[ { "id": 204465, "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-1962", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "86 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nDespite the presence of troops, military posts and police of two types in the Territory, besides the assistance of the local kuk, the magistrate's power to prevent crime appears to have been limited. Piracy, in particular, was rampant at different times, and ranged from the anti-dynastic activities of Koxinga in the mid-seventeenth century on behalf of his former masters the Great Ming, (which occasioned the removal from the coast) through the widespread depredations of large pirate bands at the beginning of the nineteenth, to the milder but still disconcerting activities of the period under review. \n\nIt is necessary to emphasise the prevailing unrest, since until quite recently the only striking difference between the New Territory in 1898 and the territory we know to-day was the imposition of the pax britannica. Until the British Government got into the saddle and established its police stations and patrolling launches, the people were subject to piracy, robbery and other forms of violence as from time immemorial. The Governor mentioned specifically in a despatch to the Secretary of State in April 1899 that “the (Tai Po) district is well known in Canton (i.e. to the Viceroy) to be turbulent, that to the N.E. of Mirs Bay being noted for piracy, and so ill-disposed that I am informed no Customs Official dares to land there except with the support of a revenue cruiser”.30 He probably had this from \n\nLockhart, his main source of reliable information at this time. Of course, the local population were sometimes not averse to such efforts themselves, and as a British Consul wrote at the time \"The old free-booting spirit still survives among many who are now apparently peaceful traders and fishermen [of which] we occasionally get startling proofs in some unexpected daring act of piracy on the high seas or along the coast\".31 Smuggling was also common, whether of salt or opium.** \n\nLooking outside the district to the province and its capital city Canton, the political scene, as revealed by the Trade Reports to the Foreign Office of consuls in the several British treaty ports of Canton, Amoy, Samshui and Pakhoi was the reverse of satisfactory. Though written by a succession of men of obviously varying temperament and outlook they reveal a sad state of affairs. Everywhere there were disturbances which the civil authorities were slow, or incapable to correct, and clear signs that the dynasty was held to have exhausted its mandate from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204981, "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-1965", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "80\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nThe China Navigation Company's Sunning was pirated on 14th November 1926, on a passage from Shanghai to Hong Kong.3 The officers recaptured the ship shortly afterwards, and when they refused the pirates an armistice the latter set the ship on fire. By turning into the wind the pirates were smoked out, and forced to leave in one of the lifeboats. When the fire got out of control the officers and crew were forced to do the same, but were picked up by a Norwegian ship. When the destroyer H.M.S. Verity arrived, however, they returned to the Sunning and put out the fire with naval help. The Sunning was then towed to Hong Kong.\n\nThe Haiching piracy of 1929 was very reminiscent of the Sunning. The Haiching belonged to the Douglas Steamship Company of Hong Kong, and was pirated while on her way from Amoy to Hong Kong. There were two hundred and fifty deck passengers and four saloon passengers on board at the time, and the attack took place when passing Bias Bay, just a few hours before reaching Hong Kong. The third mate and a Sikh guard were killed in the first few minutes, but the wireless officer continued to send out messages for help. The pirates, unable to get control of the ship, set it on fire; and two lifeboats were burnt out before their resistance was broken. When British warships arrived, they helped to put the fire out, and then towed the Haiching to Hong Kong, where all the passengers were thoroughly screened. Three of them were charged with piracy and murder, but one was later freed through lack of evidence, while the other two suffered the death penalty. Captain Farrar of the Haiching was awarded the O.B.E. for his part in the case.