[ { "id": 204715, "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-1964", "page_number": 18, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "9\n\nJOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\nDuring the cessation of trade at Canton 1839\n\nThe manuscript of this Journal was discovered in the library of the Boston Athenaeum by Professor E. W. Ellsworth, who transcribed it and sent it as a contribution to the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Although it is not possible to claim categorically that it is by W. C. Hunter it is felt that it is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of this period and therefore worthy of publication in its own right.\n\nThe Introduction by Professor E. W. Ellsworth is followed by the transcription of the actual Journal with added notes contributed by Sir Lindsay T. Ride and J. L. Cranmer-Byng.\n\nINTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNAL\n\nE. W. ELLSWORTH\n\nWilliam C. Hunter of New York traveled to China in 1824. For the next two years as a necessary prelude to a business career he studied Chinese at the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca. Thereafter he was employed by Thomas H. Smith and Son until the company ceased operation in China in 1827. Hunter then returned to the United States but he had been fascinated with the Far East and went back within a few months. In 1829 he joined Russell and Company and remained with the firm in China for fourteen years.\n\nHunter's associates in this largest and most famous American trading association in China were A. A. Low of Salem, Massachusetts and later Brooklyn, New York, who diligently amassed a magnificent fortune and also Robert Bennett Forbes and Joseph Coolidge members of illustrious New England families.\n\nThe comfortable existence and, indeed, complacency of Hunter and the foreign commercial community at Canton was rudely shaken by developments in early 1839 which were the opening salvos of the Opium War. The longstanding problem of opium traffic in China arose with a new intensity that was sparked by dedicated reformers. Drug addiction was a fairly widespread vice compounded by economic overtones; foreigners", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204745, "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-1964", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n37\n\nNOTES ON HUNTER'S JOURNAL\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG and Sir LINDSAY T. RIDE\n\n1 Snow. Peter Wanten Snow, Consul for the United States in Canton. He surrendered the opium in American possession as demanded by Commissioner Lin, and was ready to promise that Americans would cease importing opium, but refused to have anything to do with the bond as the penalties were too severe. (See also note 43, bond.) (L.T.R.)\n\n2 Mr. Forbes. Joined the American firm of Russell & Co. in Canton in October 1838, became a partner 1 January 1839 and eventually was made chief of the house. Robert Bennett Forbes (1804-1889), first arrived in China in 1817. After some years back in the States he returned to China in October 1838 and was admitted a partner of Russell & Co., China on 1 January 1839. He retired in 1844 but had an interest in the firm till 1857. (L.T.R.)\n\n3 Mr. Green. John C. Green of Trenton, New Jersey, first went to China as an agent of N.L. & G. Griswold. In 1834 he was admitted a partner of Russell & Co., China, and retired to New York on 31st December 1839. At the time of the disturbances he was Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce at Canton. He died in 1875. (L.T.R.)\n\n4 Mr. Delano. Warren Delano, Jr. of Fairhaven, Mass., came to China 1834 to join the house of Russell, Sturgis & Co., of Canton and Manila. He was a partner of Russell & Co., China for two terms, 1 January 1840 to 31 December 1846, and January 1861 to 31 December 1866. He was a great-uncle of ex-President F. D. Roosevelt. (L.T.R.)\n\n5 Mr. King.\n\nThis is most likely to be Edward King of Newport, R.I., who was taken into the firm of Russell & Co., as a clerk on his arrival at Canton in 1834 in the Silas Richards. On 1 July 1834 he became a partner and retired in 1842 to Newport where he died in 1876.\n\nThere was a Charles W. King of Olyphant & Co. in Canton at the time, but as this firm had nothing to do whatsoever with opium, he may not have been confined to the Factory. (L.T.R.)