[ { "id": 204979, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "78 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\non board at the time. A similar, but even more murderous case had occurred in 1858, on a river steamer between Canton and Hong Kong. As this was during the Second China War, and the attackers were definitely established to be Chinese soldiers in disguise, this case might be charitably described as an act of war.\n\nMost China coasters carried deck passengers, in addition to a dozen or so saloon passengers. In the emigrant trades, however, hundreds and even thousands of deck passengers were carried, and the emigrant ships were the greatest temptations to the pirates. The strategy was to get control of such a ship, take her to Bias Bay or Mirs Bay, both conveniently just outside Hong Kong territorial waters, and then make off ashore in Chinese territory with the money and valuables of the passengers. A few wealthy passengers might also be taken for ransom. An operation of this nature required careful planning and organizing ability, some knowledge of the ship's geography and routine, and some knowledge of navigation and engineering. In many cases it became known afterwards that some members of the gang had travelled on the ship previously, so as to make themselves familiar with it.\n\nA piracy of this kind required at least two dozen men, who boarded the ship along with the other passengers, with weapons concealed in their baggage. At a prearranged time a simultaneous attack would be mounted on the ship's key points—bridge, engine room, radio cabin, and saloon; often a meal time being chosen when everyone not on duty would be congregated in the saloon. While the ship was being taken to her destination under the supervision of a few pirates on the bridge and in the engine room, the others were robbing the passengers and broaching the most valuable cargo. As the destination was invariably Bias Bay or Mirs Bay, the piracy would take place as near there as possible, so as to reduce the time the ship was under pirate control and out of communication with Hong Kong.\n\nThe average coaster never had more than seven or eight European officers, and if the attack were well-timed they could all be immobilized in the first few minutes of the attack. There was usually little resistance from the Chinese crew, and a few men in the engine room and on the bridge were able to take the ship to its destination. There always seemed to be some pirates", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204980, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n79\n\nwith sufficient knowledge of navigation and engineering for this. When Bias Bay or Mirs Bay was reached one or more of the ship's lifeboats might be used to take the pirates, their loot, and their prisoners ashore. Sometimes junks were used for this, which might be innocent junks which had arrived fortuitously, or pirate junks which had arrived by prior arrangement. Invariably at least one of the ship's officers would be held as a hostage during this operation, being released when it was completed.\n\nIf everything went smoothly in a piracy of this kind, no lives would be lost. But the pirates were ruthless if they encountered any opposition or if a hitch occurred. A few shots were usually fired in the opening exchanges, perhaps causing a few injuries, but this made the rest of the crew and passengers more co-operative. Towards the end of this era of modern piracy, when the Hong Kong Government and the shipping companies had adopted more effective anti-piracy measures, casualties became more common, as the pirates intensified their resentment to these measures.\n\nOne important anti-piracy measure was the isolation of the centre part of the ship—bridge, engine room, and saloon accommodation—from the rest of the ship by steel grilles. Access was by a steel door, locked and under constant guard. The guards were usually Chinese or Sikh policemen, under White Russian officers; but on special occasions, British soldiers from the Hong Kong garrison were employed. In spite of all these precautions, piracy continued to flourish along the South China coast right down to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. However, there were no attempts on ships with British soldiers as guards.\n\nThere were fifty-one major cases of piracy on the China coast in the years between the two World Wars. The great majority involved British ships, and twenty British Merchant Navy officers were killed. There were also many Chinese casualties, and many Chinese kidnapped and never heard of again. There were also many cases involving Chinese junks which received little publicity in the foreign press. The worst years were 1922, 1927, and 1928, in which there were five, six, and eight piracies respectively. A few of the most famous cases of this period are described below.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "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": 204983, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "82\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nand Wei-hai-wei, in sight of a sister ship, the Linan. The Tungchow was turned south for Bias Bay, and a few days later was recognized by another sister ship, the Sinkiang, and flags were dipped. The Sinkiang accounted for the Tungchow's being off her usual route by assuming that she was bound for the Company's dockyard in Hong Kong. This was one of the most successful piracies in the interwar years. The pirates went ashore in Bias Bay with well over £30,000 in specie, $10,000 in cash, and only the last-minute cancellation of a large consignment of silver taels prevented their haul from being much larger.\n\nThe second Tungchow piracy was almost ten years later, when she was carrying several hundreds of thousands of dollar notes from Shanghai to Tientsin. The pirates captured her the day after she left Shanghai and, as before, turned her south for Bias Bay. During the next few days they painted out her name and altered the colour of the funnel. A disquieting feature of this second piracy was the fact that the Tungchow was passed by several ships when under pirate control, including a British warship looking out for her.