[ { "id": 204844, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "122\n\nD. LESLIE\n\nto marry a Taoist naturalistic metaphysics to Confucian rationalistic ethics marks a great step forward, even though it was only partially successful.\n\nThe Taoism of Chuangtzu was anti-rationalistic and mainly destructive; destructive of ethics and also a hindrance to the development of logic and to the search for truth. Fung Yu-lan has characterised the Taoism of Huainantzu, as opposed to that of Chuangtzu, as positive. This is even more true of Wang Ch'ung, who eschews all mysticism and supernaturalism. Similarly, Hsüntzu's emphasis on the Way of Man, equal partner with Heaven and Earth, led him to ignore the Way of Nature. The crucial difference between Chou and Han philosophers is exemplified by the difference between Hsüntzu and Wang Ch'ung. Both reject any divine or supernatural intervention in natural phenomena, but only the latter sought to explain the workings behind these natural phenomena.\n\nTung Chung-shu of the Han had already given an explanation of such phenomena as the cosmic and biological abnormalities looked on as omens. By Wang Ch'ung's time these omens were almost universally taken to be warnings and messages from Heaven. Calamities, such as floods or drought or plagues of insects, were the punishments which followed when these warnings were not heeded. Wang Ch'ung cannot escape the Han view of an interaction between man and Heaven. But he changes the explanation. Good and bad omens are certainly signs of good and bad government but not caused by them,\n\nFor the Han philosophers phenomena were governed by the rise and fall of the ch'i, both cosmic and human. In the hands of Wang Ch'ung's contemporaries this ch'i was very close to shen* and ching-shen** \"spirit\". For Wang Ch'ung himself however, the ch'i is a material fluid, the \"life's breath” in biological terms, the \"pneuma\" in cosmic terms. It has no shape or form but only substance. The claim of modern materialists to see a forerunner in Wang Ch'ung is in many ways justified. It is supported in particular by his theories of causation. These are closely tied to his concept of a material ch'i. A physical cause must, he claims, be adequate for the result, and must operate by contact of the chi. Where there is no physical contact causation is not possible,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205219, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n169 \n\nplant. In Hong Kong four general groups are recognised comprising about thirteen different varieties, all of which but one, the upland rice, need to grow in standing water.\n\nThe first crop of kuk ripens in mid-summer during the typhoon season of blue skies and huge white mountains of cumulus cloud. Sudden and devastating rain storms and periods of low pressure at this time may ruin a crop not yet ripe. Rice is a particularly difficult grain to grow as right up to the last few days before harvesting there is no hard grain in the heads but only a milky white fluid, which, unless it has a few days of very strong sunshine, will not harden into grain. Typhoon winds at this period can completely ruin a crop by flattening the standing grain into the padi water. However, assuming that all is well, the first crop is harvested from the water in which it grows.\n\nBeing harvested from wet fields the grain from this first crop is unsuitable for keeping in store for lengthy periods as it tends to mildew. This crop therefore sells at a lower value than the second crop, which is harvested in the Autumn.\n\nAs the water in the fields is no longer required after the second crop the fields are drained off, the rice left standing in the drying fields, ripens and turns into a grain that will keep in store for years if necessary. This crop fetches a higher price than the first crop.\n\nBy tying his rent return to kuk instead of to a fixed cash rent the landowner ensures that his return is commensurate with the local market price at the time of harvesting. Should bad weather make a poor harvest local prices for kuk rise in sympathy with shortages. If a glut of rice ensues then prices will fall in sympathy with the economy.\n\nRentals\n\nYield should be an important factor when considering tenant rentals, but figures based on statistics collected for use at arbitration board hearings, indicate a pattern which is against yield as a factor in deciding rents in some localities. As a corollary to a technical soil survey of arable lands carried out by Dr. C. J. Grant of the University of Hong Kong, the author made enquiries and collected statistics of prices paid by tenant farmers in those areas mentioned under the heading \"Soil Associations\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206233, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "44\n\nCHIU LING-YEONG\n\nuseless against a foe unless they are worked and guarded with intelligence, precision and judgment. Fast sailing cruisers, powerful ironclads and swift torpedo-boats are excellent weapons of defence as well as offence, but they are only tools and demand much skill, bravery, knowledge and experience in their handling. In the hands of the uninitiated and ignorant, they are clumsy and expensive toys fit only to be sunk or captured by an enemy after a brief resistance. Where will China find all the hands for her navy without going abroad for them? I am aware that the present order of things is to hire foreign instructors and establish naval schools. Indeed, the Naval College at Foochow was established many years ago, and has from time to time turned out a large number of students, and, I will add, some promising ones too. But were all the students treated properly and all promises made them kept? Were their salaries liberal, and were they punctually paid; and did their salaries suffer much diminution or become beautifully less ere they reached the several recipients' pockets? When the students were qualified, did they get all they deserved, or what had been promised to them? Were they not put under the same official despotism as the other ordinary officers? Have they not been placed absolutely at the command of and obliged to take directions from ignorant officers who have never been to sea and whose only merit consists in being high mandarins or the relations of such? Have there not been cases of desertion on account of bad treatment received, and have there been no frequent and loud complaints? Here more than anywhere internal reforms are required to induce promising young men to devote their time to necessary courses of study and training, and, when qualified, to risk their lives and all in the loyal defence of their dear country upon the raging billows. Get an efficient navy by all means, but before all get reform. Take timely warning by the naval encounter at Foochow, where so many of China's ships of war, though outnumbering the French fleet and carrying heavy ordinance, were sunk within the space of barely half an hour. Such a record should make a nation weep and repent in sackcloth and ashes.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206394, "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE COLONY OF HONG KONG\n\n185\n\nI hurry on to the month of October, 1856, when there occurred the affair of the lorcha Arrow at Canton, which grew out of the practice of granting sailing letters to native craft, adopted, I think in the previous year, by Sir John Bowring, and which was rendered necessary to save the holders of them from capture by the insurgent fleets in the neighbourhood of Whampoa. A more unfortunate occasion of hostilities could not have presented itself; it was almost as bad as the opium complications which brought on our former war. It was felt to be so by Sir Michael Seymour, into whose hands the management of the thing soon passed from those of the Governor, and he tried to shift the quarrel to the old question of throwing open the gates of the city. The sense of many at home was sufficiently declared by the decision of Parliament against going to war about the matter, and under any other prime minister than Lord Palmerston the adverse vote would have been final. He appealed from it, however, to the country, which supported his policy, and Lord Elgin was called to proceed to China, and square up all the accounts between it and Great Britain.\n\nBefore that, however, on the morning of the 15th January, 1857, occurred the diabolical attempt to poison a large number of the inhabitants of the Colony by means of bread supplied from the bakery of A-lum. I was one of those who partook of the poison. I did so twice; early in the morning, and again at breakfast time; soon getting rid, however, of all the noxious matter through violent paroxysms of sickness. Never was such a day of excitement in the Colony; and had A-lum been caught at once, he would have been lynched beyond a doubt; but he had gone off with all his family by the early steamer to Macao. Being pursued thither, and brought back, he was subsequently brought to trial and acquitted, the guilt of the deed being thrown by him on his foreman and another man, who had made their escape. He was subsequently kept in gaol at large for some time, and there I made his acquaintance. He was a tall, imposing-looking man for a Chinese, and had been well educated. The respect and deference shown to him by all the prisoners were wonderful. On the Sundays, when I went to conduct a religious service with them, he quite took me under his patronage, had the books ready, and maintained perfect order among all who attended.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206970, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n35\n\nCollège Stanislas at Cannes. In 1877 he entered the military academy of Saint-Cyr;22 after passing out from Saint-Cyr, he joined the famous Saumur cavalry school. He was to remain a magnificent horseman all his life.\n\nThe turning point in Morès' life came in 1881 when he met Medora von Hoffmann, the daughter of Louis von Hoffmann,23 a New York banker of German extraction, who had a villa, like Morès' father, at Cannes. Morès resigned from the army and in February 1882 married the petite, blonde Medora, who was to bear him three children. In August 1883 they travelled to the New World and Morès soon after started work in his father-in-law's bank.\n\nMorès was an astute banker but when his cousin, Count Fitz-James, returned from a hunting expedition to the Dakotas and regaled him with tales of his adventures, he decided to throw up his banking career and head west to the area of the Dakotas called the Bad Lands. In April 1883 Morès, together with William Van Driesche, set out by Northern Pacific Railway from Chicago for the Little Missouri River. After an inspection of the country he decided it was ideal for cattle ranching. He bought a large tract of land, built his own town--Medora--and a twenty-eight room château24 on a spur overlooking the river and the new town.