[
    {
        "id": 211615,
        "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-1989",
        "page_number": 30,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "Cinema, at North Point (constructed in the early 1950s), is suspended; or the English style, Kentish-Rag, stone retaining wall on the south side of Battery Path in Central. One wonders if the latter was commissioned by some homesick Englishman.\n\nAnd, while parts of the Territory have been disparagingly called \"concrete jungle”, there are modern structures of merit. Depending on your taste, the St. John's Building (Lower Peak-Tram Station), Admiralty Centre; and the Macau Ferry Terminal spring to mind. The foyer at the Landmark, and the high-rise, high-tech Exchange Square, with its \"electronic plumbing\" so tenants can plug in for centralised computer services, are also of merit. Other recently completed buildings show an impressive degree of distinction and aesthetic sensitivity.\n\nIn an article written by Doctor Alan Birch in 1978, previously Reader in History at Hong Kong University, he stated that 95 per cent of the Territory's buildings had been erected from 1946 onwards (even if the deterioration of some belies their age). Although that was probably a very approximate estimate, since then many more old buildings have been torn down. Hong Kong is a city-state where, with the exception of the plot on which Saint John's Cathedral stands (which is freehold), all land is leasehold held from the Crown: this demands that landholders maximise their income from the land in as short a time as possible.\n\nTo give some idea how dramatically the skyline has changed: until World War II the seven-storey Peninsula Hotel, on the Kowloon waterfront, which served as the Japanese army headquarters during the occupation, was considered tall. Since then, the skyline has changed dramatically every decade.\n\nCatherine II (Catherine the Great) (1729-96), Empress of Russia, who together with her many architects erected royal palaces and public buildings, said that building was a disease, like alcoholism. Not too dissimilarly, in Hong Kong, Aw Boon Haw, the son of a Chinese herbalist, who together with his brother, Boon Par, produced the famous \"cure-all\", Tiger Balm, was told by a sooth-sayer that he would lose his fortune and die if he stopped building. When he eventually departed he had erected 26 castles around Asia, as well as the well-known Tiger Balm Gardens in both Singapore and Hong Kong. These, which contain figures depicting stories in Chinese history or mythology, were built to promote Aw's well-known pharmaceutical products.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211701,
        "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-1989",
        "page_number": 116,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "91\n\nnumber of books was quite inadequate and the Japanese, with their usual suspicion of the written or printed word, would not allow any more to be brought in. Sea bathing is now (i.e. since the middle of July) permitted at one beach.\n\nChildren: Schools - a senior and a junior school were established by the Hongkong University authorities and some attempt made to arrange organised recreation for the children; but, there were hardly any toys, games or children's books in the camp, and the children were usually ragging about and getting into mischief. A little ping-pong and badminton apparatus, half a dozen old tennis rackets and a few dozen old balls would have been a boon to children and grown-ups alike, but there was no way of getting them.\n\nGeneral: Various 'shortages' have been mentioned in previous paragraphs, but in point of fact there was a deficiency of nearly everything - beds and bedding, clothing, shoes, toilet materials, brooms and other cleaning materials, plates, cups, dishes, cooking pots, knives, forks and spoons, glass for repairing war-broken windows, tools of all kinds, etc. etc. An \"International Welfare Committee\" formed in Hongkong by sympathisers under the auspices of Dr. Selwyn-Clarke (of whom I shall speak again) was doing a good deal to meet the most urgent needs and sent in cotton dress lengths, sandshoes, handkerchiefs, Chinese toilet paper, tin mugs, washing soap and numerous other articles; but the needs were far in excess of the resources of the Committee. The shortage was particularly serious in regard to clothing and foot-wear. Many people reached the camp with only what they stood up in, few were able to bring much. Clothes and shoes wear out. I remember seeing two ladies wearing shorts made of Australian flour bags and one girl in a frock made from the ticking of a mattress. Many people were going barefooted, others were wearing sandals made from gunny bags or home-made wooden pattens. The footwear situation was about July slightly—but only slightly relieved by the receipt from the Welfare Committee of some shoe leather, with which amateur cobblers did their best to effect repair.\n\nLetters: One of the worst features of the camp was the lack of communication with the outside world. We were allowed (in 6 months) to send one short telegram and two short letters, but the messages which I sent (to Mr. Le Rougetel) were never delivered. A few people got letters from Shanghai but this was exceptional. Internees were not allowed to write even to friends in Hongkong except (and even this was a very",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213173,