\n\nThis second Tungchow piracy had its amusing aspects. The passengers included a number of European school children, returning to school in North China after spending their holidays with their parents in Shanghai. The pirates made friends with them, and supplied them with fruit and other delicacies broached from the ship's stores. As before, the Tungchow was taken to Bias Bay, where the pirates went ashore with their loot. Unfortunately for them, however, the dollar notes were unsigned.\n\nThe Nanchang piracy of March 1933 was even further from the normal pattern than either of the Tungchow cases. The most normal feature was that the Nanchang was a China Navigation Company ship. This piracy took place at the mouth of the Newchwang River in Manchuria, well outside the pirates' range of operations. Also, the Nanchang, which was boarded by two junks when she lay at anchor, carried no passengers. There were no casualties in this case, but four British officers were taken prisoner, and only released after five months of tortuous negotiations and the payment of a ransom. This incident took place eighteen months after the Japanese had overrun Manchuria, and had set up the puppet state of Manchukuo; it might possibly be described as banditry—with political undertones.", "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": 204985, "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": 93, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "84 \n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nHong Kong, than in the 1920's and 30's. The latter period came within the warlord era when the writ of the central government at Peking or Nanking sat very lightly, if at all, on the southern provinces. In 1925 and 1927, however, the Navy sent expeditions into Bias Bay, to destroy—if possible without damage to innocent lives and property—villages known to harbour pirates and pirate junks. The second expedition was undertaken in exasperation after the pirating of the Jardine steamer S.S. Hop Sang in March 1927.4 The official report issued after the expedition claimed that one hundred and thirty stone and mat shed huts were destroyed in the two villages attacked, and forty junks and sampans destroyed. The raid had been no surprise, and definite evidence was found that the villages had been implicated in recent piracies. These raids only caused a temporary lull in the pirates' activities.\n\nThe Navy had one notable success in the Irene piracy of October 1927, which illustrates the difficulties with which the Navy and the Hong Kong Government had to contend in their anti-piracy campaign. H.M.S. submarine L4 challenged the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company's Irene when entering Bias Bay without lights and in suspicious circumstances. When she refused to stop, and then ignored a warning shot fired across her bow, a live round was fired which still drew no response. The Irene's captain was navigating under the pirates' supervision, and tried to ring down to stop the engines, but was too late.\n\nThe next shot struck the Irene amidships on the waterline, disabling the engines, killing a pirate standing beside the chief engineer, and starting a fire which almost gutted the ship before she sank. L4 went alongside and rescued most of the crew, and 220 of the 248 passengers. Three other warships and the tug Alliance arrived later, but were unable to prevent the Irene from sinking. When L4 arrived at Hong Kong the crew and passengers of Irene were screened by the police, and three men were identified as being pirates. A few days later seven other men were arrested, and all ten eventually hanged, after a sensational attempt to break out of Hong Kong's Victoria Gaol. The China Merchants Steam Navigation Company came under the control of the Chinese Government, and the Irene\n\n4 The only piracy of a Jardine ship in the modern era,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204986, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n85\n\ncase had serious political repercussions. China considered L4's actions as flagrant aggression, and disregard for international law. Two years later they brought a suit against the commander of the L4 which was unsuccessful. This was one of the few cases in which the Navy came into actual contact with pirates, and it had several unsavoury features,\n\nPiracy was on the decline in South China at the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. As for the previous few years, the Kuomintang Government had been gaining more effective control of the southern coastal provinces. Isolated cases, however, still continued right down to the fall of Canton to the Japanese in October 1938. After that Japanese control over the coast of Mainland China curtailed the deck passenger and emigrant trade, as well as the coast trade in general. The pirates turned to smuggling arms through the Japanese blockade, assuming the guise of patriots as they had done so often in the past. When they resumed their normal profession after the war, their activities had a very short lease on life.\n\nThe last piracy involving a foreign ship on the China coast was in 1952. The victim, appropriately enough, was the Hupeh of the China Navigation Company, the company which had suffered so much from piracy in the past. The piracy followed the traditional pattern, with the Hupeh being taken to Bias Bay, where the pirates went ashore with their ill-gotten gains and some wealthy Chinese passengers to be held for ransom. Soon after this, the Communists secured complete control over the coast of Mainland China, and for the first time for centuries it became free of pirates. Unfortunately, there are now no British ships trading on the coast to enjoy this unusual immunity.