[ { "id": 206978, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n43\n\nWhen the King had started upon his homeward passage, the Hong Kong police went from house to house collecting the pinchbeck orders which his Majesty had scattered broadcast among his acquaintances; and these pieces of jewelry they subsequently sold by auction for the benefit of the goldsmith who had fashioned them, for the King, like many of his prototypes in history, had proved himself to be a bad paymaster.40\n\nThe Duel\n\nDid Mayréna and Morès fight a duel in Hong Kong? We do not know for certain; we can only use circumstantial evidence to argue that they probably did. In his memoirs Des Voeux would hardly admit that he allowed a duel to take place in a British colony by his negligence, for under English law duelling was a criminal offence.41 But an encounter between the two adventurers could have easily occurred without attracting public attention—early one morning, say, at Deepwater Bay, then a crescent of lonely sparkling sand, not overlooked by any residence; or in a clearing in the sylvan Glenealy Ravine, a solitary spot frequented only by a few health-conscious walkers.\n\nMayréna and Morès were expert in the use of the foil, épée, and sabre; each, previously, in single combat had killed his man; former soldiers, they were extremely brave men, not likely to slink away from an affront. It should be stressed, however, that duelling was a ritual, designed primarily to remove a public stain from a man's social character: the end of a duel was not copious blood-letting, but rather an affirmation that a gentleman had preserved his social standing and the integrity of his personality.42 To utilise theological concepts again, duelling was a type of sacrament: it was a consecration of the gentleman, and of the core element in this class of person—honour. It seems plausible, then, to suggest that the two duelled but only under certain limiting conditions set out in the procès-verbal. A procès-verbal was the set of rules, established beforehand by the seconds of the duellists, which defined the conditions of the duel—often a single shot fired over the opponent's head or blithely into the distance, a thrust or a parry, would suffice to accomplish the ritual. No doubt Mayréna and Morès did simply that—they flexed their muscles, brandished their spurs in public. Then all was over; honour satisfied; each returned to the Hong Kong Hotel and to loud wassail.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208609, "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-1979", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "The Maryknoll Mission, Hong Kong 1941-46\n\n39\n\nmattresses. As the Bishop's house is built on the side of a hill, as are in fact practically all the houses in Hong Kong, the outer wall of our dugout, facing north, was on a level with the garden, so as an extra precaution against bomb fragments, a heavy loose stone wall had been built up outside as high as the ceiling. There was but one small window and this we covered up in accordance with the blackout regulations. In this emergency dugout, His Excellency, Fathers Craig and Downs slept a little more securely than in the upper rooms. Father Rosello, however, kept to his upper room. One night, during the early days of the war, we were rudely awakened by a terrific blast, which must have shaken the whole island. We could hear fragments of shells or bombs falling just outside of our improvised loose stone wall, and it seemed as if the Cathedral had been hit with a salvo of shells. We could learn nothing that night and after a while returned to our couches.\n\nLater we heard the story. It seems that the British had a large store of dynamite or TNT on Green Island and it was decided to transfer this explosive to the Hong Kong shore. For this duty a squad of volunteers was chosen, comprising some British and Chinese police. As the story goes, they were instructed to leave Green Island at a certain predetermined time, but in some way or other, they started earlier. As their boat containing this high explosive neared the Hong Kong side, someone, fearing it was an enemy vessel, fired on it, and that was the tremendous explosion that shook the whole island, and which blew all those brave volunteers into eternity.