[ { "id": 205949, "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": 29, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, Jr.*\n\nWhen Lord Elgin, Great Britain's Plenipotentiary to China and the negotiator of the abortive Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 and of the Peking Convention in 1860, in a fit of anger and frustration at the Manchu government raised the possibility of treating with the Taiping revolutionaries instead, his colleagues quickly dissuaded him from such a drastic course. But the question, having been raised, remained to what extent was Lord Elgin's threat the revelation of an alternative policy that the British might have been considering should the recalcitrant Manchus prove in the end to be hopelessly intractable? In other words, had the British been giving secret thought to negotiating a separate or alternative treaty with the Taipings at Nanking?\n\nAside from Lord Elgin's passing remark in this regard there certainly was little in the record of relations between the British and the Taipings to suggest that any such arrangement had been given serious consideration. The early diplomatic visits to Nanking in 1853 and 1854 were never followed-up by any of the Western powers.2 Despite the features of the Taiping regime that did not set well with the foreigners it had manifested a friendly attitude toward them and did continue to exist as a de facto alternative government with which they might have dealt had they been so disposed. But they were not. Instead the powers opted to deal exclusively with the Manchus, even though this required the waging of further hostilities in order to accomplish their diplomatic objectives.\n\nStill, there does remain Lord Elgin's annoyed comment. Did it possibly signify a line of action that had been hidden? Of course, this was unlikely. Yet the best way to satisfy our curiosity on this question is to examine the record of Lord Elgin's own visit through Taiping territory. Did the Minister Plenipotentiary,\n\n*The author, a former editor of this Journal, currently Associate Professor of History at Duke University, is indebted to the Research Associates Program of the Graduate School of International Studies and the Social Science Foundation of the University of Denver for a grant which facilitated the preparation of this article. In modified form the article forms part of a chapter of the author's forthcoming book Revolutionary Taiping China and the West.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206908, "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-1973", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS \n\n179 \n\nIn my opinion much of the earlier discussion tends to be more an aesthetic exercise, a presentation of personal standards of elegance. Most if not all of the proposed systems work and do their job well enough. Most of the counterproposals were made with such goals as simplification, economies at the printers, or the revelation of linguistic truths in the analysis. These, and a number of other goals, are of course valid and important, but the combination of these goals and the possible differing priorities in achieving them creates literally an infinite number of possible transcription systems, most of them basically acceptable. The first requirement is essentially linguistic and says in over-simplified terms that the system should be non-redundant and unambiguous. If carried to its logical extreme this would generally produce systems satisfying only to linguists, systems in which the minimum inventory of symbols is used to transcribe all the contrasting sounds of Chinese. The trouble with such systems is that they often disturb everyone else in the field by forcing them to learn too many rules to cover situations in which a given symbol may have multiple pronunciations conditioned by the preceding or following symbols. For example, in the Pinyin system now preferred by Peking, the letter u is pronounced [u] or [ü] depending on whether it follows j- or zh- respectively.\n\nThis sort of thing takes care of a perfectly good linguistic fact about the language, but to the average reader or beginning student it is irritating and troublesome to find one letter with two contrasting pronunciations. The effect is generally more confusing than helpful. Therefore, although leaving something to be desired by the linguist, the more popular systems usually work on a principle of one symbol for one sound and ignore the details of linguistic complementary distribution. But the arguments still flare up about the desirability of such an approach, or even about the choice of symbols in cases where multiple choices seem possible to the disputants. No less a figure than Bernhard Karlgren (\"Compendium of Phonetics in Ancient and Archaic Chinese\", Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 26, 367) has implied that the reason English and American speakers have so much trouble pronouncing words like 'self' and 'master' is because Wade-Giles spells them tzŭ and chu respectively, whereas in fact the initial consonants of these words are of two quite different values. He argues that the transcription has ignored the complementary distribution between velar and retroflex initials, and he uses a system which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209699, "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": 356, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "334\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nAll in all, students should welcome this handsome book available at a reasonable price.\n\nH. Y. SHIH\n\nClassical Chinese Gardens, ed. Qian Yun. H.K.: Joint Publishing Co., & Beijing: Chinese Building Industry Press, 1982. 240 pp. (including 209 colour plates).\n\nThis is the most satisfying among a number of books on the same subject published in the past decade. Although the text is brief, intended for the general reader, it highlights the special aesthetic qualities of these combinations of architecture and constructed landscape, and offers a synoptic but well-founded history of various types of gardens - imperial, private, religious and scenic parks.