\n\nThe Marquis, who had begun to fence off his land, soon made enemies among the badmen of the area. Three in particular – Luffsey, O'Donnell and Wannegan--on several occasions attacked the château at night and their gunfire was returned by the intrepid Marquis and Van Driesche. The series of incidents culminated in the ambushing of the trio by the Marquis and two of his cowboys. Luffsey was killed, the other two wounded and taken prisoner. The incident did not end there, for the Marquis was charged with murder, held in custody and nearly lynched by an excited mob.\n\nMorès established his own abattoir, meat-packing and processing plant at Medora and hoped, thereby, to undercut the prices for dressed meat set by the monopolistic 'beef barons' of Chicago--the Armours and Swifts--but he was opposed not only by them but by their business allies, the railroad magnates. By 1885 it was clear that Morès' cattle empire was tottering, that he could not compete with the stockyards of Chicago, and that his scheme to provide cheap meat to Westerners and Easterners alike had totally failed. He returned to New York with his family, but at once attempted", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206985, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "H. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nEuropean expansion and domination that ended in 1914 provided a more richly fertile environment for this social type. Adventurers do not compose a social group held together by common beliefs or ideology like anarchists, bolsheviks or suffragettes; rather they are supreme individualists and their individualism and egomania asserts itself most brutally in periods of rapid social change, in periods of social dislocation, fluid social boundaries, disorder and political ambiguity. Adventurers surface in greater numbers, then, under particular social conditions; they can impose their will, in the short run at least, by force, bluff, imposture or sheer physical courage,56 either because their social audience is credulous or because their victims desire victimisation, as a martyr seeks martyrdom; for the need to be dominated is as strong sometimes as the urge to dominate. Domination means accepting constraints, and constraint may bring a measure of psychic security and peace.\n\nSouth-East Asia, Central and South America, the Wild West and the Pacific, all provided an ideal terrain for the adventurers' individual obsessions, whether it was the pursuit of power, wealth, status, excitement, luxury or sensuality. And these were areas, of course, where the white man increasingly exercised control, by means of his advanced technology and dominant culture. Mayréna in the land of the Moï and Morès in the Bad Lands of North Dakota, a frontier area only recently cleared of Sioux, lived outpost lives on the margin of civilisation—one became, briefly, the King of the Sedangs, the other, likewise, the Emperor of the Bad Lands. Conditions in these places were perfect for the seigneurial role they sought to play. Such conditions would not be found easily today.\n\nAt this time, two other factors favoured the adventurer class: respect for titles and poor communications. Mayréna succeeded in making dupes of several influential and wealthy persons because they were deeply impressed by his assumed rank—the 'King of the Sedangs' or 'le comte de Drey'. Morès was a nobleman and a grand seigneur by birth; the fact that his name and that of his noble house could be found enshrined in print in the Almanach de Gotha seduced people of lesser rank. The European bourgeoisie achieved economic and a larger degree of political power in the nineteenth century; this parvenu class, ostensibly resentful of social distinctions was, on the other hand, often mesmerised by titles of any kind. This was true even in democratic America: the shady thespians who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206988, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n53\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Sir William Des Voeux, My Colonial Service, 2 vols., London 1903. Sir Frederick Lugard, Governor of Hong Kong 1907-1912, also found that 'entertaining was an essential part of governing. Hong Kong Government House was used as a high-class hotel, restaurant and sports club by many of the hundreds of passengers who left their ships to write their names in the Governor's book...socially more exacting were the many distinguished foreigners and Eastern potentates-Chinese and Japanese princes, Indian Rajahs, the Governor of the neighbouring Portuguese Macao, foreign admirals who had to be visited in their warships and later entertained in turn at Government House; ambassadors en route to or from Tokyo or Peking, and many lesser functionaries.' See Margery Perham, Lugard, vol. 2, London, 1960, p. 289.\n\n2 My Colonial Service, vol. 2, p. 234. Sir William Des Voeux (1834-1909) was Governor of Hong Kong from 1887 to 1891, in which year he retired from the colonial service.\n\n3 14 November, 1888.\n\n4 15 November, 1888.\n\n5 16 November, 1888.\n\n6 22 November, 1888.\n\n7 William Van Driesche was the third generation of his family to serve the Morèses. The children used to call him Mr. Willie.\n\n8 There are several photographs of Morès in Donald Dresden, The Marquis de Morès: Emperor of the Bad Lands, Norman, Oklahoma, 1970, and in Charles Droulers, Le Marquis de Morès 1858-1896, Paris, 1932. Morès was six-feet tall, lithe, ramrod-straight, muscular, with a needle-pointed waxed black moustache. He looked every inch a d'Artagnan.\n\n9 Richard Manca, Duke of Vallombrosa, born 1834, married the daughter of the Duke Des Cars, conqueror of Algeria. He had three children, of whom Morès was the eldest.\n\n10 Op. cit., vol. 2, p. 234.\n\n11 Ibid., p. 235.\n\n12 Ibid., p. 235.\n\n13 The Hong Kong Daily Press, 24 November, 1888. The Governor was accompanied on his trip by his wife, young daughter, and James Russell, the Chief Justice. The Colonial Secretary, Frederick Stewart, administered the government in Des Voeux's absence.\n\n14 The China Mail (1845-1911) was edited by George Murray Bain from 1879 until 1908(?).\n\n15 It is not surprising that Des Voeux took a great interest in his betters since promotion in the colonial service in the nineteenth century depended to a large degree on knowing people in high places.\n\n16 No full-scale study of Mayréna has been published as yet; the best book is probably Jean Marquet, Un Aventurier du XIXe siècle: Marie Jer, roi des Sedangs, 1888-1890. Hanoi, 1927; but Maurice Soulié, Marie Jer, roi des Sédangs, 1888-1890, Paris 1927, is amusing though really une vie romancée. The most penetrating essay on Mayréna is that by Marcel Ner, 'Marie Ier, roi des Sedangs: essai sur la psychologie de l'aventure”, Extrême-Asie, Revue Indochinoise (Hanoi), no. 21, March 1928, pp. 397-407 and no. 22, April 1928, pp. 491-498. There are many references to Mayréna", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206989, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "54\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nin André Malraux, Antimémoires. Paris, 1967, pp. 375-473. There is a short biography in Roman d'Amat and R. Limouzin-Lamothe, eds., Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, Paris, 1965.\n\n17 Souvenirs de Cochinchine par Ch. David de Mayréna, Capitaine d'État-Major, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur... Toulon, J. Laurent, 1871.\n\n18 See Marcel Ner, 'Marie Ier Roi des Sedangs', Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient (Hanoi), Vol. 27, 1927, p. 316.\n\n19 Ibid., p. 333.\n\n20 Ahnaja, Mayréna's consort, died of tuberculosis in late 1888. She had followed Mayréna from Saigon but they were never legally married.\n\n21 There are many studies of Morès, but most are written from a French nationalist point of view: see, for example, Baron Charles de Donos, Morès: Sa vie, sa mort, Paris, 1899; Auguste Pavy, L'Expédition de Morès, Paris 1897; Félicien Pascal, L'Assassinat de Morès, un crime d'État, Paris, 1902; Jules Delahaye, Les Assassins et les vengeurs de Morès, 3 vols., Paris, 1905-1907; Pierre Frondaie, L'Assassinat du marquis de Morès, Paris, 1934. Of great interest are chapters on Morès in Maurice Barrès, Scènes et doctrines du nationalisme, Paris, 1902, and in Georges Bernanos, La Grande peur des bien-pensants, Paris, 1931. For details on the family see Almanach de Gotha, Gotha, 1890, pp. 390-91. Robert F. Byrnes, Antisemitism in Modern France, vol. 1, New Brunswick, NJ., 1950, contains many illuminating insights into Morès' political career. The most modern study is Donald Dresden's The Marquis de Morès: Emperor of the Bad Lands, 1970, which is particularly good on Morès's adventures in the Far West.\n\n22 One of his fellow cadets was Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), who later became the head of the Vichy Government. Another was the saintly Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), a missionary in the Sahara.\n\n23 His full name is given in the New York Times Obituary Index as Louis A. von Baron Hoffmann. He died in 1909. His daughter's name, Medora, was probably taken from Byron's poem 'The Corsair'.\n\n24 See Russell Reid, 'The De Morès Historical Site', North Dakota Historical Quarterly, vol. 8, 1941, pp. 272-83. In 1963 Louis Vallombrosa, the Marquis' eldest son, presented the château and the surrounding grounds to the State of North Dakota.\n\n25 See Maurice Soulié, Marie Ier, roi des Sédangs, 1888-1890, Paris, 1927, pp. 122-6. Mlle Dahlberg was supposed to be studying Siamese monuments in Bangkok but she was probably in the pay of the Germans who had recently discovered an interest in the region. Her brother was ostensibly a trader at Haiphong but really engaged in the smuggling of contraband goods.\n\n26 A tour of the East was often a risky venture. Many companies went broke and singers and actresses left penniless and hence vulnerable as a consequence. See, for example, Conrad's novel Victory and Somerset Maugham's story 'Flotsam and Jetsam' for fictional but accurate accounts of the lives of distressed European actresses in the East.