[ { "id": 204621, "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-1963", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHAU\n\n89\n\nIn the course of a tour of duty in the New Territories I became interested in the island community and, when opportunities offered, made enquiries locally for information which would shed light on its history in the period before 1898, when it was still part of the San On district. I was particularly interested in local source material which would provide a picture of island life and society in the fifty years (1850-98) before the lease of the New Territories to Britain, and this article is based upon information obtained from three commemorative tablets which date from these years, and on other information available locally relating to several district associations of long standing, besides supplementary material from a variety of different sources.\n\nThese tablets consist of slabs of slate-like stone, usually two feet by three feet in size, on which are cut characters a quarter of an inch high set out in two parts: an account of the origin and successful accomplishment of the scheme, followed by the names of all subscribers. Their object was to record the event; and to recognise the efforts of local persons, by recording the names of the donors for posterity. Tablets in this old form were quite common—they are found all over the New Territories—and could record any undertaking, such as the construction of a road or bridge, the repair of a temple, and so on. They were set up, no doubt, with the appropriate commemorative ceremony which is still current practice for such occasions. We have the well-developed Chinese sense of the historical element in everyday life to thank for the existence of such interesting records, which, by their nature, are immune from the ravages of white ants and the damp summer weather. They are not, however, free from the attentions of the man in the street as the present state of these three tablets show: in that the first was hidden by a double bunk, the second is exposed to the elements at a street corner and is often hidden by wood from an adjacent timber yard, and the third was serving as the back of a stove, part of which had to be demolished and the tablet cleared of a heavy deposit of soot.\n\nThe first of the Cheung Chau tablets is in the office building of the Tung Kwun association and records the repair of the Po On study or school in the 5th year of T'ung-chih (1866-7); the second, dated 4th and 32nd years of Kuang-hsü", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205934, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 14, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "the Society had a fine home of its own with a lecture hall presented by a Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a magnificent library and a museum and art gallery. It was supported by the Municipal Councils of the International Settlement and of the French Concession with liberal grants. In Hong Kong, however, no philanthropist has yet appeared to help the Society and the Government gives us only $200 a year in return for which it receives free copies of the Society's publications.\n\nOur library is increasing and now consists of about 500 books but can be much enlarged by the purchase of books and by donations. One section of the library, the rarest volumes and our exchange journals as well as a stock of our own journals, is kept in the University, while the other section is kept in the rooms of the British Council which is already hard pressed to house its own library. We are grateful to the University and the British Council for these facilities and the services of their staff but the time has come when the Society will have to appeal for funds to house our library and make it more easily available.\n\nWe have to acknowledge with gratitude the gifts of books made during the year, including contributions from the Hong Kong University and from the South China Morning Post. A most valuable gift was the presentation on behalf of the Diocesan Girls' School of the classic and rare book, Bentham's Flora Hongkongensis, published in 1861. Bentham was a member of the Society but published his great work two years after the Society's collapse. In this connection I want to add that it has been my great wish, so far not achieved, to see Bentham's book succeeded by a new and colour edition of the Flora of Hong Kong based on the 500 admirable slides from the photographs taken by Mr. F. A. Nixon. With some Government encouragement and some philanthropic help, such as was given by Jardines and Dents in 1859, such an aim could be achieved and would serve as a permanent contribution by the Royal Asiatic Society to the natural history of Hong Kong.