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205956, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS\n\n31\n\nChinese interior of the treatment they had experienced. He admitted that \"almost invariably\" the answer was \"that at points remote from those to which foreigners have access, there was no diminution, but on the contrary, rather an enhancement of the courtesy exhibited towards them by the natives.\"32 While these visitors all need not have been referring to Taiping areas, it is a fact that the only exception to this apparent rule during Elgin's own trip on the Yangtze was at Hankow, which was under Ch'ing control. Elgin noted that in this city \"we thought we detected symptoms of the old disease of antipathy to foreigners, though of a very mitigated type.\"33 The English encountered objections to their entering the walled city of Wu-ch'ang,34 and when they walked about Hankow, were treated to the spectacle of having their Chinese official companions \"severely bamboo\" anyone who came near the foreigners, even if only to gratify understandable curiosity.35 Effort was made to prevent the mission from making purchases of local products of any kind.36\n\nElgin's general conclusions as the result of this trip were that there was \"little or nothing of popular sympathy\" for the Taipings, and that the majority of the population was desirous of peace and commerce. The first conclusion is obviously based upon the flimsiest and most suspect evidence, while the latter is merely a gratuitous observation. Our evaluation is harsh, but is based squarely upon a consideration of the motives and circumstances of the expedition, and on reflection upon the composition of the mission itself, with its heavy anti-Taiping bias (there was even a Ch'ing official accompanying the mission). With this background understood, it is a wonder indeed that Elgin himself would not have been more critical of the testimony garnered along the way, for Elgin had pondered the problem of the credibility of such information. His reflection on one aspect of the subject, some present-day interviewers on the China scene might agree, has a certain timeless applicability:\n\nChinamen of the humbler class are not much addicted to reflection, and when subjected to cross-examination by persons greedy of information, they are apt to consider the proceeding a strange one, and to suspect that it must be prompted by some exceedingly bad motive. Moreover, having been civilized for many generations, they carry politeness so far, that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206075, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "150 \n\nS. F. BALFOUR \n\n• \n\n\"A merchant of Ta Ts'in (Eastern Roman Empire) came to the court of the Emperor Sun Chuan of Wu (in the present Shanghai region). When Chu-Ko Ko (in A.D. 226) had subdued Tan Yang (a place in the mountains on the Anhwei-Kiangsi border) he caught some dwarfs of the 'Black' tribe. The merchant when he saw them said that such people were rarely seen in his country. The emperor gave him ten of each, male and female. \n\n** \n\nIt is very doubtful whether our region was ever populated by these dwarfs, but the fact that their present distribution is somewhat that of the Indonesians raises an additional culture problem. In any case, we can see from these texts that South China, before the Chinese colonisation, was an agglomeration of peoples whose race and movements are too obscure for us to connect them with any certainty with the existing population, \n\nIV. THE COLONIZATION OF SOUTH CHINA \n\nIt is important to distinguish between the Chinese conquest of South China and its colonisation by peasants. The conquest of our region for instance occurred in 220 B.C.; it then became a remote part of the Chinese Empire. Its colonisation by Chinese peasants did not occur until over 1,000 years later and is in fact a comparatively recent development. \n\nThe armies sent to subjugate the aborigines by the first Emperor of Ts'in in 220 B.C. started from Chang Sha in modern Hunan province and crossed the mountains by five passes descending on our region somewhere to the east of Bias Bay and to the west upon the delta somewhere in the neighbourhood of San Wui. The object of the expedition was to open trade routes for the precious objects which came from the south — pearls, coral, ivory, etc. The region was incorporated into the military governorship of Nan Hai or the \"Southern Seaboard\", and to it were sent political prisoners who died in large numbers of fever. \n\nBesides holding the Canton estuary the Chinese armies moved west to another important centre of trade, the Tonkin delta. Here they established themselves in a place they called Chiao Chih which is now Hanoi. When the short-lived Ts'in dynasty came to an end, a Chinese general who had participated in the campaign of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207044, "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": 115, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "THE HONG KONG REGION\n\n109\n\nplexities of local settlement and the absorption of the aboriginal dwellers of the area in the past thousand years. For a general account, readers are referred to the works by Lo Hsiang-lin (1959, 1963), K.M.A. Barnett, (1957, 1967) and the earlier writings of Krone (1859), G.N. Orme (1912) and S.F. Balfour (1941) cited in the references to this article.\n\nIntroduction*\n\nFor present purposes the Hong Kong region is defined as the present British Crown Colony of Hong Kong (403.7 square miles)1 and the immediately adjoining parts of Kwangtung province with which there has been intermittent official concern following the establishment of Hong Kong 134 years ago. This takes in the districts round the market town of Sham Chun north of the present Sino-British frontier, occupied by British troops between 16th May and 13th September 18992, and the areas of Mirs and Bias Bays to the east of the Colony that were often visited by British naval forces in their suppression of piracy in local waters during much of the 19th century and well into the 20th3. (See map).