[ { "id": 204444, "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-1962", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CHINA'S 35 MILLION NON-CHINESE \n\n65 \n\nwas contrary to the intention of the cadres. The distribution of confiscated animals among the slaves and bondsmen was at first regarded as a glorious opportunity to have a religious splurge of sacrifices and feasting instead of an investment for production. Sacrifices are required to placate the various spirits that were thought responsible for every evil and ill, from accidents to rheumatism.\n\nWinnington found that the Wa or K'a-wa of southwest Yunnan represent a different society, although Hsi-meng district to which he was taken by his Communist Chinese hosts lies only in the fringes of the Wa territory and may not be entirely representative. The Wa inhabit both sides of the south Yunnan-Burma borders and are divided into the \"wild Wa\" and the Wa tamed by contact with Burmese or Chinese civilizations. The \"wild Wa\" in British Burma in 1935 were still addicted to headhunting, both on other Wa and on non-Wa people coming into or living near their village areas.15 A Chinese account of the \"wild Wa\" on the Yunnan side related the headhunting to efforts to ensure good harvests. In any event, the \"wild Wa\" decorated the approaches to their thorn-fence walled-village with a double column of skulls mounted on posts. A person entered their territory at his peril.\n\nIn the Sinicized northern part of the Wa territory there is a transition zone of intermixed hill Shan, La-hu and other mountain people as well as of Wa. Slavery here is practised in a very relaxed form, according to Winnington. Slaves constitute only about five per cent of the villagers as compared with over 90 per cent of the population in the Black-bone country. A slave suffers no social discrimination among the villagers and takes part in village and clan ceremonies open to other villagers. He can marry whom he pleases, and when the new couple sets up separate housekeeping, the master is bound by tradition to help them on pain of community criticism for failure to do so. Such a marriage virtually ends the slavery status, although the slave is expected to make payments to his master until his price is paid for.\n\n1 Great Britain Treaty Series No. 80 (1947), Exchange of notes concerning the Burma-Yunnan boundary, 18th June 1941, London, 1947, 4.\n\n16 Li Sheng-chuang, Yün-nan ti-yi chih-pien chü-yü nei chih jen-chung l'iao-cha (Research into the ethnic groups within the First Border Settlement District of Yunnan), Researches on the Yunnan Frontier Problems, Kunming, 1933, 194.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204450, "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-1962", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CHINA'S 35 MILLION NON-CHINESE\n\n71\n\nbeen pushed into the higher mountain districts and are surrounded by Han or T'ai people in the lower valleys.\n\nThe chief Yao concentration is in the border mountains where Hunan, Kwangsi and Kwangtung come together. In Kwangsi they form a compact group in the Yao Mountains. According to Bruk, only a third of the Yao still speak the Yao language; the other two-thirds are said to have adopted one or the other of the Miao, Tung, Chuang or Han Chinese languages. Of the Miao-Yao group, but set somewhat farther apart culturally by time, is the She cultural group which mostly are in the east coast provinces but consider themselves to have come from Kwangsi. All except about 3,000 of the 151,000 She are in Fukien and Chekiang, the most compact settlement region being Ching-ning district in southern Chekiang, in which about a third of the total number reside.\n\nAside from whatever problem the minorities constitute to the controlling Han Chinese, their occupation of the frontier regions of south and southwest China give them a peculiar significance. Many of them inhabit blocs of territory overlapping the international boundaries. With the development of national consciousness, especially in periods of real or imagined oppression by governments not of their own choosing on one side or the other of the border, resentments tend to be reflected in desires for pan-national or pan-ethnic consolidation. Trouble on one side of the border leads to easy flight across the border to receptive and related peoples on the other side. This also works for criminal elements wishing to escape from police authority in their home territory. Frontier smuggling and banditry require the cooperative effort of friendly neighbour states, but are hard to deal with when neither side exercises effective control in the isolated, sparsely-settled frontiers of southwest China. International grievances over minority peoples in the past have been numerous between former British-controlled Burma and China.\n\n21\n\nWithin China, the ethnic character of its southwest clearly indicates its frontier aspects. This is a region of clashing cultures in various stages of peaceful or compulsory Sinicization. Today the acculturation process is being greatly accelerated by the\n\nChang Hu, T'eng-yueh pien-ti chuang-k'uang chi chih-nien ch'u-yin (A discussion of the situation in the T'eng-yueh frontiers and of their control), Yunnan Frontier Research, Kunming, 1933, 321-322.