\n\nAs you will see from the Hon. Treasurer's Report our finances are in a satisfactory position; but we cannot be complacent as we have heavy expenses to meet in printing the new issue of the Journal and in reprinting Vol. I and the printing of the record and results of the recent Symposia conducted by Professor Dwyer", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206112, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n187 \n\nReturning to our starting point we go for tea to the Tsung Tsin School. Since the First World War under wholly Chinese management, this is the successor of the Basel Mission, a body of German Protestant missionaries who began work in China in 1847, and worked almost entirely among the Hakka population. The Basel Mission began their work at Shau Kei Wan early on, about 1860. A chapel was built there. It was clearly not a very large structure; in the 1872 Blue Book it is reported as being capable of seating 50 persons with a general attendance of 25; and the much larger building you can see today dates from 1933. There was also a Basel school which, according to official records, gave free education to 29 local boys in 1891. Today the Mission's school accommodates 1,500 children in morning and afternoon sessions. \n\nFinally, another word from Lobscheid about the Shau Kei Wan of his day. After observing that \"the inhabitants are, as in all places where the boat population preponderates, very superstitious\", he continues: \n\n\"During last summer [1856 or 1857] this village was severely visited by the cholera, which carried off many a victim. In such times the people take recourse to very foolish ceremonies, in order to expel the plague devils who appeared to be very busy in this 'harbour of the starving men.' When at last the epidemic ceased raging, they heard of the severe hurricane which had destroyed the shipping at Namoa. A weather prophet took advantage of the alarm, which this catastrophe created in the minds of the people, and boldly predicted a similar and more vehement visitation of Shau-ki-wan, which was to take place on a certain day between 9 and 11 a.m. I was unfortunate enough to visit Shau-ki-wan on that ominous day, and happened to arrive at the time when the storm, which was said should destroy all the residences and shipping, and kill all men and beasts, was tremblingly expected. Seeing the people looking rather strangely, and finding most of the doors shut, and the inhabitants dressed in better costume than they were accustomed, I inquired into the reason of this singular state. My assistant then told me, that the people were in great dread of a storm; that they had been worshipping the Queen of Heaven all the previous night, and that there were few who expected to survive the awful visitation of heaven.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206327, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "138 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nwith a passion for tidiness disliked them intensely. In this case, I suspect, the Registrar General bowed to the will of the Committee. \n\n26 There was a marked tendency for the committees of such associations to grow very large in size-so many affluent Chinese wanted their names recorded as committeemen, and to donate money, without of course doing any committee work. Professor Freedman supplies an explanation for this phenomenon in Singapore: 'Since office-holding occupies a strategic position in the formation of social status, it is not surprising that the structure of associations seems adapted to this function. This adaptation is clear in two features: the elaboration of offices, such that many positions are made available, and the institutional arrangements for filling the offices with the well-to-do', Maurice Freedman, Chinese Marriage and Family in Singapore, London, H.M.S.O., 1957, p. 95. \n\n27 In 1903 the proposed scheme of detectives under the control of the Committee was not approved; but permission was given at a later date, apparently during the First World War and probably because of the shortage of European policemen. \n\n28 In 1938 there were 5 Head District Watchmen, 6 Assistant Head District Watchmen, 26 detectives and 103 uniformed men. The position was approximately the same in 1941. \n\n29 In 1902 the rate paid by Chinese shops was increased slightly and in 1924 it was increased by another 1/4 per cent. \n\n30 Butters writes that the figures which appear annually regarding the cost of living in the report of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs are based on information obtained from the District Watch Force. At my request figures were furnished from the same source showing the cost of living of an ordinary labourer': H. R. Butters, Report on Labour and Labour Conditions in Hong Kong, Sessional Papers, No. 3 of 1939, p. 137. Applications from guilds and trade unions to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs for permission to hold 'sing songs' were granted conditionally on a district watchman attending the meeting to see that nothing unlawful transpired. See Butters, p. 126. The watchmen were always regarded as a source of information about the Chinese population. When the commission on chair and jinricksha coolies attempted to discover whether there was a secret union of public transport workers, the first people they contacted for information about the matter were district watchmen. See Report of the Commission on Chair and Jinricksha Coolies, Sessional Papers, No. 47 of 1901, p. 56. \n\n31 The Registrar General in his report for 1868 made this quite clear: 'the chief object of the Chinese paying these watchmen is to drive away thieves, the cardinal evil of a shop-keeping population, And it is thought that the watchmen succeed, not only in arresting actual offenders, but also in keeping away those who live by pilfering'. \n\n32 These constables were recruited mostly from Weihaiwei, a territory leased to Britain on 1 July, 1898. \n\n33 These facts are taken from the reports of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs for the respective years. \n\n34 See above: note 33. \n\n35 The Lok Sin Tong was an association established by officials and village gentry in Kowloon about 1879 to perform charitable works in the surrounding district. See James Hayes, 'Old ways of Life in Kowloon: The Cheung Sha Wan Villages', Journal of Oriental Studies, vol. viii, 1970, p. 167. The Chung Sing Charitable Society, originally known as the Chung Sing Opera Society, was founded around 1917 by a leading merchant, Tsang Foo. This charity also maintained a free school.