosts started at about 9:00 p.m. The priests chanted and sang while about 60 people watched. About the same number of people, mostly young, were looking at photos they took on the previous days. They left soon afterwards. When the chanting finished, the villagers, including many middle-aged women who had prepared the paper money, took the offerings to the main beach where a huge hole had been dug. Incense and paper offerings were burnt. The daai-si-wong and his companion, yat-gin-faat-choi, were later taken there, with their faces towards the sea. The final burning was supervised by some of the priests. The photographer Mr. Yue remarked that there were more people at this rite than in the case of Kam Tin. However, in this case, most of those present were onlookers rather than worshippers.\n\nThe head priest had advised in the previous evening the leader Mr. Wong that roast pork and other specified kinds of pork (seung-yuk, laam-yuk) in specified form and quantities were needed for the rite in the morning. The rite is presumably chau-san, Thanksgiving to the Gods.\n\nThe local gods would be sent away two days later because the day after the main rites was an unlucky day (po-yat).\n\nI heard in the procession in the previous evening the comment that those who had contributed more than a certain amount of money were entitled to a meal and roast pork to take home.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210819, "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-1986", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "153\n\nwondered how much of that soft musical quality was due to him and how much inherent in that unknown tongue.\n\nWilliam Hunter wrote two books on his China days, Bits of Old China published in 1855, and The Fan Kwai at Canton, in 1882. Both contain valuable and interesting information on the relationship between Chinese and foreign traders at Canton in the first half of the 19th century.\n\nW. C. Hunter was married twice. His first wife was of a Virginia family noted for its high-spirited and beautiful girls, or at least this is the impression drawn from remarks made by Lieutenant (later Rear-Admiral) G. H. Preble. Preble was a frequent guest of the Hunter family at Canton. One sister, Preble states, gained notoriety by eloping, which so devastated a former lover that he committed suicide. Another sister also eloped but with less tragic consequences.\n\nPreble in repeating this gossip said that Mrs. Hunter was “quite a different person” from her sisters, and though she had had five or six children by the time he had met her \"no one would have guessed it.\" After her death, her husband married an American woman in Paris in 1876.\n\nThe homesick American lieutenant enjoyed his visits in the Hunter home and wrote to his wife about them. In 1854 he mentioned the international gastronomic delicacies he enjoyed at one of their small dinner parties—shark's fin soup, and beche de mer stew, fresh pineapple, baked mango tarts and English Yarmouth bloaters.\n\nOn another evening he was much impressed with the new-fangled stereopticon kept in the Hunter's parlour for the amusement of their guests. He described it to his wife as \"a couple of daguerreotypes fitted or mounted with a stereoscope attachment so that seen through it only one image was shown, and every part stood out with the fulness of a statue, and the perfection of life petrified.\"\n\nDuring the 1840s and 1850s Hunter divided his time between", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210958, "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-1987", "page_number": 20, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "the symposium was returned by nearly 130 members. This response gave the Council a better idea of our present situation and how we should move forward. Mr. Ian Deane, one of our members, did the major share of the preparatory work and wrote the draft report, greatly facilitating the Council's consideration of its contents. He is unable to be present this evening as an invited guest, but I wish to state our sincere appreciation of his work on our behalf, before and since the symposium.\n\nFollowing the symposium, the Council decided to strengthen our organisation by establishing a number of committees to cover the main activities and areas of concern. These will be chaired by Councillors. Membership will come partly from the Council and partly from our members, enabling more of you to share in the Society's work. In addition, the Assistant Secretary's work, which has steadily expanded, will be recognised by increasing her salary. A separate paper provides more detail and I will be happy to answer questions.\n\nMembership\n\nLast year at this time I reported that 82 people had joined the Society. During the year under review this number has further increased by the unheard of number of 192 with, Mrs. Bruce tells me, another 26 applications in hand. As President, may I extend them all a hearty welcome on your behalf. As of 1 March 1988 the Society has 580 local members and 131 overseas members, a total of 711. All indications are that membership will continue to grow, making it likely, before very long, that our membership will exceed that of the North China Branch of the RAS in Shanghai which, at its peak, had around 800 members.\n\nFinance\n\nOur Hon. Treasurer, Mr. David Gilkes, has tabled his report and will answer questions. I have to report that, after being our Treasurer for no less than twenty-one years, since 1967 in fact, Mr. Gilkes will be handing over to Mr. Robert Nield who has kindly agreed to become Hon. Treasurer in his place. Mr. Nield is a local partner of Messrs. Price, Waterhouse International and has been a Hong Kong resident since 1980. We welcome him to the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211001, "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-1987", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "38\n\nWith two governments claiming jurisdiction over it, the Walled City fell between two stools, as one undertook minimal administrative responsibility to avoid diplomatic embarrassment, the other none at all. The result was a near vacuum of administrative function and authority.\n\nAfter Chinese officials departed in 1899, the City's population was much depleted. Some of the original inhabitants stayed on. Their landownership was terminated by the Hong Kong government, which, in turn, granted them 5-year leases. The leases were necessarily short because of the awkward political circumstances. The government was in fact reluctant to grant land leases for any but public purposes and the Protestant Church became a major beneficiary of the situation, receiving several short-term leases to operate schools and charities in the City. In 1906, the Anglican Holy Trinity Church converted the former San-sheng (Three Saints) Temple into a chapel, the T'ien-kuo chiu-tao t'ang (Heavenly Kingdom Chapel). Sermons given every Wednesday and Sunday evening seem to have attracted many women and children from the neighbourhood, who might have attended as much for reasons of faith as for the entertainment.\n\nThe Church also obtained the lease of an official building to operate an old people's home, called the Kuang-yin yuan, and an alms house. Later, these were turned over to the Chinese Christian Churches Union which also ran a home for widows and orphans, known as Eyre's Refuge, in the large compound. In 1908, the Holy Trinity Church converted the former hsun-chien's office into a primary school, the T'ien-kuo A (Heavenly Kingdom) School, operating it until 1936. For some time around 1931, the Church's youth groups also held their activities there.\n\n52\n\nThe former Lung-chin Communal School was also put to good use. Between 1900 and 1905, it was the Land Court's office. Then the Secretary for Chinese Affairs took it over to run a free secondary school for over 300 students with funds from the Hou-wang Temple nearby. At one time, a public dispensary shared the premises. In this way, the schools and other charities, besides meeting the spiritual and material needs of the City's inhabitants,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211373, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "65\n\ndesirable to cut down on the hours of labour done by children, there was a limit to what could be done if the children were not to be worse off after legislation than before. To restrict labour would mean cutting down the income of families that already were at subsistence level.\n\nExcept in a very few cases, he did not believe there was sweated labour in Hong Kong. He admitted \"the work is hard... but where it constitutes the alternative to starvation it should be allowed\". The children working in China were mostly worse off than those in Hong Kong and for this reason the Commission did not recommend the total prohibition of work by children.\n\nHe claimed that to institute compulsory education would attract millions from China. Mr. Chow might have been asked why so many children should come to Hong Kong for education if their lot was so much worse in China and their labour was needed to keep the family from starvation. As an alternative to compulsory education, Mr. Chow suggested voluntary attendance at evening or Sunday classes.\n\nAn editorial in the China Mail on the Commission's Report stated that registration, inspection and compulsion would only add to the sufferings of the children, not alleviate them. It took a racial line and recommended that when child labour had been permitted for or on behalf of Europeans a heavier penalty should be imposed than in similar cases among the Chinese. Rather presumptuously he added, \"We at least should get our hands clean first\". The editor's negative critique was concluded with the statement that, \"It is clear the Commission asks for more than the Government is likely to undertake\".\n\n19\n\nThe Hong Kong Telegraph expressed shock at the state of affairs: \"In many respects it is no exaggeration to say that the inquiry revealed conditions nothing less than appalling\". In its view the recommendations proposed by the Commission were “a good start upon a very difficult problem”.\n\nThe Child Labour Ordinance enacted\n\n--\n\nSeptember 1922\n\nAnother year passed before the \"Ordinance to regulate the employment of Children in certain Industries\" had its first reading in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211455, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "147\n\naway from a Sunday evening service to watch some people playing dominos, even though I was too young to realize that they were gambling. This was the only time Father had ever whipped any of us, an indication of his extreme anger at me. He really did not approve of the corporal punishment that Mother administered on Ruth and me, and when Helen came along, he asked Mother not to spank Helen so much. He was never tempted to do anything against his sense of right and wrong. When a relative tried to involve him in opium, he would have none of it, even when his relative thought Father would succumb to the temptation once the drug was sent to him without his consent. When the 'goods' arrived at the pier and Father got the bill of lading, he refused to accept it so that it was returned to San Francisco.\n\nFather was always trying to advance himself and his family, educationally, not only with books but also with experience. I can still picture him before a kerosene lamp at the family table reading, practising calligraphy, or teaching Ruth before she was old enough to attend school. Ruth was quiet, studious and bright, and learned quickly. I was active, impulsive and spirited, somewhat of a clown at times, but not so bright as Ruth. On one occasion when I was no more than four, he tried to teach me addition in Chinese by memorizing 'one tangerine and two tangerines make three tangerines'. I consistently got it wrong, and in frustration Father rapped me on the head with his knuckle, at which I ended up in tears so that Mother had to come to the rescue.\n\nHe bought books and dictionaries for himself and children's books for us. I used to be fascinated with a book about birds where the bluejay acted as the policeman among them. I used to pour over repeatedly the illustrations in our huge Bible and in other books, letting my fantasies take over. He bought a large bookcase for these books, which included textbooks he and Ping Lim had used and the Chinese classics he had studied in China. I grew to love them and often used them as references. Mother, who had a tendency to throw away anything that reminded her of her deceased loved ones, unfortunately gave away most of these books while I was in Nebraska. It was lucky for me that she kept these Chinese books that included the classics which I had proudly used when I attended Chinese language school and which Father would explain to me if there was something I could not absorb at school. When Ruth graduated from the 8th grade, Father shed tears of joy. How much greater his joy would", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211674, "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-1989", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "64\n\non earth had induced me to make such an appalling selection of colours. When I explained that the selection had very kindly been made by Mrs. L..... the temperature quickly rose to boiling point. As the ladies said, \"Why, Mrs. L. . . . hardly ever comes to the Club; and she never plays bridge\". I beat a hasty retreat to drown my sorrows at the bar, and soon after found it convenient to give up bridge altogether.