\n\n6 Mr. Low. Abiel Abbott Low (1811-1893) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and became a leading figure in both the New York and China shipping world. He first worked as a clerk in shipping firms in Salem and in New York and then went to China in 1833 as a clerk in Russell & Co. of which house his uncle, Wm. Henry Low, had been head for some years. He was made a partner in 1837, retired to New York where he founded the firm of A.A. Low & Brothers, famous for its clipper fleet. In 1863 he was President of the New York Chamber of Commerce. (L.T.R.)\n\n7 Spooner. Daniel Nicholson Spooner of Plymouth, Mass. was at this time a clerk in Russell & Co., Canton. He became a partner in January 1843 and retired to Boston on 31 December 1845. He returned to China again as a partner in January 1852, finally retiring in 1857. (L.T.R.)\n\n8 Gilman. Joseph Taylor Gilman of Exeter, New Hampshire, joined Russell & Co., Canton as a Clerk about the same time as Spooner. His dates of partnership and retirement were the same, too, as Spooner's. (L.T.R.)\n\n9 Mouqua. Also spelt Mowqua in pidgin English. His official name as Hong merchant was Lu Ch'i-kuang Lu Wen-wei✰✰ The suffix \"qua\" signifies \"an official\". (J.L.C.-B.) and his family name was (kuan in mandarin)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206780, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA\n\n51\n\nthe Chinese more than all the rest of the British warships put together,\n\nChinese opposition to steamships was overborne after the First China War, and in the years between then and the Second China War 1857-1858, steam navigation in China was established on a secure foundation. During the first two decades of steam, American ships were as prominent as British on the Canton River and on the coast, and sometimes more technically efficient. This was largely because the Americans made good use of their experience on the Hudson and Mississippi Rivers, and also because their early steamships were designed specially for coastal and river conditions. Many of the early British steamships were merely sailing ships equipped with engines.\n\nThe earliest American steamers were associated with Russell and Company, and Robert Benet Forbes was the man mainly responsible for bringing most of these early steamships to China. The first was the Midas, built at East Boston in 1844, which was the first American steamship to round the Cape of Good Hope, as well as being the first to be seen in China. The Midas arrived at Hong Kong on 21st May 1845, and was put on a twice weekly service between Hong Kong and Canton, the first regular steamship service in China. She also engaged in towing and salvage work, which was usually more profitable than carrying passengers or cargo; so that the advertised regular sailings were often more honoured in the breach than in the observance.\n\nThe Midas was followed by the wooden screw bark Edith, also built at East Boston, which arrived at Macao on 2nd September 1845 and Hong Kong a few days later. The Edith was originally intended to run in the opium trade between India and China, but plans were changed and she was loaded with general cargo for Shanghai. Bad weather and engine trouble foiled two attempts to make this passage, and the Edith was eventually sent back to Boston via Rio de Janeiro, reconditioned at Boston and then chartered to the United States War Department.\n\nIn 1846 Forbes sent the small 20 ton screw steamer Firefly on another ship to Hong Kong, and put her in service between Hong Kong and Whampoa until 1849, usually making two trips daily. She was withdrawn in 1849 and sent to California by sailing ship.\n\nIn 1846 Jardines were successful in inaugurating the first British steamship service on the river, with the Corsair between Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211402, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "94\n\nA SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY INTO THE PAST OF\n\nTHE CHAN AND JONG FAMILIES*\n\nVIOLET MEBIG CHAN LEW\n\nIntroduction\n\nI have tried several times to get started on tracing my roots but have found several factors hindering my progress. Although I have gathered together quite a bit of material, I have been somewhat frustrated by my inability to read and write Chinese fluently or to find help with it. Also, ages given are often confusing because some are reckoned according to the lunar calendar and some according to the Gregorian system.