\n\nSeveral surviving examples of such gardens and parks are discussed in this book, each illustrated with a plan of its design as well as photographed views. A brief written description of its history, chief monuments and experience of the visitor while walking through or standing at various points, introduces the individual complexes. The quality of this book's reproductions is exceptional. Especially pleasing is the revelation of their views in different seasons.\n\nApart from the many well-known sites in Beijing, Hangzhou and Suzhou, the book includes such relatively less tourist-ridden locations as the \"Magnificent Clear Lake\" near Xian, and a number of private (and still occupied) residences in Beijing as well as the provinces. Temple gardens in or near a number of cities are a welcome addition as they have been less well publicized for China than for Japan, yet Chinese examples served as prototypes for many in Japan. The final entry in this section of the book is the Norbu Lingka (Treasure Garden), the former summer resort of the Dalai Lama but originally designed for the Qing Dynasty's Resident in Tibet.\n\nOf course, it would demand a much more ambitious undertaking than the work described above, but this reviewer looks forward to a book on Chinese gardens that would offer basic information as to architectural design and construction and...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215429, "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": 206, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "155\n\nimpressions and variations of this image circulated at the time in Europe; 26 the Jesuit fathers had actually been instrumental in introducing similar prints to the East. Apart from prints, Charles Boxer, amongst others, has remarked how the Portuguese had carried retablos with them to Japan.27 It therefore seems equally plausible that related altarpieces might have been present in the minds of the artists of the façade.\n\nBesides the mentioned attributes, the unknown programmer of the decoration also incorporated themes from St John's Book of Revelation 12.1 and 12.3 (John 12.2 was by now conveniently glossed over in artistic representations of the theme), as well as from other sources.\n\nSuch a sophisticated and theological knowledge of Marian themes reveals the mind of a programmer ingenious enough to merit a few words. Although the identity of its author is unknown, Carlo Spinola, the architect of Madre de Deus and the artist Giovanni Nicolao, director of the art school in Japan, come immediately to mind. But I think one should also consider Dom Diogo Correa Valente as another possible candidate for authorship, mainly on account of the contents of his library in the College of St. Paul.28\n\nThe Jesuit Diogo Valente was the learned but controversial Bishop of Japan resident at the College of São Paulo from 1619 to 1624, years when the façade was probably being redesigned and its construction begun. In 1624 Dom Diogo had to leave for Goa in a hurry under the shadow of the violent quarrels that agitated Macao because members of his own order had apparently partisanly elected him as Bishop of the city. But he returned again as Bishop in 1630 and so remained until his death three years later. When he was buried in the chancel of the church of Madre de Deus the decoration of the frontispiece must have been in progress. However, this is a question that can only be settled by future research.\n\nSymbolic Meaning\n\nThe interpretation of symbols relating to Mary (and the other images) is a fascinating but complex subject that cannot be discussed in detail here. However, it is worth considering some of those adorning the façade to get a sense of their poetic and mystical quality.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215991, "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": 290, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "224 \n\n(Sevenoaks: Hodder and Stoughton, 1981), the first volume subtitled Barbarians At The Gates, pp. 143-147, 174-175, 224-225.\n\n11. Both Hong Réngan and He Jinshan have been discussed in detail in Pfister's Striving for \"The Whole Duty of Man\", especially chapters 4-6. A more thorough study of He Jinshan's contribution to Chinese Christian history by Lauren Pfister is an essay entitled \"A Transmitter but not a Creator: The Creative Transmission of Protestant Biblical Traditions by Ho Tsun-Sheen (1817-1871)” in Irene Eber, et. al., eds., Bible in Modern China: The Literary and Intellectual Impact (Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1999), pp. 165-197.\n\n12. The name of Ch'ëa Kam-Kwong is constituted by particular Chinese characters Legge described as the \"Golden Light Chariot,\" a way of expressing in English what the common meaning of each character is. Unfortunately, two misspellings have predominated in other literature, one in English and one in Chinese. In English, we surmise that Helen Edith Legge put together the typescript entitled \"Che'a Kin-KWáng,\" horribly mixing up the transliteration with something like the proper name in Hoklo dialect, but the given name in Mandarin. Legge never uses these transliterations in his own writings. In Chinese, Wáng Tão wrote the wrong characters for the name in his personal diary for 1862 when he had first come to Hong Kong, showing also his struggle in understanding Cantonese pronunciations, making his given name \"Embroidered River\" (M. Jinjiang, C. Gam-gong) presumably by guessing from the sounds he heard from other Hong Kong Chinese Christians who referred to him. Consult Fang Xing and Tăng Zhijūn, eds., Wáng Tão rìjì (Wáng Tāo ’s Diary) (Beijing: Zhōnghuá Book Store, 1987), pp. 196-197, record for the date of the 10th month and 15th day of the lunar calendar (or a day in September, 1862).\n\n13. There is no study of Ch'ea Kam-Kwong in Chinese language sources as far as I know, and very little published about him in English after the 1860s. Part of the reason, as will be argued below, is that his murder became an embarrassment to both the British embassy and the Qing dynasty at the time.