\n\nAs was remarked above, the Bishop's house is situated on quite an eminence overlooking the harbor, and consequently we had a real grandstand view of the attack on Hong Kong. From our vantage point we saw shells fall in various parts of Kowloon; saw them encircle and finally land directly on Stonecutters Island, a fortified zone in the harbor; heard them whistle over our heads and strike the Navy Yard and other points to the east, and the Peak to the South. We could not see the shelling and bombing of Mount Davis, another fortified zone, but we could hear distinctly enough. From our vantage point we watched ships burning and scuttled in the eastern approaches to the harbor; we saw planes circling over Lyemoon forts, we saw the feeble anti-aircraft actions against the marauding planes. The fire from these ack-ack guns seemed brisk", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208626, "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-1979", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "56\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nSzeliga and Michael were not tied up, being I supposed considered neutrals. As we were being questioned back and forth—the Japanese being evidently very much puzzled by our motley group—our passports were demanded, and after being examined were thrown on the ground in front of us.\n\nDuring all this questioning the battle was going on, and now and then we heard the whistle of a rifle bullet just over our heads, probably coming from the British defenders on the hill just below the fort (for the Japanese were now concerned with an assault on this last bastion). Also to our left in front of a Chinese house a Japanese field piece was barking intermittently and we could see soldiers keeping in the lee of the walls as they passed by from position to position. Also, as we were being questioned, we saw Lt. Lawrence and his three brother officers who had been with us led past and down a little declivity towards the Convent wall. As he passed Lt. Lawrence whispered: \"I'm sorry for any trouble I've caused you” and disappeared around the corner of the embankment. Shortly after, we heard shouts and screams. The four officers had been untied amid a cordon of fixed bayonets and I distinctly saw one, a young fellow, run toward us, only to have Japanese soldiers point a bayonet at his stomach and the poor fellow turned and ran back, with a look of agony in his eyes. It was all over within a few seconds, and just in front of me I saw a Japanese stoop down, pick up a little grass, and coolly wipe off the point of his bayonet.\n\nLater we learned from Chris Wong, our office clerk, that he and some of our servants had been compelled to dig a trench and bury the bodies of these brave fellows. They also buried other bodies of Canadian and British soldiers who fell on our property. The question in our minds was, were we destined to a like fate? Brother Thaddeus, who knew a little of the Japanese language, heard the soldiers say: \"Kill them! Kill them! They are soldiers in disguise!\" But he did not convey that knowledge to us at the moment.\n\nFinally, after about a half an hour or so, we were ordered to stand up and were led away, this time retracing our own tracks and ending up in a garage at the rear of a Chinese house just below our own hill. Here we were herded like cattle in a pen and once inside, with the sliding doors closed, I think we felt like a herd of cattle. It was intended for two cars, but for some time apparently it had been used merely as a gardener's storehouse, for scattered around", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211252, "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-1987", "page_number": 313, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "288\n\nalways been so. [For the method of selecting managers at this shrine, see the account given in the article cited above].\n\nI asked about the drums used by the teams. It seems that horse hide is used for drums used for watch and ward, and for military use; but that cow hide is more usual for lion and other dance troupes, on account of its higher and sharper pitch.\n\nPeel Street\n\nThis shrine, unlike the one at Sheung Fung Lane which dates back to the nineteenth century, is of post-war origin. It comprises an altar under a canopy on one side of the steps which form this part of Peel Street, with a small management office in a temporary structure opposite. The shrine has only been at this location since the mid-1960s. It was first kept inside and then at the doorway of a house at 31 Elgin Street, before being put in the street outside that address in a small temple-like structure. It was moved here upon the demolition of the old house in Elgin Street.\n\nThe shrine serves a group of Hoklo persons originating from the Hoi Fung (海豐) area of north-east Kwangtung. Of the ten interested parties with whom I spoke in 1974, two came to Hong Kong in 1934, five arrived here in 1945-46, two in the 1950s and the last in 1962. The oldest was 65, and the youngest 37.