\n\nIn the Club the consumption of liquids, refreshing or otherwise, varied. Sometimes it led to peculiar situations. There was the occasion in 1924 I think when late one night the two other members of the Municipal Council, by which the small affairs of the Concession were managed, took offence at the vinous truculence of their Chairman, and called in the police to remove him to cool his heels in the cells. Unfortunately the two strong-minded, but junior, members of the Council on the following morning, when they awoke refreshed by a night of comfort at home in bed, had quite forgotten the events of the previous evening; and it was not till later in the day, after he had himself come to, that they received a plaintive reminder from their Chairman requesting that he might be released from his own police cells.\n\nThroughout the period of 1911-1926 the Treaty Ports, such as Kiu Kiang, provided harbours of refuge, to whose security hundreds of thousands of Chinese threatened by the tide of civil war, fled.\n\nKiu Kiang had had its share of recent disturbances. For Sun Yat Sen, having applied to British officials for help and having met with a refusal, based on the correct British attitude of non-interference in the internal affairs of a friendly country, had turned to Russia. Michael Borodin with a group of Bolshevik advisers had consequently proceeded to Canton to advise the Kuo Min Tang Revolutionary Party and there, with consummate skill, had created the intellectual cohesion necessary to the effort of unifying China. Borodin appealed to the deep-seated exclusive instincts of the sons of Han, the inhabitants of a kingdom, which from time immemorial had been called the Middle Kingdom, because all other peoples existed only in outer darkness.\n\nThe instrument was the Chinese Revolutionary Army, led by officers indoctrinated with Kuo Min Tang ideology at the Whampoa Military Academy, of which General Chiang Kai Shek was principal. By October of 1926 this army, fighting staunchly through incredible hardships against", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211771, "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-1989", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "161\n\nspare time to the amusement of their fellow residents. Moreover, as has been said before, the community was small, and the critic had after all to live with his actor-neighbours who would no doubt know about his identity.\n\nThus, \"A Stranger\" wrote, about George Colman's Heir at Law (April 21 1851): “Zekiel Homespun was inimitable; we had no idea there was a Gentleman in Shanghae who could take the difficult part so well.) The simplicity, humour and serious earnestness which it displays in some parts were brought out and sustained in a manner that we have scarcely seen equaled, except by some of the leading actors of our Metropolis\". And again: “Constant playgoers as from childhood we have been we have rarely, indeed never, ‘assisted' at a more agreeable evening than that of Wednesday the 16th instant [i.e. February 16 1859]. The performances [of J.M. Morton's Whitebait at Greenwich and Thomas Morton's Sink or Swim] passed off with the utmost eclat due to the talent and exertions of the actors\". Sometimes the author felt it even necessary to apologize for any criticism he uttered: \"We do this, not in the invidious character of critics upon amateur performances or still less as tinctured with the slightest disposition to find fault, but in order that the excellent materials which have been combined in the troupe should be made as much of as possible. Indeed it is the very appreciation of the talents displayed on Thursday [sic; this should be Wednesday January 23 1856– JH] which prompts the expression of these remarks. We are sure that neither the performers nor the audience would thank us for the undiscriminating and therefore worthless praise which usually satirize amateur performances\". But even in this case the critic only had made some comments on the costumes that were used in one of the pieces (cf. Calendar, 23.1.1856). Mild remarks were the severest criticism dished out; about one of the actors on June 2 1859, **we may perhaps be permitted to take an exception to his brogue, which, however good as an assumption, scarcely denoted one to the manner born\"; and about another on the same evening; \"his humour seems better fitted for low than for eccentric comedy\".\n\n10\n\nOnly when it came to the choice of pieces was the paper not always undividedly positive. Writing about John Maddison Morton's Done on Both Sides (February 10 1858) not much enthusiasm was shown: “We have witnessed, we confess, better farces on the same stage and we are inclined to believe that as actors may sometimes not come up to the play, it occasionally happens that plays are not altogether worthy of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211778, "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-1989", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "168\n\nso called Christy's Minstrels --- a famous group in the United States, yet it may be doubted severely whether it was the same one that visited Shanghai.\n\nEight years later, the first company to come down to Shanghai from Hong Kong, where they had also been playing, was the one led by a Mr. C.R. Faylor. On February 10 1864 Lytton's The Lady of Lyons was on the bill as the opening piece, but the Herald thought it a failure in consequence of \"that portion of the company which had been collected in Shanghai and pressed into service\". How this is to be understood is not quite clear. Did Faylor's company consist of only a few actors, who were to be supplemented by local worthies? But then, who else could they be but amateurs, the darlings of the foreign community? However this may be, on May 9 at an evening in which also the \"Royal Shanghai Ballet d'Action\" [so far for fancy names!] participated, the \"celebrated comedy Nature and Philosophy or Eighteen Years Labour Lost” was given. As members of the company were mentioned Mr. and Mrs. C.R. Faylor, Mr. and Mrs. E. Yeamans and Major Pegus. Amateurs almost always adopted stage names in order to hide their real identity, but with professional actors it may be assumed these names were real.\n\n45\n\nA more substantial contribution to the amusement of the Shanghai public was made by Lewis' Dramatic Company. It was of Australian origin and the \"musical director and manager\" was Charles Edouin. Other members of the group were Tilly Earl, Mrs. Gill, Lizzie Naylor, Jenny Nye, T. Andrews, Henry Birch, J.B. Creswick, W.B. Gill and nearly the whole Edouin (or, rather, Bryer) family: Julia, Rose, John and Willie. Rose (1844-1925) married G.B. Lewis and became later an actress at, among others, the Maidan Theatre in Calcutta. Her brother Willie (1846-1908; his real name was John Edward Bryer) first appeared in public when he was six; after the tour to Australia, India, China and Japan he played in Melbourne, California, New York and London.46 In 1862 the \"Lewis' Equestrian Australian Troupe\" had visited the port with \"six of the best horses ever landed in China**,** but in 1864 the company had turned to drama and from October 6 until their departure in December an eight week season provided an unprecedented shower of farces, burlesques and even some quality pieces like Sheridan's The Rivals and the prison scene from Shakespeare's King John (Act IV, sc. 1), in which the role of prince Arthur was played by an actress, Julia Edouin, who took \"the house by storm\".48 The success of the company was apparently so great that they returned in March of the following\n\n47", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211782, "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-1989", "page_number": 197, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "172\n\nstationed in Shanghai during the 1860s were nearly always open air ones. But sometimes a theatrical company co-operated with one of the bands, like the Amateur Burlesque Company on June 29, 1864. Otherwise, performances took place on the Bund, or Embankment, along the river, which was the favourite promenade of the foreigners as well as the most prestigious section of the Settlement. Records have come down to us of concerts by the French 101st regiment in March 1861 (“By permission of Colonel Pouget [who was the commanding officer of the regiment JH] we are authorised to state that the band of the 101st regiment will perform every Sunday and Thursday (weather permitting) before the headquarters of General De Montauban at Messrs Rémi, Schmidt & Co. [this was in the French Concession JH] between the hours of 3 and 4”*. Further concerts by the Rhenish Band and the band of the 67th regiment in June and July 1864 provided entertainment which “the residents evidently appreciated (...) large numbers (...) congregating during the performances”.67\n\nProfessional musicians\n\nFrom time to time professional musical artists visited Shanghai, and, as with the travelling dramatic companies, 1864 and 1865 were a golden age for the public. In the first decades of the twentieth century Shanghai was honoured with recitals by, to name just a few, Feodor Chaliapine, John MacCormack, Fritz Kreisler and Amelita Galli-Curci, but during the fifties and sixties it was only the lesser gods that came to the city. In fact, hardly any one of the artists in this period can be traced in contemporary reference works. This does not mean, of course, that they could not have been capable musicians able to provide enjoyment during an evening. That such was not always the case, though, has already been shown by the criticism drawn by the performance of Prof. Shonbrun, which led the Herald to state that \"in this remote place we have so few opportunities of hearing really good music that we hunger for it and can ill brook disappointment\".68 But then there were Messrs Desvachez and Grossi whose concert in February 1865 had \"called for favourable comment at the hands of our music critic\".69\n\nYet, bearing in mind the conditions of travel in the 19th century, it is amazing enough that European musicians were at all willing to undertake an Asian tour with only very uncertain financial prospects.\n\n\"The first public concert (properly so called) that has ever been given", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211791, "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-1989", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "181\n\nof the Olympic Theatre or Royal Olympic Theatre which was located at the back of the Shanghai Club, in the southern part of the Settlement. It had a dress circle and there is even mention of a \"second circle\".\n\nI.\n\nFinally we come to the last of the godown theatres, the Lyceum Theatre which was stated to be situated at Peking Road (ex Consulate Road), 104 The proprietors were the big firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co which had a hong on the corner of the Bund and Peking Road, 105 This was the scene of the 1864-1865 and 1865-1866 seasons.\n\nJ.\n\nEvidently the existing situation was highly unsatisfactory. This was realised as early as 1852 when, at a Public Meeting on September 25, a Committee was formed at the instigation of the Shanghai Library that was looking for more appropriate accommodations. This Committee was to study the possibilities of “erecting a Building for an exchange and reading room\". 106 In December a prospectus was issued by the Committee in which it was suggested that in the so called \"Public Institution”, “a large room might be fitted for the Theatre, already under comparatively disadvantageous circumstances one of the most popular amusements we have\", All these plans came to nothing, however, so in 1864 an epilogue to a theatrical evening gave vent to feelings of discontent:\n\n* 107\n\nLadies and gentlemen, our course is run 'T is yours to gild our quickly setting sun For if upon your frowns that sun should set This theatre must be advertised \"To Let'. Shorn of its glory, prestige and renown Like our poor selves 't will be a mere godown. Not that the Drama in this wealthy port\n\nTo such an humble bounty pray be led And build a lasting structure in its stead\". 108\n\nApart from the inconvenience of securing a suitable godown every year, there was a great deal of capital loss involved. Each time a warehouse had to be fitted up at considerable cost (about 2,000 Taels in 1865; a Tael was worth approx. 6/7 in this period; in addition to the rent of Tls", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211810, "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-1989", "page_number": 225, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "200\n\nrash decision to marry the first that came\". Another actor who was to become a local Roscius. Mr. Phunago BRUSHWOOD, \"gave the somewhat unusual stage character of a double-faced farmer (Wurzel) all the selfish cunning and irritable tone which it needed\". Other parts were taken by Miss Polly DEXTER, Mr. HEAVISWELL, Mr. Jehoshaphat SNAKES and Mr. PLEADWELL (as the lawyer!).\n\nIn Box and Cox Messrs PROTEUS, BRUSHWOOD and Mrs. CLAY \"kept the audience in a roar\" (NCH 22.2.1857).