\n\n27 Robert Fraser-Smith founded the Hong Kong Telegraph in 1881. He was also its editor and publisher until his death in 1895. The paper was edited from 6 Pedder's Hill and Fraser-Smith employed a staff of about four Europeans, usually Scotsmen, as reporters. As J. S. Thomson in The Chinese (London, 1909) writes: \"The newspapers of the Treaty Ports are generally set up by the Macaense (sic) and edited by Scotchmen\". Fraser-Smith was constantly involved in libel actions and in 1890 was sentenced to six months imprisonment for libelling J. Minhinett, a foreman in the Public Works Department, by suggesting he had committed rape. He did\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207355, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n115\n\nBarbarians in the Chinese service were usually expected to exhibit signs of cultural transformation. This might involve adopting a Chinese lifestyle (language, clothing, food, transportation, and residence), assuming a Chinese name, marrying a Chinese, enrolling on the Chinese tax registers, and so forth. Such behavior was evidence that the foreigner truly admired Chinese customs (Hua-feng) and had accepted Chinese ways.12 As important, however, and more difficult to discern, were indications that the barbarian had embraced Chinese values. In the words of the Tang scholar Ch'en Yen: \"Some people are born in barbarian lands but their actions are in harmony with rites [li] and right behavior [i]. In that case, they are barbarian in appearance, but Chinese at heart.\" According to Ch'en, the employment of such individuals was extremely beneficial to China, for it inspired other barbarians to \"turn toward Chinese civilization [hsiang-hua].\"\n\nThroughout the imperial era, Chinese policy toward barbarian employees in the interior, like Chinese foreign policy, varied according to China's strategic and administrative needs, the perception of an alien threat, the attitudes and activities of the barbarians themselves, and, of course, the whim of the emperor. The Chinese were not overly concerned with the gap between theory and practice, and some, such as the Ch'ing scholar Chao I, argued in fact that the practice of \"true principle\" (i-li) in foreign affairs necessarily involved adjustments. \"The teachings of true principle,\" he wrote, \"cannot always be reconciled with the circumstances of the times. If one cannot entirely maintain the demands of true principle, then true principle must be adjusted to the circumstance of the time, and only then do we have the practice of true principle.\"14 Ou-yang Hsiu is reported to have suggested that even when Chinese government was \"good,\" barbarians would not necessarily submit, while on the other hand, bad government might not prevent them from surrendering.\n\nAs might be expected, the Chinese historical record abounds with praise for barbarians who \"admired right behavior and turned toward Chinese civilization\" (mu-i hsiang-hua).16 Such conduct accorded with China's self-image of cultural and moral superiority. But all of China's barbarian employees did not serve the Middle Kingdom solely out of admiration. Some individuals were drawn by the prospect of financial or other material rewards. Others submitted with large bodies of troops after defeat in battle or the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207712, "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-1976", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "\"PATTERNED BANDS\" IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG\n\n85\n\ncut grass for fuel, carried firewood, and farmed. The housework and cooking were done by my mother-in-law, who also helped me in the fields. After she died, I took over all the responsibilities myself. No men helped me with the farm work, and we did not have the money to hire labourers. I did the plowing myself, even with a baby on my back. I cut grass and sold the grass and vegetables. I worked and struggled hard. I also worked for the Texaco company carrying steel and kerosene. In the evenings I wove patterned bands. I could weave one in two or three nights, but I never had time during the day.\n\nOther women stated that they had worked at weaving patterned bands in the evenings when they had time, during bad weather and the agricultural slack season, and at festivals.\n\nGirls learned to weave the bands while in their teens. They were taught by their mothers or by other village women. They wove bands for their own use, as well as for those friends and lineage sisters who were unable to learn the complex technique. They were sometimes even woven for sale.\n\nThe technique of weaving patterned bands is complex and difficult to learn, although the loom itself is extremely simple, with no frame. It would not doubt take some years for girls to learn well, when they were doing other work in addition. Those who became good weavers were able to imitate patterns on sight, and to devise their own patterns.\n\nThe bands are woven on a simple backstrap loom: see Plate 1.* The warp is a continuous circle, one end of which passes over the corner of an ordinary square wooden stool, the other end being fastened to a belt which is tied around the weaver's waist. The warp is held taut by the distance which she sits from the stool, on another stool. The weaver prepares the warp by winding a series of circles, half the length of a finished band in diameter, between a finger of her left hand and the corner of the stool, holding the thread taut at all times. If the warp is to have, for example, red even threads () and white odd threads (*), she carefully winds nine pairs of red circles, then ties white thread to the end of the red and winds nine pairs of white circles. If the edges (i) of the band are to be narrow stripes of different colours, she might then wind four pairs each of red, yellow, and green. After tying the ends of the threads so that a continuous circle is formed, she then inserts\n\n* Plates 1 - 14 illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208194, "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": 233, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n217 \n\nis formed on top. Then pick out the thin layer with a bamboo stick, upon which it is allowed to dry. The end-product will be the delicious and nourishing bean skim. Being performed entirely by hand in the past, the whole process was not so simple as this brief description suggests.\n\nOver eighty years ago, my great-grandfather with his two sons and their wives fled from famine-stricken Chi Kam hsien in Wai Chau prefecture, Kwangtung, and reached Pun Shan Village, Chai Wan Kok, Tsuen Wan where they started their occupation of bean skim making. At that time, there was no highway linking Tsuen Wan with Kowloon. In order to sell the bean skim and buy more yellow beans, my ancestors had to climb over rugged hills every day.\n\nIn those days, the yellow beans were first exposed under hot sun (or heated in a pot in case of dull weather). The impurities such as sand and stalks were carefully picked out from the beans, then the beans were crushed by manual labour until the husks were separated from the beans. Beans and husks were then poured into a bamboo container which was tossed up and down with both hands so as to cast out the husks. The pure beans were then put into a tank and soaked in water for four hours (six hours in winter). Then the beans were ground into a paste by pushing hard at the stone-grinder. The amount of beans could not be in excess of forty catties if the whole process was to be finished within one day, and one had to rise about 2 a.m. to start grinding. This paste was then wrapped inside a cloth bag and the fluid squeezed out. The refuse was then filtered off, while the pasty fluid was poured into twelve flat-bottomed metal pans and boiled, using grass as fuel. (The smoke as emitted from the fluid and the burning grass is not unlike tear gas, giving one a suffocating feeling.) The surface foam was removed, and the fluid kept at a temperature that kept it near boiling. A thin layer of membrane formed on the surface, which was taken off with a bamboo stick and allowed to dry. This process of heating, layer-forming and taking off was repeated again and again, until the paste in all the twelve pans became membrane i.e. bean skim. This process must have required the longest working-hours of the world, for one had to work at it twenty-one hours on end every day, from 2 a.m. to 11 p.m.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209147, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "36\n\nEDGAR WICK BERG\n\nBritish administrators, believing that the landlords wished to retain grain rent (an impression nourished by the receipt of landlord petitions to that effect) and that tenants did not, attempted to outlaw any but monetary payments of future contracts, but the practice of grain rent continued.\n\nTypically, the level of rent was an amount of grain that approximated one-half of the year's yield of rice, paid in two installments at the time of each harvest. Thus, if one tou-chung of land (Cantonese tau-chung, a common measure in the New Territories, approximating one Chinese mou) produced, say, 200 catties of grain, the rent would probably be about 100 catties. As in other parts of China, there was an understanding between most landlords and tenants that in the case of a poor harvest due to bad weather or other circumstances beyond the tenant's control, the landlord might grant a reduction. I have no information about how regularly this ideal was actually observed in the New Territories.\n\nIt would be interesting to compare tenant rent to grain price and land price, and if we can get together enough material on these subjects, it should be possible. If so, we can then make some observation on landlordism as an enterprise, on some aspects of tenant economy compared to that of an owner-farmer, and on the possibility of a tenant's buying any part of the land he rented.\n\nIn several regions of south China in late imperial time the practice of requiring a tenant to pay a cash deposit, most often called ya-tsu, was prevalent. Such a deposit, often quite large, guaranteed tenant performance of the contract; it also provided the owner with a lump sum in cash which he could invest as he wished without having to pay interest. So far as I have been able to determine, this practice did not exist in the New Territories ca. 1900. Its absence may indicate many things: harmonious landlord-tenant relations; absence of competition for land; or lack of landlord interest in, or need for (from this source, at least) interest-free cash. It may be that the prevalence of clan ownership of tenanted lands in the New Territories is the explanation, if we argue that clan leasing practices did not, or probably would not, include practices of that kind.\n\nIV. Lineage\n\nWe come now to the \"lineage\" part of this paper, in accordance with the title of my talk. I will continue to refer to the lineage as the clan, however, despite the problems in using either name—or both", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209311, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "200\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThus, even with a large family in a poor upland village, 1 acre would suffice to keep the family alive assuming no run of bad harvests. Where steady opportunities for casual labouring or cash enterprises (eg fishings, woodcutting) existed, the family could get by on even less; perhaps in most circumstances families could survive with 25% less than these figures, since some opportunities for cash income clearly existed at most times.