\n\nAt the time the British occupied Hong Kong island in 1841, the whole of this area, less Bias Bay, formed part of the Hsin-an district of the Kuang-chou prefecture of Kwangtung province. The place names and geographical features of the region are shown in many contemporary and earlier Chinese sources, whilst the large scale European map produced in 1866 by Msgr. Volontieri, an Italian missionary of the Propaganda, provides rather more local detail4.\n\nIn time the British came to occupy a greater part of Hsin-an district. Their occupation of Hong Kong island in January 1841 was converted into possession by the Treaty of Nanking in August 1842. British territory was extended by the lease in perpetuity of Kowloon under a deed dated 20th March 1860 and the cession of the same area by article VI of the Convention of Peking 24th\n\n1 CR1971, p. 204; this figure includes recent reclamations.\n\n2 See Groves, pp. 52-55.\n\n3 For the early period see Fox and Dalrymple Hay. Two expeditions to Bias Bay in March and September 1927 were noted in AR1927, K16: and as late as 1947 piracy in Mirs Bay kept Hong Kong fishermen in port; CR1947, p. 46.\n\n4 The KTTS of 1865 provides more detailed maps of Hsin-an and its adjoining areas than are given in the district and prefectural histories (HNHC and KCFC); see the general chart at pp. 1-2 of the opening volume. For the Volontieri map, which includes Chinese characters, see Ronald C. Y. Ng (1969) pp. 141-148 and Hayes (1970) pp. 193-196.\n\n* For the place names of Hong Kong see A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, Hong Kong Government Printer, 1960: hereafter styled Gazetteer.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207394, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "154\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nconflict. I came to regret my thoroughness, for there was never time to use the equipment thus accumulated and this must have been splendid booty for the Japanese. There was also a full social life; many British women had enrolled for nursing and other essential duties and had not been evacuated. The Hong Kong Hotel was a gay place indeed, particularly on a Saturday night.\n\nIn October 1938, 35,000 Japanese troops had landed in Bias Bay on the China coast 35 miles from Hong Kong, and had then occupied Canton and had cut all communications between Hong Kong and mainland China. Patrolling Japanese ships thereafter made sailing from the Colony outside a circumscribed area very hazardous. In February 1939 the Japanese occupied the island of Hainan, 300 miles to the south of Hong Kong thus controlling the sea communications with Singapore. Curiously, after my arrival I do not remember taking part in any serious discussions with my friends about the prospects of a successful defence of Hong Kong. There were however plenty of rumours to fill the air. It was generally known that the strategic plan required Hong Kong to resist an attack for 90 days before a relief could arrive, a decision taken by the British Chiefs of Staff in 1937. In February 1940 the home authorities decided that food reserves should be accumulated for 130 days, while in August 1940 the Chiefs of Staff reached a further decision that in case of war with Japan, Hong Kong should be regarded as an outpost to be held as long as possible. After the war I learned from Liddell Hart's History of the Second World War, that in February 1940 the Chiefs of Staff concluded that the troops should be withdrawn from Hong Kong. Nothing was done to give effect to this decision. I have no doubt that the decision taken in February 1940 was the correct one which could with advantage have been taken much earlier. Ever since my arrival in Hong Kong in 1939 I believed that the Colony could not be defended successfully. The frontier, beyond which lay a strong Japanese army, was some 20 miles from Hong Kong harbour, the line to be defended, the so-called Gin Drinkers line was less than 5 miles from the harbour, the Japanese navy controlled the coast, our airport was tiny and the Air Force planes were few in number and no match in performance for their potential opponents. One and a half million Chinese civilians were crowded into Kowloon and Victoria. Roads suitable for wheeled traffic were few and open to close observation at many points. The whole picture left no doubt", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209708, "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-1982", "page_number": 365, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n343\n\nEven so, it is out of place in this volume, unless the title is intended to imply “a Chinese style of archaeology\" rather than \"the archaeology of China.\"\n\nThe first chapter is the only one of real substance in the book, at least for those seeking a reasonable summary and interpretation of Chinese archaeology, but it is marred by the unlabelled mixing of fact and opinion. Entitled \"The Beginning of Chinese Civilization,\" this recently revised essay presents an overview of the prehistoric and Shang periods. Cheng rightly points out the emergence of the various Early Neolithic cultures from their regional antecedents in the Paleolithic, though he is speculating wildly in assigning a date of 25,000 years before the present for this transition.\n\nUnfortunately, Cheng still clings to the outmoded “nuclear area hypothesis\" applied to the Late Neolithic. In spite of much evidence to the contrary (some of which is even mentioned in this essay), Cheng still maintains, as he has for many years, that \"the expansion of the Late Neolithic culture beyond the Central Plain was responsible for the diffusion of the new pattern of food production [cereal agriculture] in various parts of China.