\n\n3.3.1857 (Tue)\n\nDramatic readings from Charles Dickens by Mr. Benjamin SEARE. Th: C\n\n―\n\nR: In the Herald of February 28 it was announced that \"we are apprized by 'Circular' that an entertainment of a novel character in Shanghai, but one which has greatly attracted the fashionable and literary world elsewhere, will be given by Mr. Scare in the Hall of the Shanghai Theatre on Tuesday Evening next the 3rd prox. The subject - The Early Writings of Charles Dickens is a theme affording scope for great versatility of talent. (...) The Community are much indebted to Mr. Scare for his gratuitous offer of an evening's intellectual amusement to diversify and enliven the monotony of Shanghai life. The Circular notifies that the divertissement will commence at half past 8 & precisely, that no personal invitations will be issued and that a syllabus of the Lecture will be placed in each seat for the use and acceptance of its occupant”. Then, in the issue of March 7, a report was published: \"A large and select circle of residents had met in the New Theatre\". It became a kind of one man show by Mr. Seare, as the \"requirements of versatility and mimic power were most successfully supplied. (...) The lecturer was perfectly at home in each and all of the various characters as they turned up, passed from one to another with an ease that was admirable and portrayed each with a force of comic power which elicited much applause, and, to select the most appropriate compliment we can bestow, did justice to the author. All in all the audience was \"kept in a roar”. Mr. Seare concluded with some general remarks on the necessity of some recreation of this kind in a community so distant from home and so isolated and comprising at the same time so much intelligence and ability\" (NCH 7.3.1857). One wonders how Mr. Seare was able to give these lectures free of charge; had he been a touring artist that would of course have been impossible. But as it turns out he was a mercantile assistant in the employment of Gilman & Co (this according to the Shanghai Almanac for 1858). In May 1865 he gave another performance (see 27.5.1865). No further details are available about the programme, but no doubt the characters from The Pickwick Papers figured largely in it. Who, after all, can resist Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Jingle and Sam Weller? Dickens himself began readings from his own works one year later, in April 1858, in Britain and the United States.\n\n26.3.1857 (Thur)\n\nJ.B. BUCKSTONE: \"A Kiss in the Dark\" (1840)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nM.B.W. JERROLD: \"Cool as a Cucumber\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nH. DANVERS: \"A Conjugal Lesson\" (1856)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nTh: N.N. (CH\n\nR: In a witty mind \"The Man on the Bund\" informed us that \"by way of introduction there was a kiss — and in the dark too! — perhaps the sweetest kiss of all, administered with enviable gusto by Mr. SNAKES as Fathom. Mrs. Pettibone submitted to it with less indignation than the fact of her being so much respected led us to suppose. But then, it was to punish the odiously jealous Mr. Pettibone who would insist on making\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211827, "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-1989", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "217\n\n2.3.1864 (Wedn)\n\nPerformance by the amateurs of the Royal Artillery.\n\nNo plays are mentioned in the announcement (NCH 27.2.1864).\n\n4.3.1864 (Fri)\n\nPerformance by Mrs. Greig: \"dramatic reading and English ballad music” with the cooperation of Mr. Marquis Chisholm, piano, and the Rhenish Band.\n\nN.N. (H)\n\nR: This was an evening at which the Herald predicted that \"ladies may without impropriety be present\". Mrs. GREIG had had “a most successful career in India and the colonies\" and it was the first time she had come to Shanghai (NCH 27.2.1864).\n\n28.3.1864 (Mon)\n\nT. KORNER: \"The Governess\" (“Die Gouvernante')\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nA.F.F. Von KOTZEBUE: \"The Harvest at Home\"\n\nN.N.: Bullrick at Kroll\"\n\nC: Amateurs of His Prussian M.S. Gazelle\n\nTh: On board ship(?)\n\nN: It is not recorded in which language these pieces were played: titles and authors are those given by the Herald. Of Kotzebue's play I have not been able to find a German equivalent. HED, however, mentions some plays with the same title by British authors: Thomas Parry (1848) and Charles Dibdin (1787), as well as some by unknown playwrights.\n\nR: Perhaps in some fear, the Herald noted with a sigh of relief that \"the evening passed off without a single contretemps\" (NCH 2.4.1864). Curiously enough the only ship in port with the name \"Gazelle\" was a British merchantman which had arrived there from Hankow on the 22nd.\n\n30.3.1864 (Wedn)\n\nM.W.B. JERROLD: \"Cool as a Cucumber\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ. KENNEY: \"Raising the Wind\" (1803)\n\nT: Farce (2 acts)\n\nJ.S. COYNER: \"Duck Hunting” (1862)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps\n\nF: Prologue, spoken by Commm. R.C. Antrobus\n\nTh: N.N. (H)\n\nN: First performance of the season\n\nR: After a brief period in which the actual names of resident-amateurs had been published, there was a reversion to the old practice of stage names, at least probably for most actors. A whole list was printed in the Herald (Messrs Talbot, De Jones, Robinson (were these latter two the same as those active in 1858?), Carnegie, Coke, Dolittle, Smith, Blister, Buttons, Bellingham and John; and Mesdemoiselles Olivia, Pipchin, Robinson and Sally), of whom only Mr. Talbot may have been genuine. As usual the female characters of the farces were played by men (\"prettier and more graceful amateur ladies than we have ever seen before\"), a generally horrid sight for the serious theatregoer. Not so for Shanghailanders for \"large numbers of residents who were desirous of obtaining admission were excluded for want of room” (NCH 2.4.1864). A detailed review had appeared in the Daily Shipping News of 31.3.1864, no longer available. Increasingly, instead of full reports, summaries from the daily edition were published until one has to resort entirely to the Daily News; of Survey).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211829, "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-1989", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "219\n\nColins: Mrs. C.R. Faylor Love Laughs at Locksmiths Robin: Mes. C.R. Faylor\n\nJuliac: Mrs. E. Yeanians\n\nDame Durden: Mr. E. Yeamans.\n\nPaddy Druden: C.R. Faylor\n\nOnly an advertisement for this performance was published in the Herald of May 7. The stage often has its own laws as to the gender of the participants. In amateur theatricals, men dressed up as women à l'outrance, whereas in a professional company like the present one male characters were personified by ladies and vice versa!\n\n14.5.1864 (Sat)\n\nPerformance by the amateurs of the Royal Artillery.\n\nNo titles of plays recorded.\n\nTh: N.N. (H)\n\nR: NCH 21.5.1864\n\n17.5.1864 (Tue)\n\nRepeat of 14.5.1864.\n\n26.5.1864 (Thur)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: “Whitebait at Greenwich\" (1835)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC. MATHEWS: \"Little Toddlekins” (1852)\n\nT: Comic drama (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: “Poor Pillicoddy” (1848)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps\n\nF: Epilogue spoken by R.C. Antrobus, commander of the S.V.C.\n\nTh: N.N. (H)\n\nN: Final performance of the season\n\nR: For the occasion Edward LAWRENCE, who was a \"practitioner at Law and Notary Public” according to the “Shanghai Almanac for 1862”, had written an epilogue which was read by the commander of the S.V.C., Robert Crawford ANTROBUS (member of the Municipal Council 1864-1865). And, as if to give more weight to its reception, the Herald added that “many of the ladies joined in the applause” (NCH 28.5.1864).\n\n28.5.1864 (Sat)\n\n**An Evening at Home**: \"Songs interspersed with anecdotes and conversation of the most lively description”.\n\nC: Mr. J.R. Black\n\nTh: Olympic Theatre (H)\n\n31.5.1864 (Tue)\n\nAs on 28.5.1864.\n\n3.6.1864 (Fri) As on 28.5.1864.\n\n13.6.1864 (Mon)\n\n\"An Evening at Home - Great Jacobite Night\" by Messrs. J.R. Black and Marquis Chisholm. Performance of the play The Advantages of Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Rising of 1745 (No piece with this title appears in HED), as well as ballads and songs (including 'Vi ravviso from Bellini's \"La Sonnambula\", act 1).\n\nTh: Olympic Theater (H)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211830, "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-1989", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "220\n\nR: In the advertisement it was stated that tickets could be obtained from Messrs Lane, Crawford & Co, G.A. Bretts' Auction Room and Astor House Hotel. Lane, Crawford was a general store that had been established in Kiangsi Road (ex Church Street) since June 1862. The Astor House Hotel was situated in Hongkew (see also Survey).\n\n17.6.1864 (Fri)\n\nPerformance by Messrs J.R. Black and Marquis Chisholm (piano)\n\nTH: N.N. (H)\n\nN: Benefit for Mr. Chisholm\n\nR: John Reddie BLACK (1827-1880) was born in Scotland, but went to Australia to earn a living as a singer in the goldfields. After arriving in Japan, 1861, he became the editor of some English newspapers and from 1876-1880 he edited several papers in Shanghai. In 1864 he still managed to combine his two vocations. His entertainment was \"composed of songs interspersed with anecdotes and conversation of the most lively description which he varied every evening. He has a splendid voice and sings with great taste and feeling\" (NCH 4.6.1864). His accompanist on the piano was Mr. L.C. PHILIPPS (cf. 1.4.1864), but the latter died of cholera and his place was taken by Mr. Marquis CHISHOLM who was no newcomer to the Shanghai public. On June 17 he played a fantasia on Japanese airs, composed by himself. As a matter of coincidence there was \"an absence of ladies, many of whom are at present rusticating in Japan\", but for the other evenings \"the audience has always comprised the majority of the ladies resident in the Settlement\". Evidently this had come to be considered as most desirable, perhaps to lend an air of respectability to the performance. (NCH 11, 18.6.1864).\n\n22.6.1864 (Wedn)\n\nH.J. BYRON: \"Il Treated Il Trovatore\" (1863)\n\nT: Burlesque extravaganza (1 act)\n\nC: Shanghai Amateur Burlesque Company\n\nF: Music by the Rhenish Band\n\nTh: Olympic Theatre (H)\n\n+\n\nR: The first night of a new company, the \"*Shanghai Amateur Burlesque Company\" and, if we may believe the Herald, the Shanghai world \"was completely taken by surprise. So minute an acquaintance with stage proprieties was shown that many of the audience were disposed to believe that they were witnessing a display of professional talent”. (NCH 25.6.1864).\n\n29.6.1864 (Wedn)\n\nH.J. BYRON: \"Ill Treated 11 Trovators\" (1863)\n\nT: Burlesque extravaganza (1 act)\n\nT.H. LACY: \"A Silent Woman\" (1835)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Shanghai Amateur Burlesque Company\n\nF: \"New burlesque music\" by the Rhenish Band\n\nTh: Olympic Theatre (H)\n\nR: This is one of those increasing occasions in which only a short summary was published in the Herald, while the full report had appeared in the North China Daily News, no longer extant for this year. In any case the hope was expressed that more would be seen of the company \"as soon as the cool weather sets in\" (NCH 2.7.1864). According to the advertisement, tickets were obtainable from Lane, Crawford & Co (see 13.6.1864), Hall & Holtz (Ship chandler, general store and bakers; at the corner of Foochow Road (ex Mission Road) and Kiangsi Road (ex Bridge Street); MacKenzie & Co (shipchandlers, general store and general agents on the Yangkingpang in the French Concession); the Astor House Hotel; and Phillips Restaurant (Phillips, Moore & Co, Nanking Road-ex...)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211842, "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-1989", "page_number": 257, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "232\n\nnot heard before and of which the best that can be said is that they are decidedly original. They seemed an imitation of the noise of braying of donkeys, but still they elicited great applause from the gallery [which was generally not regarded as very complimentary JH] perhaps from a certain feeling of sympathy. An amateur played Weber's \"Aufforderung zum Tanz\" with a \"perfect feeling\". To conclude the evening Mme SIMONSEN sung the \"Valse de concert\" (composer unmentioned) in which \"she displayed her powers more than in any other piece she has sung\" (SCR 22.5.1865).