\n\nOn one occasion I wrote, \"On this the 16th day of October, 1973, I am on a United Airlines plane with my husband, John, bound for Honolulu, which is 'home' to me. It seems that as long as one's parent is alive and is living in the same locality where one grew up, that place remains 'home'. It is the place where one has friendships bonded as far back as memory carries one. The older one becomes, the more one looks backward and recalls with pleasure incidents that have enriched one's life. I have been toying with the idea of putting down in English an account of the migration of my grandparents to Hawaii and the assimilation of the family members into the Western culture. Already, within three generations extending over a span of about one hundred\n\n* Editor's note: Violet Mebig Chan Lew was born in 1906. At the age of 71, she decided to investigate the history of her family, the Chan and Jong clans, which had emigrated to Hawaii from Hsiang-shan county in Kwangtung. Consulting public documents, genealogical records, personal correspondence, her diary and interviewing as many people as she could, Violet Lew spent ten years gathering material for this endeavour. A retired teacher and social worker, Mrs. Lew now lives in Boston and Honolulu with her husband, John. The Journal discovered this manuscript in 1986, and persuaded Mrs. Lew to allow it to be published. Mrs. Lew writes in her correspondence with the Journal: \"I wish to acknowledge the help of Dr. Wing Tsit Chan and my cousin, Toby Chen, in the translation of several sections of the Chan genealogy; the help of Pyun Kyau Minn with the organization of the project; and especially that of Betty Liu in getting this project published. I am also grateful to those who have contributed what they remembered of past events or enlightened me in the translation of Chinese characters.\" Mrs. Lew dedicates this article to her parents, Ping Yip and Jong Hung Chan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211490, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "182\n\na year at Tulane University, came for a visit with his family, as did my mother from home. From New England came Effie Huchmore and Beverly King.\n\nA word about Effie. I had met her while we were both staying at the Franklin Square House near the Boston City Hospital when I was studying at Simmons College and she, at Boston University. We became fast friends. She had me as her guest in her home in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, where she lived with her parents and maternal grandmother, and showed me the beautiful scenic spots of the White Mountains. This visit gave me an insight into the activities and character of a typical New England town and the enjoyment of the simple unpretentious hospitality of an old Yankee family. A rare experience indeed!\n\nBefore I left New York the summer of 1948, I was a bridesmaid to Betty Lee upon her marriage to Paul Gee on June 7, 1948. She was formerly a teacher of religion at True Light and its principal during the Second World War. I had also promised to return to marry John Shue Fong Lew, a widower with two younger daughters in Canton. I had met him casually in Boston in 1947 through a mutual friend, Grace Chin, and had become better acquainted with him when he came to see me in New York, often accompanied by his good friend, Lew Orne. We were both mature and ready to settle down by this time, and fortunately felt drawn to each other. On the way back to Honolulu, I stopped over in Chicago where Mother had taken Edmund to join his mother and where she was waiting for me to accompany her home. As soon as I had fulfilled my commitment, I left Honolulu in October 1950 for Chicago, where John and I were married from Helen's home on 4 November 1950, in a simple ceremony at a local church rectory.\n\nAfter living in an apartment near Harvard Square for a few months, we bought a duplex on 12 Littell Road, Brookline, in order to be near John's business, \"The Ming Restaurant”, at 1022 Beacon Street. By 1952, the business had deteriorated so much that it was not feasible to continue it and we turned it over to S. Y. Lew, one of the partners who wanted it. In the meantime we sent for our daughters, Gar Shuey and Gar Ling, and they arrived in Boston in August 1951 by way of Europe. Both attended Lawrence School and Brookline High School, working as waitresses during the summer in our seasonal restaurant in Bar Harbor,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212551, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "85\n\nNonetheless, a large portion of the participants in U.S.