\n\nFrom the pirates' point of view the Anking piracy of 1928 was much more successful than either that of the Sunning or the Haiching. It was probably the classic piracy of modern times on the coast. The Anking, also a China Navigation Company ship, with over 1,000 deck passengers aboard, was on her way from Singapore to Amoy and Swatow when the piracy took place. These passengers were either returning to China to retire, or for a holiday after working in Malaya for several years, and were likely therefore to be well supplied with money and valuables.\n\n3 The Sunning had also been pirated three years earlier, on 23rd October, 1923.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204982, "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-1965", "page_number": 90, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n81\n\nThe pirates boarded the ship in Singapore along with the other passengers, and after taking over the ship took her to Bias Bay, where they made off ashore with over $100,000 in cash, and as much more in valuables. During the attack, the chief engineer, chief officer, and a Chinese quartermaster were killed, and the captain seriously injured. For some time after this, ships on this run were provided with guards from the British garrison at Hong Kong, and no piracy was ever attempted on any ship so guarded.\n\nThe piracy of the 4,500-ton Dutch motorship Van Heutz in December 1947 was notable for several reasons. It was the first serious piracy since the war, and the Van Heutz was the largest ship ever to be pirated on the coast. She left Hong Kong on 14th December for Amoy and Swatow with 1,600 deck passengers on board, repatriates from Indonesia, many with their life savings. The pirates, about twenty-five in all, captured the ship only four hours after she had left Hong Kong, and took her to Bias Bay. On arrival at Bias Bay they went ashore in commandeered junks, taking six wealthy Chinese passengers with them. During the few hours they had the ship, the passengers were robbed of cash and valuables worth more than $90,000, but the pirates were disappointed at not getting another $50,000 in currency which they believed was on board. On her previous trip when she had carried an even greater number of repatriates, the Van Heutz had had an armed guard of thirteen Dutch policemen. A few months after the piracy four men were arrested in Hong Kong, found guilty of being involved, and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.\n\nThese four cases conformed to the traditional twentieth century pattern, where the pirates boarded as passengers, and when the passengers were likely to be well provided with money and valuables. During these same years, however, there were other piracies which did not conform to this pattern - the Tungchow piracies of 1925 and 1935, the Nanchang's of 1933, and the Shuntien's of 1935. All took place in the north, and all the ships belonged to the China Navigation Company. The Tungchow shares the distinction with the Sunning of being the only ship in modern times to have been pirated twice. On the first occasion in December 1925 it occurred between Tientsin\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204984, "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-1965", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n83\n\nAnother case which might be said to have had political undertones was that of the China Navigation Company's Shuntien in June 1934. The Shuntien was the latest addition to the China Navigation Company's large fleet, and was making only her second voyage at the time. She was captured by some thirty pirates after leaving Tientsin for Chefoo, and was taken to the mouth of the Yellow River where she was beached on soft sand. The pirates then made off inland, taking five European and twenty Chinese passengers as hostages. Before leaving, they told the ship's compradore that the piracy was a reprisal for the Chinese Maritime Customs having stationed an extra customs cruiser in Shantung Bay, thus interfering with their smuggling operations. The Europeans returned a few days later, but nothing more was ever heard of the Chinese hostages.\n\nBias Bay, sixty-five miles northeast of Hong Kong, was notorious as the pirates' stronghold in the interwar years. Unfortunately, it was just outside Hong Kong territorial waters, and came within the jurisdiction of the Cantonese authorities, who were either unwilling or unable to co-operate with the Royal Navy against the pirates. The nationalist and anti-foreign feelings of the Cantonese probably contributed to this, as did the fact that the warlords of Kwangtung were suspected of being in league with the pirates. Whether this was so or not, it was definitely established that pirates based on Bias Bay committed nine major piracies between 1924 and 1926.