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209233, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "122\n\nTA ACTON\n\nconversation F.M.O. officials made it clear that from the beginning they had consciously been combating the pariah status of the Shui-sheung-yan, or \"Tanka\" as they had been called by ordinary Cantonese. The word “Tanka” is an opprobrious term, with rather ambiguous and shifting ethnic and occupational connotations, like \"nigger\", or \"tinker\".\n\nThe first schools for the children of fishermen were established by the F.M.O. in 1947 and 1948, two in villages on Hong Kong Island, and two in the New Territories. By 1968 there were thirteen primary schools, and one secondary school with a primary department, at Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island. In 1980 this primary department was given a separate school building on the island of Apleichau, which is joined to Aberdeen by a new road bridge. Education in these schools has always been free.\n\nDuring the early years of the scheme ordinary primary education in Hong Kong was neither free, nor sufficient. In 1956, however, the Education Department began to subsidise the F.M.O. schools, and since then there has been general progress towards free compulsory education in Hong Kong. In 1978, the first three years of secondary education were also made free. Where there are no F.M.O. schools, and inadequate Education Department provision also, the F.M.O. sometimes pays the fees of fishermen's children at privately run schools, like the Po Kwong school, which is actually located on a boat in Yaumatei typhoon shelter. The Po Kwong boat school is run by an evangelical Christian group called International Missions Inc. It was known as the “Jesus boat” to boat-people activists struggling for re-housing; although they were working with Roman Catholic social workers, they firmly declined to take me to it. F.M.O. scholarships are also available for higher studies.\n\nIt is not entirely true that no fishing community children were educated before the F.M.O. schools began. Some parents did send their children to school at great sacrifice to themselves, sometimes to traditional Chinese schools, such as that run in the temple on the island of Kau Sai. This school, however, largely served the Hakka land-based population on the island, and when these Hakka were re-housed on the mainland, it was replaced by an F.M.O. school. Before the Second World War in Canton there were even Trade-Union-run Shui-sheung-yan schools. Conditions were, perhaps, however, more difficult for the sea-going fishermen's children of Hong Kong, away for days at a time from all land contact on occasion, than for the riverine salt-traders and transporters of Canton. Before mechanisation very few fishing parents could afford much by the way of school fees. Without the F.M.O. schools it is unlikely that the revolution in literacy would have\n\n10", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211363, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "55\n\nDr. Hickling suggested that the space required for each worker should be put at twenty square feet floor area. This suggestion was accepted. Another minor change was made by eliminating the word \"overtime\" in reference to work after 6 p.m.\n\n6\n\nThe editor of the Daily Press, in commenting on the proposals of the Sanitary Board, reviewed some of the steps which had led up to them: Miss Pitts' talk, followed by Mr. Bowley's statements at the meeting of the Church of England Men's Society. Their efforts were seen as examples of the good results \"that may flow from the discussion of matters of public concern by private individuals, and should encourage interest in local affairs\". The editor was confident the proposal would appeal to British pride, \"For every Briton in Hong Kong whose pride of race is based upon his country's efforts on behalf of humanity must hope that the resolutions passed by the Sanitary Board will be endorsed by the Legislative Council\". He believed that the enlightened members of the Chinese community would have no objections to them, as, in his opinion, they were extremely modest and were submitted in the interests of public health.\n\nThe editor recognised that the root of the problem lay in the Colony's educational efforts, but he contended that no matter how many schools were provided, there would not be enough “unless we are willing to educate the whole of South China\". A policy of unrestricted immigration made it impossible to make school attendance either compulsory or free.