\n\nThe altar is in the form of a black granite tablet inscribed with the characters #2£âZī. It is said to be old: the estimates ranged from \"several generations\" to \"100 years\" to \"200 years\". All agreed that it had been brought from a large temple known as the Pak Kung Miu (北帝廟) located in the small market town of To Tong Hui (陶塘墟) in Hoi Fung, just after the War. The town served as the market for between 30 to 40 surrounding villages, and in Ch'ing times the area was known as To Tong Yuek (陶塘約).\n\nThe shrine was established without authority, like many of its kind in the post-war period. The managers had to be persistent, and brave the disapproval of the Squatter Control Division of the Resettlement Department, whose duty it was to control the spread", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211784, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "174\n\nunfortunate that practically always only their stage names are known, making it impossible for us to identify any well known local citizens who were maybe also active in the municipal administration or social clubs. Not all pseudonyms were as transparent as Mr. Beverley Newcome, Mr. Circular Roller and Mr. Pickwick, nor so ludicrous as **Mr. Caput as Head Manager, Mr. Work-em-hard as stagemaker and Mr. Llanfair P.G. as the stagesweeper,” but we can never be sure about the real identity of most actors. Still, in a few cases the true names of participants were given (see: Calendar, 13.2.1863, 26.3.1863). With the managers of the companies things stood no better: the names have come to us of a Mr. Doldrum, Horatio Buskin and Peter Proteus, but they are mentioned here merely for curiosity's sake. In some instances the performers were nothing loath to adopt the names of well known contemporaries. Thus the orchestra at a theatrical night was reputedly conducted by the “Veteran Melodist Sir George Smart,” who indeed was a conductor, organist and composer (1776-1867), certainly not in Shanghai but in Britain, where he had conducted, among other performances, the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 1826. Another example was the appearance of \"our old friend Mr Bravo Rouse\". Rouse, always nicknamed Bravo Rouse, had been the originator of the Grecian Saloon in 1838, the precursor of the music hall.77\n\n**76\n\nOne feature that should be highlighted is the absence of ladies on the stage until 1876. On April 18 of that year Shanghailanders witnessed their first amateur actress in T.W. Robertson's School.” Before that, however, there may have been attempts to break the male monopoly in the theatre, to judge from a short remark in the local satirical magazine **Puck, or the Shanghai Charivari”** in 1873: “We hear that the actresses of the Dramatic Club bitterly resent the movement that has lately been made by the ladies of Shanghai in the direction of amateur theatricals as they consider their rights infringed. We however think differently; the presence of these fair debutantes if of more frequent occurrence [my emphasis — JH] would tend to inspire the male actors, and while we should certainly have fewer sticks on the stage, we might have more matches”. Not that Shanghai in this respect lagged behind the amateur dramatic societies in other Far Eastern ports: Yokohama introduced women in 1878, Hong Kong in 1879 and Singapore in 1884.82\n\n20\n\nAs far as Shanghai is concerned the reason for the lack of women on the stage is not difficult to find. Their general paucity in the Settlement", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211806, "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": 221, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "196\n\n22.3.1854 (Wedn)\n\nJ.V. BRIDGEMAN: \"I've Eaten My Friend!\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"A Most Unwarrantable Intrusion\" (1849)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"The Two Bonny Castles\" (1851)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: Music\n\nTh: Tac Ming Theatre (C)\n\nR: Was the new member perhaps \"Mr Mercury WARREN\" who scored such a great success in I've Eaten My Friend! as Hezekiah Jellytop? \"The refined sensibility of the character was portrayed with a power and intensity which mark Mr. Warren as one of the true sons of Thespis. How shall we describe the horror when the internal evidence of a pie revealed a clue to the whereabouts of his departed friend\".\n\nIn the second piece, An Unwarrantable Intrusion \"the part of Ashplant was performed by a gentleman whose via comica and power of communication were unmistakable. He completely embodied the character and infused life and vigour into his conception of it**.