\n\nAlthough the Navy was unable to suppress piracy on the China coast, so much of which took place almost on its own doorstep, the mere fact that naval ships were in the vicinity must have reduced its incidence. The pirates rarely boarded ships at Hong Kong, partly because of the strict naval and police control there, and also because passengers joining ships there were unlikely to have much money or valuables. In the case of the second Sunning piracy in 1926, it was definitely established afterwards that the pirates came on board at Amoy, and that their weapons were smuggled on board by stevedores. The lack of co-operation from Canton meant that the Navy was unable to follow up action at sea by punitive expeditions against the pirates' shore bases. The Kwangtung authorities had been much more co-operative in the first few decades after the cession of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205268, "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-1967", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "THE TRAVELLING PALACE OF SOUTHERN SUNG\n\n23\n\nleft the country without a ruler, the ministers and generals, after consultation with their mother, the concubine Young, unanimously installed I Wang Shih as the Generalissimo of the state and his brother Kuang Wang Ping as his deputy. After a while, they decided to travel south by boat. When everything was ready for departure, the cunning premier Ch'en I-chung begged to remain behind, using the excuse that he must bury his mother who had just died in Wenchow. Everybody disliked him and took him for a coward. The impetuous and impulsive warrior Chang Shih-chieh thought up a cunning scheme: he ordered some of his soldiers to remove the coffin of Ch'en's mother and to place it on a ship. Consequently Ch'en had to follow, much against his will.\n\nIn the 4th month they arrived at Foochow, Fukien, In the next month they crowned I Wang Shih Emperor who thus became the last Sung emperor but one. He was then eight years of age. His posthumous name is Tuan Tsung, (*) by which I shall call him hereafter. From that month on, his reign was called Ching Yen (*). His younger brother Ping received the new title of Wei Wang (£), and his little sister, that of Princess of Tsin Kuo (+), while his own mother was properly honoured as the Queen Mother. They stayed in Foochow until the 11th month when news came that the Mongols were invading Fukien, so they sailed southward.\n\nAfter passing by Ch'uanchow (¥) and Amoy in Fukien and Ch'aochow (¶) (Swatow) and Chia-tsu-men (‡ƒ¶) (of Huichow) in Kwangtung, they entered the territory of Kwangchow-fu early in 1277. Passing by Mirs Bay (Ta-p'eng-wan (★*), northeast of Kowloon), the royal party probably went ashore for a short time to get a rest, since there remain a few historical sites by the names of Wang-mu chuang-t'ai (the Queen-mother's Dressing Table) and Wang-mu hsu (Queen-mother's Market). During the next two months they stayed at an island then called \"Mei-wei\". (This place at present is still unidentified.) In the 4th month (May 1277) the royal refugees landed at Kuan-fu Ch'ang accompanied by many descendants of former Sung emperors who had joined the royal party from different places along the coast.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206009, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "84 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\ncame from cholera and fire, and not from revolt. It was generally believed that the Chinese were more able to look after themselves than the Indians. \n\nOne of the greatest tragedies in Chinese emigration befell the American clipper Flora Temple in 1859. The Flora Temple left Macao for Havana with 850 passengers, who were rebellious from the very start of the passage. Although they were unsuccessful in breaking out of the holds, they killed one of the crew who fell into their clutches. The ship ran into bad weather four days out from Macao, and was unable to take accurate sights. Two days later she ran on a reef off the coast of Indo-China. It was apparent that she would soon break up, so the captain and crew launched and provisioned the two lifeboats, and abandoned the ship and passengers. After a rough passage the captain and one of the lifeboats reached the coast near Touron twelve days later, but nothing was heard of the other lifeboat. A French naval ship was sent to rescue the deserted coolies and search for the missing lifeboat. When they arrived at the scene of the wreck, however, all they could find was a few planks