\n\n24.5.1865 (Wedn)\n\nH. MAYHEW: \"The Wandering Minstrel“ (1834)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.P. PLANCHE: \"The Knights of the Round Table” (1854)\n\nT: Drama (5 acts)\n\nC: Amateurs of the Shanghai Mounted Rangers\n\nF: Music by the Band of the 67th Regiment; prologue read by Capt. Markham\n\nTh: Lyceum Theatre (1)\n\n―\n\nR: In lieu of the old time favourites, Messrs Brushwood, Pickwick, Newcome and Mrs. Nesbit had come new faces. Most foreigners had not yet made Shanghai their permanent place of residence, so turnover in the theatre too was rather high. Tonight could be admired Mr. SMALLWEED who, in the Knights of the Round Table, as \"the blameless king shewed a keen appreciation of his part and while he delivered the burlesque passages with much humour, proved by the taste with which he pronounced the prophetic eulogium on the Queen of England that he need not necessarily confine himself to broad burlesque in order to gain well-merited applause\"; Mr. Edmund (also a member of the Amateur Burlesque Company) won golden opinions as Launcelot, whereas Mr. PEEKT as Merlin \"displayed much cleverness in personating feeble old men\". In The Wandering Minstrel \"Mr. R.T. Larff, better known to the theatrical world as Mr. Wynnge (did this mean that he had two stage names? JH) sustained the reputation he has already gained as a low comedian and makes us the less deplore the absence of the well known and inimitable Brushwood” (last recorded performance 10.5.1860). Of course the female roles were taken by men, which led, as it always does, to some ridiculous scenes: \"The company possesses great strength in the important particular of lady performers. The only drawback which, however, is immaterial in burlesque, lies in the great height and muscular development of the fair ones\". Yet Miss Mary MIDDLESEX \"bore away the palm for natural feminine get-up\" and \"nothing could excel the dash which Kate COVENTRY threw into the part of the vivandière\", (NCH 27.5.1865). That not all patrons were equally pleased became evident from the Shanghai Commercial Record (5.6.1865) when it wrote: \"an allusion which was considered too personal led to a corresponding in our columns\" (i.e. the \"Shanghai Recorder\" which to the great regret of all historians treating the history of foreign Shanghai can no longer be found). At the end of the evening a number of toasts were proposed, among others to \"Alabaster, to whose exertions much of the success of the company was due\". This was a reference to Chaloner Alabaster (1831-1890), the British vice-consul who was also active in the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In conclusion the Herald reported that \"the arrangements were excellent and notwithstanding the warmth of the evening and the crowded state of the theatre, the air within the walls did not become oppressively hot. Punkahs were slung over the front seats and during the temporary pauses kept up a current of air\",\n\n27.5.1865 (Sat)\n\nPerformance by Mr. Benjamin Seare. Programme unknown (reading, etc)\n\nTh: Lyceum Theatre (1)\n\nR: Both the Herald and the Record agreed that Mr. SEARE \"is possessed of great talent\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211897, "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-1989", "page_number": 312, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "287\n\nthe garden are the houses where the servants live, the bath rooms, the stables, etc. etc. There is a pretty lawn before the house, and at each side of the gate stands a lofty tamarind tree. The house is situated on one side of a square which is nearly four miles round, and the double row of lofty tamarind trees on each side of the road round it form a very cool walk.\n\nAll round are villas, some of them of very elaborate architecture. They call Clifton a city of palaces but it sinks into insignificance compared with Batavia. On every side is displayed great magnificence, nature striving to outdo the elaborate effects of art. Almost each house has a grove of cocoanut trees, whose foliage gives a grand effect.\n\nAfter a rest of a few hours we went to dinner at half past six, which is the usual hour in Batavia. Previously we were introduced to the other occupants of the house: Mr Phillips, a surgeon and dentist, Mr Blyth, an independent gent, and Mr Elbrach, a man of considerable property who has resided 40 years in Java, during which he has never seen Europe. He is a regular tough old gent and no mistake. We had dinner in regular style, and there were no end of dishes. The curry pleased me very much.\n\nAfter dinner I took a walk with Captain Moate round the square, and afterward took a walk alone. It was a fine sight to walk past the villas, and see the verandahs all lighted up, while the ladies etc. were sitting in the cool of the evening, either reading, conversing, or singing. The music was quite a treat to me. No native is allowed to walk about after dark without a light, and also his written pass, to show who he is, and where he is going, Europeans however are allowed to go unmolested where they please. Yet a suspicious character is watched by the native police for miles, and notice is taken where he goes to. One night a fellow followed me home, although of course he did not imagine I knew he was doing so. As you pass each watch-house the guard challenges you in Malay, which I not understanding, I never used to take notice of. Every carriage has to carry lights before and behind, wherever it is going. The number of the carriages of the aristocracy that drive about is very considerable.\n\nWe saw a company of Dutch and native cavalry pass the house. The horses were so small that the men's legs almost touched the ground. We also saw the \"town militia\" exercising on the square before the house.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211974, "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-1989", "page_number": 389, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "364\n\nThey left the festival site, passing Tai Hong Wai and Ko Po, where those who took part were offered drinks. They next reached Ying Lung Wai, where they were met by the lion dance of the village, and treated to soft drinks. They first worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain of Ying Lung Wai, then the san-teng and the village gate.\n\nThey proceeded to Tung Tau Tsuen, where they worshipped at the Tin-Hau Temple and then the Gwun-Yam Temple. No one came to meet them. But nearby two elderly ladies exchanged these remarks among themselves, \"The two temples belong to Kam Tin fellows, they wanted to repair them, but Tung Tau Tsuen would not let them\".\n\nThey proceeded to the Old Market. First they worshipped at the market gate then at the Bak-Dai Temple, and then at the Daai-Wong Temple.\n\nThen they moved on to Nam Pin Wai, where they worshipped at the altar of the God of Earth and Grain, the san-teng and the village gate. A man in his fifties sitting under a tree cursed the Dangs when he saw the Ambulance which was in attendance in case anyone was overcome by the heat. He said, \"Right. Let this Ambulance carry these Kam Tin fellows\".\n\nAt the nearby Sai Pin Wai they worshipped at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. There was a reception. They proceeded to a Lam Yi-Hing Tong” inside Sai Pin Wai, and then the village gate and an altar of the God of Earth and Grain.\n\nThe procession finished with the Old Market and the surrounding villages, and went on to Yuen Long New Market. When they reached Sau Fu Street, they were offered soft drinks by people who had come from Kam Tin for that purpose. From there they walked back to the festival site at Kam Tin.\n\nF. The Procession with the King of Ghosts\n\nThe procession with the King of Ghosts took place during the evening before the Great Offering to Ghosts. In the first stage the Bak-Bin villagers carried the huge image of the Daai-Si Wong through their villages. Their Naam-Bin counterparts waited near Kam Hing Wai to take over the paper image for the second part of the procession. These were 22 young men, many carrying long bamboo poles with metal ends", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211975, "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-1989", "page_number": 390, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "365 \n\nfor supporting the back frame of the King of Ghosts. From their conversations I learned that the procession was to exorcise \"dirty\" things. Such evil spirits resided at places such as waterfronts where people had been drowned and the sides of the road where traffic accidents had taken place. Such spots were \"cleansed” by letting the King of Ghosts face them for a short moment. The procedure was referred to as \"shining on [the dangerous place]\" (jiu) by the villagers. \n\nAs in the other rites where ghosts were involved, speaking peoples' names out loud in the procession was taboo. One of the young men told his companions to phone the Ko Po people, \"Tell them not to speak peoples' names\", as it was unauspicious to do so. Although those young men gave the impression of a taboo against women seeing the King of Ghosts in the procession, this was denied by an elder and a middle-aged lady whom I talked to. According to the elder it was unlucky only for pregnant women to see it. The lady told me that some women, including herself, were afraid of the ghosts, and therefore would avoid seeing the Daai-Si Wong. \n\nThe procession was accompanied by simple gong patterns played by one of the villagers. The exact pattern to use was made clear near Tai Hong Wai when the gong beater was told to correct the rhythm. The pattern he was beating was that for funerals (which was a quick succession of beats). The appropriate rhythm was two medium quick beats followed by a short pause, which sounded, to me, the same as the one used in processions with the statues of the gods. \n\nAt about eight o'clock in the evening the Bak-Bin team arrived with the King of Ghosts, which was about 25 feet tall. The first thing their Naam-Bin counterpart had to do was to take over the gong and continue the beating. The paper image was lowered from the supporting poles of the Bak-Bin villagers and was carried flat before it was raised on the poles of the Naam-Bin team, who performed the second part of the procession. \n\nThe Naam-Bin procession went towards the Mung Yeung School, avoiding trees and lamp-posts on either side of the narrow road. From near the school they proceeded towards Ko Po on the main road. On the way they turned the paper image occasionally towards either side of the road. Once they were in Ko Po the team shouted to a few young girls who watched, “Close your doors, and do not come out to look”. \n\nPage 390\n\nPage 391", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212221, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "140\n\nsometimes visited by H.M. ships, and further inland Snow Valley, high up in the mountains, was a popular resort for the more enterprising of Shanghai week-enders. Now the motor roads round Ningpo had all been destroyed by the Chinese lest the Japanese advance and make use of them. The roadhead was twenty miles away at Kikow, the Generalissimo's native village, where tourists used to leave their cars to make the ascent to Snow Valley.\n\nI had to get back to Shanghai somehow and decided the best way would be to make for Hongkong overland, a distance not far short of a thousand miles. You reached Kikow partly by boat and partly on foot, and I arrived one evening, to find I should have to wait a couple of days for a seat on the crowded bus service. The next morning I was strolling by myself along the village road when the alert sounded. This was such a common event that I took no notice, and almost before I realised what had happened two Japanese light bombers were circling over the village to locate their targets. The police hustled me into a nearby house, from the courtyard of which I watched the planes fly around and make shallow dives each time they placed a bomb, of which they dropped a dozen. Besides myself there were only women in the house, an old lady, a daughter, and a small child with their amah. They told me that only two houses away was the Generalissimo's ancestral home, at which it was probable that the Japanese were aiming. The daughter was very concerned that I should be standing in the courtyard with my sleeves rolled up displaying my wrist watch to the Japanese pilots. She feared it might attract their attention and asked me to take it off. In my halting Chinese I tried to explain to her that the pilots, who were flying about two thousand feet up, there was, of course, no defence of any kind\n\ncould neither see me nor my wrist watch, and each time the aircraft commenced to dive I signalled to the women to crouch down and comforted myself by the realisation that they were going for the other end of the village. The planes flew off after half an hour. When they were satisfied it was all over, the women collected the clothes they had been washing, and made their way, as if quite accustomed to it, across the road, down the steps to the mountain stream to resume their work. Fortunately no buildings caught fire on this occasion, and there was not much damage; the village was burnt out in another raid a week later.\n\n―\n\nNext day I started on my journey. Laboriously, on the overcrowded", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212233, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "152\n\nnot do for a house to be very isolated, or it would be continually attacked by robbers. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is a fine building, and also the Governor's house. Just behind the College are some fine buildings.