\n\nCrown Rent\n\nWas charged at the rate $3 per 0.01 acre for 1st class, $2 per 0.01 acre for 2nd class and $1 for 0.01 acre 3rd class. 1st class was most land in valley villages (eg. best and average land in Tai Wai) and best land in upland villages. 2nd class was used for definitely poor land in valley villages and average land in upland villages, 3rd class was poor land anywhere. 1st class land therefore Crown Rent = $52.5 for 1 tau, for 2nd class land $35. for 3rd class land $17.5 assuming 0.175 acres per tau. Given purchase rice price of $2 per catty, this implies, (1st class land), Crown Rent equivalent to purchase price of 26¼ catties. If sale price of hulled white rice is taken, at $1, this is equivalent to 52.5 catties. Average land at Tai Wai would be first class for Crown Rent, yield 5 piculs per year, reduced to 3.75 piculs after hulling etc. Thus Crown Rent 14% of total crop. For best land, 52.5 catty equivalent, Crown Rent against total crop of 5.38 piculs = 10%. 2nd class land, Crown Rent at sale price of price = 35 catty per tau. If average land at Wong Chuk Yeung is assumed to be 2nd class, then 35 catty Crown Rent for total crop of 2.33 piculs = 15% of total crop.\n\nHowever, in addition to the Crown Rent for the agricultural lands, the fields had to bear the Crown Rent of houses each house paid $50.\n\nFor a basic family requirement viz.\n\nTai Wai good average land, small family 2.5 tau plus one house, each tau would have to bear $20 of house Crown Rent, making total Crown Rent per tau 52.5 + 20 = 72.5 = sale price 72.5 catty which equals 19% of total crop sale value. Tai Wai best land, small family 1.6 tau plus one house, each tau would have to bear $31.25 of house Crown Rent, making total Crown Rent per 1 tau 52.5 + 31.25 = 83.75 = sale price of 83.75 catty which equals 12% of total crop sale value. Wong Chuk Yeung good average land small family 3.6 tau plus one house each tau would have to bear $14 of house Crown Rent, making total Crown Rent per tau $35 + 14 = 49 sale price of 49 catty which equals 20% of total crop sale value. Thus the burden of Crown Rent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209918, "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-1983", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "155\n\ngovernment in Taiwan. In the textile industry, there were the left-wing Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing Trade Workers General Union and the right-wing Cotton Industry Workers General Union. Together they had unionized just 18 percent of the textile workers in 1971 (England and Rear 1975: 89-90). The numerical weakness and political affiliations of the unions permitted the spinners to dismiss them as a nuisance. A12 did not hide his annoyance:\n\n'Unions are not bad. There should be real unions so that workers' opinions can be expressed. But they should be separated from politics. In Hong Kong, it is difficult. Unions are not fighting for the welfare of their members. Some years ago, several union representatives came to talk to me. They were not making any demands, but just stating principles. They made several suggestions about welfare provisions. I told them these were already instituted in the mill. They said this was not proper and that the suggestions should come from the unions. At present, there are two unions in our mill, and I absolutely refuse to talk to them.'\n\nThe second rationalization was that the workers were uneducated, with the implication that they could not look after their own interests. Thus A19 asserted:\n\n'There are unions in Hong Kong, but workers' educational levels are not high enough. There should be consultations, but the workers cannot come before management, because they do not have sufficient education.'\n\nBy this the spinners seemed to be maintaining that their authority was legitimized by superior knowledge and cultivation, an age-old Chinese assumption traceable to Mencius' dictum that those who worked with their mind ruled others while those who worked with their hands were to be ruled by others.\n\nFrom the actual practice of joint consultation in the mills, it is clear that there is a more fundamental albeit unstated reason for their resistance to the idea of trade unionism. This is that they did not welcome the idea of workers' representatives. This might provide the clue to understand their rejection of organizational conflict in favour of harmony. Richard Solomon has suggested", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210167, "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-1984", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "117\n\nmight, then, depend on the existence of a local junk trade. Such a trade existed east and west of the island, before and after British rule, and though it cannot be proved that they did act in this way, there were certainly fearful attacks outside the Lyemun Passage in the 1840s and after, with piratical craft from or operating out of Shau Kei Wan blamed among others.11 At the least, the town's shopkeepers probably victualled pirates and helped to sell or dispose of stolen goods.\n\n41\n\nAn experienced official wrote at a later time:\n\n\"Previous to 1866, Piracy in Colonial and neighbouring waters was of common occurrence, and Shau Kei Wan bore a very bad name as the centre where Junks fitted out for piratical purposes. Its close proximity to the Lyemun Pass enabled Masters of heavily manned and armed Junks to follow vessels that had been ascertained to have opium, or other valuable cargo, on board. These were too frequently come up with and attacked at night, stinkpots and arms of all descriptions being freely used.\" Governor MacDonell's \"notice was [then] attracted to the unenviable character Hong Kong bore as a Pirate resort.1,42\n\nThe demands of agriculture and shopkeeping, and the pleasures of occasional or indirect piracy apart, the main pursuits of Hong Kong at the time of its cession were the production and export of granite building slabs and the trade in fish, landed by fishing vessels at the coastal market villages, and there dried and salted, and then graded, warehoused and subsequently shipped out to major centres of population in the surrounding and adjacent parts of China. Quotations from contemporary sources confirm the position. Charles Gutzlaff, Prussian missionary and civil servant, holding at the time the appointment of Chinese Secretary to the Government of Hong Kong, wrote in 1846:\n\n\"The only produce of Hong Kong, for exportation, is granite, and, though a very contemptible article, still it employs many hands, a great number of boats, each about 70 to 100 tons, and some capital. There are seldom less than a hundred of the above craft which monthly leave this with a full cargo for the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210485, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "73\n\nHand-liners\n\nThe hand-liners in Kau Sai were few in number and uniformly poor. Their boats, which had all been acquired second- or third-hand (or even older) were of the same general type as the blunt-nosed long-liners, and had a similar layout of holds and deck space. Three of them had no sails, their crews relying solely upon the 'yuloh' for propulsion. Hand-lining was often practised by purse-seiners and long-liners too, sometimes seriously for business, sometimes simply for the sport. Two fishermen in Kau Sai specialised in trapping fish, but not exclusively. One was also a specialist long-liner with a sharp-nosed boat, the other a hand-liner. Apart from the fact that from time to time their decks were piled high with home-made rattan traps they did not differ from those already described.\n\n\"House boats\"\n\nAlthough all the boats normally anchoring in Kau Sai were sea-worthy, a small number were in fact more or less permanently at their moorings. These were all old boats, capable of movement when required but only very occasionally used for fishing operations either because they were considered too frail or because their owners could not work them regularly. They included two small hand-lining type boats owned by men employed as hired hands on Kau Sai-based purse-seiners and housing their wives and children. (These two were actually often in Sai Kung where the women used them to bring in a small extra income as ferry sampans). There was also a pair of old purse-seiners belonging to two brothers who after several years' bad luck were in 1952 reduced to hand-lining and making-do with part-time employment and occasional partnerships with other purse-seiners. (By 1970 their luck had changed: one junk had been sold and a newer one bought second-hand in its place had been mechanised with the help of a loan from the F.M.O.). Two of the hand-liners were also in fact little more than family residences, their owners being incapacitated: the one by blindness, the other by the recent death of the only adult male. (By 1970 the blind man and his wife were dead and their tenth and only surviving child, having been in and out of gaol several times", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210821, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "155\n\nDr. Legge arrived at Malacca in 1840 as a young missionary teacher. He came having read the glowing reports of the school's progress written by its Principal. Dr. Legge expected to find a school of high standards on the lines set forth in Dr. Morrison's original prospectus. What he came to was something quite different.\n\nWhile the school operated under the name of a college, it was actually little more than an elementary school.\n\nDr. Legge was critical. This naturally did not endear him to his superior, the Rev. John Evans, the man who had been in charge of the school for more than six years.\n\nMr. Evans attributed the criticisms to the inexperience and brashness of a young man unacquainted with the local situation.\n\nBut Dr. Legge was not the only person to criticise.\n\nA Singapore missionary wrote to his board in America: “They have made much noise and excited large expectations as to the prospects of usefulness of the college. A strange sort of reserve and mystery was kept up about the Establishment. Part of this has probably been due to the haughty manner and uncourteous deportment of Mr. Evans.”\n\nOne of Mr. Evans' innovations was to prohibit the students from visiting their homes. He felt that if they were away from the school even for a brief time, they would be exposed to bad influences.\n\nThe principal of a missionary boarding school at Singapore thought Mr. Evans' policy very unwise as it ran counter to traditional Chinese practice.