of the Flora Temple, but no trace of the passengers or other lifeboat. \n\nAnother tragedy, but on a smaller scale, befell the British barque Sophia Fraser when taking emigrants from Amoy to Penang. The Sophia Fraser ran into a typhoon three days out of Amoy, and during the pandemonium which broke out among the coolies confined in the 'tween decks thirty-five died. The subsequent enquiry revealed that only four of the deaths were due to natural causes, the rest having been killed in the senseless fight caused by panic. This bears some resemblance to the central incident in Conrad's novel \"Typhoon\", as the burning of the Shah Jehan in the Indian coolie trade resembles the central incident in \"Lord Jim\". \n\nWhat appeared at the time to be one of the major tragedies in the history of Chinese emigration concerned the French ship St. Paul in 1858, when taking 327 indentured labourers from Hong Kong to the Australian gold fields. The St. Paul ran on a reef off Rossel Island, a small island lying to the east of the New Guinea islands, and the captain and eight of the crew were picked up fifteen days later by the British schooner Prince of Denmark. After an inexplicable delay of two months they were put ashore", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206014, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 89\n\nmaking their first venture abroad in those years were joining relatives or friends, and had been able to borrow enough on future earnings to ensure a comfortable passage. There were always a few unfortunates, however, who, in their anxiety to escape from the poverty and misery of their native village, had borrowed their passage money from money lenders or their tongs at ruinous rates of interest.\n\nConditions for most of this century were certainly vastly changed from the middle decades of the 19th century. Prospective passengers lived in boarding houses in Amoy or Swatow when waiting for a ship, and the ship's compradore often had a financial interest in these boarding houses or worked in close co-operation with their owners. As there was keen competition in the 20th century emigrant trades, not only between different shipping companies, but under the compradore system — between different ships in the same company, the prospective passengers were well treated in the boarding houses, which bore little resemblance to the barracoons of the 'bad old days'.\n\nBeside the China coasters, overseas ships on the Far Eastern run also took part in the emigrant trade, especially to the Straits and Bangkok, as this could be fitted into their wayport schedule; and even the large and luxurious Canadian Pacific liners were not above carrying a few hundred deck passengers from time to time. Ben Line steamers, too, sometimes called at Amoy and Swatow and took up to two hundred deck passengers to the Straits or Bangkok or vice versa, but on many overseas ships the passengers had to supply and cook their own food, and sleep on wooden planks laid over steel decks. The overseas ships were not normally so well suited for deck passengers as the regular coast ships, and by the First World War the latter had captured the cream of the trade.\n\nIn the South-east Asian trades south-bound traffic normally exceeded north-bound, but not to a disproportionate extent. Many overseas Chinese returned home, either for a holiday or to retire, and north-bound ships were especially busy just before Chinese New Year, and south-bound just after this important festival. These north-bound ships, where many passengers were carrying the savings of a few years or even of a lifetime, were the most tempting for pirates, and were specially equipped to deal", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206479, "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-1972", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "NINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON\n\n21\n\nXIV Mahometan pagoda & Belfry from W. gate Canton March 12 58\n\nView over roof-tops from a terrace. Tree-capped pagoda in distance.\n\nXVII Macao April 58\n\nView of sea-front, with sampans in foreground.\n\nXX Peiho River July 3rd 58\n\nSmall British gun-boat, no. 83, in the river with military figures on the banks.\n\nXXV North of Formosa Id. July 30th 1858\n\nJunk in rough seas off mountainous coast.\n\nXXVI Pagoda Chimmo Bay N. of Amoy Augst 3rd 58\n\nFigures in small boat with mountains and pagoda in the background.\n\nXXVII Victoria Hong Kong Augt 14 58\n\nHong Kong harbour, town and peak from Stonecutters Island.\n\nXXVIII In Tartar Yamun August 58\n\nRed-coated soldier in front of a hall, with a pagoda in background.