\n\nAnd now, after a glance at the island, I will go on to describe the inhabitants. Of course they are mostly Chinese; next come English, Parsees, Portuguese, Americans, Germans, French, and Arabs. Spaniards might also be mentioned. The Chinese are the working part of the population. Generally they are industrious and active. The lower classes however are dirty and degraded. The middle class are generally well informed and intellectual. Some hold very important situations. One striking feature in Chinese character is their don't care sort of feeling. If they can get out of doing anything they will, unless they see a chance of being well paid for it. Anything they do not want to understand, they pretend great ignorance of. In fact unless money is in the way, one would take them for a race of idiots. Never can you tell if they are pleased or angry. They are the most cold-hearted race that can be imagined. The men agree well together; never do I hear any quarrelling among them. They do not take wine or beer, and a drunken Chinese is as uncommon a thing here as a really honest one. One needs be very sharp to deal with them.\n\nI went to buy some earthenware, and it was as much as I could do to keep the fellows civil. A crowd always collects in a shop when they see an Englishman. I should have lost my watch, purse and umbrella twenty times over if I had not kept my eyes open. As pickpockets they beat London all to nothing. I had to keep my eye on the whole lot of them. They will even cut off the tail of one's coat and quietly walk off with it; and a few coat tails makes them a suit of clothes.\" One has to be all bluster, and to keep a walking stick or umbrella continually in motion, to keep pace with them. I being a stranger, perhaps they wanted to try my patience over what I was buying. It seems a favour for them to let you buy of them. In fact they never speak of the English but as fan-kwai, i.e. foreign devils. They are very hypocritical. There is no knowing their thoughts or intentions. In fact a Chinaman in Hongkong is quite a riddle.\n\nThey generally dress in white. All wear a sort of coat, and very full knee breeches and gaiters. Their shoes always look very neat, although the soles are above an inch thick. They are slippers in appearance rather than shoes. They never wear a hat except when they wish to keep off the sun, when they use one as big as an umbrella. A Chinaman ordinarily dressed, with his long pig-tail hanging down behind, does not look so bad after one is used to it. Some of the wealthy ones stalk about in the evening with all the dignity imaginable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212238, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "157\n\nEncephalatus. The path brings us into the avenue, through which we now pass under the lofty trees. Here we get a good view of the college, which is a pretty specimen of Tudor architecture, and appears to be built of “Freestone\" outside, although it is chiefly of granite.\n\nThe hall and porch is straight before us. On each side of the entrance are vases, etc., with various plants. Over the centre of the porch is a gilt mitre, the episcopal symbol. We go up the flight of steps and ring the bell. We are admitted through the large glass doors into the Hall; thence we go along the verandah, and look out through the Venetian shutters all round. Just a look at the Bp's drawing room as we pass. It is a fine room, well furnished, and doubtless very comfortable. Here I shall come of an evening and spend the time with the family. In the centre of the verandah before the Tower Room is a billiard table. This game is very popular as it affords good indoor exercise. Most houses here contain one.\n\nAs we come back we look into the dining room, and see the folks at dinner, with the punkah swinging overhead. A string passes outside by which a coolly [sic] moves it. Passing through the passage, with a hasty glance at the servants' room and pantry, we enter the instruction room. At the further extremity stands the Tutor's desk, a large and very suitable affair, about the best of the kind I ever saw. The desks are arranged in two rows, which extend down the room. At the opposite end is the headmaster (Hah Shoe's) desk, and a table where the Chinese classical master officiates. There are two black-boards, two book cases, and a supply of maps. The latter, as well as the books, are all to pieces and have been shamefully used. I will soon teach them better manners! There are large windows, or rather glass doors at each end, which are opened in summer.\n\nAdjoining is the chapel, a neat little place, with an altar, pulpit and reading desk, and accommodation for the whole household, and plenty of visitors. There is a service held in it every Sunday afternoon in Chinese. I have had the harmonium moved into it, and use it as often as I can, although there are not enough to muster a sing. I have generally to conduct the prayers twice a day. Now and then Mr Beach comes in. I get through it something as old Bobby used to do at Highbury, only I do not wear the gown, although I have one in my charge, in my dressing room.\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212244, "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": 186, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "163\n\nand there on the right is the room I occupied for the first six days after my arrival. We will go through the verandah, and just peep into the bedrooms, and then look at the study which is a comfortable room indeed. There is a sort of bow window to the verandah where one can sit and have a most wide and delightful view of the whole town. By moonlight the scene is sublime. The bay seems quite like a sheet of silver. I will now show you the Tower Room, a compact little nook. We will go then upstairs to the Upper Tower Room, another snug little corner, and at last come out on the top of the tower, where the view is beyond description, and the air is generally cool and pleasant of an evening.\n\nHere having rested with you a short time after the fatigue of looking about, and having given you a draught of the iced water of Hong Kong, which I know you will think very refreshing and agreeable, I will conduct you downstairs to the Hall. Then taking you round the lawn, and pointing out a few of the most remarkable flowers and shrubs, I now conduct you to the gateway. As we walk down the footpath it pleases me to hear you all say you are gratified with the place; and with much gratification at having pleased you, I bow you out of the gate wishing you a safe walk home and a very good evening.\n\nToday I sit down to give an account of my domestic arrangements. Before I could commence keeping house, I had to do what everybody has to do, lay in a stock of apparatus. Accordingly there being no earthenware for me, I went and bought a good assortment of plates, dishes, knives, forks, spoons, glasses, cruet stand, sugar basin, tea cups and saucers, and other items too numerous to mention, for which I had to pay the most extravagant prices. Next come table cloths, feather dusters, shoe brushes, blacking, two large wooden tubs for washing the aforesaid crockery, dish cloths, bowls, knife board, pots and kettles, tea pot, and tea canister, and all the necessary apparatus for a single gentleman. But once fairly started I soon began to get to rights, and now I am quite at home, although I shall never regard this as a home.\n\nI have three servants. My personal servant I will first introduce to your notice. As he walks in and makes his bow, you will surely notice his fine pig-tail reaching to the ground. He little thinks how often I am almost tempted by his blunders, to catch hold of it and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212389, "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": 331, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "308\n\nThe Dance is performed on three evenings. The official invited to officiate on the first evening is an officer of the civil authority (Man), whilst the official on the second evening is an officer of the military authority (Mo), represented by the Royal Hong Kong Police. The third evening is regarded as the Village's own celebration.\n\nThe Dragon is 220 feet long and has a team of 120 dancers. It consists of the head, body (32 segments), and tail and is preceded by two dancing Dragon Pearls (Lung Chu) whose purpose is to attract the Dragon forward. It is accompanied by a drum and clashing cymbals, as well as by banners and costumed children carrying lanterns. The dragon itself is composed of grass, the head being on a cane base, and it is liberally stuffed with burning incense sticks; the throwing of firecrackers ended with the 1967 ban on fireworks. The grass is 'pearl' grass, obtained these days from the New Territories. Incense sticks from the Dragon are taken home by the dancers to worship their Tai Hang ancestors who have previously taken part in the Dance. Dragon cakes from the Temple are taken home on the third day for the same purpose. The Dance ceremony starts with the decoration of the Dragon and its stuffing with incense sticks and continues throughout the evening through the streets of Tai Hang. At the end of the three days of celebrations the Dragon is thrown into the waters of the harbour.\n\nChinese Dragons are the essence of the Yang, or male, principle, and the Tai Hang Fire Dragon is no exception. Until recent years female participation was limited to the cutting of grass. Ladies were not allowed to touch the Dragon and they were not admitted during the Dragon's visit to the Lin Fa Kung Temple (sited to the east of Wun Sha Street and dedicated to Kwun Yum). Pregnant women with two daughters and no sons were, however, allowed to pass under the Dragon, with the intention of the birth of a son.\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society of Hong Kong is grateful for the assistance given with this visit and in the preparation of these notes by Mr Ho Choi-Chiu, Chairman of the Tai Hang Residents Welfare Association, and by Mr Chan Tak-Fai, of the Association's Dance Organising Committee.\n\nGEOFFREY ROPER", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212907, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "201\n\nbut recognisable environment.\n\nOn the whole we preferred Cheung Chau and it was to Cheung Chau that I was taken after my appendix operation. During my stay in hospital when I had to stay in bed for some time, I had forgotten how to walk or even stand up! I protested that I could not possibly walk up to the bungalow so a sedan chair was sent for. I had not seen one on Cheung Chau before, though they were a common sight in Hong Kong and were used to carry children up Lantau Peak. I was lured out of my invalid bed by the present of some stunning bathing shoes. These were brightly coloured rubber shoes that were meant to protect your feet from stones on the beach. I do not remember ever actually using such shoes but, with the sound of the waves lapping on the beach, they were enough to remind me of the delights of swimming, and messing about in the sand, and playing with model boats, the largest of which had been made specially by the building contractor in Fatshan.\n\n4\n\nSwimming played a central part in our lives on Cheung Chau. I can remember my first unaided swim, which was rewarded by the present of a trumpet much regretted by my parents in subsequent days. The beach was the highlight for our lives. We would walk through the thick pine woods across the island from our bungalows, down through the screw pine to the beach. The smells of the pine trees, of the screw pine, and of the beach and the sea still evoke the thrill of arriving at the beach and dashing into the sea.\n\nSome of the grown-ups were able to swim out to a large rock off the Evening Beach (Kwun Yam Wan) to which the Residents' Association had fixed some iron rungs for climbing out. I was only able to achieve such an exploit when I had come back to work in 1950, but by then the iron rungs had mostly rusted away. The Association also arranged with some fishermen, who fished at night, to anchor their boat in the bay and fix steps and a diving board for us to use by day. This did come in reach, and I can still recall the thrill of climbing up the steps after the swim out. The boat had a delicious smell of fish and sea water and was swarming with the little black creatures with lots of legs. It was a great place to play as well as being an excellent diving platform.\n\nThe Morning Beach (Nam Tam Wan) was much smaller, but it too had a large rock equipped with rungs to climb out on. We did not go often to the Police Beach (Tung Wan), which adjoined the Evening", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213165, "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-1993", "page_number": 233, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "215\n\nTAKING A GODSON\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nOne June Sunday evening, in 1995, I attended a ceremony at a restaurant in Tonnochy Road, Wanchai, at which a childless couple (the wife has a daughter by a previous marriage) adopted (kai zi), Chinese style, a 28-year-old ‘godson'. The first ceremony of this kind that I went to took place in a private home, when a girl of 19, for whom the foster mother had great affection, was adopted. Presents brought to the foster parent's house on that occasion, by her real parents in 1966, included a live chicken.