[ { "id": 208667, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n97\n\nOld road boundary stones are being made into headstones, and as for coffins, we have only one and that is used for every funeral, the body being sewn up in a burlap sack and buried thus after the mourners leave. Rumors of more extensive repatriation persist, and according to the Bamboo Wireless now, we are going back to the States by June first. However, according to the super pessimists in Camp, of which there is no dearth, there is to be no repatriation at all; it is only a hoax. Incidentally, also we have in our ranks, some very able statesmen and generals who, if the devil were given his due, could settle all the world's problems. Father Bauer improved under his new treatment and diet. Evidently Dr. Kirk has found the root of the trouble.\n\nEXTRA: Our flour ration has been stepped up to 8 ounces per person per day, and today, we get one bun and a piece of bread for tiffin. Our garden and other tools have been returned but they must be kept locked up at night in the community storeroom lest we dig our way to safety.\n\n23—Funeral Mass at 8:30 for Mr. Simmons. Burial service at 6 p.m. in the cemetery, conducted by the Rev. Mr. Martin, former Head Master of St. Stephen's College. This was occasioned by the finding of some human bones around St. Stephen's which may be those of soldiers, British or Canadian, who fell during the fighting at Stanley. Included among the names of those on the small box containing the bones were those of Dr. Black, Capt. Whitney and the three English nurses (one a Catholic lady) who were killed in St. Stephen's College Hospital on Christmas Day.\n\nIn the early days of the Camp, a number of unburied bodies of soldiers were found at various spots, and when possible, buried by the internees, and as we take our evening stroll, we often pass and repass these graves of unknown soldiers. A few, however, have been marked and a small wooden cross erected, and in some instances, friends of the dead soldier have fixed up the grave quite attractively with stones. In the cemetery, too, a few very industrious and charitable men are working, making paths and in many ways trying to beautify the grounds with the limited material at hand.\n\n24----His Excellency, Bishop O'Gara, preached a eulogy this morning at a Requiem Mass, said by Father Hessler, for those whose remains were buried last evening. Another death among the British, of cancer. Quite a good-sized piece of bread today.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208671, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 128, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n101\n\ncouple of tiny cookies for breakfast. Our coffee, too, is getting weak, for in order to conserve our supply we are using the grounds again and again. Bamboo Wireless has it that Bishop Paschang is in touch with Maryknoll, and that Bishop Ford is receiving funds from Maryknoll.\n\n3-Sunday. Services are as usual, with Father Norris as preacher. Coffee and a bun this morning from our own kitchen. However, Father Meyer now promises us bread three times a day, that is, at least a bun, out of his five-ounce allotment.\n\n4--Our present A-1 Block representative, Mr. Malone, seems to be in disfavor in the minds of many of that block, and finally today at a meeting in the garage, grievances were aired and as a result we have a new representative in the person of Mr. Steiner, a Protestant minister, formerly in charge of the Foreign Auxiliary in Hong Kong. He promises to be efficient, as he is a very conscientious man. Rain interfered with the outdoor May Devotions and they were held in the tiny Maryknoll Sisters' Chapel with the congregation overflowing into the tiny corridors. The Sisters have typed copies of the more popular hymns, and the people join in the singing.\n\n5- Chess tournament begins with Fathers Vincent Walsh and Norris, from our ranks, participating. Father Bauer not so well these days. Tonight we again have “seconds\" on food. Some of us sent 10-word telegrams today, as allowed by authorities. We wonder if they and our previous post cards will ever reach their destination.\n\n6-Father Toomey resigns as Treasurer of the American communal council.\n\nFather Hessler called to \"The Hill\" in regard to his letter requesting release from the Camp as a third national, Bishop Valtorta vouching for him. No decision reached, however. Corregidor falls and with it many of our hopes! As we gaze out to sea and see Japanese ships enter and leave the harbor, we feel very isolated and farther and farther than ever from America. However, there is a little cheer in the air today as we are informed that all Americans are to be repatriated within a month on a ship from Tokyo to Lourenço Marques, Portuguese East Africa. Some may be permitted to go to Shanghai if they choose. Father Bauer improved.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208678, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 135, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "108\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nthat $30.00 go to the community kitchens, the rest to the individual. However, now, due to discounts, the increase in prices and the delay in getting these parcels moving, we get about 37% less than we otherwise would. Again we Maryknollers divided out $75.00 into two portions, one of $50.00 for our own little community kitchen, and the remaining $25.00 being personal. So in the final analysis, each individual got about $16.00 worth of food and toilet articles. To satisfy our craving for sweets, most of us got bulk chocolate, only to find that this was a bit wormy. However, we soon boiled the worms out of their happy home, and consumed the home. The repatriation boat delayed until the 23rd of the month, and there will be a choice of first, second and third-class passage.