\n\nXXXI Canton Septr 58\n\nMagazine Hill 5 storied pagoda N. Gate\n\nChinese carrying a load outside gate of Canton, with walls and features of the town visible in the background.\n\nXXXIII Honan Temple Octr 5th 58 GAS\n\nMain hall of temple with Chinese walking about.\n\nXXXV Canton Octr 58 E. Wall\n\nWalls, with a pagoda in the distance.\n\nXLIII Novr 18, 58. Gates of Confucius Temple\n\nThe College From S, Wall Canton\n\nEntrance gates in foreground, with temple buildings behind.\n\nXLV Howqua's Garden Dec 21 58 GAS\n\nPavillion in lake, with trees and other buildings around.\n\nUnnumbered Faint pencil inscription: Tombs in Canton(?)\n\nTombs and coffins in front of a Chinese temple, with a view of water in the background.\n\nThe sketches show a certain amateur artistic ability. Some of them are of views which were very popular among book illustrators", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206640, "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-1972", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "182\n\nCo-location of deities\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nIn Fukienese temples in Singapore and Malaya, the T'ai Sui images are often seen with Hsuan Tien Ta Ti (***) or with the Goddess of Mercy (##). In Cantonese and Amoy temples there, the T'ai Sui images are occasionally to be seen with the medical deities Lu Tung Pin (†) or Hua To ($) and in one temple with T'ai Shang Lao Chün (LB).\n\nIn another Fukienese temple in Singapore a triad occupying the centre altar was said by the temple keeper to be three of the Nine Emperors (g). Two were positively identified, one as the second brother of the main deity Chiu Hwang ( ). He is black skinned, bare footed, with one foot on a fire wheel, has protruding eyes, black beard, and his hair is wound into a top knot. His two arms are at his side, otherwise he is very similar to Fa Chu Kung (✯✯2). The second identified image is on the right of the main deity, and he is, without doubt, Wang Tien Kung (1A). The third unidentified image on the left of the main deity could easily be T'ai Sui. He is black faced and bearded, a standing general in armour, holding a bell in his left hand and a sword in his right; he has three eyes, ear tufts of hair, and wears a Taoist crown.\n\nIn one Fukienese temple in Taipei, Yin Ch'iao was seen together with Ch'ü Kung Chen Jen (AA). (Plate 19)\n\nIn North China in Kalgan his second brother Yin Hung ( *) is a special deity said to save people from the \"fifteen bad deaths\". He sits on the opposite side of the central deity, the Jade Emperor (11), from Yin Ch'iao. Both brothers are naked and, surprisingly, have claws, beaks and wings. Grootaers10 says that Yin Ch'iao is never to be seen except as an attendant to the Jade Emperor. It would appear that either the local god maker in Kalgan did not know the identification features of Yin Ch'iao and has confused him with the Thunder God; or that there is a local legend which we do not know about; or thirdly that Grootaers misidentified the two attendants of the Jade Emperor.\n\nC. B. Day bought a hand-painted scroll in Hangchow, depicting five Buddhist figures and six Taoist ones. This pantheon chart included T'ai Sui Ti Chün ( *#*#) together with the San Kuan\n\n10 W. A. Grootaers, Rural Temples around Hsüan Hua (Folklore Studies vol. 10).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208939, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "SILK & SILVER: MACAU, MANILA TRADE\n\n69\n\nthe imprisonment of Tomé Pires, whom they had sent as ambassador to the Emperor, and to the closure of Canton until 1530 to all foreign commerce. Henceforth the Portuguese had to trade clandestinely around the Bay of Amoy and at Ningpo in Fukien in the various goods, notably pepper and sandalwood, for which no amount of imperial prohibitions could lessen the demand in China.\n\nThe commercial losses suffered by the Chinese as a result of their isolationism and the prohibition of their own navigation were gains for the Portuguese. As the American scholar George D. Winius has aptly put it, \"in the Atlantic the Portuguese were explorers; in the Indian Ocean they were conquerors and in the Far East they were businessmen\". Before long their trading activities in the China Sea had developed sufficiently to make inadequate the temporary shacks and tents in which they stored and displayed their wares in such places as Shang-ch'uan (Portuguese Sanchao or São João, where St. Francis Xavier died of fever in 1552), and they began to press the Chinese authorities for a trading centre of their own. In 1555 the Jesuit Father