\n\nHe explained: “The ties which bind parents and children together cannot be rudely torn asunder, where they are as fully developed as they are among the Chinese, without great danger to the child. Should the boys ever become able to think for themselves, and have the Bible in their hands, they will find it difficult to respect the authors of such a system.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211424, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "116\n\nhad to postpone its Christmas celebrations by a week, and that several Kauluwela boys were unsuccessful in their attempt to enter high school. After a quarantine of a week, the disease was considered stamped out. Ping Lim and Ting On, both of whom were attending Oahu College, were on a three-week vacation then.\n\nIn a letter dated 20 February 1900, Ping Lim wrote:\n\n\"My dear brother Ping Yip Chan:- On account of the great distance between town and our residing place in Moanalua and the inconvenience of getting your letter at once which came to me on Tuesday afternoon, the 14th of Feb., when the steamer was about to leave, I did not answer you immediately. You are, no doubt, wondering why I am in Moanalua. The cause was that S. M. Damon was afraid that his brother F. W. Damon's residence and the school might burn down in case one of our members should have attached the plague, and also the school's neighbourhood is in a very bad condition. So we moved to a small island owned by S. M. Damon, which is near to the 3 mi. water pumping tank, and borrowed six tents from the Kamehameha School to make our chambers. Four of them used for us, sixty in number, and one for the three teachers, and one for a food storeroom. You may think it is crowded but there the ocean wind is pretty strong. At first we expected to live there one week or two, but after having been there a week the news reached us, stating that several Chinamen working in the Pantheon stables, which are adjacent to our school, have died of plague and so these buildings were soon turned to ashes. Afterwards the whole block in which we live was said to be infected and a rough fence has been built around the block. The people of this spot have been put under quarantine. Had we not made the move we are surely in quarantine.\n\nNow I must turn to another important subject. Well, you have told me that the burning of Chinatown is the most cruel act that was done to our Chinese by the whites. No, the properties destroying itself was not so half bad as to see our ignorant helpless bind-footed Chinese women and babies crying and running forcibly for their lives on the streets, when the unexpected fire came. More than this, some few women who were about to let their babies out to earth were pushed to the drays which took them to quarantine. While during these hours it has been said that some births have occurred. Of course the Chinamen were driven like cattle by the inspectors who carried stakes or some other beating instruments in their hands. After that the men and women, numbering several thousand, were taken to the Kawaiahau Church and grounds. The women lived inside the church while the men outside on the grounds with tents. I am sorry to say that father, brother and in-law's whole family were among these people. During their residing in the church, I went to see father every day, asking if there was anything wanting. Many articles and foods have been taken there by our store partners. But after having been in there for a week they were driven to Kalihi just a little below the Kamehameha School where a great number of new rough rooms have been set up. In Kalihi's I can't see any of our known people to talk with there. All I can do is to send letters to them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211688, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "78\n\nextensively damaged; and close range fighting never actually reached us. The Japanese (as we discovered later) never actually located the two field gun batteries though they could tell their approximate position. They also seemed to suspect that something was concealed in the woods running down the valley from the Peak to Pokfulam, so this area was fairly intensively searched. So there was a rain of trench mortar and field gun shells and of air bombs (both high explosive and incendiary) all round us, and sufficient direct hits on the block of flats itself as well as near misses to make things unpleasant.\n\nThe Japanese landed on the Island on December 18th-19th and we had hardly absorbed this unpleasant information when we learnt that they had already crossed the hills and were in Aberdeen and Repulse Bay, thus cutting the island in two. On the morning of Christmas Day the Police sent round an urgent warning that the situation on the Peak was critical and that everyone who could move should go down the hill. Mrs. Witham and her baby got a lift in what must have been the last car to get through but there was no room for my wife and myself, and as we could not walk we had to stay where we were. Our fellow evacuees struggled down to Pokfulam and the servants disappeared so we were left alone in the flat. Our situation was, however, not so bad as it sounds, as there was a Police post in the same block of flats and the Police were very helpful during the following days in getting food and water for us. Hongkong surrendered on Christmas afternoon and the fighting, so far as we saw it, ended with a heavy burst of fire about 5 p.m. from one of our own anti-aircraft guns posted on one of the adjacent islands which was in Japanese hands.\n\nThe troops in our neighbourhood gradually collected, firing off their ammunition, blowing up batteries and dumps and making bonfires of stores. There were so many stores that if we had been mobile my wife and I could have provisioned ourselves comfortably. Even as it was, we got some tins of biscuits, jam and other odds and ends which came in very useful during the next fortnight. The troops were marched off to internment next morning but it was not until late that evening that we saw our first Japanese, when a Gendarmerie post was established in a nearby building. There followed a very disagreeable period. Though the Japanese established Gendarmerie posts here and there they seemed to make no serious effort to patrol the Peak area effectively, and it was in consequence being very thoroughly looted by bands of Chinese. The Japanese themselves were also very troublesome. Though the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211958, "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": 373, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "348\n\nD. The Taoist Priests and Their Rites\n\nThe Taoist priests who performed the rites in this festival were hired on a contract basis. More than ten of them were involved, among whom four were in a senior position. The oldest of the four, Mr. Lam Pui, born before 1910, was from the New Territories. Another, Mr. Jeung Hoi, was from a village just across the present Chinese border. Mr. Lam Choi was probably from the New Territories too. Both were born about 1920. These three had been active as ritual experts in the area since when they were young, and had been in leading positions at least in the last few decades. The four had all performed in the 1965 celebration of the Kam Tin jiu festival. The other senior priest, Mr. Chan Gau, was from Sa Jeng in the western area of Bao'an county. He had come to Hong Kong more than ten years ago and since then has worked in the New Territories. Mr. Leung Tung, though not a priest by profession, had been working with this group of priests as a musician, and had trained in an early stage of his career in ceremonial music bands in the Bak Bin villages. Chan Gau, Jeung Hoi and Lam Pui were the partners who undertook to provide the priestly services on this occasion, and the other members of the team were hired to help.\n\nBesides the three-times daily Scripture chanting and small processions to make offerings at different spots, the priests performed about 20 rites in the festival. About ten of them were more elaborate and were considered to be the main ones.\n\nEach of the four senior priests took the leading role in different rites. Mr. Lam Pui, being the oldest and the most knowledgeable, acted as the high priest in most of the main rites, including the Opening Rite, the Purification of the Ritual Area, the Posting of the Placard, the Escort of the Holy Ones, and the Great Offering to Ghosts. Mr. Chan Gau, being younger and good at acrobatic feats, took care of the more martial rituals: the martial arts section of the Purification of the Ritual Area, and Going through the Gates of Life and Death, and headed the team for the Dipper Rite. Mr. Jeung Hoi acted as the main priest in some of the other important rites. Mr. Lam Choi, partly because he was not one of the partners, played secondary roles. The morning, noon-time, and afternoon Scripture chanting and offerings were performed by the more junior members of the team, as were the short concluding rites on the last day.\n\n60\n\nAlthough the rites differ one from another, there were many elements", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212581, "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-1991", "page_number": 135, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "115\n\nmanifestion of poverty to symbolise the family has sold everything to pay for an elaborate funeral. Two hanging bands of the attire are left of different lengths to imply the mourner is distraught and does not know how to tie it properly. Women do not make-up.\n\nFor Chinese Christian funerals family mourners wear black gowns, but it is not a 'good' colour as it absorbs bad luck. When Chinese wear a black necktie they often remove it as soon as they can after the service.\n\nThe dead person in this study, who for major events such as birthdays used the Chinese calendar, knew she was born in the year of the ram but she was never sure in which year of the western calendar she was born. Because she used Chinese reckoning she was one year 'older' than if she had used the Gregorian calendar. In addition, on death, three years are usually added, 'one each for heaven, earth and mankind (天 · 人 · 地). A little subterfuge regarding age seems justified. It increases importance at one's destiny. Emphasis is placed on prolongation of age and symbols of longevity are many. They include the peach, crane and tortoise. The God of Longevity is sometimes depicted riding a deer. Because in this study the deceased was around 70 it was described as a 'happy funeral' (喜事).\n\nBy midnight all had left the funeral parlour except the three daughters, two granddaughters and two amahs (maids) who kept vigil, taking naps on the floor or on chairs. In the past gongs were banged throughout the night to keep away evil spirits. Noise restrictions today prohibit this. Although all-night vigils are not common in England now, they are still practised in eastern European countries and among those, for example, of Lithuanian descent in Scotland. Wakes are also held in Ireland, often accompanied by card playing, drinking and jollifications in an adjoining room.