[ { "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": 208235, "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": 274, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "258\n\nLIST OF MEMBERS\n\nORDINARY MEMBERS:\n\nTHOMA, Dr. R. -\n\nTHOMAS, R. W.\n\nTHOMAS, Mrs. S. E.\n\nTHOMPSON, Mr. & Mrs. K. V.\n\nTISDALL, B.\n\nTOH, Miss E.\n\nTOMLIN, Mrs. S.\n\nTSANG, K. F.\n\nTSO, Mrs. P.\n\nTURNER, H. D.\n\nTWITCHETT, Miss Y.\n\nTYLER, Mr. & Mrs. M. R. -\n\nVEEVERS, Miss K. J.\n\nVETCH, Mr. & Mrs. H. -\n\nVINE, P. A. L.\n\nVISICK, Mrs. M.\n\nWALDEN, J. C. C., J.P.\n\nWALKER, D. C.\n\nWATERS, D. D.\n\nWATSON, Dr. J. L.\n\nWATT, James\n\nWATT, Mo-Kei\n\nWEN, Dr. Ch'ing-hsi\n\nWHOLEY, J. W.\n\nWILKINSON, Miss A.\n\nWILLIAMS, B. V. -\n\n44 Mount Kellett Road, Mountain Lodge\n\n3A, Hong Kong.\n\n31 Conduit Road, 9/FL., Hong Kong.\n\nRose Villa, Lot 369, 124 Miles Tai Po Road, Tai Po, N.T.\n\nM3B Baskerville House, 13 Duddell Street, Hong Kong.\n\n7 Stanley Mound Road, Stanley, Hong Kong.\n\n1903 Hang Chong Building, 5 Queen's Road C., Hong Kong.\n\n12A Broadwood Road, 1/FL., Hong Kong.\n\nArchitectural Office, P.W.D., Murray Building, Hong Kong.\n\nDept. of Extra-Mural Studies, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.\n\nDept. of History, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.\n\nIsland School, Borrett Road Hong Kong.\n\nP.O. Box 9423, Hong Kong,\n\nMedical & Health Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Avenue, Hong Kong,\n\n10A Belmont Court, 10 Kotewall Road, Hong Kong.\n\n304 Chartered Bank Building, Hong Kong.\n\nDept. of English, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong.\n\n1 Homestead, The Peak, Hong Kong.\n\nPrice Waterhouse & Co. Prince's Building 22/F, Hong Kong.\n\nEducation Dept., Lee Gardens, Hysan Ave., Hong Kong.\n\nUniversity Services Centre, 155 Argyle Street, Kowloon.\n\nChinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T.\n\nCheong K. Co., Cheong K. Building, 84 Des Voeux Road C., 2/Fl., Hong Kong.\n\nRhenish Church College, 30 Hereford Road, Kowloon.\n\nAgriculture & Fisheries Dept., 393 Canton Road, Kowloon.\n\nPrincess Margaret Hospital, Lai Chi Kok, Kowloon,\n\nHong Kong Housing Authority, Housing Authority Headquarters, 101 Princess Margaret Road, Kowloon.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208951, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI, AN INTRINSIC WAY TO ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN WITH ILLUSTRATION OF KAT HING WAI\n\nIN THE NEW TERRITORIES OF HONG KONG\n\nDAVID LUNG*\n\nIn modern society where our environment is largely dictated by economy and technology, much of the deep meaning in places and placemaking has been lost. Scientists, psychologists, sociologists and environmentalists have repeatedly warned us of the danger of alienation from nature, from other men, and more drastically, from our inner self. What Alvin Toffler wrote in Future Shock, published in 1970 is no longer shocking to us; instead, the symptoms have become real societal sickness. Rapid industrial developments and acceleration of social changes have created what Toffler calls a ‘new throw-away culture': our relationship with things is more temporary; with human beings, more transient; with our environment, ‘nomadic.’ Too much is happening too fast. In expressing his strong anguish that human value is being eliminated by technology, Rene Dubos, a distinguished microbiologist, pathologist and Pulitzer Prize winner, protests by saying that \"[s]cientific technology is presently taking modern civilisation on a course that will be suicidal if it is not reversed in time.\" He finds no excuses in affluent societies where, although resources are ample, human values are still neglected by establishments concerned with self-interests only. \"[The institutions base their] choices and decisions on technological means rather than on human ends; [their] criteria are power, efficiency of production, and quantity of consumption, rather than the quality of human life.\" \"Yet... productivity and efficiency have no value in themselves; they have merit only as means to ends.” Therefore, in viewing modern architecture, he deplores that \"apartment and office buildings [in particular] have nothing to communicate beyond efficiency and conspicuous wealth, hence their architectural triviality.\" Indeed our buildings today are so utilitarian that human\n\n* Mr. Lung is a practising architect in Hong Kong. This article is excerpted from his M.Arch. thesis Heaven, Earth and Man: Concepts and Processes of Chinese Architecture and City Planning. Oregon: Centre for Environmental Research, 1978.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211614, "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": 29, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Kong to be so), and it had a beautiful mosaic ceiling in the banking hall which was designed by Podgoursky, a Russian.\" The building was ahead of its time.