        "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": 241,
        "title": "RAS-1993",
        "content_text": "223\n\nthe suburbs, blending, to be sure, with the rambunctious commoners' culture, but far more subdued. Not what Seidensticker loved about old Tokyo, but fascinating none the less. The changes are particularly sharp after the war, after the second destruction in this century of the inner low city in the bombings of March 1945, and the Allied Occupation.\n\nThe books, however, do not pretend to be political histories, although they give mention to politics when they touch on the fabric of the city. Instead they record the changes in the lives of the people. The department store girls, for example, who were encouraged by management to wear Western-style under-garments after eight of them fell from high ropes during their escape from a fire in one store, clad in kimono, they tried to protect their modesty and unclothed nether regions with one hand, but the other hand was not strong enough to bear the burden. This incident, while hardly a formative one in the city, is one of many incidents which Seidensticker has culled from a myriad of sources to portray the rapid changes which typify Tokyo. He gently blends the sum of them into a textured picture, one which will provide readers with a feeling for the city even if they have never seen it. If readers have seen it (and many readers of this publication will have), the picture will make greater sense of a city that can seem to be a confusing mélange of exits from subway stations. And if some readers have been fortunate enough to have lived there, the book will provide a depth of meaning to corners of their former home that are familiar, yet unknown.\n\nThese books are a joy and a boon. Already ten years old (the first volume; the second appeared just five years ago), they will stand the test of time and are a welcome addition to the library of anyone seeking to keep informed about East Asia, its cities, and its culture.\n\nTHOMAS STANLEY",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215390,
        "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": 167,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "116\n\nThe present The Tribute and 4 abun to Kai\n\n1\n\nft\n\n...\n\n# G A HAD AN\n\nDATO €\n\nF# 陷阱\n\n# B 7 X 5 trai\n\nA\n\nJ\n\nI I\n\n24\n\nLau\n\n710\n\nMY AM I WM (I\n\n#OMI\n\nDA\n\n作一份值得擁有了雪律\n\nJ\n\nUVM FARL PICKU\n\nf #\n\nقطر\n\nAT MEX\n\nTIMOTA 1P 400AY ARMP (\n\n#BIT MADYAAL IN IF\n\nI AM MAI M\n\n44\n\nA\n\n41\n\n腆情路\n\n香港大學的成疒\n\n#\n\nA004 11\n\n翻糖\n\n香港人做作我(J嵌入\n\nMANKAI B&HL\n\nACH AU KAMKI PLOT AN\n\nTATA\n\nAMM 以長期的商業低潮的\n\n(TWEN)M (LIENTEMINIZ 上有廣闊 AMS DIMILAJAR JANAKA\n\n2\n\nng\n\nMy u plea e far! eller or behalf of the lead ræember OF be thine e com unut¡ [1 «e he nonot r lo dit pre car you u sto\n\nuld\n\nin aldres a o Ibu ceen embr idered on atın and u bub IxR ask ye i sir te do us he h now to graciou l¡ ucept i a mill oken of the high esteem and iffe i mi i hue for you is ur (veren ind ruler will frie id an C0072 ellor\n\nIt was clear that the Tribute was behind schedule as it had been the intention to have it completed on Wednesday 16th March 1910. But the pace of the fine work carried out by the craftsmen in Canton dictated otherwise.\n\nIt was our intention to present you with the address shortly after the laying of the foundation stone of the Hongkong University, but time did not permit us, for we desired to present you with a work of art more worthy of your acceptance, and so we had perforce to wait for this occasion in order to allow time to get the work properly executed.\n\nYour administration was unstinting without being in any way fulsome.\n\nIt is scarcely three years since our arrival in this colony, but during the comparatively short period, you have achieved much by your wise and able administration. You have come through a most trying time and succeeded in placing the colony once more on the high road to prosperity and success.\n\nThe University\n\nIn the presentation address, the founding of The University of Hong Kong is given special prominence.\n\nNo one appreciates more than the Chinese community the immense benefits which you have conferred upon this colony, and they are doubly grateful to you for, though we have had a long commercial depression, you have succeeded by your broadmindedness and by your incomparable energy and enthusiasm in founding the Hongkong University.\n\nThe benefits conferred by such an institution on the colony as a whole, and more especially upon the Chinese, whether resident in this colony or throughout China, are incomparable, and we thank you, sir, most cordially and most gratefully for such a boon. I am sure future generations will cherish your memory and thank you.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]