-China arts exchanges believe that, since the two countries are major players in international relations, mutual understanding of the other's culture was crucial in making the world a better place to live in. To the people in whose mind this theme loomed large, it was important to have a friendly relationship with China and exchanges in the arts were a handy way to achieve this goal.\n\nThe uniqueness of Chinese culture has also motivated some Americans who saw that exchanges could bring to American culture some diversity and therefore enrich it. The interest of Americans in Chinese culture was obvious, as can be seen by, for instance, the increasing number of Americans travelling to China each year.\n\nFinally, but by no means the least important factor in supporting arts exchanges with China by private sectors, there was a rejuvenation of the affinity which can be traced back to the 19th century \"special relationship\" between the United States and China which existed to the 1940s. To some, the special opportunity for the United States to transfer its culture and products to China on favourable terms re-emerged as a result of the drastically increased contacts between the two countries in the Carter years. \"Recognition of the People's Republic set long suppressed dreams of a return to China swirling in the minds of educators (the legatees of the missionary impulse) and businessmen.\" This helps to explain the involvement, rather intensive, of the RBF and the Henry Luce Foundation, which maintained close ties with China in the 1940s, and the United Board For Christian Higher Education, in China's arts education.\n\nAffinity and crisis\n\nThe highpoint of Sino-American arts relations was in 1970-1981. In his visit to the United States in January 1979, Deng Xiaoping personally signed a cultural agreement with President Carter in Washington D.C.. While in the United States, Deng extended to Seiji Ozawa, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, an invitation for the BSO to visit China. When the BSO arrived in Beijing in March 1979, Deng again paid his personal tribute to Sino-American arts exchanges by personally attending its performance and welcoming it as the first American performing art group to visit China since the elevation of relations to ambassadorial level.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213384, "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-1994", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "194\n\nBaddeley, John Frederick (1854-1940) ed, Russia, Mongolia, China, London Macmillan, 1919 (NY B Franklin 1967 mostly memoirs of Russian envoys from beginning of 17th century to end of reign of Alexander I).\n\nBaikov, Feodor Isakovich, An Account of Two Voyages. First of Feodor Isakovitz Backhoff to China, Second Zachary Wagener, a Native of Dresden also in China, in Churchill, Awnsham, compilers, A Collection of Voyages and Travels. London, 1744, v 2, 474-478\n\nBall, Benjamin Lincoln, Rambles in Eastern Asia, Including China During Several Years' Residence (1848-1850), Boston J French, 1856.\n\nBarnett, Eugene Epperson. As I Look Back, Recollections of Growing Up and Twenty-six Years in Pre-Communist China 1888-1936, typescript\n\nBarr, Patricia Miriam, To China with Love, the Lives and Times of Protestant Missionaries in China 1860-1900, London Secker and Warburg, 1972\n\nBarrow, Sir John, Travels in China, London T Cadell and W Davis, 1806 (Listed in Yale University Library catalog as Some Account of the Public Life, and Selection from the Unpublished Writings, of the Earl of Macartney and the date of publication is given as 1807)\n\nBarzini, Luigi, Pekin to Paris, An Account of Prince Borghese's Journey Across Two Continents in a Motor-Car, translated from the Italian, London, 1907,\n\nBates, Lincoln Wallace Jr, The Russian Road to China, Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1910.\n\nBeattie, Hilary J, Protestant Missions and Opium in China, 1858-1895, Papers on China, 22A 115-156 (1969)\n\nBecker, C H, et al, The Reorganization of Education in China, Paris. League of Nations, 1932\n\nBell, John, A Journey From St Petersburg to Pekin 1719-22, edited with an Introduction by J L Stevenson, Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press. (NY Barnes and Noble reprint 1966)\n\nBennett, Adrian A, John Fryer the Introduction of Western Science and Technology into Nineteenth-Century China, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 1967\n\nBergeron, Marie Ina, Letters a Yeou-wen, Souvenirs de Chine, Tours Mame, 1973\n\nBerry-Hart, Alice, Ching-a-Ring-a-Ring-Ching or Three Victorian Sisters in Shanghai, London. Rex Collins, 1977)\n\nBillingsley, Phil, Bandits in Republican China, Stanford Stanford