\" And, ignoring all the botanical, archaeological, and ethnographic evidence to the contrary, Cheng then claims that \"rice found a most agreeable home in the wet South\" after being introduced by farmers from the North. A few pages earlier, Cheng had described the important Ho-mu-tu site in Chekiang, i.e., in the South, as one of the most agriculturally advanced and the earliest dated Late Neolithic site excavated in China so far. Cheng also makes the highly disputable claims that painted pottery spread throughout China from a Yangshao origin, and that \"the expansion of the Mongoloid people into the South Seas [? the South China Sea] was an event closely related to the spread of agriculture in China.” Most archaeologists would not claim a single origin for all the painted pottery of China, and very little, perhaps nothing, is really known about the spread of \"Mongoloid people\" or agriculture in the Neolithic of East Asia.\n\nIn dealing with the earliest historical period, Cheng again on occasion mixes fact and good and bad hypothesis with pure conjecture and cultural bias. Cheng implies that Chinese writing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212192, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "transferred their activities elsewhere: the evil reputation of Bias Bay nearby is well known. But British influence made itself felt in other ways, too. The \"foreign devils\" not only brought security; they built houses, roads and dockyards, so that a very large number of Chinese found Hongkong preferable to their native districts and came there to live. By 1938 the population was over two millions, including twenty-four thousand foreigners. It is true, of the Chinese no less than one million were only transient inhabitants, refugees from the Japanese wrath which was spreading over China. To these wretched thousands, Hongkong, for a time, was a sanctuary: as later in another part of the world, was England to the French, Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian refugees, who were to escape from German occupied territory.\n\nBehind Victoria, the cramped commercial hub of the island, a funicular Peak Tramway rises steeply to serve the numerous mansions, erected at varying levels, for taipans, who hope vainly to avoid the moist clinging heat of the long Hongkong summer. Some of the mansions look out over Victoria at the twin city of Kowloon on the mainland across the harbour: others, on the reverse slope, look out to sea, to Lantao island, still barren, to Lamma, in the foreground, and to Cheung Chau in the middle distance.\n\nHongkong was crowded. The hotels were full and so when we arrived, some weeks after leaving Nanking, my wife and I took rooms at the small hotel which an enterprising English couple had opened on Cheung Chau island. A special ferry from Victoria did the trip several times a day in about half an hour. There was quite a large fishing village, the rendezvous for many of the junks that frequent these waters. We lived on fish and strolled amongst the stunted pines and the empty bungalows of the summer visitors waiting until we could find more convenient accommodation. It was a pleasant change from the vicissitudes of Nanking.\n\nEventually we were able to get rooms in the Repulse Bay Hotel, famous as a honeymoon resort. It is on the side of Hongkong facing the open sea, near what is perhaps the best known bathing beach. A winding road over the hill through the Wong Nei Chong gap leads to Victoria, and in Deepwater Bay round the point there is a small nine-hole golf course.\n\nI remember one day we took the bus up to the Gap and got out", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212210, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "― \n\n129 \n\ndamage. The war caught many Chinese towns in a state of transition. The new urge for progress had overcome the financial reluctance of shopowners, in their dark narrow alleys, to allow the authorities of the town to tear down their shop fronts without compensations. For where was the money for compensation to be found \n\nand put back the frontage twenty or thirty feet. It was a double loss. Not only were the shop owners faced with the cost of rebuilding the shop front, but the ground surrendered was irretrievably lost. Often, the depth would be cut down by half, leaving only a fraction, inadequate to the continuation of the business on that site. When that happened, it was just too bad. There was nothing that could be done about it. The process of road widening was in full swing when the war started: it was even continued during the war, and often a bombing raid saved the cost of pulling down a street length of shop fronts. The new Chinese towns will be rebuilt with wider streets, and the houses will be of improved design. The Chinese are learning the advantages of sunlight and fresh air. \n\nKiu Kiang was captured in July: in October the Japanese landed in Bias Bay and marched through, apparently with little opposition, to Canton: there was yet another surge of refugees into Hongkong. Shortly after, Hankow fell, and the capital removed to Chungking. The Japanese continued their advance up the Yangtze until they reached Ichang at the foot of the Gorges; but, some local incursions apart, those were the limits of their advance for the next four years. \n\nThe railway connection was cut. No longer was I pressed by the insistent Chinese officials to load cargo onto lighters to be ferried across the harbour to the Kowloon railway jetty. In the past only too often were the promised railcars not available at the appointed time, and the cargo would have to come all the way back into the godowns on the Hongkong side, at considerable cost in lighterage and coolie hire, unrecovered. The shipment of supplies was now diverted to Indo-China. From Haiphong they were sent by rail to the Kwangsi border for transfer by lorry to Kweilin, which became the distributing centre for Western China. \n\nSubstantial supplies for Eastern China could still pass in, under a foreign flag, through the unoccupied eastern ports, such as Ningpo, Wenchow and Foochow. Japan was not at war with China, and so was unable to declare a blockade; but such trade was mainly confined", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212397, "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": 339, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "316 \n\nand traditions that make men (and women) take to the profession of piracy. As it is the book is a \"good read\" in the sensational nineteen-twenties style of journalism, padded out with cuttings from the newspaper library. And the piracy which forms the main theme of the book is less the battle-boarding-bang-bang scenario of excitement and tension favoured by generations of schoolboys, than a roughly institutionalised form of \"protection\". You entered into \"discussions\" with fishing-junks to protect them from real pirates, in the same way as today's Hong Kong Triads contact a new shop or restaurant to \"protect\" them against burglars.