\n\nUntil now, even the stage names of the actors had scarcely been mentioned in the reviews, but tonight we learn that in The Two Bonny Castles Messrs Bravo ROUSE, Mercury WARREN, and Horatio BUSKIN excelled as well as the ladies who acted with great spirit and sustained the dignity and elegance of the sex with most admirable effect\" (Bravo ROUSE was a borrowed alias).\n\n+\n\nAmong the musicians was again \"Herr KOENIG\" who \"brilliantly executed\" on, presumably, the violin. (NCH 25.3.1854).\n\n15.5.1854 (Mon)\n\nC.W.S. BROOKS: \"Anything for a Change\" (1848)\n\nT: Comedietta (1 act)\n\nJ.M. MORTON: \"Box and Cox\" (1847)\n\nT: Farce (1 act)\n\nC: Amateurs\n\nF: \"A Grand Ethiopian Entertainment\" with the \"Virginian Minstrels\"\n\nTh: Tac Ming Theatre (C)\n\nN: These performances, the last of the season, had originally been announced for April 5; on that date would also have been played J.T.G. Rodwell's farce A Race for Dinner. The evening was postponed, however, because of the Battle of Muddy Flat on April 4, 1854.\n\nR: Some of the local celebrities definitely could not go wrong, witness the following remark in the Herald: \"As we dropped in for half an hour we cannot speak of the concluding (Box and Cox) but, as our favourite Mr. VERDENT and the clever Mr. WARREN enacted parts in it, we have no doubt it must have told on the audience\". Earlier that night Mr. Bravo ROUSE and Mr. WARREN had starred in Anything for a Change (probably as Swoppington and Honeyball).\n\n19.5.1855 (Sat)\n\nA \"Soirée Musicale Dansante\" by officers of the U.S.S. \"Powhatan\" with an \"Ethiopian Concert by the Minstrels of the Powhatan\" and a burlesque on Bulwer-Lytton's The Lady of Lyons. H.J. Byron wrote a burlesque with the same title, but according to HED, the first performance took place on February 1, 1858.\n\nR: In the Survey, it was pointed out that the officers of naval vessels sometimes entertained the local foreign residents. The first of these occasions occurred on board the Powhatan, an American warship that took part in the Japan expedition, on the eve of her departure.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212097, "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": 39, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "village and its inhabitants. The dancing teams would perform at the opening of ancestral halls, schools and village offices, or when a wealthy villager built himself a new house. They were part of the ritual performances at the main festivals, at the re-installation of ancestral tablets after reconstruction of a lineage hall, or during the re-dedication of deities following a major repair to a local temple. They carried out other important functions, also. If plague menaced the village, in an old local customary practice, the lion or unicorn dancers were sent with Taoist priests in procession around the neighbourhood to dispel the threat. And if the village was threatened with attack, the strong and brave lion dancers under their respected instructors formed the core of the defence. Furthermore, the dance teams were a principal means for maintaining and extending a village's status and prestige.\n\nAs part of the training, youths and boys would be instructed in how to carry out the dancing steps, and also how to perform some of the basic martial arts. In discussing unicorn dancing with two village friends from Tsuen Wan, it was emphasized that the beasts (meaning in practice their human performers) had to follow kwai kui. For instance, there was a correct way to enter a building, and how to worship at a temple, and how to behave when meeting another unicorn. If the right decorum and etiquette was not observed when this happened, it could lead to a fight. This aspect, that of lai or decorum, was the most important to be taken into account in training and performance.\n\nBoys learned the art of cooperating together, and discipline was imposed, especially self-control. This was needed during the tense excitement generated by the accompanying drumming and gonging during the dance sequences, and particularly on festival days when the element of competition was well to the fore. The dancing was exhausting for mind and body, and relays of boys took turns to dance inside the at times stifling mask and body of the \"animal\". Self-control was an important requirement for the participants. \"We won't put up with uncontrolled temper”, a Kaifong friend said on one festival occasion when a dance team was performing, \"If a lad can't keep it, he gets put out of the dance group\".\" Thus, in these various ways, the village dance team constituted one of the principal means of giving practical effect to Confucian teaching.\n\nTo conclude this account of traditional instruction and entertainment,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 } ]