\n\nIn 1954 a business associate, the late Harold Palmer, a surveyor and auctioneer in England, said to the author, \"When you get to Hong Kong see if the architectural practice started by my grandfather is still in existence\". In fact, Palmer and Turner designed the Hong Kong Bank building which was completed in 1935. However Clement Palmer, an early partner, worked with the firm in Hong Kong from about 1882 to 1909. He was responsible for such buildings as the Hong Kong Club (demolished and replaced in the 1980s) which was completed in 1897,9 Victoria Hospital (1903), and Rosary Church (1905), Chatham Road. According to Harold Palmer, his grandfather used to go from his home to his office everyday by boat (he lived in Kowloon perhaps?), and he retired to England in his later forties a rich man. He made his money by land sales rather than as an architect and he was in his nineties when he died.\n\nAfter the People's Republic came to power, in 1949, it gained in prestige locally when the new 17-storey Bank of China, completed in 1950, slightly overtopped the Hong Kong Bank. The Hong Kong Bank then erected a flagpole which gave it the necessary extra few feet!21 In 1959, however, the newly completed Chartered Bank rose about three metres above the Bank of China.\n\nNow, in the 1990s, history has partly repeated itself. The 40-storey Standard Chartered Bank looks down once again on the Hong Kong Bank, although the new 70-floor Bank of China is the tallest structure in Southeast Asia. Perhaps, with China taking over Hong Kong in 1997, this dominance is fitting.\n\nNevertheless the new, 52-storey Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Headquarters, with its striking prefabricated tubular design and its \"aeronautic\" technology, has made a major contribution to the skyline, and it has been described as the most innovative bank building in the world. It graced a recent Hong Kong postage stamp.\n\nWhile most of Hong Kong consists of standard, nondescript, concrete-framed buildings, occasionally you come across the unusual, such as the large external concrete trusses from which the roof of the State", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213254, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "55\n\nThere were two attempts to escape from the Hung Hom Bay Camp. The first try was made by five prisoners. They were assigned to build a platform for concerts. The platform was near the barbed wire fence. It provided a shelter for them to tunnel to freedom and a storage place for the earth removed during their digging. Under cover of darkness, five crept through the tunnel; however, the last of the group was spotted by a sentry, who shouted the usual \"Halt or I shoot\". The escapee kept on going, and the sentry shot. The bullet hit the bag the prisoner was carrying, containing some of his gear, so he escaped injury, but he was overtaken and captured. Shortly after, another of the escaped internees was found in the hills of the New Territories. Several days later, the remaining three were rounded up near Sai Kung.\n\nSome time after this incident, another man arranged to accompany two other prisoners on a visit to a dentist in the Hong Kong Hotel. The dentist was only expecting two patients. He took these two into his surgery; one was to serve as an interpreter for the other. The third man, who had somehow arranged to come along, was left in the waiting room with a guard. He informed the guard he must go to the toilet. The guard accompanied him there; however, he did not go into the toilet as he wished to keep his eye on both the door of the dentist and the door of the toilet to ensure that none of his three prisoners escaped. The man in the toilet was able to escape through a window, but he was caught the same night and returned to the camp.\n\nThe patriotism aroused by war stirred up in a British colony much doubt, distrust of old friends, ill will, and harsh words. The clubs passed resolutions excluding enemy aliens; the ties of former friendship were severely strained and, in many cases, broken. Many in the Colony who frequently passed the former premises of the Deutsche Asiatische Bank on Queens Road, not far from the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, were irritated by the continuing presence of the Prussian double-eagled ensign, an architectural feature of the building. Many indignant letters appeared in the correspondence column of the newspapers before the emblem was finally removed.\n\nSince my delivery of the talk upon which this paper is based, Anne Selby has published a well-researched article in the South China Morning Post on 25 June, 1988, entitled \"When Germans were unwelcome in HK\". She used many of the same sources as I have used in the Public Records Office. I would refer interested readers to her article for information I have not included in my account.