\n\nNot that the nineteen-twenties lacked their share of genuine piratical drama. This was the decade of the inside operation, with villains booking passages on coastal and ocean-going ships and, once out of sight of land, storming the bridge and forcing the crews to steer to Bias Bay, where the cargo would be looted, and the passengers sometimes held to ransom.\n\nOf all the piracies that of the SS Sunning in November, 1926, was the most spectacular and interesting, because the officers not only fought against overwhelming odds, but actually recaptured the ship, although with heavy losses in dead and injured. All this against a background of well-defined Hong Kong colonial policy. The drill was simple. Any pirates caught in Hong Kong waters, if found guilty, were hanged. If the crimes were committed in Chinese waters it was up to the Mainland Chinese authorities to deal with them, and in the nineteen-twenties China was too occupied with war-lord politics and other problems to bother much with coastal piracy, which had anyway been a nuisance for centuries.\n\nIn order to make contacts with the sea-going underworld the author paid many visits to Macau and was extraordinarily lucky in making contact with useful intermediaries. He lacks literary style but he is the kind of determined reporter every editor would like to have on hand for investigative purposes. In an effort (unsuccessful) to pursue useful contacts he even committed a minor crime and got himself locked up among the convicts in Hong Kong's Victoria Prison. Not surprisingly the pirates there had been found guilty not of piracy but lesser offences; had their real identity been revealed and proved they would have been doomed men. The gallows was a few yards outside author Lilius' cell.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212530, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "64\n\n28\n\n19\n\n3:0\n\nDavid Nivison, The Life and Thought of Chang Hsueh-ch'eng, (Stanford, 1866), 251\n\nIbid\n\nSee Si ku wei shou shu mu u yao, 5 juan, 1807 Ruan Yuan's bibliographical annotations on important books omitted from the Si Ku chuan shu. He had found these books in Zhejiang. The original memorials that accompanied these books and his annotations are in the Qing Archival Collection at the National Palace Museum (Taipei)\n\n31 Yi zheng Liu Meng zhan nian pu (Chronological account of the life of Liu Wen chi), 114-115.\n\n32 Arthur Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, (Washington DC, 1943), 91\n\n33\n\n34 Yang Wensheng X, Si shi cao ji (1801), Preface\n\nLetter to Liu Taigong (1790-1855), dated 1802 Liu's daughter was married to Ruan Yuan's adopted son, Ruan Changsheng,\n\n34 Letter to Wang Niansun.\n\n36 Ruan Yuan blamed the errors on the fact that he had not had a chance to do the final proof reading before the book was printed.\n\n37 Ruan Yuan's letters written in old age, Ruan Wen da gong zhi shi hou jia shu, consisting of several dozen memos written to his family after 1838 when he retired from government service, serve to prove that Ruan Heng, always referred to as \"my younger brother\" but actually a distant cousin who had been adopted as heir to a half brother of Ruan Yuan's father, had taken care of Ruan Yuan's business and financial interests with the aid of a couple of clerks. These letters are in the Rare Book Collection of Beijing Library. I am grateful to Professor Wang Junyi and his staff of the Qing History Institute at the People's University who made it possible for me to have access to the collection in March 1991\n\n38\n\nI am not happy with the English translation \"tent friend\" or \"guest\"\n\nDing xian ting bi tan, 1:11a.\n\n40\n\n41 See, for instance, Ding xiang ting bi tan 3.52b-53a\n\nHai ning zhou zhi gao 4:3 shan, 11b-12b.\n\n42 Xie Guozheng, Jin dai shu yuan xue xiao zhi du bian quan kao (An inquiry into recent changes in the academies and schools of China), (Hong Kong, 1972), 2-18.\n\n43 Zhang Ying in Wen lan xue bao 2:1\n\nLin Bo tong, Xue hai tang zhi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212543, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "77\n\nincoming events did take the role of initiating a new trend in China.\n\nChina's domestic policy reassessments were mainly motivated by political considerations and were generally centred on political and theoretical matters. Accordingly, art and literature were less affected than policies by these reassessments. Nonetheless, the bearing of these reassessments on art and literature were enormous.\n\nIn 1977-1978 there appeared a literary genre called “scar literature” (“wounded literature”), under which a number of stories, plays and poems were published or staged. Among these works were \"Class Teacher\" (\"Ban zhuren”) and “Scar” (“Shanghen”), after which the genre was named. The themes of the works under this genre were almost exclusively focused on the wrongs done in the Cultural Revolution. The open, and sometimes forceful condemnations of past policies were pretty much the same as the practices in earlier campaigns to criticize Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao, but the content showed that writers tried to analyse history from their own perspective. After the Third Plenum in December 1978, at which Deng Xiaoping called upon the intellectuals to “emancipate their minds” and to break into previously forbidden zones, more works under this genre were published.