\n\nAmong traditional Chinese it is important for a couple to have a son to offer sacrifices, to worship the departed and to carry on the family line. Without a son, one cannot die in peace. If you do not have one you can adopt one. Not infrequently, if two families want to strengthen the friendship existing between them, then one couple may kai an offspring from the other family. On such occasions, Chinese speak of yuan fen (緣分), meaning ‘predestined connections”.\n\nAncient custom had it that there was no distinction between an adopted and a natural son. An adopted boy could not be disinherited except for offences which would apply to a natural son. On the death of his foster parents an adopted son mourned as for the death of his natural parents, although J. Dyer Ball, in Things Chinese (1903), says the adopted son need only go into ‘half mourning'. Ball also maintains that five per cent of Chinese families adopt children, 70 per cent of whom are male. A large number of Hong Kong Chinese families adopt children today.\n\nAlthough these adoptions are supposed to be permanent, come what may, I myself know of cases where relationships have been severed. For example, because of the alleged misconduct of the foster child.\n\nBut back to the case study in Wanchai. At that gathering in the restaurant there were four standard, Chinese, round tables, meaning that approximately 48 people, comprising relatives and friends, attended. A ‘good day' had been chosen according to the Chinese almanac. The ceremony of ‘adopting' commenced with a speech by godmother (kai neung ah).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213187, "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": 9, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nHONG KONG BRANCH\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1994/95\n\nMay I welcome all of you here this evening, the 35th gathering since the resuscitation of the Society in 1960.\n\nFor me one of life's real pleasures is to be a member of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) and I hope that this feeling of enjoyment is shared by all of you this evening. It is not idle enjoyment, it is of the active voluntary kind, which stimulates the mind, and gives you insight into areas of activity which you would not normally tread into given the very busy lives which most of us lead in Hong Kong. In other words most of us make time to come to the activities of the Society, because we know that when we come to hear a talk or go on an activity we will learn something we did not know before, or are given some insight into Hong Kong's history which is much more fascinating than many of us imagine.\n\nThese words, although they may be obvious to some, are worth saying because it gives me a lead into the very active programme which we have had since I last reported to you this time last year. At that time I said I thought we had had one of the most active years ever, but looking at this last year we seemed to have even surpassed last year. We have had no less than seventeen lectures, fifteen visits to various parts of Hong Kong and two very successful visits: one to North Vietnam, and I am very pleased to see so many Vietnamese veterans here this evening and one to North Taiwan; the former organised by Dr. Patrick Hase and the other by Mr. Keith Stevens. (Some of us did our best to conquer the Perfume Pagoda high in the Vietnamese hills but lack of time and breath in some cases prevented us from reaching the top, and seeing members of the Society sitting and wobbling precariously in a Vietnamese sampan trying to eat a picnic lunch out of a box without falling into the water was something which is not easily forgotten by those who had the privilege of seeing them). For the success of the talks and visits we have to thank the very active Programme Committee, i.e. Mrs. Rosemary Lee, Rev. Carl Smith, Dr. Patrick Hase, Dr. Elizabeth Sinn, Mr. Geoffrey Roper, Dr. Dan Waters, Mr. Philip Bruce, Dr. Michael Lau and Dr. Joseph Ting. They have really done a splendid job.\n\nviii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213371, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "YET MORE ON THE MAN THE EMPEROR DECAPITATED\n\nWONG WING-HO\n\n179\n\nI was interested to read, in Volumes 28 and 29 of the Journal, material on folk-tales from the New Territories relating to Ho Chan, the late Yuan Guangdong Warlord, and early Ming Minister of the Left, collected by Dr. D. Faure, Dr. J.W. Hayes and Dr. P.H. Hase. In 1991, while working as a Research Assistant in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I collected a further folk-tale of a similar character, very similar, in fact, to the ones collected by Dr. D. Faure at Kat O and by Dr. J.W. Hayes at Kei Ling Ha. Because of the interest of these folk-tales, this version is printed here.\n\nTranslation of Notes of an Interview with Mr. Yeung Fuk-sham (楊福杉) of Ha Ling Pei Village, Tung Chung, Lantau, 5th July, 1991.\n\nFuk-sham is of the Yeung surname, of Ngau Hom Village in Tung Chung. She is now 65 years of age. At age 24, she married Lei Fuk-hei (李福喜), of Ha Ling Pei Village. Fuk-sham said that her husband's grandmother frequently told her this tale.\n\nThe Ho family was originally very wealthy. When the old city was built (the fort at Tung Chung), the imperial court called on Ho, the Minister of the Left, to provide the funds. However, Ho was unwilling to provide them - if he had been willing, the old city would have been big enough to take in the sites of Upper and Lower Ling Pei Villages. It is because Ho, the Minister of the Left, was unwilling to provide the funds that the old city is its present size. It is also because of this that the Fung Shui and gravesites of the Hos lost their effectiveness, though the influence of the city. If the site of the city had been able to include Upper and Lower Ling Pei Villages, then the Fung Shui of the Hos would still be extremely good. Because the city is small, when the cannon fired, the explosive power was very great, and the ancestral tablets of Minister Ho were toppled over by the blast.\n\nHo, the Minister of the Left, was executed by beheading at the orders of the Emperor. The Minister was accustomed to go each morning to Court, and to return home every evening. However, his mother was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213372, "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": 194, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "180\n\nunaware that he came home every evening. The Minister's wife became pregnant. Her mother-in-law said that she must have had another man, but the wife said that it was the Minister's child. The mother-in-law said, \"My son has gone to Court, and has not returned. How can you be pregnant?\" The minister's wife said that her husband, the Minister, was accustomed to return home every night to sleep - he flew home using two strips of bamboo. If the mother-in-law did not believe her, she could spend the night sleeping in the wife's bed, and see for herself that the wife was not lying. The mother-in-law agreed, and slept that night in her daughter-in-law's bed. During the night, the Minister flew home, and came to land touching his wife's bed. His mother said, \"I am your mother, not your wife.\" Because the mother was a woman, and had touched the bamboo strips used by the Minister, these bamboo strips were not able to fly any more.\n\nIn the house of the Minister, there grew some bamboo which was without sections. The Minister took two strips of this to fly on back to Court, but because these strips were not strong enough, they could only fly half-way. When the Emperor was in Court, calling the roll, he saw Ho, the Minister of the Left, fly in, and decided then and there to have him killed.\n\nThe Emperor ordered the Minister to return home. He was to ask people three times for things which could live with their heads cut off. If he could do this, then he need not die. Ho, the Minister of the Left, went off to ask. He came across an old woman, and asked her if sweet potato could live when its head was cut off, and the old woman said it could. In a second place, he asked another old lady if water-spinach could live when its head was cut off, and the old lady said it could. The Minister returned home to his mother. When she saw her son return, she killed a chicken for a meal. The Minister asked her, \"Can a chicken with its head cut off live or not?\" The mother said, \"Stupid boy! Of course, a chicken with its head cut off cannot live!\"\n\nAs soon as she said this, the Minister's head fell off onto the ground. He could, however, still speak. He told his wife to bury him in a certain place, and to mourn for him for seven days and seven nights. A tree would sprout at the head of the grave, and at the end of this period, that tree would have grown so tall that it would touch the wife's nose, and then the son in the wife's womb would be born, and a sprig of the tree would fly...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213817, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "141\n\nthe verandah and afterwards in the little parlour I was soon deep in an argument with Eitel and Winness, as to the general tendency and aim of Paul's preaching, and we maintained the point a long time, without either giving way. At last Winness is a fine Chinese scholar, and we had a long talk about religious publications in the Chinese language, of which he has written several. Then we turned in for the night, after our evening devotions, and after hearing Mr Winness' evening service, in his chapel. Really the singing of his boys was melodious to a high degree. He has about 20 whom he teaches German, etc. One is now at Hong Kong waiting to go to Germany to be educated as a missionary, and can play the Harmonium quite well.\n\nWe then turned in. The only two rooms in the house for Europeans served our turn. Four in one, and three in the other. It was sharp work. The mosquitoes were immense great things, and big enough, and many enough to suck all the blood out of one man, but with seven of us, they could not quite manage it. So in the morning we were all able to get up. Few of us slept much. I slept but very little, although I had the best bed.\n\nIn the morning I took a walk over the hills with Eitel for an hour or two, and then after breakfast we prepared to go on the hills pheasant shooting. I got a long two-barrelled gun, and Stringer got another, and so four of us started, with a guide. Two at last struck out one way, and then Capt Drummond and I went the other.\n\nWe were soon out of sight and hearing of the rest. But no pheasants were to be seen. This Drummond is a fine fellow, and has no foolery about him. He appears to be as good a Christian officer as could be expected, considering the many things they have to make them wild and dissipated. His right hand and shoulder were bitten severely by a great tiger in India, which caught him and carried him off. The tiger was soon wounded, and at length dropped him, and next day was shot dead. It just gave him a pat on the head with its paw, and made him insensible. It was a narrow escape. The tiger was rather old and its teeth were almost worn out, or it would have been far worse with him.'2 We walked a long time, but shot nothing.\n\nSo we began to bend our steps home through the village of Lilong. We looked at many houses and things, and even entered some of them and looked about. We were much amused with the immense great wheelbarrows the people use. The wheel is made of planks, sawed...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214672, "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-1999", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "51\n\nLife was not, however, all hard work, sickness, and brawls. The farming year was full of slack periods when there was time for entertainment and pleasure. The ritual year gave the villagers a framework for their leisure activities: each major festival was marked with a feast - even the poorest of families would have fat pork and rich eels on feast days. Nga Tsin Wai was, according to the Sha Tin village elders, famous for making \"Cha Kwo\", the traditional sticky village cakes, and these would usually be in evidence at festivals. The New Year, Tin Hau's Birthday, and the Winter Solstice Festival were the main festivals celebrated in Nga Tsin Wai, together with the Spring (Ching Ming) and Autumn (Chun Yeung) Grave Festivals, where fat pork would be distributed by the Ancestral Trusts to those who attended the worship at the graves.\n\nDuring the summer, and particularly at the Dragon Boat Festival, the village had the habit of inviting strolling singers to come and stay in the village for a few days or a week, to sing through their repertoire of \"Dragon Boat Songs\". These were long sung novels, and the villagers would sit outside the village gate in the evening listening to the singer for hours.