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213410, "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-1995", "page_number": 6, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "CONTRIBUTORS\n\nEdwin Haydon is a retired Registrar of the Hong Kong Supreme Court. D.H. Liu is a member of the Society with a deep interest in Chinese opera.\n\nAlfred Y.K. Lau is a member of the Society with an interest in early colonial Hong Kong.\n\nDavid Faure is a member of the Society, a noted sinologist and a former Editor of the Journal. He is now with the University of Oxford.\n\nAnne and Stephen Selby are members of the Society and noted sinologists. Stephen is currently Director of Intellectual Property of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.\n\nRichard Webb is a member of the Society and a former Administrative Officer of the Hong Kong Government now in business in the Republic Of Ireland.\n\nJohn Hodgkiss, Ph.D is a member of the Society and the Head of the Department of Ecology and Biodiversity at the University of Hong Kong. He is a noted authority on mangroves and kindred flora.\n\nR.G. Horsnell is a member of the Society and a Chief Property Services Manager with the Architectural Services Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.\n\nKeith Stevens, B.A. served with the British Army and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office before his retirement in 1991. He has an abiding interest in Chinese temples and deities and has written numerous articles for the Journal.\n\nDan Waters, M.Phil, Ph.D is a retired Assistant Director of Education of the Hong Kong Government. He is a long-time Member of Council of the Society, and became President in 1997. He has written prolifically on the history and culture of Hong Kong.\n\nPeter Vine, LL.D (Hons) is a solicitor in private practice and a prominent resident of Hong Kong since 1947. He is currently, inter alia, President of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Society of Notaries.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213603, "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-1995", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "The MacIntosh Cathedrals\n\nR.G. Horsnell\n\n171\n\nIntroduction\n\nThe author of this article has been working in Hong Kong since 1971. He started in the Architectural Office of the old Public Works Department, and is at present a Chief Maintenance Surveyor in the Architectural Services Department which celebrated its Tenth Anniversary in 1996. He has been assisting the Antiquities and Monuments Office in recording historical buildings and structures since 1992. In this article, he gives a brief history of the police border observation posts known as the MacIntosh Cathedrals, which were named after Commissioner of Police, Mr. D.W. MacIntosh, whose idea it was to build them. The article has been compiled from information in the Hong Kong Police Force Library, also the Force Museum in Coombe Road to which due acknowledgements are made.\n\nIn 1945, when Hong Kong was liberated, the population was estimated at 500,000. As the Territory regrouped and normality returned, it saw an upturn in immigration and by the end of 1947, the population had increased to an estimated 1,800,000. In 1948/49, as a result of unsettled conditions in China caused by the civil war and the increasing successes of the communist armies, a large influx of refugees from the mainland commenced. Approximately 750,000, mainly from Kwantung Province, Shanghai, and other commercial centres, entered Hong Kong during 1949 and early 1950. This reached its height in the Spring of 1950, when the estimated population was 2,360,000.\n\nAmongst the refugees were the defeated remnants of the Kuo Min Tang Nationalist armies and also a fair number of common criminals. Arms of all descriptions were available, and gangs of armed men raided villages near the Border. There were frequent gun battles between the police and gangsters, and there were several cases of policemen being killed and their revolvers stolen. In May 1949, two incidents occurred on the Border, which were to lead to a change of design and use of police posts in that particular area.\n\nOn May 2, 1949, a four-man police patrol left Ta Kwu Ling Police", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213966, "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-1997", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "A Reference Collection of pre-1900 materials has been set up in the RAS Collection at the City Hall Public Library. For security of these rare and valuable items which might be difficult to replace, members are requested to use them inside the Library. For those who are concerned with space problems, there will be a delay in the opening of the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace, because of the controversial issue of architectural design. The building will still be ready in 1999 but will not be open for use until the middle of the year 2000.