\n\nThe impact of political reassessment in the post-Mao era was strong though, the first reassessment affected the development of art and literature only marginally. With the pulling down of the Xidan \"Democracy Wall\" and the arrest of Wei Jingsheng, an activist in the demonstrations who advocated adoption of a Western system of democracy, there appeared a tendency to limit the scope of literary and artistic activities. In June 1979, an article \"Praise and Shame\" was published arguing that any writer who criticizes the dark side of socialism is shameful. This article ignited a nationwide criticism of “ultra-leftist tendencies in literary and artistic creation.” In the following few months, major newspapers and journals published articles to refute this stand, dubbing its supporters the \"whatever\" faction.\n\nThis development made high culture a victim of political campaigns.\n\n16\n\nThough \"scar literature\" was unaffected by the campaign started in the spring of 1979, it had become out-of-sale by the autumn of that year as the mood of the nation turned more to the present and the future rather than concentrating on the past. So this literary genre was replaced by a more controversial genre, \"exposure literature\", in which social", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212918, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "212 miles of China coast to look for her. As time wore on, the distance she could travel extended until it could be anywhere from Tientsin to Hainan. The Royal Navy had an aircraft carrier in Hong Kong and this was drafted into the hunt. An aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes spotted a ship like the Tungchow anchored in Bias Bay (Days Bay) which was a well-known haunt of China coast pirates. It was indeed the Tungchow and the pirates, seeing the plane swoop over, realised that they had better decamp. Once they were away, the Captain sailed for Hong Kong where he arrived a few hours later. Although the pirates escaped, they had a frustrating piracy. They had got the wrong ship. The silver was on another ship which delivered its cargo safely. The Tungchow carried no silver but a cargo of oranges. The pirates broke open the crates in their hunt for the silver so that the ship was running with oranges which the boys gathered in quantities. The pirates did no harm to the children but at first kept them shut up in the passenger accommodation. You can imagine what tales the Shanghai party had to tell when we all got back to school.\n\nWe Leave China\n\nIn 1939 my father's tour was up and he decided, after twenty-five years, to retire from the mission field. He was in his mid-fifties and few stayed so long. Today this sounds an early retiring age, but today we have the untold advantage of constant air-conditioning to temper the severity of our summers and much greater control over diseases. The advance of the Japanese and the threatening war situation in Europe may well have influenced his decision too.\n\nIn any event, my parents and our younger sister set off from Fatshan, while my brother, other sister, and I set off from Chefoo on the last of our journeys on a B. & S. coaster for Shanghai. My parents travelled up from Hong Kong on a Canadian Pacific steamer, the Empress of Russia, which we joined in Shanghai. By this time, Shanghai had been occupied by the Japanese, though they were still at peace with Britain and America. In the occupied city, security was tight, especially round the docks, and we had to pass through several check points manned by pretty rough soldiers. Once at sea, those worries were left behind, but, as a postscript, when we sailed from Yokohama a few days later, we found ourselves in the midst of large-scale manoeuvres by the Japanese fleet and accompanying aircraft firing and bombing targets not far from us.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213098, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "148\n\nDEEP BAY\n\nSTARLING INLET\n\n&\n\nMap 1: The Sha Tau Kok Area\n\nMIRs BAY\n\nΣ\n\nBIAS BAY\n\nT\n\nKay\n\nSha Tau Kok Market District\n\nMountains\n\nMajor Peak\n\nmiles\n\n10\n\n0\n\nI\n\n·\n\nL\n\n!\n\n8\n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213138, "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": 206, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "188\n\n \n Year\n Event\n Source\n \n \n 1933\n Mounted Horse Patrols instituted to control smuggling. Guerrillas active in Bias Bay area Gunbattle with \"uniformed smugglers\" off Tai Mu Sha\n AJ, JLHG\n \n \n 1934\n Increase in smuggling Gunbattle with smugglers in Hong Kong waters Automobile Anti-smuggling Patrol instituted\n AR\n \n \n 1935\n Continuing influx into the New Territories of poor Hakkas, refugees from neighbouring districts, living in matsheds Chinese erect steel fence from Sham Chun to Sha Tau Kok Guerrillas active in Bias Bay area Gunbattle in Mirs Bay with smugglers. In gunbattle at Sha Tau Kok, an innocent bystander is killed\n JLHG\n \n \n 1936\n \n \n \n \n 1937\n Increase in smuggling after slight drop in 1935 (District Officer) Customs revenues rise as smuggling is \"brought under control” (Customs) Increase in immigration into the New Territories of poor Hakkas Guerrillas active in Bias Bay area\n AR JLHG\n \n \n 1938\n Increase in smuggling Destitute refugees in New Territories Gang crime wave there \"Abnormal conditions\" in China cause more refugees to arrive Cross-border thieves set on and beaten to death by New Territories villagers\n AR JLHG\n \n \n 1979\n \n \n \n \n 1940\n Refugees from Japanese increase population of New Territories by 1/2 Many squatter matsheds, but no increase in New Territories crime, except that some cross-border gangs cause trouble. Kai Wong, Tip Fuk, Customs Stations closed. – Kai Miu Customs Stations destroyed in Japanese attack Japanese enter Sham Chun and all Customs Stations closed Japanese attack Sha Tau Kok, Sham Chun, Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, damaging all Customs Stations, then relieve Customs stations reopen at end of year Fishing, other than inshore, greatly hampered