\n\n12- Another funeral service for Mr. Engdall, with Father Toomey officiating and Father Allie giving the eulogy. Drawing takes place today for staterooms on the Asama Maru. The American kitchen staff quits, in order to pack up for departure. No tears shed!\n\n13- The International Welfare Association hands out a few more goods, such as handkerchiefs, toilet paper, etc. A new squad of cooks take over and everybody pronounces the food better cooked. Photographs of the repatriates taken on the lawn. An entertainment this evening outside on the Bowling Green in front of the American Club building. It is surprising what talent there is in the Camp, and these entertainments are well received.\n\n14-Sunday. Masses change to 8:15 and 9:00. We learn from the Bamboo Wireless that Bishop O'Gara and three Maryknoll Sisters have left Hong Kong for Kwongchauwan for the interior.\n\nThe following days were quite uneventful. On the 17th, a meeting was held in which a little more information on repatriation was given out. The examination of baggage is to be very strict — no books, no diaries, no money, not even Bibles with notes scribbled on the margin to be allowed. The Hong Kong News says that several Maryknoll Fathers have been released from Camp. That's certainly news to us! Another report says that each repatriate is to receive one hundred yen for the trip, while another says that $250.00 U.S. currency will be allowed to be taken aboard the boat.\n\nOn the 19th, a dance was held in the Club from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., the curfew being extended half an hour by special permission.\n\nPage 135\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209962, "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": 221, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "199\n\nA pair of Chinese drums, each with writhing dragons, with colours still surprisingly bright considering their age, is on show. There are Chinese caricatures of British soldiers and a red lion rears on the ensign which flew from a piquet boat in the attack on Chusan in 1842.\n\nThe regiment was one of those honoured by being allowed to carry the China dragon on its badge and it still features today, with the word \"China\" underneath, on the buttons and badges of the Border Regiment. The museum has a good collection of belt plates and cap badges bearing the dragon.\n\nThere is an interesting Chinese map, epaulettes and medals of the First China War. A banner seized by the 55th now in Kendal Church is the subject of a separate note.\n\nMore modern memories of Hong Kong are housed in the museum of the Middlesex Regiment, in Bruce Castle, Tottenham, London. The museum was closed for re-organisation when I visited but I was kindly shown the relevant items in the collection. The role of this distinguished regiment in the 1941 battle for Hong Kong is well known. There are several weapons which were used in the battle. One machine gun was buried to prevent its capture by the Japanese and it was recovered after the Allied victory. A Japanese machine gun is also held.\n\nThere is a framed menu card which was used on the regiment's Albuhera Day, 10th May 1943, in a Hong Kong prison-of-war camp. Sketched on the front is a guard tower and those present have signed their names. A Japanese flag bears the Rising Sun. Other reminders of POW life are the 1st Battalion's bugle which was used in Hong Kong, and later in Japanese prison camps and a small wireless set which was used secretly in the prison-of-war camp here. For refusing to divulge its whereabouts Colonel L.A. Newnham was tortured and executed. He was posthumously awarded the George Cross.\n\nThe museum also has a small flat fan with a pagoda painted on it which belonged to Captain Kyodo Shigeru of the Lisbon Maru. A poignant reminder of the incident is a sketch which shows the stern of the ship already under water and the decks crowded with desperate men. The drawing was kept for over two years concealed in a bamboo stick by Major C.M.M. Man,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212838, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "The mule track wound along the mountain side. Looking backwards, or forwards, you could sometimes see the green waters of the Salween glistening in the sun far below. At one point, the place was pointed out to me where Chu Ko Liang had built a fort on a knoll commanding both track and river. He was the able counsellor of Liu Pei, who in the time of the Three Kingdoms mounted the throne of Shu (Szechuan) in the second century of our era. Liu Pei stood 7 ft 5 in high; 'He could see behind his back, his ears reached to his shoulders, and his hands to his knees. He possessed the invaluable power of creating a good first impression and was able to keep his countenance under the most trying circumstances.' He sent Chu Ko Liang on an expedition to the south to subdue the border tribes. Chu Ko Liang is said to have penetrated to Burma: 'He made use of the famous device of \"wooden oxen and running horses\" as a means of transport. What the device was nobody now knows.' (From A Chinese Biographical Dictionary by H.A. Giles.) Legend relates that it was Chu Ko Liang who first thought to keep down the numbers of the wild Wa tribesmen by teaching them to bury a human head in each field at the planting of the spring crop; the plan worked all right until the Wa discovered that a Chinese head was equally effective in propitiating the gods, after which they looked beyond the tribal limits for the supply of heads.