\n\nFuneral Day\n\nThe same as the previous day visitors paid respects, some early, shortly afterwards leaving for work. Later, the hall filled for the service. Day and time were important, as with other events concerning mourning. The Chinese Imperial Calendar and Almanac (usually known as Tung Sing(通勝) meaning 'know everything book') was consulted. Some editions of this sell a million copies a year. Dating back before 2205 BC, it is said to be the oldest, continuous publication in the world.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212583, "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-1991", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "|17\n\nstorey, basically domestic, accommodation in crowded, busy Kowloon, The eldest daughter, in the front seat of the car, carried the enlarged photograph of Mother in her 'spirit shrine' (jing tong), made from coloured paper stretched over a bamboo frame. A short ceremony was held at 'Pine Shade Hall' with two Buddhist nuns in attendance. Pine is an emblem of longevity.\" It frightens away evil, such as ghouls that prey on corpses.\n\nLater, a meal with three tables (about 12 people to a standard Chinese round table) was provided at a nearby restaurant. A place was filled at intervals. It was the first time relatives had eaten meat for two days.\n\nIt is bad luck to return to the funeral parlour on the same day (to retrieve something left behind, say) and it is not propitious to go straight home. One should 'leave' the bad luck elsewhere. All close relatives, however, were given a piece of bright red cloth, about eight inches square, cut from the shroud. This they still keep as souvenirs.\n\n28\n\nBecause of congestion long funeral corteges with pedestrians, some in good spirits, and close relatives and professional mourners weeping unashamedly, are no longer allowed. Up to the late 1960s when these were still common, an elaborately carved, nine-foot high funeral chair with a portrait of the deceased would lead the procession followed by the hearse.29 Large bamboo and wicker frames covered with silver and blue papers and flowers, with characters reading, for example, ‘Funeral of Wong Family', and describing the dead person's outstanding characteristics, would also be shouldered by coolies or transported on tricycles. The names of the three genial Gods of Happiness, Wealth and Longevity, Fuk, Luk and Shau, would also sometimes be displayed as would names of donors. Chinese bands, some engaged by friends to proffer condolences, played western hymns: like Abide with Me, or pop tunes such as Polly-wolly Doodle all the Day. Paper scatterers left trails for souls to find their way back home.\n\n28\n\nThe cortege of Kwok Acheong, who died in 1880, was supposed to have taken one hour and 13 minutes to pass. The author recalls a quarter-mile long cortege in 1956, with 16 separate bands and musicians' uniforms ranging from white-waiter-style, to Salvation Army blue, to Confederate grey. The procession completed one circuit of Happy Valley before stopping at the then Colonial Cemetery gate. On such occasions newspapers recorded, \"The funeral passed the Monument at such a time.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212779, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "73\n\nmany Miao, a number of whom wished to live in peace and had offered allegiance to the Imperial Force. Meanwhile the Miao rebels who were constructing stockades on the mountain sides above Chung-an prior to attempting to destroy the Imperial Force, were able to observe the C-in-C's headquarters together with Imperial reinforcements and supplies arrive from Ma-ping-bah.\n\nThe Szechuan Force's next objective was the city of Ch'ing-p'ing Hsien some 20 miles away, on the far side of the river. Despite having been in rebel hands for the previous eighteen years it was captured without too much difficulty though the Imperial Force had had a tough time for a day or so repelling Miao counter-attacks.\n\nThe C-in-C of the Szechuan Force sent a proposal to the C-in-C of the Hunan Force suggesting that the Szechuanese should advance on one side of the river Chung-an with the Hunan Force advancing up the other and, as the Hunanese had gunboats, they could also advance up the river itself.\n\nMeanwhile, and here Mesny's chronology is questionable, in early May 1869 the Ko-i Brigade advanced on Ch'ing-p'ing Hsien and prepared to storm the thirteen Miao stockades on the Tieh-chang Po heights above the town. Eventually after a fierce struggle and capture of the stockades, the Ko-i Brigade awaited the approach of the Hunan Force which should have been taking the next mountain range at the same time. Mid-afternoon on the day of the assault on the stockades, as the Hunanese had not appeared, the Ko-i Brigade withdrew to their camp in Chung-an, only to learn that the Hunan Force after initial successes had been badly defeated at Wu-ku Lung.\n\nThe Szechuan Force then remained comparatively inactive in Chung-an for the next seventeen months, until November 1870.\n\nMeanwhile, during the summer of 1869, Miao rebel forces had defeated the Kueichou provincial Force at Tu-yün Fu which left the Szechuan Force undefeated but out on a limb with both flanks exposed by the defeat of the Hunan Force on one side and the defeat of the Kueichou Force on the other. The emergence of a new Miao rebel chieftain threatened the Szechuan Force whilst at the same time the lines of communication between the Szechuan Force and the provincial capital at Kuei-yang and the rear base at Tsun-i were in danger of being cut.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213070, "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "119\n\nhe was asked to come down from his cave to pray for rain. As he arrived the clouds opened and sufficient rain fell ending the lengthy drought. The grateful populace insisted that he should stay with them and many wanted to build him a house. However, he returned to his cave which he named Clearwater Cliff [Ch'ing-shui Yen] from the brook that flowed from a rock just outside his cave. Henceforth he was known as the Patriarch of Clearwater He died at the age of 65\n\nA third story, common to a number of deities, tells of Ch'en killing with his bare hands a large man-eating snake which lived in a cave on Ch'ing-shui cliff. He himself died in the struggle and turned black In another version he is said to have a black face following an incident in which a demon unsuccessfully tried to smoke Ch'ing-shui out of his cave, or in another variation the demons tried to cook him alive in his cave. He stepped out alive, arrested the demons and imprisoned them for ever in his cave He was later deified by the Jade Emperor Ch'ing-shui is also said to have been hermit in a cave called Ch'ing-shui in a cliff on the P'eng-lai mountain near Anhsi where, on his death, devotees built a shrine dedicated to him on the ridge above the cave.\n\nThe story told about his unusual nose has one or two variations but in general it relates how a robber cut off the nose from his main image in a fit of anger. It was picked up by one of the devotees who tried to reattach it but without warning, the nose disappeared After a short search someone noticed that it was now reattached. It is now said that whenever the deity is angered the nose disappears until his anger dissipates During the Franco-Chinese War [1884/1885] following the defeat of the French at Keelung in northern Taiwan, part of the invading force retreated to the old centre at Tamsui. The French troops were again repulsed by the Chinese under Sun Kai-hua who was assisted by local Chinese from the Manka district [now down-town Taipei] who brought along an image of their patron deity, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih. This led to a fifty year struggle in the law courts between the Chinese of Tamsui and those in the Manka as the Tamsui people had held on to the image refusing to return it. The Manka Chinese won in the end. The image is also known as the Drop-nose saint [Lo-pi Tsu-shih] after the nose on the image in the temple fell off every time something bad was said in his presence\n\nHe is famous for his extraordinary powers and is said to have been able to have conjured up rain during his lifetime whenever there was a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213267, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "69\n\nthe views expressed right at the start of this paper by Dr Ernest J. Eitel, sometimes titled Hong Kong's first historian and for some time a Hong Kong civil servant, were by no means unusual.\n\nToday, far more empathy is shown towards Chinese culture in general by Westerners. For instance, many Caucasian firms believe aquariums enrich the fung shu of an office. It is not just Chinese who can relax, Westerners will tell you, when they lie back and watch fish swimming. It gives everyone a special feeling and lowers their blood pressure by a few degrees.\n\nOf course, certain rules have to be followed. The number of fish kept is often six or nine. Three multiplied by three equals nine (a lucky number); and a homonym of three, in Cantonese, sounds similar to the character meaning 'lively'. Because of colour symbolism, one fish may be black (a Black Molly), another reddish (a goldfish), and the rest any other colour. Because the fish are supposed to act as a shield against bad fung shui, sometimes a fish dies. But better a dead fish than a dead customer.\n\nHigher up the hill above Central District, at the Albany in Albany Road, residents were concerned about the 70-storey, new, People's Republic Bank of China Building 'giving off vibes'. They feared the sharp edges of its structure with their negative forces would menace the abode of some of Hong Kong's rich and famous. In the West, the new Bank of China building would perhaps be described as 'ominous', 'overshadowing' or 'overpowering'. Many Chinese, however, liken the sharp edges of the Bank of China to a knife pointed at, or arrows cast at, Government House and Central Government Offices, namely, the heart of the British Colonial Administration. These 'weapons', together with the flyovers close to Government House, tie the decision-making hands of the British Governor and threaten the prosperity of Hong Kong. The fung shui 'dragon vein', with the dragon's head turned to face its ancestors, serpents down from Victoria Peak, close to the Albany, concealed by a carpet of vegetation. It passes close to the Albany apartments. The dragon thrusts and turns as the topography changes. The earth surges with natural energy. Chinese dragons are more serpent-like and sinuous than those in the West. And, as the vein gathers strength, it proceeds vigorously on to the 'dragon sites'\n\nsuch as the home of the Governor and down to the Hong Kong Bank. It then dips into the harbour, the 'dragon's lair'. Although now the slope up the Peak is largely obscured by high-rise buildings, on some hills and\n\n70", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213273, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "75\n\nThe Ley, common too in Scottish and fish cultures, also includes 'black energy lines' which are harmful, like the malevolent forces (sha chi) that exist in Chinese fung shui. They manifest themselves in bitter winds that blow from a corner of a building facing a railway track or telephone lines, or a straight watercourse with bad fung shui. These can affect both physical and mental health and cause misery.