\n\nThe villagers of Nga Tsin Wai were famous for singing themselves (the Tai Wai villagers in Sha Tin were jealous of the Nga Tsin Wai skills). The villagers sang Shan Ko, “Mountain Songs\". These were sung man to woman, verse by verse, and often included innuendo and suggestive comment: they were often called \"Teasing Songs\" as a result. Nga Tsin Wai villagers would often hold impromptu contests with youngsters from Tai Wai when they met at the pass which separated the lands of the two villages (the villagers say that is why the songs are called \"Mountain Songs\"). The Sha Tin elders also remember that more formal contests were also held - an annual one at Ma Tau Wai drew contestants from all of East Kowloon and Sha Tin: it was held at the Mid Autumn Festival. Contestants would be drawn, man and woman, and they would sing to each other; the one that ran out of things to say being declared the loser. The audience was mostly youngsters, and a few interested elders - they would sit around the contest area on the ground, vocal in their comments. The village elders say these contests could last for a couple of weeks if enough contestants appeared. The last contest was held just after the War. This was a Punti practice. The elders of the Hakka village of Ngau Chi Wan rather...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215161, "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": 257, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "217\n\nA Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong\n\nnotes. 'If they write things down they remember them', I was told. Even Professor F S Drake, an Englishman heading the Chinese Department at Hong Kong University who lectured in the medium of Mandarin, sang the praises to me of rote learning in a Chinese environment.\n\nOn a visit to a building site in January 1955 in So Kon Po, to which some of our students were attached for on-the-job training, I found that craftsmen were being paid $5.00 a day and women labourers $1.50. Some of the latter were straightening nails which had been knocked out of dismantled formwork (used for the pouring of concrete) so that the nails could be re-used. This practice stopped a few years later when it became cheaper to buy new nails. While talking of money, our full-time students could expect, on average, a salary of $300.00 a month in the mid 1950s after a three-year, full-time, post-secondary course, when they took up their first jobs.\n\nThere was also a clause written into the Government Public Works Department standard specification saying that if any of our building graduates could not find employment at the end of their course, main contractors were forced to take on two trainees on each major site. Their salary was $150.00 a month.\n\nStill on the subject of money: one evening student used to walk home from the College in Wood Road to Sau Kei Wan, after class, in order to save his 10 cents second-class tram fare. In those days second-class was on the lower deck.\n\nContinuing with another subject: with Hong Kong's population increasing post-World War Two at about one million per decade (in the mid 1950s it stood at around two-and-a-half million), coupled with rising standards of prosperity, impetus was given to the further development of technical education. As early as 1953, the Technical Education Investigating Committee (which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215604, "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": 381, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "331\n\nof those who use it. Places, their layout and furnishings, and their associated activities, are crammed with meanings that can be identified and analysed for what they tell us about people's beliefs. Thus, the sociologist Anthony Giddens suggests that one way to look at place is as a 'locale', a 'setting for interaction'. Activities come and go, but places remain, with the traces of what has happened there. And meanwhile, the shaping of a place will continue, both in terms of the physical qualities of that place and in its image in the minds of those for whom it has some significance.\n\nAs a result of my visit to Wo Hop Shek, and subsequently to many of the other urban cemeteries in Hong Kong, I wrote several papers about Hong Kong's urban cemeteries and columbaria. In 1999, curious to know how fifty years of Communist rule had affected the spatial manifestation of death in a metropolitan landscape in mainland China, I extended my research to Guangzhou. And, equally curious to find out how a modern East Asian society with an uninterrupted tradition of Confucian beliefs and customs was coping with the expression of death in the landscape, I also arranged to carry out associated research in Seoul, South Korea.\n\nI refer to each paper below. In the published versions, each has a long list of references. These are a valuable dimension of the published work, as they offer a sound starting point to those wanting to carry out related research. These lists represent hours of leafing through back issues of journals, combing bookshelves, following up other researchers' reference lists, collecting newspaper cuttings (and, in one case, employing a Chinese-speaking research assistant to access a Guangdong evening paper online), and using electronic search tools to search and download. The website of the Korea Herald was especially useful. As well, of course, I used — especially for theoretical approaches — articles in recent issues of those professional journals to which I subscribe. Very important were the occasional and invaluable recommendations of 'You had better get hold of this....' from RAS members! Personal introductions have helped, too.\n\nIn fact, several members of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong Branch) have been consistently generous and encouraging since I began this research, and I owe a lot to them. Dan Waters, James Hayes and Patrick Hase have kindly read several of the papers listed below and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215932, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "165\n\ntalk, but was well aware of Dai's sinister \"Blueshirts,\" and thought it wise to return somewhat evasive and non-committal replies since terrorist activities would only be a source of embarrassment to us at present. Still, he held open the prospect that Dai's 'local agents may come in useful later as a check on fifth columnists and pro-Wang Ching Wei activists.'*\n\nBoxer also met a Chinese general whom he described as an 'exceptionally well-educated and much travelled individual who speaks fluent German and English in addition to being a famous classical scholar.' This was General Yu Ta Wei, who had amassed a huge store of ordnance seized from the Japanese, photos of Japanese weapons and bases, other material both of a military and intelligence nature, and chillingly, evidence that the Japanese were using chemical warfare against the Chinese. This he candidly showed Boxer, who was concerned enough to recommend that a British technical officer be sent out to examine them. General Yu, a more cosmopolitan man than Dai, had been trained in the Prussian military academy and was an urbane, well-read man, up to date with the latest developments in Europe. He wanted to develop a munitions industry in China and needed foreign help. Boxer was meeting two of the most influential men in the Chinese hierarchy.\n\nOn the evening of 10th October 1939, the Double Tenth, that most sacred celebration in the KMT calendar, a date chosen deliberately to signal how the Chinese viewed the meeting, Boxer was ushered into the presence of the Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek. This was an important meeting, for it was perhaps the first sign that the British were making a concerted effort to help the Chinese in their long struggle with the Japanese. Boxer proposed that the Chinese and British set up a joint intelligence network to get a quicker and more efficient system of exchanging information. He proposed that a network of wireless stations be set up all along the Chinese coast from Hainan to Taiwan. Moreover, it would be financed by the British, but independently operated by Chinese to monitor Japanese troop movements. All information was to be 'equally at the disposal of Chinese and British staff,' although the Chinese could not enter the British military code system. He compounded the tribute to the Chinese war effort by suggesting that Hong Kong could learn from the efficient Chinese system of predicting air raids, whereby agents reported bombers taking", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215976, "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": 275, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "209\n\nin the muddy shallows of the river. Dusk had already come, the air was \"cool and refreshing,\" and the cowherd responsible for the water buffalo was washing their bodies as they lounged in the cool environment after a hard day's labour. Neither the cowherd nor the buffalo responded to the sight of the strange men. But once the boat rounded the next corner in the river, they silently came up to a \"girl driving home two or three cows.\" When she peered through the darkening light into the boat and realized she was gazing at \"strange faces and forms,\" she spontaneously shrieked and ran away from her cows, yelling that \"demons\" were coming up the river! To her the word was not simply a casual derogation, but was actually descriptive of what she saw. Certainly it was also believed by many who were her neighbours. There may be other ways to respond to demons, such as lying quietly on the water buffalo you are cleaning and not looking into the faces of suspected ghosts or demons, but the belief remained the same. This demonisation of foreigners easily increased the common people's tendency to fear and despise them, and could erupt into destructive violence, especially if political and military reasons prodded them to express their fears and hatreds more openly.\n\nStill later on the return trip, when the Chinese members of the missionary group had gone ashore during the evening to sleep on firmer supports than the floating boats could offer, those on land were attacked by a mob of “lewd fellows of the baser sort\" who obviously spent most of their fury on Ch'ea.72 It is clear that Ch'ëa's methods had threatened and offended others in the Poklo region, to the point that some were willing to hire or incite young thugs to hinder his activities. Legge and others nevertheless remained impressed by Ch'ëa's consistent character, emphasizing instead the positive reports of those influenced by him to embrace Christian traditions. In many ways they considered him an authentic \"Golden Light\" (Jinguang, which also was his personal name) shining within China, a miraculous hope during a period made dark and bleak by the ensuing war. Yet by the spring of 1861 it was more and more obvious that Ch'ea was already a marked man in Poklo. Even if Legge and other missionaries hoped otherwise, they did so in spite of the evidence of the antagonisms vented against Ch'ea in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216059, "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": 358, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "292\n\nwas buried there beside his first wife in the Zhenjiang cemetery when he died in Changsha a mere two months later. By the late forties, the cemetery had disappeared beneath industrial buildings.\n\nThere was quite a scandal about the Methodist chapel in about 1907 when, during an evening service, the whole congregation started to wriggle and scratch themselves. Many left hurriedly, and the preacher was almost alone when the service ended. It was then discovered that the Chinese caretaker had turned the place into a paying doss-house for coolies and beggars, and every pew was crawling with bedbugs and lice.\n\nMesny's Involvement with Zhenjiang 1863/5\n\nNow to an entirely different slant on activities within Zhenjiang. William Mesny was a Jerseyman who ran away from home in 1854 at the age of 12 and arrived in China in 1860. His autobiographical writings describe scenes from his diverse and exciting career in China from his earliest days as a lowly gaoler in Hong Kong, through his sailing days as a master on a small Yangzi trader, his time as an Imperial Customs Tide-waiter in Hankou, to the peak of his career serving with the Chinese Sichuan Provincial Green Standard army, ending up as a brevet Lieutenant-General. From there on, he was a self-appointed adviser to senior Chinese officials, travelling far and wide throughout China, and ending his days as an impoverished 'poor white' first in Shanghai and towards the end in Hankou, where he died in 1919. Although he had little to do with Zhenjiang itself during his time on the Yangzi, he was involved with others who had.29\n\nMesny, writing about his time on the Yangzi, first as a youth commanding a lorcha and then as a Customs Officer with the Chinese Imperial Customs, explained that on his first trip up the River, the comparatively short journey on from Zhenjiang to Nanjing took five hours with a call at Shi'er Wei, an important salt town on the northern bank of the river. An hour and a half before reaching Nanjing, ships would pass the Third Fort guarding the narrow defile under Guanyin Shan. It was there that in April 1862, Mesny was wounded and captured by a fleet of Imperial gunboats whose role it was to stop supplies of all kinds reaching the Taiping rebels. Mesny was sailing for Hankou from Shanghai with a full legal cargo, but to the Imperial gunboats, the 'Imps' as they were referred to by westerners, all vessels were fair game. Mesny", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216115, "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": 414, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "348\n\nregularly to eat a good curry),\n\nI see my embassy, tiny, great water reservoirs, the beginning of the magnificent Yangtse gorges, innumerable rice fields looking like contour lines, on a relief map. A splendid landscape in miniature, the kind the Chinese love for their gardens.