Belchior Nunes Barreto described Shang-ch'uan as a centre for trade with the Chinese where \"silk, porcelain, camphor, copper, alum and China-wood are bartered for many kinds of merchandise from this land\" (i.e. Japan).7 In the previous year Leonel de Sousa had secured permission for regular trade with China on payment of customs dues and in 1557 the Portuguese were allowed to establish themselves at Ao-men (Gate of the Bay), otherwise known as Amacon, Macau or the City of the Name of God in China.8\n\nThere was no written agreement with the Chinese for the establishment of Macau as a Portuguese enclave in China and, though the Portuguese continued to pay rent to the Chinese government till 1849, their sovereign rights in Macau were not fully conceded till 1887. But from the outset, Macau's extra-territoriality was admitted in practice because it suited both parties to the agreement - the Portuguese because it gave them a secure place in a highly profitable commercial network and the Chinese because, as later with Hong Kong, they could now enjoy most of the benefit of foreign trade without having to abandon their restrictions on foreigners entering or Chinese leaving China.\n\nA gate was erected across the isthmus joining Macau with the mainland - the Porta do Cêrco - upon which the Portuguese placed a grandiloquent inscription: \"Dread our greatness and respect...\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212390, "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": 332, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "309\n\nSOJOURNERS IN XIAMEN: NOTES ON THE RAS VISIT\n\nIt was up-up-and-away' on Friday March 6, 1992, as 18 stalwart RAS Members took a one-hour flight to Xiamen Island, in Fujian Province. Also known as Amoy, the town is similar, in some ways, to Hong Kong. Both are situated in the typhoon belt. Also, like Macau, there are isolated 'dip-nets' for coastal fishing, mournful water buffalo haul ploughs as in Guangdong and 'knife-bean' and flame trees adorn skylines as at Repulse Bay. As in most of China for the past decade, 'free markets' exist in Xiamen with intriguing street stall smells.\n\nBut this city, where Chinese still stare at Europeans, is also different from Hong Kong. Limited English is spoken, and, when it is, people often have Japanese accents. Nor is there the same high-rise concrete jungle, sampans and junks have more pronounced curves, straining bare-footed labourers pull carts and street sweepers use brooms made from branches of trees.\n\nAlthough one of the People's Republic's Special Economic Zones, Xiamen cannot be compared to hectic Shenzhen. But if direct relations can be established across the shallow, 150 kilometre wide, Taiwan Straits, instead of routing transactions through Hong Kong, the volume of trade could increase rapidly. To make it easier for the Taiwanese, to attract business many of the street signs in Xiamen are in conventional Chinese characters, as in Hong Kong, rather than the simplified ideograms normally used in China.\n\nThe Group's first stop on arrival in Xiamen, arranged by Member David Norris, was to 'Meixia Arts and Handicrafts' established and run by American Bill Job and wife Kitty. They manufacture and export stained art glass murals, windows and lampshades.\n\nThe following day, the couple invited the Party to their spartan but adequate house, built in 1928, for which the present rent is US$120 a month. An open well and grapevines grace the forecourt. Their two young daughters attend the Chinese school and are fluent in both Putonghua and the local dialect. The latter sounds more nasal than Cantonese. When the Group arrived the two girls were playing ball with Chinese friends in the narrow street at the front of their home.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212735, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "29\n\n1st Class in a sedan carried by four bearers.' This was probably no more than hyperbole. He stated in his Miscellanies that he had once possessed a very fine sedan-chair presented to him in Szechuan, with a magnetic compass let into the hand rest or bar which is placed across the chair in front of the rider to rest his hands on.