[ { "id": 205102, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n53\n\nbeyond China's borders. A Sino-Korean world map going back to the fourteenth century has been discovered where not only Asia but also Europe and Africa are shown, the latter continent even in a triangular shape that is comparatively close to geographical reality. Not less than 100 place names are given for Europe and about 35 for Africa. It must be hoped that the Western parts of this world map will be studied in the near future because this will furnish valuable evidence for the incorporation of Arabic and Persian geographical knowledge into Chinese geography. But it does not seem that this knowledge, restricted as it certainly was to a few geographers, was ever assimilated with the Chinese world conception which continued, in spite of this geographical information, on entirely traditional lines. The idea of China as the Middle Kingdom and center of the world was not really challenged, and not much curiosity on what lay beyond China was aroused among the Chinese intellectuals. What Chinese texts of the Yuan period have to say on countries beyond the sea is usually a poor extract from an earlier work of Sung date (ca. 1225), the Chu-fan chih \"Description of Barbarians\" by Chao Ju-kua. The foreign domination of China by the Mongols did not stimulate interest in foreign countries but rather encouraged a latent tendency of xenophobia.\n\nThere is another passage in a Chinese text which should be mentioned briefly because it concerns the first Europeans who came to China in the Middle Ages. This was some years before the Polos reached China, which was in 1265 or 1266 if we are to believe that they ever were in China at all, a question which is not yet settled. It has been suggested that in Polo's description of China there are some unsupported boasts about his having been governor in Yang-chou and his taking part in the siege of Hsiang-yang as artillery engineer. It is true that the Chinese sources mention foreign engineers who built stone catapults for attacking the city, but their names are Arab and they came from Baghdad. No Po-lo mentioned in the Yuan-shih or other sources can be identified with the Italian Polos; all the Po-lo's of the sources have had a good Altaic name, Bolod (“steel”), because they were of Mongol or Turkish extraction. And there are also a few glaring blanks in Polo's otherwise very detailed account. He never mentions tea, but this may be because he did not like tea or the Mongols in China never offered him any. He never mentions the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206004, "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-1970", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION \n\nAND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE \n\nA. D. BLUE* \n\nUntil after the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858, emigration from China was illegal, but this law, like so many others, was more honoured in the breach than in the observance, especially in the southern provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung, and to a lesser extent Kwangsi. Traders, however, were allowed to go abroad under certain conditions, which usually included eventual return to China. There had been emigration from these southern parts of China to most regions of South-east Asia for centuries before 1858, and there were flourishing colonies of Chinese at all the main ports when the first Europeans arrived there in the 16th century. The Ming fleet under Cheng Ho is said to have killed five thousand Chinese at Palembang in 1406, and while this is almost certainly an exaggeration, it is certain that these Chinese colonies were already populous. While treating briefly with Chinese emigration to other parts of the world, the following essay deals mainly with emigration to South-east Asia. The Chinese called this region the 'Nanyang', which literally means 'Southern Ocean'; but it is often used to describe other countries even further south, such as Australia, New Guinea, and the South Pacific islands. In the pre-European and early European eras, most overseas Chinese were traders, money lenders, and craftsmen, and their contribution to the economy of South-east Asia was out of all proportion to their numbers.\n\nThe civil wars which succeeded the Manchu defeat of the Mings in south China in the mid-17th century gave a strong impetus to emigration; but the arrival of the Europeans in South-east Asia in time created the conditions favourable to Chinese settlement on a much larger scale. The Chinese were often the intermediaries between the Europeans and the native peoples, useful to each, but periodically incurring hostility from both. As they increased in numbers, the Chinese posed increasingly\n\n*The author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtse in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Three of his articles have been published previously in the Journal: \"European Navigation on the Yangtse\" in Vol. 3, 1963, \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965, and \"The China Coasters\" in Vol. 7, 1967.\n\n* See the note at the end of this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206774, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA\n\nA. D. BLUE*\n\nIn East Asia: The Modern Transformation, Professor J. K. Fairbank writes, \"This carrying trade on China's waterways was to prove the Westerners' main point of entry into the Chinese economy, for here the introduction of the steamship could alter the inherited technology\" As late as 1880 there was still not a single mile of railway in China, nor a single machine-driven loom or spindle. At that date, however, the three leading steamship companies owned forty-two steamships operating on the various routes on the Canton River, the Lower Yangtse, and between the various treaty ports on the coast. As K. C. Liu points out in his Anglo-American Steamship Rivalry in China, 1862-74, the steamship was not only a technological innovation. It was also a business innovation, because it brought with it new methods of capital organisation and management on a scale hitherto unknown in China. Many Chinese of the scholar-official class also recognised the importance of steamships, and of guns, and—by inference—the political system which made these things possible. From the mid 19th century onwards, memorial after memorial to the Throne emphasised this. Sir Charles Snow was not exaggerating so very much when he wrote that the steam engine helped to shape the modern world as much as Adam Smith or Napoleon. Unfortunately for China, officials closer to the Throne discouraged its occupants from pursuing modernisation.\n\nSteam navigation in China began in the south, on the Canton River, and—like so many other aspects of the Western invasion—came by way of India. The first steamship in Asia seems to have been the Nawab of Oude's steam yacht, about which little information has survived. According to Prinsep, this was built at Lucknow in 1819, and equipped with an eight horse-power engine sent out from England, so she must have been very small. She is said to have been capable of seven to eight knots, but when the Nawab tired of her was allowed to go to ruin. Apart from this, the first\n\n* Mr. Blue is well-known to readers of the Journal. An engineer officer of the British Merchant Marine since 1928, he has now contributed five articles on Eastern marine subjects.