\n\nI amuse myself by flying back and forth across the town. I go into crazy spirals opposite an American gunboat and climb in seconds, or so it seems, to 2,000 feet. There I decide to stop and wander about. I am worried about the Japanese who no doubt would come and bomb us and could well send a reconnaissance aircraft, which could easily come and shoot me down ... I am flying in Chinese military colours so I would be in the wrong.\n\nTowards 4:00 pm, I feel very tired. I have eaten my lunch, great nervous tension, since I have not flown for more than a year. Moreover, the seat is hard and the parachute is stifling me. I put out the braking flaps in order to descend and I realise that I have to dive at 90 degrees to lose height, so strong are the thermals in mid-river. I amuse myself for five or six minutes in doing turns right above the British Embassy and over the airfield, where I see thousands of Chinese. Finally, I put down at the end of the island in order not to land on the cranes. A perfect landing in 42 degrees of heat after a flight of four hours, 44 minutes.\n\nThe Asian duration and altitude records were broken at the first attempt. It was the first demonstration flight in China. That evening, the capital's newspapers gave the following news, in Chinese and English:\n\n\"New glider record registrated here, - Chungkin, April 25 (Central News). By remaining in the air for 4 hours and 44 minutes, M Louis de San, Belgian glider-flyer and honorary director of the Sino-French-Belgian Swiss Cultural Association, set a new endurance record for Asia to day. Flying a glider of the Aeronautical Affairs Commission, de San took off at 11:25 this morning. He gained an altitude of 5,700 feet.\"\n\nM", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216146, "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": 445, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "379\n\npublisher) and I persevered, however, and Teresa was mightily impressed with our second effort. Apparently we had reproduced the manuscript exactly, including all the Polish diacritics.\n\nNow came the editing. Teresa hand-edited her hard copy and sent it to me. I was agreeably pleased to find that Microsoft Word contains all the Polish diacritics and edited the soft copy of the proof on my office computer. I leave to the reader's imagination the thought of a Hong Kong police officer, sitting in his office, editing a 500-page book, written in Polish. Finding the places in the book which needed correcting was, frankly, a labour of love but pride in finishing won through. I e-mailed the final version to Teresa who was highly impressed with my new-found Polish language skills!\n\nSo much for the text. There then followed an e-discussion on a dust-jacket for the book. I was keen on this, as it would give the book some colour. The Crippled Tree is an autobiographical work about Han Suyin's childhood in China. This led our thinking to the idea that the illustration on the dust-jacket should be of a tree, or forest, or some such. It was ultimately Teresa who came up with the brainwave that the illustration should be drawn by a child.\n\nAnd so it was. I sat my seven-year-old son, Alexander, down one evening at home with paper and coloured pencils and asked him if he would contribute to literary history (!) by drawing a tree. This, obviously, went through several iterations before we were both satisfied with it but Alexander is rightly proud of the fact that his artwork now graces the shelves of bookshops and institutions in Poland! His name also appears on the credits page.\n\nKalekie drzevo\n\nHan Suun\n\nFirst proof of the dust jacket for Kalekie drzewo. There is a deliberate mistake!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216397, "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": 156, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "106\n\nsteaming at 21 knots towards the scene, just a few miles distant. An hour later engines were stopped and in ten minutes she came to in 23 fathoms. Fortunately the weather was good and sea calm. Already in attendance was the heavy cruiser CUMBERLAND, Captain L.F. Potter, who had lowered several of his boats to patrol for possible survivors. Two men had come to the surface prior to the arrival of HERMES. After anchoring, four boats from our ship were sent to augment the patrol over the scene of the disaster. Happily another four men came to the surface though sadly subsequently one died. The five living survivors were taken onboard HERMES to receive medical care and attention.\n\nHalf an hour later, 1530 hours by now, a diving boat was sent across from HERMES and some ten minutes later the first diver commenced his descent towards the position of POSEIDON on the sea bed. The sea temperature was 63 deg. F so bearable for those fortunate enough to be able to use the D.S.E.A. (Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus) within the stricken vessel.\n\nThat evening HERMES burned her searchlights over the position of the wreck and her motor boat commenced sweeping in order to establish the precise position of the sunken boat.\n\nLater in the evening MEDWAY (Captain H.R. Marrack, DSC), the Station submarine depot ship, arrived and anchored nearby. Also she assumed the position as guard ship. As will be imagined over the course of the next few days several more of H.M. Ships arrived and anchored in the vicinity. During the morning of the 13th these included the C. in C., Admiral Sir Howard Kelly, in SUFFOLK.\n\nMeanwhile the position of the wreck had been established exactly and diving parties were being sent down regularly, many of these parties being provided by our ship. Using a kedge anchor supplied by HERMES the tug ST. BREOCK was able to position herself directly over the wreck so assisting direct descent by these divers.\n\nIn the interim the U.S. Navy sent their specialised submarine salvage vessel to the scene, U.S.S. PIGEON ASR-6, which arrived during the late afternoon on the 11th.\n\nSadly it was established rather quickly that the extent of the damage", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216407, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "116\n\nJapanese cruiser YAHAGI11 was due to arrive at 2200 hours that evening.\n\nIn the interim the freighter MADRAS MARU2 arrived. She attempted a rescue operation but this was not successful. Indeed the seas were so high that it was not even possible to contemplate sending the nine survivors across to her for repatriation to Japan.\n\nSince all these Japanese flag ships had appeared or were due to appear at the scene of the grounding Captain Mackinnon informed NASHI that he would sail for Hong Kong that afternoon, and take with him the nine men. Later he was to write:\n\n'Many friendly and complimentary flag signals were exchanged with all ships present, including the wreck. At 1700 I proceeded to Hong Kong leaving the Japanese destroyer NASHI in charge of the situation.'\n\nOn Saturday 7 November HERMES returned to her buoy at Hong Kong and a short while later the nine rescued seamen were landed ashore.\n\nIt is pleasant to be able to record that in due course official thanks were rendered by the Japanese minister of foreign affairs, Baron Kijuro Shidehara. His letter was addressed to the British ambassador to Tokyo, H.E. Sir Francis Oswald Lindley who forwarded these thanks to the Foreign Office in London from where, in turn, they were passed to the Secretary to the Admiralty.\n\nA year later, on 6th December 1932 at Hong Kong, the C. in C. came onboard our ship to present Lloyds Silver Medals to the three officers, and Bronze Medals to the six ratings who had taken part in the rescue. Also a bronze shield, mounted on a wooden base, was presented to the ship by the Committee of Lloyds.\n\nIn December 1931 an epidemic of diphtheria struck Hong Kong. Amongst those taken ill was Captain Mackinnon. Commander Baxter temporarily assumed command until the arrival of the ship's new commanding officer, Captain W.B. Mackenzie, on 25th February 1932.\n\nCaptain Mackinnon duly returned home and on 21 January 1933", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216495, "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": 254, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "205\n\nYET ANOTHER ANGLE ON THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE, 1918\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nMany of the officers of the Chinese Labour Corps in France in 1918 were or had been Christian missionaries in China recruited for their language skills. One usually hears about Protestant missionaries of various sects in uniform in France though, as far as I am aware, no Roman Catholic missionaries would appear to have been recruited. It was therefore fascinating to come across a short essay in a book containing experiences and memories of members of the Irish Maynooth Mission to China which highlights this.\n\nOne afternoon in late April 1918 a Roman Catholic Chaplain was riding along a road near the border of Artois and Picardy on the \"Poor Old Slob,\" as his groom affectionately called the antiquated charger. Some eight miles to the east he could discern the gentle rise where the line had been held during the desperate weeks which followed March 21st and it was here that he saw in a sheltered field a short distance off the road, a group of tents before which swarms of Chinese Labour men were cooking their evening meal.\n\nThe Chaplain suddenly realised that he had never heard whether there were any Catholics amongst the Chinese: and besides, it was meal time there and perhaps, with a bit of luck he would find an officer there at tea. As he rode through the camp the Chinese turned and looked at him with that impenetrable stare which is so disconcerting to the western mind. He found the officer in his tent, with his Chinese servant setting the tea-things on a soap box which did duty for a table.\n\nThe officer, as he sat to tea, said to the Chaplain, ‘Any Catholics, you ask. I should not be surprised if there were, because these chaps come from an inland village where I know there was a French Mission. We can enquire during the next parade.'\n\nAfter tea the officer paraded his men and spoke a few words to them, completely unintelligible to the Catholic Chaplain. The result\n\n'Heralds of the Orient : Maynooth Mission to China: Dalgan Park, Galway : 1924", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216496, "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": 255, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "206\n\nwas electric. About thirty men ran out of the ranks and crowded round him, some grasped his hand and kissed it, others drew out little satchels which they had hanging round their necks which contained their certificates of baptism into the Catholic church.\n\nThe Chaplain asked the officer, who he now discovered to be a Protestant missionary from China who had come to Europe with the Labour Corps, to explain that he would say Mass for them in the neighbouring village on the morrow, that they could have general absolution and Holy Communion. He found it difficult to explain through his Protestant interpreter what was meant by general absolution. Eventually, the Protestant missionary had explained to him that the phrase the Chaplain required was 'Are you sorry for your sins?' which the Chaplain recorded phonetically in his notebook.\n\nNext morning the Chaplain was at the church half an hour before the appointed time for Mass. The Chinese were already there, grouped around the confessional and it was only then that he realised what he had let himself in for and the difficulty of his task. A few words in English were received with a blank stare; the same in French got a similar reception. He pulled out his notebook and repeated the words he had written down the previous evening. The reply was a general chatter and a vigorous nodding of heads. Yet, when the Chaplain tried to explain by dumb-show that they would receive general absolution, he knew that he had failed ignominiously. They looked at him plaintively, almost reprovingly, and pointed repeatedly at the confessional. There was nothing else for it; he had to admit them individually. The men heard the Mass with every mark of attention.\n\nWhen the Chaplain had removed his vestments he came to them in the church again. One of the Chinese whom the Chaplain judged to have been a Catechist at some time or other and had led the prayers offered the Chaplain, evidently in the name of himself and his companions, a ten-franc note. The Chaplain explained by dumb-show that he could not possibly accept it and this seemed to disappoint them so much that he had to do something to satisfy them. The Curé from the sacristy, having been told of the situation, provided a few altar candles and the ten-franc note was dropped into the collection box. Finally, as the Chaplain left the church the men crowded round him, and chattered and smiled their gratitude.\n\nPage 255\n\nPage 256", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]