by Japanese attacks. Many refugees in the New Territories die of starvation\n AR JLHG\n \n \n \n Increase in smuggling and piracy, due to confused situation in border area Guerrillas come to agreement with Customs on operation of Sha Yue Chung Customs Station - goods for guerrillas to be duty-free Japanese take Nam Tau, attack Sham Chun, then enter Sham Chun - all Customs Stations except Sha Yue Chung close Japanese retire, and all Customs Stations reopen battle with smugglers off Yau Tam\n JLHG\n \n \n \n Japanese re-enter Sham Chun All Customs Stations close, then the Japanese retire, and Mirs Bay Customs Station re-open with assistance of guerrillas All Stations damaged Heavy smuggling of strategic goods to Sha Yue Chung, Mui Sha, Chan Hang Japanese again invade Sham Chun, and attack Mirs Bay Mirs Bay Customs Station able to operate at night only Sha Tau Kok captured by Japanese\n JLHG", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215158, "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": 254, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "214\n\nA Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong\n\nSchool (VTS), that a new curriculum was phased in. It changed from being a trade school and became a secondary technical school.\n\nMeanwhile the Far East Flying Training School -- the original name -- commenced training pilots and engineers for the civil aviation industry in 1934. The Far East Flying and Technical School Limited, as it was later renamed, sited at Kai Tak, was a private institution. It shut its doors in 1983 because of the rapid expansion of government-sponsored technical education.\n\nMeanwhile, retracing our steps, further progress in the field of technical education was made pre-World War Two when, in 1935, the Salesian Society founded the Aberdeen Trade School. This provided a sound general education, together with training considered to be comparable to an apprenticeship.\n\nLike the JTS, this School too was converted into a secondary technical school in the late 1950s. I recall visiting the Aberdeen Trade School on its open day, in January 1955, when I was struck by the high standard of craftsmanship of the students' work on display.\n\nThe first Government post-secondary technical institution was the old Trade School which opened in Wood Road, Wan Chai (using the old spelling), in 1937. It stood on the corner where the Vocational Training Council's multi-storey office block stands today. At the time of opening, under Principal George White, it ran courses in building, mechanical engineering (with a bias towards automobile engineering) and marine wireless operating. The Trade School also took over the evening classes previously run by Taikoo Dockyard at Quarry Bay.\n\nThe new, then two-storey (an additional floor was added in 1953) Trade School was well constructed on the lines of other colonial-style buildings erected between the two World Wars. It had high ceilings with paddle-fans because there was virtually no air-conditioning in Hong Kong at that time (an exception was the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank). The Trade School was one of the few examples of good face brickwork. In the 1950s navigation, commerce and textile", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215937, "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": 236, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "170\n\nto villagers, making personal and individual contacts. He told Endacott how he met farmers and fishermen, Hoklo and Hakka speakers, and gradually won acceptance: at one stage, he had to undergo a “blood ceremony” with some pirate families in the Mirs Bay and Bias Bay area. Trained in SOE tactics, he realised that these close-knit communities, with their tradition of secret societies and their sometimes justified tradition of being outlaws, alienated from established government, were an ideal ready-made resistance underground. Strategically, the hinterland behind Hong Kong was a critical buffer zone in the event of Hong Kong being occupied. It would be the area through which information, personnel, and material would enter and exit. Hence the extreme importance placed on developing relationships with all the local people, whatever their politics, and channelling their interests in support of the British cause.\n\nShortly after the fall of Canton in 1938, a guerrilla unit was formed, nominally under national government influence, to assist in carrying out resistance against the Japanese in the East River Area, just north of Hong Kong, and along the lines of the Kowloon-Canton railway from Sumchun to Sheklung. This unit was commanded by the charismatic ex-seaman Tsang Sheng, whose vision of social change was far closer to communist values than to the increasingly right-wing KMT. Because his power base was the region behind Hong Kong, not especially loyal to the central government, he was able to break free and declare his communist sympathies. He consolidated his influence over the area by earning the support of the local populace and by controlling the worst excesses of bandits, many of whom at this period were KMT supporters. Tsang’s army of guerrillas, known as the Guangdong People’s Anti-Japanese Resistance Unit, or the East River Column, formed the strongest, best-organised, and most aggressive Chinese military formation in the vicinity of Hong Kong. Kendall noted that these men were well-armed with Mausers and decent equipment, funded either by the Communist Party or by the relatively prosperous villagers who had overseas remittances from men working abroad. He knew that many in the KMT were as violently opposed to the Communists as they were to the Japanese, and that working with the Communists would be a high-risk strategy, but it was essential in a region so crucial to Hong Kong. It is known that Kendall was involved in negotiations with the Communists. Ronald Holmes, a SOE agent seconded to the BAAG, was to refer to this in July 1944 when he prepared a report of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]