\n\nLike fung shui 'veins', ley lines are believed by many to entwine with vital life forces and the mysteries of hidden earth energies. Some believe they can be sensed by the psychic when driving over them in a car. Both fung shui and the ley have sometimes been styled as examples of the 'great nature religions'.\n\nAustralian Songlines\n\nIn Australia, the aboriginals follow wandering, invisible 'dream paths' to honour spirits of the land. These were once the routes of their nomadic ancestors. Trade is said to follow the same paths, some of which are only 'visible' at sunrise. The religious duty of the aboriginals is to travel the land and to reach back in time and space. There is some resemblance between Australian 'songlines' and ley lines in Britain.\n\nA few etymologists will tell you that the first language was, in fact, song (Chatwin, 1987, 61). And, wherever men have trodden, they have left a trail of song. Nomadic aboriginal 'ancestor beings' created the 'dreaming tracks', 'memory palaces' (Edwards, 1990; 12) and the songlines as they moved across the Australian landscape (Cundy, 1994). They left a trail of, so-called, 'life-cells' or 'spirit-children' along the 'lines of force' and footprints linked to particular points and sacred sites in the landscape. To these, souls are tied. A pile of rocks represents the eggs of a rainbow snake. A boulder of red sandstone symbolises the liver of a kangaroo.\n\nDowsing\n\nThe Bible tells us Moses used a rod to discover water. Dowsing (as used to detect water, minerals, metals, and hidden treasure) employs a form of latent or sixth sense in which rods, pendulums, or forked sticks (commonly of hazel, willow, or peach) are held in the hands to measure energies emanating from the earth. Even coat hangers, pitchforks, and bones have been used on occasions. Man's natural dowsing ability may be likened...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214035, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "70\n\nDing wu mainly came from the trust's cash dividends and from compensation for resumption of his private lands. As mentioned, in 1981 he received about two hundred thousand dollars as compensation for the government's resumption of his over 2,000 square feet of agricultural land. And since the 1980s, he and his family members have been granted about six hundred thousand dollars from their ancestral trusts. These two cases reveal that cash compensations for land resumption has become the Pangs' major financial sources to support the building of the ding wu.\n\nIn short, the Pangs' building applications were not large in the late 1970s because not many of the villagers could afford the construction costs. But from the 1980s on, their improved financial conditions had increased the applications rapidly, and thereby a set of newly-defined criteria was later introduced in the selection process.\n\nDing wu: Its Economic and Social Values\n\nBy and large, the ding wu built in the late 1970s and the early 1980s were rented out. One villager rented his house to an outsider after it was built. He moved into the ground floor only after marriage, and the second floor was still being rented to a couple, at $4,000 a month in 1994. Another village rented it to some American missionaries in the mid-1980s and the monthly rent was around $1,300 to $1,500. The rent was still less than $2,500 a month per floor in 1993, and was finally raised to $4,500 per month in 1994. He emphasised that he did not care much about the rental income and his only concern is that the house should not be left unoccupied. This is because the villagers had uncomfortable and bad feelings about empty houses (xiong wu in Cantonese is homophonic with the meaning of a haunted house). In fact, the Pangs could generate rental income from their ding wu; yet their low rents indicate that at that time, building ding wu was not considered as a very profitable investment. And the Pangs simply did not have any intention in the 1970s to make huge profits from the sales of this housing.\n\nHowever, the boom of real estate market since the 1980s has been changing the meaning of building ding wu. More urban people are willing to rent village houses, particularly the ding wu, in the New Territories because of their lower rent. For instance, in 1995 the rent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214572, "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-1998", "page_number": 430, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "399\n\nAN UNUSUAL AND EXTRAORDINARY ANCESTRAL IMAGE\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nI wrote about Hunanese wooden ancestral images in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 18, 1978, when I explained that there were a number of such images on sale in curio shops in Hong Kong's Hollywood Road. Each represented an ancestor and usually took the form of an elderly or middle-aged man or woman often identified by a slip of red paper concealed in an opening in the back, sealed with a tight-fitting bung. Nearly all were impersonal figures, though several were well-carved portrait images. Since 1978, many more have appeared on the market, and even more have been seen in places as far afield as Yangshuo in Kuangsi province and Chengtu in Szechuan province, the majority still being identified by the red slip as having originated in Hunan province.\n\nRecently I acquired a most unusual image, portraying a hunter. His red slip gave little detail, merely listing his relatives who had ordered the image to be carved. It is presumably Hunanese, probably an ancestral image which can be dated very roughly by the iconographic detail and the copper coins concealed with the red slip within the cavity in the back. It stands some 11 inches high and has lost all of its original paint apart from minute lumps of non-chemical paint in crevices within the deep carving.\n\nHe is portrayed standing, facing half right, holding a muzzle-loading flint lock to his shoulder in both hands, and aiming it at an unknown prey. He is accompanied by a small dog which is also pointing at the same prey. The hunter is dressed in a jacket buttoned down the front with some five loop and cloth 'buttons', with a pouch at the waist at the front, a powder horn at the waist on his left side, and a further bag again at the waist at the back. He is wearing open-toed sandals and a standard peasant cloth cap.\n\nThe base of the image is decorated on three of the four faces with pictures of the hunt, animals such as the small deer brought down, a running rodent-like creature, and a rabbit. The fourth side of the base,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215081, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "134\n\nQuadrants of the 28 Heavenly Constellations, the image of Chen Wu [Xuan Wu], as Lord of the North, was usually to be seen on altars, usually in Daoist monastery or temple entrance halls, together with the Azure Dragon [Qing Long] of the East, the Vermilion Bird [Zhu Qiao] of the South and the White Tiger [Bai Hu] of the West, where they were the guardians.\n\nAlthough Tai Sui is the Minister of Time, another major deity, Fu Xi, has been credited not only with the establishment of kingly rule, of marriage laws, but also the computation of time by inventing a form of calendar using a knotted cord. The Eight Trigrams [bagua] are attributed to him as well as the development of a system of fortune telling using these trigrams which has governed the lives of a great many Chinese ever since.\n\nYang Ren\n\nThere is ambiguity over the rôles of the two deities, Yin Jiao and Yang Ren. In the very early days, before the emergence of the concept of the stems, the twelve branches were represented by images of the deities of the year with all twelve portrayed on altars in temples, especially in northern China where they were regarded as an entity commanded by Yang Ren. Later, when the Sixty Spirits of Taisui, that is the sixty cyclic deities, replaced the Twelve, they too were commanded by Yang Ren - or by Yin Jiao depending on local legend. According to the Fengshen Yanyi Yang Ren is the Jiazi Taisui [the first of the sixty combinations] and is known as Jiazi Taisui Zhengshen.\n\nXIE. [see photograph 4: with small hands emerging from the eye sockets] whilst Yin Jiao, as we have seen above, was identified in the same historical novel as the President of the Ministry of Time. Though we have accepted Yin Jiao as the President of the Ministry and Yang Ren being the identity of the primary Taisui, the picture is far from conclusive.\n\nThe Ten Stems and Twelve Branches have been represented in human form in a number of temples but, as far as can be ascertained, none has been connected with the Lord of Time, Taisui. One of two side walls of the main hall of a temple near Pingyang in Shanxi province representing the Lord of the Northern Dipper, Zhen Wu, contains 13th century frescoes depicting ten figures. These represent five of the Ten", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215825, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "57\n\nbut it was harder to replace soldiers with combat experience.\n\nBecause the weather changes from day to day, so must the extent to which it could influence the approval or rejection of a certain operation in war. Hong Kong's weather, as formidable as it was, could not by itself determine if it merited recapture or not. Nor could any objective's weather be the lone factor. If it was, then many of the war's campaigns would not have taken place. If the control of a specific territory was judged crucial, then the powers concerned would do anything within their capacity to seize or retain it.\n\nNo place in the world has perfect weather at any time of the year. In Hong Kong's case, its worst weather occurs during the middle of the year. Had a Hong Kong operation taken place, Allied planners would have naturally preferred that it take place towards the end of the year. That would give the Allies up to six months of relatively trouble-free weather with which to work.