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204464, "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-1962", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n85\n\nexamination by the District Magistrate at Nam Tau and by the Kwang Chau prefect at Canton, proceeded to the Viceroy's yamen in the same city where eventually a favoured few would manage to pass the first degree of sau choi. This in theory entitled the scholar to qualify for an official post. In practise there were many more sau choi than there were posts and a scholar had to pursue further study and pass other examinations before he stood a real chance of becoming an official. In every district there were sau choi who would never obtain posts. Many became local schoolmasters. Others by virtue of wealth and position became the local gentry who, by report, were sometimes a help to the magistrate and frequently a nuisance, both to him and to the litigant or criminal public. They sat on the local tribunals kuk and advised the magistrate on local affairs. Being literati like himself they had ready access to his yamen and to his ear. Sometimes they even outranked him. Elders, on the other hand, rarely sat on the kuk. Lockhart estimated that there were one hundred and fifty sau choi in the whole district.20 In 1898 the elders of important villages like Ha Tsuen and Ping Shan were literati. Several of them played a leading part in the planning of operations against the British take-over.27\n\n20\n\nSometimes the wealthier village elders enhanced their position by purchasing degrees. In the late Ch'ing period the sale of examination titles appears to have been considerable. Smith mentions it in his Village Life in China** and I have come across several such persons in villages in the Southern District of the New Territory. They were usually substantial villagers. Such a one was CHAN Tak-hang4 of Cheung Kwan O in Junk Bay who died in the seventeenth year of Kwong Shui (1892) at the age of sixty-four. According to his descendant, the present Village Representative, he was a man of substance who built a guest house in the village which is still standing to-day, gave money for the upkeep of the stone tracks which linked the villages of the area with Kowloon, and was well known locally. His portrait, painted at the age of fifty-seven, shows him in his borrowed finery as a kwok hok sang, for which he paid an unknown consideration to Government. A man such as this would obviously play a considerable part in the affairs of his immediate neighbourhood.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204465, "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-1962", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "86 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nDespite the presence of troops, military posts and police of two types in the Territory, besides the assistance of the local kuk, the magistrate's power to prevent crime appears to have been limited. Piracy, in particular, was rampant at different times, and ranged from the anti-dynastic activities of Koxinga in the mid-seventeenth century on behalf of his former masters the Great Ming, (which occasioned the removal from the coast) through the widespread depredations of large pirate bands at the beginning of the nineteenth, to the milder but still disconcerting activities of the period under review. \n\nIt is necessary to emphasise the prevailing unrest, since until quite recently the only striking difference between the New Territory in 1898 and the territory we know to-day was the imposition of the pax britannica. Until the British Government got into the saddle and established its police stations and patrolling launches, the people were subject to piracy, robbery and other forms of violence as from time immemorial. The Governor mentioned specifically in a despatch to the Secretary of State in April 1899 that “the (Tai Po) district is well known in Canton (i.e. to the Viceroy) to be turbulent, that to the N.E. of Mirs Bay being noted for piracy, and so ill-disposed that I am informed no Customs Official dares to land there except with the support of a revenue cruiser”.30 He probably had this from \n\nLockhart, his main source of reliable information at this time. Of course, the local population were sometimes not averse to such efforts themselves, and as a British Consul wrote at the time \"The old free-booting spirit still survives among many who are now apparently peaceful traders and fishermen [of which] we occasionally get startling proofs in some unexpected daring act of piracy on the high seas or along the coast\".31 Smuggling was also common, whether of salt or opium.** \n\nLooking outside the district to the province and its capital city Canton, the political scene, as revealed by the Trade Reports to the Foreign Office of consuls in the several British treaty ports of Canton, Amoy, Samshui and Pakhoi was the reverse of satisfactory. Though written by a succession of men of obviously varying temperament and outlook they reveal a sad state of affairs. Everywhere there were disturbances which the civil authorities were slow, or incapable to correct, and clear signs that the dynasty was held to have exhausted its mandate from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204466, "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-1962", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n87\n\nHeaven. In Canton itself there was a serious plot to seize the city in October 1894, which led Consul Fraser to write in his next report\n\nThere is little doubt that dissatisfaction with the administration of their native country is growing among the Southern Chinese, and if no attempt at reform is made, may result in a serious insurrection\". He mentioned the plot but remarked that its failure was due more to the ineptitude of its organisers than to the vigour of the local authorities.33 His colleague at Pakhoi, in the south-east of the province, was more critical.