\n\n14. Legge wrote memorials for his elder brother, an important Congregational minister in Great Britain, George Legge (1802-1860), and his co-pastor, Hé Jinshan, published in 1863 and 1872 respectively. See the typescript on the \"Sketch of the Life of Ho Tsun-sheen\" in SOAS/CWM/South China/Personal/Legge/Box 7, the original manuscript on Ch'a being held in the Bodleian Library (the second item in MS Eng. misc. c. 865, fol. 1-19). Consult the long introduction written for George Legge's Lectures on Theology, Science and Revelation already mentioned above. The text of \"Che'a Kin-KWáng” is a compilation done most likely by his daughter, Helen Edith Legge. It uses many original and secondary sources citing her father's and other missionaries' writings, but also includes some perspectives and interpretations which may not portray the full story.\n\n15. The story of their visit to Daoist and Buddhist sites on Mount Lo-fow is described in Legge's \"Journey of a Missionary Tour along the 'East River' of Canton Province,\" China Mail, Supplement to #853 (June 20, 1861), p.4 (covering events of May 22-23, 1861). This is the full text from which extracts were and published in EMMC/MM, No.304 (New Series, No. 21) for September 2, 1861, pp. 249-260.\n\nmade", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216073, "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": 372, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "306\n\nThe last mention of Mason in Hart's letters refers to Mason in 1897 having sent Hart his book The Shen's Pigtail or Other Cues of Anglo-China Life. Mason, wrote Hart, had been in low water at home and twice [Hart] had helped him. Mason was, added Hart, a clever fellow who, before the C'Kiang affair broke out, had just got himself on to the ladder of advancement, and in that matter [the Mason affair] he was to Hart's mind, the victim of mixed motives - he was curious, and he wanted to serve Hart, and got into a quicksand.\n\nHart was much kinder to Mason than ever Mesny would be. Mesny, in his Miscellany some ten years later, related in great detail, both from notes and from memory, the extraordinary story related above of being persecuted by Mason.\n\nMesny also wrote in his Miscellany [6 Feb. 1896] that he had gone through the evidence [on the Mason Case] in the British Blue Books and could not see how any mortal could come to any other than one of two conclusions - either Mason had been paid by the Chinese to get up a bogus scare [to create anti-foreign action] or that he was a mere maniac. Nine-tenths of his revelations had been unquestionably pure fabrication. At the bottom of the page, Mesny added, without offering any evidence, \"I am now fully satisfied that Mason was paid by the Chinese.\"\n\nOn an entirely different aspect of life in Shanghai, we read in a postscript from Mesny on the snobbish attitudes of the British in China that adds colour to our story. The British Consul in Shanghai held a party in May of 1899 to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria. Mesny wrote in his Miscellany that despite not receiving an invitation, a fact which confirms that he was ostracised by fellow Britons, possibly because of his wife or because he made a point of living among and mixing with Chinese, though it could also have been due to his very pro-Chinese stand, he turned up at the Consulate only to be turned away by the British police at the gate. This short note in the Miscellany describing the slight would appear to have been his method of getting his own back.\n\nAs with most small expatriate bodies, factions existed. Mason described in his 'Chinese Confessions', the problems of a 'British bachelor in the Imperial Customs Service in Zhenjiang, a small Customs", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216145, "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": 444, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "378\n\nI was spellbound by this revelation and decided to write an article on the subject for The Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, a Hong Kong publication of which I am the Hon. Editor. This appeared in 2001.2\n\nIn researching this article I had a look around the WWW and came across a webpage dedicated to Suyin hosted by the University of Minnesota and maintained by Professor Teresa Kowalska of the Silesian University, Katowice. Without any real hope of getting a response, I e-mailed Teresa and she promptly replied. This started an exchange of e-mails, which continues to this day, initially about Han Suyin, but latterly about every subject imaginable. We have become friends.\n\nTeresa has been an ardent admirer of Han Suyin for many years and has met her four times now. She has written a number of articles about her and in 2002 told me of her magnum opus; a Polish translation of Suyin's The Crippled Tree. However, she was having great difficulty in finding a Polish publisher and the cost seemed likely to be prohibitive.\n\nBy this stage I had also developed an admiration for Suyin. None of her books had ever been published in Polish and it seemed important to rectify this state of affairs by making the power and poignancy of her writing available to the Polish reading public. What follows is an account of a collaboration between a Polish professor of chemistry and a then Hong Kong assistant commissioner of police (who, incidentally, headed the information technology department at the time) to publish Kalekie drzewo!\n\nI spoke to the HKBRAS publisher in Hong Kong (Pally Printing Co.) and he agreed upon a very favourable fee. Both he and I, however, were considerably worried about our ability to produce a book in Polish, of which we speak not one word. Taking the plunge, however, I asked Teresa to e-mail me the manuscript. This I handed to our publisher and asked him to produce the first proofs in hard copy. I forget the details but it seems that we got the typesetting all wrong for the Polish language and when Teresa saw the proofs she understandably went into paroxysms of despair at what we had done to her epic work. Henry Law (our\n\n'Vol. 40.\n\nSuyin and husband Vincent live, in retirement, in Lausanne, Switzerland. Vincent died in December 2002. R.L.P.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]