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212427, "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": 369, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "346\n\nDIALOGUE IN FIVE STAGES. Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1988. 160 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. This series of five Edwin O. Reishauer lectures delivered by the doyen of 20th century China scholars covers the five stages of the development of the great East Asian civilization: the classical legacy, the Buddhist age, the Neo-Confucian stage, East Asia's modern transformation, and the post-Confucian era, with a chapter on East Asia and the West. The book should be in the library of every individual seriously interested in China past and present.\n\nO'Brien, Kevin J, REFORM WITHOUT LIBERALIZATION: CHINA'S NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS AND THE POLITICS OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 263 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. This is a pioneer work in which the author traces the development of the National People's Congress in the context of political and institutional changes in contemporary China.\n\nEndicott-West, Elizabeth, MONGOLIAN RULE IN CHINA: LOCAL ADMINISTRATION IN THE YUAN DYNASTY, Cambridge (Mass): Harvard University Press, 1989. 217 pp. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. This enlightening work examines the local government in China before the rule of the Mongols, and what changes and developments there were during the Yuan dynasty. The discourse on the issue of centralization should provide informative reading, especially in conjunction with Dardess' work noted above, and with Tung-tsu Ch'u's Local Government in China Under the Ch'ing.\n\nKao, Charles K, A CHOICE FULFILLED: THE BUSINESS OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1991. 203 pp. Glossary. Written with the interested general reading public in mind, this book traces the development of intricate technologies for the age of information in comprehensible language. Professor Kao, a highly respected electrical engineer who has made valuable contributions in transferring scientific and technological knowledge to everyday use, is renowned as the 'Father of Fiber Optics'. He concludes with great optimism that science and technology will provide the world's population with great opportunities for exploiting the world's resources to their fullest extent. Each essay in the book is introduced with a witty drawing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214046, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "81\n\nA LOOK BACK : CIVIL ENGINEERING IN HONG KONG 1841-1941\n\nPreface\n\nC. MICHAEL GUILFORD\n\nThis brief wide-ranging general article written as a contribution to mark the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (from 1947-1975, The Engineering Society of Hong Kong). It was originally published in three parts in Asia Engineer, the Journal of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (July, August and September 1997).\n\nIn this reprint, the opportunity has been taken to make minor corrections, mainly typographical, and to add 17 illustrations which should make the article more interesting. The author would like to express his thanks to Henderson & Associates, the publishers of Asia Engineer, for their kind agreement for the article to be reprinted in the Journal.\n\nIntroduction\n\nBefore the British arrived in 1841 the population on Hong Kong Island, who lived in or around 20 small villages, was less than 6,000 (about a third being afloat), whilst in Kowloon there were probably around 2,000 souls and, in the New Territories (then part of San On district) about 100,000 persons living in some 600 villages. At this time granite quarrying around the harbour was a thriving industry (for example at Quarry Bay and Hok Un), much of it being used locally with some being exported by boat to Canton (Guangzhou). The abundance of old lime kilns around the seashore indicates that there was no shortage of lime for the production of cementing material.\n\nCivil engineering works were generally simple and geared to meet the needs of the rural and fishing communities. As a result a network of rural paths, some paved with granite setts, and footbridges were constructed, an example of the latter being the existing Pin Mo Bridge at Shui Tau (near Kam Tin) which was built in 1710 (49th year of K'ang Hsi), a simple twin-span structure with the decking formed by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215674, "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": 451, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "403\n\n* Hammond World Atlas. p. 107.\n\nhttp://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/AMH/AMH-25.ht\n\n10 http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/photos/Korea/kor1950/kor1950.htm\n\n\"'STRIX' in The Spectator on August 18, 1950, reported Morrison's death thus: 'Although he was only 37 when he was killed last Saturday, I think Ian Morrison was what is generally understood by a great man, and I am quite sure that he would have been remembered as one had he lived. It was not merely that he was an extremely enterprising and clear-headed correspondent with very mature political judgement. His character had a sort of translucent quality, so that behind his diffident manner and his boyish appearance people of all races recognised in him a man to be liked and trusted. He had an almost feminine blend of sympathy and intuition, yet he was tougher and more single-minded in his purposes than colleagues who looked much more like thrusters. Everybody liked him, at all levels; he was becoming a legend in Eastern Asia, and no single individual did more in the last ten years for what remains of our prestige there. When I heard of his death I remembered that last year, near the borders of Tibet, I had been given a letter to deliver to him, but our arrangements for a rendezvous had failed, and I still had the letter somewhere. I found it in a drawer. It is a dull letter, from a little engineer called Hsu who wrote from the Sining Electrical Works, Tsinghai Province. It begins: \"Dear Mr. Morrison, I often think of you since you went away. I do not forget you at all...\" People have long memories in Asia, and Ian Morrison will not quickly forfeit the place that he won in them. Christopher Buckley was a very good man, too.' [Hon. Ed.'s note: The use of the phrase 'little engineer' does much to explain the reason for the earlier...what remains of our prestige there.'}\n\n12 Reproduced at Annex I\n\n13 http://www.newseum.org/scripts/Journalist/Detail.asp?PhotoID=718\n\n14\n\nThe Road to Peking, p. 156.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]