\n\nSuch as is Chinese civilisation, Pakhoi is of its outskirt only and shows a lower level than I have seen anywhere else in this country. Piracy is in the blood of the race. A glance through the year's diary shows a monotonous record of petty coast raids, hoverings of pirate junks (which still terrorise the neighbouring coastline) and robberies of every degree of dignity from the sacking of the larger pawnshops to the plunder of a returned emigrant from the Straits or Sumatra. Of Chinese local authorities at Pakhoi itself there are practically none, the highest native Civilian within 20 miles being an officer of the rank of sub-district deputy magistrate armed with an amount of authority that barely enables him to call in question the theft of a matchbox. It would be invidious to say this much of the Pakhoi neighbourhood without adding that most of the adjacent areas are worse.34\n\nWhilst these reports were confined to individual districts there can be little doubt that the general unrest was known and felt in the New Territory. It will be recalled that SUN Yat Sen was a Cantonese and some of his followers are credited with swelling the ranks of the village bands which offered resistance to the British troops who entered the New Territory in 1899.35 This tale of unrest and lawlessness, and weakness on the part of the civil authorities, provides a background to the unsuccessful reform movement of 1898, sponsored by the southern party at Peking, whose sequel was the incarceration of the emperor by his formidable aunt, the Empress Dowager, the stringent capital measures against the reform party and their dispersal overseas or in foreign concessions in China. The leader of the movement and adviser to the emperor was KANG Yue Wei, a prominent scholar and mandarin, and himself a Cantonese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204474, "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-1962", "page_number": 106, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n95\n\n2 Extracts from the Report are given between pages 181-209 of Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1899, (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1900). For this quotation see p. 198. Lockhart was referring specifically to development which was noticeably lacking. The same cannot be said of the population during this period. The evacuation of the coastal areas (1662-69) caused a great disruption to the villages at the time. For a brief mention in English, based on Chinese authorities, see S. F. Balfour, \"Hong Kong before the British\", an article in T'ien Hsia, Vol. XI, No. 4, 1941, p. 334. In any case there has been a continuous inward flow of both Cantonese and Hakka since then, more especially of Hakka in the 19th century, from which time many of the hill villages in the Colony take their origin.\n\nIt is interesting to compare this report with a book on Wei Hai Wei, Lion and Dragon in North China (London, John Murray, 1910) which was written by a junior colleague from Hong Kong, R. F. Johnston (1874-1938) who went to Wei Hai Wei as Magistrate and Secretary to Government in 1904, probably at Lockhart's request. Johnston, later knighted and Professor of Chinese in the University of London was a man of great application and erudition who became tutor to the deposed boy emperor, P'u Yi, (1919-25) and wrote the well-known book Twilight in the Forbidden City, (London, Gollancz, 1934). He was himself Commissioner of Wei Hai Wei 1927-30. His detailed description of Wei Hai Wei, its people and their customs leaves an impression of the striking similarity of life and thought between that remote part of Shantung and this small corner of Kwangtung. The means of government was of course the same, but so also are the ways of doing and thinking which seem, in my own experience, hardly to differ at all despite the different agricultural background. To anyone interested in the Chinese peasant Johnston's book is a mine of information. The annual reports on Wei Hai Wei presented to both Houses of Parliament are, too, an interesting commentary on life in this northern leased territory.\n\nThe market towns of the New Territories in 1898 were Tai Po, Yuen Long, Tai O, Cheung Chau, Sai Kung and Tsuen Wan. A despatch of 1905 in connection with the Kowloon-Canton Railway No. 59 dated 11th January 1905 from Governor Sir Matthew Nathan to the then Secretary of State, Mr. Lyttelton gives some figures. Yuen Long had \"seventy-four shops of which twenty-five are large and deal in rice, oil, samshu etc. The remainder belong to barbers, doctors, jewellers, vegetable sellers, piece goods dealers etc.