\n\nUsage of the RAS collection has increased substantially over the past year. As reported by the City Hall Library Office, usage of the RAS Library for the period from April 1997 to 15 March 1998 is as follows:\n\n \n No. of reference enquiries\n 182\n \n \n No. of books consulted\n 385\n \n \n No. of borrowers\n 183\n \n \n No. of books loaned out\n 99\n \n\nJulia Chan\n\nHon. Librarian\n\n15 March 1998\n\nxxxiv", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214114, "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-1997", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "151\n\nfrom the Colonial Office, in London, for the setting up of a Botanical Garden. This garden, which still flourishes today, finally came into being in 1862.\n\nBut, skipping a hundred years to the Branch's second time around, quite a lot else has been achieved. For example, the RASHKB has built up a respectable library of books on Asia. This is on permanent loan to the Urban Council, at the City Hall, and members of the general public are welcome to refer to it. On the shelves of the RASHKB Collection one can find many old, valuable titles, such as: A Narrative of the British Embassy to China in the Years 1792, 1793 and 1794, by Aeneas Anderson (1795) (then in the service of Earl Macartney), and Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, by Captain Sir Edward Belcher RN (1843), in two volumes. Some books in the RAS Collection bear interesting chops (stamps), such as from the old Canton Reading Room and the South China Morning Post's pre-World War II Library.\n\nIn addition RASHKB Archives, including files, photographs and papers, are deposited with the Government Public Records Office (PRO). Other Branch possessions are on long-term loan to the Hong Kong University. These include the F.A. Nixon, Buddhist, Tang Dynasty Scroll and the 38 M.A. McMullen Bills of Lading, relating to shipments in China from 1825-73. Also held by the University on behalf of the RASHKB are microfilms of 1847-59 Branch procedures and the Nixon Photographs of 991 bronze Nestorian crosses.\n\nAlthough the Society is basically apolitical, and occasionally thought of as being pro-establishment, it has not been afraid to take up cudgels when it felt there was a cause. As examples a letter was sent, in May 1995, to the Hong Kong Government pressing for the retention of the spirit hall and historical and architectural artefacts when the old Nga Tsin Wai Walled Village, in East Kowloon, is demolished.\n\nAlso, because of some government intransigence at the time, a small group of RASHKB members appeared twice before a Legislative Council committee to press for a properly established Public Records Office. When a purpose-designed, reasonably accessible, PRO opened in June 1997 at Kwun Tong, many members liked to think the RAS played a part in this successful outcome.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214889, "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": 304, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "277\n\nGoddess of Mercy, with her vase containing the dew of compassion and her enigmatic smile. Kwan Yin helps souls in distress. The inside of the Temple was blackish from the smoke of countless burning candles and joss sticks. This added to the atmosphere. There were other minor gods. In frenetic Hong Kong visiting the Temple and taking part in the pastimes described helped people stay sane.\n\nOne 70 year old Chinese, afflicted with diabetes, began to find it more and more of an effort to struggle up Hatton Road which he dubbed, (Long Life Road). Nonetheless he was determined, come what may, not to give up his daily, what he believed to be, health-giving ascent.\n\nMany of us knew that the Temple complex was no architectural masterpiece and was not fit to be graded by the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office let alone be designated as a monument. It had grown like ‘topsy' and, in parts, could even be described as 'grotty'. Yet it played an important part in the daily routine of many local, regular early morning walkers. Some Hong Kong European residents, when visitors came from overseas, the Temple was one of the places to which they would take them. There they could absorb local colour.\n\nHow long had the Temple been there? When I asked the temple folk I usually received evasive answers, such as, in Cantonese, 'Several tens-of-years.' Others said it was 30 years old. I know the latter was not true because I visited the Temple in the mid-1960s and it gave the impression, even then, of having been established for some long time. It is likely that this Temple complex developed, as did several others, from a small shrine. I have no proof of this.