\n\nSmall side streams ran into the Salween, and each time we crossed one of these the path dropped several thousand feet, almost to Salween level: it would then rise steeply again up the mountain. Down there the hollows were very hot and steamy; the vegetation tropical and thick; higher up it was cool in the shade and many great trees spread their branches over the mountain slopes. We saw few large wild animals: the commonest I believe is the bear. The inhabitants say there are three kinds of bear; the pig bear, the dog bear, and the cow bear. I saw one pig bear in captivity; it had a thick black coat, little pig eyes, and must have weighed about 300 lbs. Tiger, elephant, panther, wild pig, wolves, sambur and barking deer also exist; the lovely Amherst and Stone pheasants, bamboo partridge, jungle fowl, hare, duck, snipe and quail. But we had no time for any of these; later, when our numbers had increased, one of our Gurkha wireless operators used to go out sometimes to shoot for the pot.\n\nNews of our arrival had gone ahead. As we moved along the headmen came out to welcome us; they prepared food for us and were disappointed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212842, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "136\n\nme whether I was afraid I would be arrested and carried off in the same way! It was because of the Lopez incident that for a long time some of the most useful men in Kokang, intimidated by Chinese threats, did not dare to work for us.\n\nAt Hsintang we occupied the thatched wooden building which the people of the village had erected for Lopez and in which he had been surrounded and arrested. It had two stories, with three small rooms on each floor, and packed into these rooms were no less than twenty beds, in layers. Though small, the building could thus house the whole of our party. All the furniture was made of bamboo, the beds, the steps leading to the upper storey, the stools on which we sat, and the table off which we ate. In the centre room below, Lopez had installed a mud fireplace, where of an evening we lit a fire, because here we must have been somewhere about 7,000 or 8,000 feet up and the nights were bitterly cold. The chimney, a hollowed bamboo over which we had to throw water every now and then, was unsatisfactory and the smoke hung about the top floor to the discomfort of those trying to sleep above.\n\nOur wireless was a great asset; it made such a contrast to the isolation which had been our lot when in eastern China. We could send and receive signals, and by laying the headphones in a tin basin, we could make a near-enough imitation of a loud-speaker to sit by and listen when the news came in. It was about this time that the Japanese made their desperate attack on the British at Imphal in an attempt to cut the railway, which supplied General Stilwell's Chinese divisions; in this attempt they were to exhaust themselves, and open Burma to reoccupation by the Allies. A little later General Wingate's second l.r.p.g. - long range penetration group - operations were launched. We were later to discover that the withdrawal of Japanese troops from all along the Salween to meet Wingate's threat offered an explanation of why they failed to raid across the river to disperse us.\n\nStan rejoined us, reporting that there was no flat territory in central Kokang, but that he found a hill slope which would do well enough as a dropping zone. The slope was near the large village of Lunghtang, two days march south, and we prepared to move there. The country became more open; the jungle on the mountain slopes was replaced by long grass. We passed herds of brood mares, with their young. The Myosa in the past had been the contractor for the supply of mules to the Burma Government; we were passing the breeding centres. A lonely", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212845, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "139\n\na mess for the British, with a kitchen where Lao Teng ruled: similar buildings for our Chinese, Burmese, Kachin and Chin assistants; and barracks for the K.D.F. We also built a store-room, where one of our Chinese assistants, a most excellent man who had previously worked in the service of one of the few remaining Chinese sawbwas, presided; an armoury, where Stan played about with screwdrivers in his spare moments; and an office, and a wireless station. As our party grew larger we kept on having to increase the accommodation.\n\n―\n\nAt most times of the day there would be a small crowd of visitors from distant villages, sitting on their haunches outside the office, with offerings of eggs and chickens, or wandering through the camp looking at everything. They too were much impressed with our water-works. But the main show-piece was a Browning machine gun, which Stan had mounted on a post in the centre of the camp for A.A. protection; it was one of a number salvaged from an R.A.F. supply plane which had crashed in the mountain nearby. If we wished to impress a visiting headman we would loose off a few tracer rounds from this gun at the hawks, circling far overhead. We never hit a hawk but the demonstrations delighted these good simple people.\n\nThe furniture was mostly of the fixed type, and of bamboo: beds, shelves, hooks; baths, basins, and stools. For our mess room we borrowed a table in the local style from the headman; it was only two feet high, with benches of corresponding height, a much more comfortable height in my opinion than our own high chairs and tables. There is a good deal to be said for the argument that the nearer you sit to the ground the more sociable you feel. A dear old man, an expert in bamboo work, became one of our permanent retainers, and when anything came unstuck he would busy himself going round and doing the repairs. There were no nails.\n\nThe evenings were still chilly; at night we would light a camp fire outside the mess door and sit around and talk, often about the ration of rum which, if we were lucky, might be included next time the aircraft made a sortie. Our talk seemed to be much of food and drink; in the supplies we received from the air naturally weapons for our work took precedence, so that we had to rely much on local provender for our nourishment. With Lao Teng in the background we did not do so badly.\n\nThe Myosa's brother paid me a visit; I shall call him the Puppet,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 } ]