\" A Hong Kong operation was bound to include amphibious landings, and these were very susceptible to bad weather. It was important for the Allies to gain at least a foothold on land, as it would give a political and psychological boost to the Allied war effort, as well as put them in a better position militarily vis-à-vis Japan. The China Coast was a perimeter within Japan's empire, and any breach made here would accelerate Japan's demise. So that first foothold was vital, just as it was equally vital for the Japanese to prevent it. In Japan's history, foul weather had worked in her favour when she had to defend against an amphibious invasion, so it wasn't unprecedented for the weather to play a decisive role in war. For the Allies, the last thing they would want was to see a Hong Kong operation in progress be thwarted by a non-human entity like the weather. Such a contest would be a no-win situation for the Allies.\n\nIn the end, the Allies never carried out any landings on any port on the China Coast. Their destruction of the IJN and blockade of Japan by sea and air was so complete that they didn't have to worry about the Japanese in China, which remained a secondary theatre at the end of the war. Hong Kong's weather was never specifically mentioned as a factor, but was probably on the minds of some Allied planners after the poundings their navies had taken in the last months of the war. Hong Kong returned to British, and eventually Chinese, rule, and was fortunate to have not undergone a destructive campaign for it to change hands again.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216093, "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": 392, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "326\n\nso \"starchy\" and where you did not have to dress for dinner. French ships called at Saigon and Jibuti and the voyage ended at Marseilles. Italian ships berthed at Genoa. Other passengers preferred freighters. These were more relaxed still and life was not so \"organised.” Not more than 12 passengers were allowed or there had to be a doctor on board. Whereas most airports look similar, with a freighter you called at interesting, out-of-the-way little ports, each with its own special smell. By freighter, the journey from Britain to Hong Kong could take up seven or eight weeks. Halcyon days indeed!\n\nHong Kong\n\nto\n\nWhen I arrived in Hong Kong World War Two had ended less than a decade before. Yet some Britons living here still believed there were two kinds of expatriates. There were those who had been “in the bag\" (prison camp) (where, in Stanley for example, some of my younger friends were born) and, secondly, those of us who came to Hong Kong after the War. The fact that some of us in the second group had seen more action than many of those who had been interned did not really count as far as old Hong Hands were concerned.\n\nThe camaraderie which develops when people face danger or privation together came to the fore when I received a ticket for parking in King's Road. When I later told my old boss he said, 'Pity: the case has gone too far now. If you'd told me earlier I could have got it quashed.\" My boss had a friend, a senior police officer, who had been in prison camp with him.\n\nIn 1954, Hong Kong's population was something like two-and-a-half million, compared with 600,000 at the end of the War. Immigrants were coming here from China in frantic attempts to evade communism. Accommodation was terribly overcrowded with people in some cases sleeping, on a shift basis, three to a bunk. With China all but cut off from the rest of the world we had lost our entrepôt trade and,\n\nwith backs to the wall, it was a case of export or starve. There was considerable unemployment.\n\nReligion was burgeoning although many were said to be 'rice Christians.' Namely, joining for the handouts. People knew life in Hong Kong was not perfect. But it was a jolly sight better than living", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216097, "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": 396, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "330\n\nthe long queue. After a few words from him and a few glares from odd people lined up, formalities were completed. My barging in seemed, more or less, to have been accepted.\n\nIn January 1955, I remember going to a new workshop which was being built for the government Public Works Department at So Kon Po, on Hong Kong Island. There, old women were straightening nails, for reuse, which had been knocked out of timber formwork into which concrete was poured. They were paid $1.50 a day. Tradesmen were paid $5.00.\n\nWhat were my other impressions of the winter of 1954/55? I could not get over how crystal clear the sky was as I stood on Hong Kong Island gazing northward over the Kowloon foothills. Leading on, jumping to 1964, businessman K.A. Watson of the Traffic Advisory Committee, said: 'Hong Kong might one day have a smog problem as bad as Los Angeles unless action is taken to eliminate vehicle exhaust fumes.' No one took much notice.\n\nIn those days if one spoke of 'the Government' one meant the one in Whitehall. But if one wrote 'government,' with no definite article and a small 'g,' then one meant the administration in Hong Kong. Interestingly, during the 1957/58 legislative year, only one question was asked in the Legislative Council among the eight unofficial (non-government) Councillors and they only, between them, made a total of 12 speeches.\n\nHong Kong was a pretty colonial place in those days and there was always a military parade with bands marching along the streets of Kowloon on the morning of 21st April. It was a public holiday and the Queen's Birthday. It was a jingoistic occasion with a few Britons carrying furled umbrellas and wearing bowler hats. In the 1950s the Murray Parade Ground was regularly used, near the Garden Road-Queen's Road corner, opposite the cricket field where Chater Garden is situated today.\n\nWe went into \"whites\" on about 1st May and this, for most of us in government at least, meant shorts with shirts tucked in and knee-length socks. We changed back to heavy clothing on about 1st November. My old boss, typical of the more senior, used to come down on the Peak", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216103, "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": 402, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "336\n\nGovernment servants completed four-year tours up until the early 1960s. When we went on leave, being seen off was a grand occasion. One would normally organise a reception for a number of friends. They boarded the ship. Occasionally, there was a bit of gate crashing by people known as \"professional see'ers off\" who enjoyed the company and a few free drinks.\n\nBrass bands would play Auld Lang Syne on the quay and paper streamers would be thrown to friends on shore. As the ship pulled away the streamers would break and the \"umbilical cord\" would be severed, as it were. After a four-year tour a government servant would earn something like seven months leave plus 30 days travelling each way. That meant you were away from the colony for about nine months. Being seen off was an important affair for Chinese too and, in the 1950s when the growing of rice was not profitable any more and the \"vegetable revolution\" was underway, many New Territories' Chinese made their way to England to work in restaurants. On being seen off just about the entire village would sometimes turn out!\n\nOn one occasion I was on leave in England and a fellow passenger on a train spotted my suitcase. 'Ah,' he said, 'you're from Hong Kong. Tell me. Do they still put paint on with their hands?' I had to admit that painters stick their woollen-gloved hand into a pot of paint when they paint metal railings and the like. They still do. It's labour saving. It's surprising what people remember about Hong Kong after they have left.\n\nPestilence\n\nThe colony was not a healthy place in its young days and many expatriates died young, as a wander through what we used to call the Colonial Cemetery (now the Hong Kong Cemetery) in Happy Valley reveals. There were cases of bubonic plague up until the 1920s with an especially bad epidemic in 1894. There was a worrying outbreak of cholera in the early summer of 1961. Stalls were manned by nurses in the street, for example by the Star Ferry. There was no wasting of time and no paperwork. All you did was roll up your sleeve. Now, from the days of pestilence and being an unhealthy place, Hong Kong has a life expectancy greater than most western countries, including Britain and the USA.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216336, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "44\n\nthe Delta on fishermen going out to sea and returning with their catches, citing so-called 'watchmen's wages, registration charges and gifts of money to buy firecrackers and joss-sticks at festivals' and 'presents' of fish. The pressure had intensified after a soldier had fallen into the sea and drowned whilst collecting. Failure to pay led to their catches being speared with iron rods on the pretext of looking for contraband. It was recorded that a similar prohibition had been set up in 1801, but after being observed for a time had then been ignored by the garrisons and patrol boat crews.60\n\nThe prevailing climate of bad behaviour\n\nThe general expectation of the populace was that officials and their underlings at all levels of government would feather their nests whenever they could.\n\nEarly British consular reports after the Opium War reflect the condition of the people and the exactions of the mandarins.\n\nFirst, there was the general poverty. In his report for 1862, the British Consul at Canton described the people of the province as being 'a people among whom wealth is an exception and poverty a rule.'61\n\nNext, there were the reasons for it. A brother Consul at Tientsin attributed various causes and wrote that it is, no doubt, owing still more to the bad civil administration under which the people live,' adding: \"They generally content themselves with the acquisition merely of a moderate subsistence because wealth would be certain to lay them open to the extortions of the officials, with all the troubles which these involve. The Imperial Government, it is true, taxes lightly, but the rapacity of the civil officers discourages the accumulation of wealth in private hands, by subjecting its possessors to unmitigated oppression and spoliation.\"+62\n\nThirdly, there was the system. As reported by the British Consul at Amoy, another feature of administration was the farming out of collection duties, and the collusion between the farmers to whom the collection of taxes and duties were delegated ('who are people more or less connected with the mandarins') and the officials. The two shared 'the difference between the amount at which the revenue is let and that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]