\n\nAlthough no Chinese members of the Temple community that I spoke to were in favour of a 'sanitised' country park the Government demolition team moved in at the end of November 1999. Work went on for several weeks. In addition to pulling down the Temple, craftsmen constructed a pavilion and a few useful shelters as well as a long, part stone, part crazy-paving concrete path up over the foothills. These are well constructed. The pack of 'wild dogs' consisting partly of escapes and partly releases, although some puppies had been born in the wild were rounded up by a Government dog-catching team. There was, however, trepidation among members of the unit. Some believed that, with reincarnation, the souls of some Japanese soldiers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215873, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "105\n\nEarlier works and past records on the Devil's Peak Redoubt and Gough Battery\n\nA detailed account of the history and operation of the artillery aspects of the military sites on Devil's Peak can be found in Rollo (1992). The history of the 9.2-inch gun of Gough Battery at Stanley Fort can be found in JHKBRAS (Vol.38, pp.247-263). The results of the initial building inspection and documentary analysis of the sites by the authors are presented in their forthcoming work.\n\nThe most relevant public documents about the siting and architectural details of the sites that can be inspected at the Public Records Office and Lands Department are shown in Table 1 below for the benefit of researchers in military architecture and aerial photo interpretation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216166, "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": 465, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "A NOTE ON THE JAPANESE GUN EMPLACEMENT AT TATHONG POINT, TUNG LUNG CHAU\n\nROBERT HORSNELL\n\n399\n\nAt Tathong Point, also known as Nam Tong Mei, a small rocky peninsular at the extreme southern tip of Tung Lung Island, there still exists the remains of a little known war-time Japanese gun emplacement. Its purpose was probably to protect the south-eastern approaches to Victoria Harbour. This gun emplacement is not mentioned in the book Ruins of War by Tim Ko and Jason Wordie and is not listed in the Gazetteer of the Batteries of the Fixed Defences of Hong Kong in Denis Rollo's book The Guns and Gunners of Hong Kong, although Rollo does mention an observation post for the Devil's Peak Battery at the southern end of Tung Lung Island built in 1935/36. From information in an old Public Works Department file it appears that the gun emplacement was built by the Japanese during the Occupation (1941-1945).\n\nIn 1965, the gun emplacement was converted by the Public Works Department's Architectural Office into an engine room for the Marine Department's Tathong Point Lighthouse Station to house the electric marine light, foghorn engines, light standby engine and switchboard. The staff quarters adjacent to the engine room were built later in 1973/74 to replace the old lighthouse keeper's quarters built in 1949 lower down near the jetty and landing stage. The old vacated quarters were used as stores for some time then later demolished. The remains of the concrete platforms on which these old buildings were built can still be seen amongst the rocks.\n\nFrom the original P.W.D. drawings for the conversion works, it is possible to learn something about the construction of the gun emplacement. It was built of concrete with a floor area of about 40 square metres. The walls are about one metre thick but the roof is much thicker especially over the rear part which contained the expense magazines. The chamber which housed the gun consists of a rectangular room with a semi-circular bow front in which the wide angle embrasure for the gun was formed. The armament is not known but from the size of the gun embrasure it was probably a large coastal defence gun.\n\nPage 465\n\nPage 466", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216168, "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": 467, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "401\n\nConstruction Company, a contractor engaged by the Maintenance Section of the Public Works Department. The launch \"Ming Kee\" was normally used to carry the workers to and from Tathong Point. The Director of Marine respectfully - but ominously - requested the Director of Public Works to arrange for the coxswain of the \"Ming Kee\" to report to the Licensing Office, Marine Department, Hong Kong. Unfortunately the P.W.D. file contains no further information on the incident.\n\nAcknowledgements\n\nOn 10 April 1982 the function of the old Public Works Department (P.W.D.) was replaced by the Lands and Works Branch, and the Architectural Office of the P.W.D. became part of the Building Development Department. In April 1986 the Building Development Department was dissolved and the Architectural Services Department established. In 1990 the name of the Maintenance Branch of the Architectural Services Department was changed to the Property Services Branch to whom acknowledgements are due for inspection of their files.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]