\n\nThe editor restated the views of Mr. Alabaster that it was better for the children to accompany their parents to work, so long as their little bodies are not strained beyond their endurance, as they would thus be both physically and morally better off than left to their own devices, and their earnings provided them with more food than they otherwise would have. He did advocate that some restriction be placed on the load they carried, as this responsibility could not be left to the parents' discretion.\n\nCase of Child Labour before the Magistrate\n\nApril 1920\n\nThe principles in the agitation for child labour laws had been a missionary and a solicitor, but in April 1920 a doctor publicly took up", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212378, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 320, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "[1849] it numbered 25 boys. The free tuition he offered brought him goodwill in the eyes of the people, without much cost, since the boys provided their own food and brought their own books to the school.\n\nIt was very difficult for Brother Hamberg to live alone and lonely in this way, in the midst of a great crowd of Chinese people, far from any of his Brethren or friends.\n\n110\n\n297\n\nNOTES\n\nP.H. Hase\n\nSee C. Smith, \"The Archives of the Basel Mission”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 28, 1988, pp. 203-207.\n\n2 Basel Mission Archive, Document A-1,2 Nr. 44, \"Half-Yearly report of the Missionary Rev. P. Winnes, from 1st January to 1st July, 1853**.\n\n1 I am grateful to M. Anne-Maria Pordes for her help in transcribing and translating this document.\n\n#\n\nUnfortunately, the Mission in Sha Tau Kok was closed down and moved to Lilong in 1853, so no further descriptions of Sha Tau Kok of this type were written.\n\n6\n\n5 Jahresberichte der Basler Mission 1849, pp 141-143.\n\nHamberg was forced to abandon his work at Sha Tau Kok in 1849; the Mission there was taken up again by P. Winnes and R. Lechler in 1852, but it was effectively abandoned again in 1854.\n\nTHE BUDDHA, THE HEAVENLY TRUE WARRIOR\n\nAn interesting phenomenon seen only in Taiwan was first noted in 1984 in Tainan. From an iconographic point of view, the sudden appearance on altars of a wooden carved image portraying a middle-aged scholar sitting sideways cross-legged on a crouching winged mythological creature with a dragon's head* was most unusual.\n\nThe image, now observed in some sixty temples in most areas of Taiwan, labelled T'ien Chen-wu Fo ADA is gilded, though the creature is usually brown. The scholar, clean-shaven, with a full face, holds a seal in his right hand bearing the inscription, 'With\n\n* See Plate 6", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213863, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "189\n\nfound in the speech of the late Rev Peter Wang, the former General Secretary of the Council.\n\n\"Church involvement in education should be regarded as a kind of social service. It also provides a good chance to spread the gospel by nurturing young people with the teaching of Jesus Christ, to love their families, show filial piety towards their parents, to love their schools, respect their teachers and truth; to love their neighbours and live in harmony with others, to love and serve their society with enthusiasm; and be a good citizen in the society. If we have nurtured our students in this way, we have fulfilled the aim of serving the society, even though the students have not been baptized as believers.\n\nFrom the data gathered in this survey, the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China has the strongest preference for education as the objective of church involvement in education. (Refer to Tables 1 and 2). The same emphasis is reflected from the literature of the Council.\n\nThe Tsung Tsin (Basel) Mission changes with time in its perception of objectives. The direction of changes, however, is contrary to that of the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China. In the early years, the Mission was concerned much about education and social service. For example, the Basel Free School was founded in 1862 to provide free education for the Hakka-speaking Chinese. The school aimed to improve illiteracy in the society. It was the first girls' school set up in Hong Kong.7 In recent years, owing to the growing emphasis on evangelization, there is a considerable change in the Mission's objectives of involvement in education. For example, from the Mission's publications in recent years, the importance of evangelization through schools is obviously stressed. It is also made compulsory that all Tsung Tsin schools should organise a religious week in October each year. As such are to be implemented or supervised by the school, it does bring about due effects. In the past, there was no preferential policy held regarding the employment of school staff; that new teachers are selected, as far as it is possible, from among Christians. This shows that the Tsung Tsin Mission is concerned more and more with evangelization as an important objective of running church schools.\n\nAccording to the questionnaire survey, the Lutheran Church is the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 } ]