\n\nImperial officials, and their principal wives, wore large embroidered square badges tacked across their surcoat's chest and back, which in addition to their hat buttons, denoted their rank. These were worn by all nine grades of civil officials and, according to Garret, by military officers of the Manchu army stationed in provincial garrisons and in Manchu quarters in large cities. This might explain why Mesny failed to mention squares, apart from five paragraphs describing them and their use, and a remark in passing that a Major-General, 2nd Class of the 2nd Degree would have a 'lion' breast badge. When he visited Amoy in 1879 he was reported in the local foreign press having worn western clothes but with the red button of mandarin rank on top of his foreign cap. As he never spelled out that he ever wore the badge and button commensurate with his military rank we shall probably never know whether he ever did wear such a badge.\n\nHe possessed a Chinese passport consisting of a large single sheet of printed white paper, usually endorsed with certain conditions but in Mesny's case it entitled him to protection in all provinces and beyond the Great Wall, unlimited as to a period of time. He was, he added, never asked for it. It called on all county officials to afford the traveller due protection, safe guidance and reasonable information. He also had at various times official Circular Dispatches [ch'uan-p'ai]. These, he explained, were issued to officials travelling on government service entitling them to named supplies of food, fodder, carts, chairs, pack mules, saddle horses, coolies and accommodation in official inns along the whole line of march.\n\nHe had an official seal when he was the General Superintendent of Foreign Ordnance for the whole of Kueichou province, an appointment he obtained during the Winter of 1875 and held until March of 1877. He explained that he observed all the due formalities of putting away his seal during the New Year annual rites and ceremonies. The seal, he claimed, bore his rank as Lieutenant-General, and Knight Ying of the Order of Pa-t'u-lu. We have no idea of the rank and grade of the Superintendent and as he does not refer to himself as Lieutenant-General", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214442, "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": 300, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "267\n\ntroops in quarantine. These were built from a framework of bamboo poles lashed together, with walls and roofs of palm leaves and woven rush mats. Similar structures can still be seen today on vacant lots erected at times of Chinese festivals for Cantonese opera performances. The only difference is that today zinc sheeting is used instead of matting. The matsheds were not popular with the troops as mosquitos and other insect life infested the sheds. During typhoons or heavy rains the sheds were liable to collapse and leave the troops exposed to the weather. The building of proper barracks was therefore imperative for the health of the troops.\n\nThe first permanent buildings at Gun Club Hill were constructed in 1903-4 for infantry but were soon afterwards occupied by the Asiatic Artillery which was originally made up of Sikh and Punjabi Mussulman Companies known as Gun Lascars. They became the Hong Kong Asiatic Artillery in 1891 and the Hong Kong-Singapore Battalion Royal Artillery in 1898. In 1905 four companies were housed in the newly completed barrack blocks flanking the parade ground. According to PRO records construction was \"brick and granite and best Manilla Hardwood; outer walls of Amoy Brick and inner walls of Canton Brick.\" By 1909 other buildings had been built and a layout of the barracks at this time shows an Infants' School, Followers' Hut, Sikh/Mohammedan Cookhouse, NCOs' Quarters, Guard House, Sergeants' Mess, Officers' Mess, and a small Medical Centre.\n\nMost of these buildings have now been replaced with more modern buildings, but two of the original barrack blocks facing the Parade Ground still exist, together with the Medical Centre and the Officers' Mess although somewhat changed in appearance. Photographic evidence in the Public Records Office shows that the buildings were brick-built two-storey colonial style blocks with pitched Chinese tiled roofs and balustraded 'Venetian' verandahs. The Officers' Mess seems to have undergone an external facelift in the 1930s with an annex added on to the south elevation facing the Chatham Road entrance. The barrack blocks and Medical Centre were remodelled and altered in the 1960s but retain much of their original colonial style.\n\nThe Medical Centre, formerly the Soldiers' Canteen, numbered Block 11, is a single storey rectangular white painted brick-built block with an eight bay front verandah with a flight of steps at each end\n\nPage 300\n\nPage 301", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215575, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 352, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "302\n\nDepartment opined - sincerely - to the author that lighthouse keepership had become a kind of Eurasian tradition. They had developed the expertise and took pride in this. One can see, looking in Government staff lists, that lighthouse keepers in the 1950s and '60s usually had English names. But they were generally Eurasians.