University Press, 1988", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213397, "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-1994", "page_number": 219, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "207\n\nMacGillivray, D, ed. A Century of Protestant Missions in China (1807-1907), Being the Centenary Conference Historical Volume, Shanghai American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1907\n\nMacintyre, Emma H, The Victor's Crown Life Story of Robert L Macintyre of the China Inland Mission, Brisbane printed by W R Smith and Peterson, 1922\n\nMaillart, Ella, Forbidden Journey, London Hippocrene Books, 1983\n\nMan, Alexander, Unforgettable, Memories of China and Scotland, London Epworth Press, 1967\n\nMancall, Mark, Russia and China, Their Diplomatic Relations to 1728, Cambridge, Mass Harvard University Press, 1971\n\nMann Manuscript in Bodleian Library (Oxford) Frederick Gothard Mann (1817-81), Margaret Macleod Mann (nd) nee Baynes 40482 Correspondence of Gothard Frederick Mann and his wife Margaret ‹ 1845-1850 including (folios 40-2-2) letters from Margaret in Trinidad to her mother, 40486 Dec 1860-Out [86] (folios 178-302) letters in China to his wife Margaret 1857-Jan 1858 302 leaves MS Eng lett d305, 40487-8 Letters from Gothard Frederick Mann in China to his wife Jan 1865-May 1860. Apr 1860-Jan 1862 254 243 leaves MSS Eng lett c119 d306\n\nMargary, Augustus Raymond, The Journey of Augustus Raymond Margary from Shanghai to Bhamo, and Back to Manwyne, From his Journal and Letters with Biography by Sir Rutherford Alcock, London Macmillan, 1876\n\nMartin, William Alexander Parsons, A Cycle of Cathay or China, South and North. With Personal Reminiscences, New York FH Revell, 1896\n\nMaugham, W Somerset, On a Chinese Screen, London Heinemann, 1922 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press)\n\nMedhurst, Walter Henry 1796-1853, A Glance at the Interior of China, Obtained During a Journey Through the Silk and Green Tea Districts Taken in 1845, Shanghai Chinese Miscellany, 1845\n\n→ China, Its State and Prospects, with Special Reference to the Spread of the Gospel, Boston Crocker and Brewster, 1838\n\n„The Foreigner in Far Cathay, London Stanford, 1872\n\nMeignan, Victor, From Paris to Pekin Over Siberian Snow, translated from the French, London W Swan Sonnenschein, 1885\n\nMersey, Clive Bigham, A Year in China 1899-1900, London and New York Macmillan, 1901", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214196, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "17\n\nSome Westerners and Hong Kong Chinese will tell you that Chinese humour on the circumscribed Mainland is not subtle. It is too ... and a great deal of it falls flat on the average European. Although 200 Cartoons from China (Xu, 1989) goes down quite well, in the series of four books Selected Jokes from Past Chinese Dynasties only about four per cent of the jokes appeal to the author's sense of humour. An exception is:\n\nA father and son were both fond of the bottle and one night they were both staggering back home. On entering the gate the father said: 'Strange! Why do you have three faces? You look neither like a ghost nor a man. I'll never leave my house to you.' The son replied, 'I don't want such a rickety, revolving house anyway' (1997; vol. 4, joke 86)! To give another example of the more simple humour on the Mainland. The sound 'wok', in Chinese, can mean either a Chinese round-bottom frying pan or 'trouble' or 'problem.' Thus a large trading company with a television 'dish' (wok) on the roof is known in Guangzhou as the ‘Trouble Company.' This more direct form of humour, common in Guangdong, contrasts with the complicated humour which requires a person to use his 'grey matter' more.\n\nFor instance Nury Vittachi, Hong Kong journalist, author and part-time comedian, writes that he believes what he calls 'personality humour' works best with Westerners. In such cases the comic goes into his role and recreates a conversation with his mother-in-law, the taxi driver, or whoever. This does not always work, says Nury, with Asians who prefer more direct, straightforward, 'Man goes into a bar' approach.