\n\nThey are still talked about by those who remember them. In fact the eccentricities (if they may be called that) of some of the old timers are recalled with affection (Rull; 1999). When on shore leave the Brown Brothers (Henry and Richard) would go fishing. Marine Department staff used to laugh and say it was because they found, after working in an isolated lighthouse for so long, that the \"hubbub\" at home was just too much to bear.\n\nTheir grandfather was a Danish mariner named Bruhn, although the family was of German stock with the spelling Braune (commonly spelt Braun). It is not known when the family changed its name to the English Brown. Grandfather travelled in and around China and lived for a time at the old treaty port of Amoy (now called Xiamen). It was a large family, generally tall, and several of the children were educated at Diocesan Boys or Diocesan Girls schools in Hong Kong. Most family members have now emigrated to Britain, Canada or Australia.\n\nHenry (born in 1898) was a big man in more ways than one. He liked double-breasted suits and bow ties. He enjoyed parties, telling jokes and drinking with friends - although not to excess. He made up for his time at Waglan when on shore leave. Both brothers liked fishing and shooting. Richard (born in 1896), who had lost fingers in an accident, was the quiet one. Both used to talk to family members about Waglan and of having to be hauled up in a basket in bad weather. One of the Brown brothers acted for a time, in the mid-1950s, managing the Lighthouse Section until the post of Superintendent of Lights was filled in March 1957 by Terrence Coughtney who was posted from Sarawak (Lack; 1999). Because the Brown family was of Danish nationality, and Denmark was not technically at war with Japan, the Brown brothers were not interned during the Japanese occupation.\n\nAnother colourful character, who served as a lighthouse keeper starting in 1937, was Charles Beatty Allenby Haig Thirlwell. With three of his four given names taken from surnames of two famous British", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215826, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "58\n\n1.\n\n1 Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: the U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), p.14.\n\n2 Miller, p.21-22, 24.\n\n3 Miller, p.33-36.\n\n(1) Steven T. Ross (ed.), American War Plans, 1919-1941, vol.2 (New York: Garland Publishers, 1992), p.125-126. (2) Miller, p.4-5, 31-32.\n\n• Ernest J. King & Walter Muir Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, A Naval Record (New York: WW Norton & Co., Inc., 1952), p.432. The JCS was the military committee that directed the war on the American side.\n\n6 Charles F. Romanus & Riley Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems, 1956 of U.S. Army in World War II: the China-Burma-India Theater, (pt. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1976), p.10.\n\n7 Christopher M. Bell, \"Our Most Exposed Outpost: Hong Kong and British Far Eastern Strategy, 1921-1941,\" The Journal of Military History, 60 (January 1996), p.65.\n\n• Colonel Lindsay T. Ride, \"Memorandum on the Liberation of Prisoners-of-War, Hong Kong,\" 30 Sep 43, p.11-13; Series 2/33, BAAG (British Army Aid Group) Correspondence Concerning Operations, September 1942-November 1943; Personal Papers of Sir Lindsay Tasman Ride (microform); Canberra, ACT: Australian War Memorial, 2001 (hereinafter known as the Ride Papers).\n\n* Unless otherwise noted, information for this section was collected from Weather Information Branch, HQ, USAAF, R&A Report #71087, \"Climate of Hong Kong (China),\" October 1943; Intelligence Reports (\"Regular Series\"), 1941-1945; Research and Analysis Branch Division; Records of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), RG226; National Archives (NA), Washington, DC.\n\n10 Later, it was reported that an all-weather road ran from Hong Kong to Canton, and the Japanese had improved other roads nearby to the same capacity. See \"G-2 Estimates of the Following Places: Haiphong-Liuchow Peninsula-Hainan Island-Hong Kong-Swatow-Amoy-Foochow-Santuao-Wenchow-Hangchow Bay Region-Laoyao-Chingtao-and the Tip of the Shantung Peninsula to Include Wei Hai Wei,\" 17 Feb 45, p.5; Ch.7-Intelligence, Correspondence, 1945, Folder", "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 } ]