\n\nBut Hong Kong, as opposed to China, is a relatively small place with western influences. As Harry Wong, the talk-show host and co-median of Metro Broadcasting said: 'In this city-state (Hong Kong) people are short of time. There is a ‘combat' situation and people have a better command of English. Western-style Rotary, Round Table clubs and the like, with their style of humour, are common. Put all this juxtaposition to Chinese humour, including films made in Hong Kong often consisting of vulgar, triad language, and obvious jokes with excessive action, and you have a peculiar mix' (Bolton, 1997; 300). Such exaggeration, found for instance in Chinese films, contrasts with much of the British humour which often relies on understatements. Some", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216333, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "41\n\ngreat importance, and vastly superior to the old man to whom the boat belonged. He kept himself apart from the rest, maintained perfect silence and gravity, and seemed to find the greatest amusement in examining and re-examining his papers, and combing and plaiting his long black hair, with the assistance of a small fragment of looking-glass.47\n\nThe linguists\n\nEach foreign merchant ship arriving at Macau had to engage a linguist before it could proceed up-river to Whampoa.4\n\nA contemporary account states, \"The linguists were custom-house interpreters, who procured permits for delivering and taking in cargoes, transacted all the custom-house business, and kept account of the duties.'49\n\nDavis writes tartly that they were characterized 'on account of the absence, rather than the presence, of those accomplishments which are usually implied by the term; for these persons cannot write English at all, and speak it scarcely intelligibly.'50\n\nHe adds: 'Like the Hong merchants, the linguists are obliged to pay largely for their licences, and are besides liable to heavy exactions, chiefly from the underlings of office, as the Hong merchants are the prey of the higher officers,' and the merchants had to act as sureties before a licence could be obtained.\n\nThe compradors\n\n'At Macau, or later at Whampoa,' Morse explains, 'a ship's comprador must be employed, who has the sole right to purvey provisions and all other articles for the ship or her crew, at prices which were quite impossible to put any check.'51\n\nWe have a brief and tantalising pen portrait of one such at the Whampoa anchorage: 'Boston Jack, as he is called, a stout, portly Chinaman, who supplies most of the American ships lying here, with whatever they require.'52\n\nJust how successful and prosperous this person became, is revealed in an American visitor's letter of 1848:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216334, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 93, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "42\n\nAbout a mile above Whampoa we called at \"Boston Jack's\" ... [He] is familiarly known to the European population as a kind of interpreter and furnisher of provisions for vessels, and a commissioner to provide servants, coolies, and to make purchases of various Chinese articles. He was formerly a pilot, and is still connected with that business, furnishing pilots, &c.; and is ready to do any kind of business between the foreigners and Chinese. He is said to be worth a hundred thousand dollars; treated us to beer, and gave us some to take on the way. He had much to say of his son who lives in New York, and was very polite, inviting us to call again, &c.53\n\nBoatmen and washerwomen\n\nThen there were the other indispensables to the work of Chinese linguists and compradors, and foreign merchants, captains and crews, alike.\n\nFirst were the boatmen, each one anxious and begging to obtain the employment of waiting upon the ship during her stay here. Then came the washer-women, some twenty or thirty, of all ages, each one clamorous for the privilege of washing the clothes for the men. All this constituted a bustling scene.34\n\nThere were also the boat-women traders who took their wares out to the ships in the anchorage, some of whom - it is hardly surprising to learn - spoke a form of 'pidgin' English that became fluent through practice.35\n\nIntermingled throughout were the minor functionaries of government, equally ready to oil wheels or to obstruct, according to perceived advantage, for the sake of personal profit.\n\nMorse provides us with the following succinct statement of the situation at Whampoa in pre-treaty port days:\n\nShe [the ship] was usually in this anchorage for three months, and, while there, continued to give a steady stream of profit to the interpreter [the linguist] and comprador, to the bumboatmen and other small fry, and to the minor officials from daily and monthly fees, and gratuities to facilitate her working and expedite her departure.56", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]