\" Tai Po Market consisted of twenty-three large shops and fifteen smaller ones, Tsuen Wan had a few shops supplying the local needs\". No figures are given for Cheung Chau or Tai O with which the railway was not concerned, but an inscription of 1878 inside the grounds of the Fong Pin Hospital at Cheung Chau states that there \"used to be over two hundred shops trading here\". Lockhart Papers 1899, p. 207 gave Cheung Chau a population of 5,000, whilst Tai O with its fisheries and salt pans was reported to have about 3,000. These were larger towns than Yuen Long (no figure given), Tai Po (280), Sai Kung Market (800) and Tsuen Wan (900). The present New Territories towns were not the largest in the San On district. Pride of place went to Sham Chun, now on the Chinese side of the border, with sixty-one large shops and three hundred and twenty-three medium sized shops, and to Kun Lan Hui, also north of the border which was the cattle centre of the whole district with fifteen large and one hundred and thirty-six medium sized shops. (Enclosure C to No. 59). See Eastern No. 88 Correspondence relating to the Kowloon-Canton Railway (London, Colonial Office, 1907).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204479, "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-1962", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "100\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nexerts itself with unprecedented vigour and hardihood in local affairs. No dispute arises but one or more of these social pests thrusts himself forward between the contending parties, and no fraud on the revenue or wholesale extortion is free from their similar influence\". Lockhart (through Governor Blake) says that the New Territory's literati \"have hitherto lived by irregular \"squeezes\" from the people\" and he blamed the opposition to British rule to them and to \"gamblers and bad characters banished from Hong Kong\" and not to the people who were incited by the gentry and elders. See Papers 1899 pp. 520 and 554.\n\n26 Papers 1899 p. 194.\n\n27 Papers 1899 p. 554.\n\n28 Arthur H. Smith Village Life in China (Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, about 1900) p. 121.\n\n29 These affected the coastal and riverine regions of Kwangtung. See C. F. Neumann's Translations from the Chinese and Armenian with notes. 1. History of the pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, (London, John Murray 1831). This includes, pp. 97-125, a very interesting account of an enforced stay of eleven weeks and three days with the pirate fleet in 1809 by Richard Glasbrooke, the mate of an East Indiaman. The pirates spent a considerable time on and near Lantau, which must have suffered from their depredations. The clan record of the HO family of San Tsuen, Pui O, on the south side of the island mentions pirate raids and a decision to fortify the village with walls which can still be seen, with several embrasures for cannon.\n\nPiracy continued until a much later date. The Cheung Chau police station was attacked and burnt in 1912, necessitating its removal and enlargement, one of the Cheung Chau ferries was pirated in 1923, and in 1925 a band of sixty robbers from the Delta entered Tai O by way of Po Chue Tam creek, killed a woman and made off with young men and a fair amount of booty without any difficulty. The Police Station is situated at the other end of the town and knew nothing of the attack until it was over. See Administrative Reports, District Officer, New Territories 1912, 1923 and 1925.\n\n30 Papers 1899 p. 528.\n\n31 Foreign Office Report 1606 on Trade of Canton 1894.\n\n32 Salt was smuggled into China from Tai O as the government monopoly and price ring made it profitable to do so. See also Enclosure D to Sir Matthew Nathan's despatch No. 59 of 11 January 1905 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway which mentions rice smuggling from Shum Chun and Deep Bay into Hong Kong. The export of rice from China was forbidden, and checked by the Imperial Maritime Customs.\n\n**F O Trade Report No. 1778 for 1895.\n\n34 F O Trade Report No. 1983 for 1896.\n\n33 Papers 1899, p. 540.\n\nBrenan, with his thirty-two years' service wrote feelingly \"The Chinaman is happiest who never sees an official, who does not even know the name of one\". J N CBRAS XXXII (1897-98) 37.\n\n31 Foreign Office Trade Report for Canton No. 1606 for 1894.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204499, "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-1962", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "116\n\nCOLINA LUPTON\n\nThe purpose of the opening account of the establishment of the British foothold in China and the development of Chinese attitudes to the whole outside world in the first thirty years of this century is really to explain the Chinese outlook today rather than to offer a new analysis of events. So much in the Chinese mentality is related to the humiliations suffered at the hands of arrogant and greedy foreigners; on a people who had always thought of themselves as the most civilised and intelligent in the world these made a profound impression. What emerges most clearly here is the way commercial interests dominated British policy in and towards China until as recently as Britain's involvement in the Japanese war. The legend (and Mr. Luard hints that he thinks, even today, that it is a legend) of a market of four hundred million eager buyers for British goods continually obliterated other considerations. Britain came to China for trade and the measures she took while there were designed largely to protect her commerce. Not until the 1930s did any feeling of sympathy for China emerge in Britain; in 1935 for instance, she made some effort to assist the Chinese economy, in particular to stabilise the currency, offering financial aid and advice and participation in joint ventures. But any goodwill which might have been engendered by this move was dissipated by the way British firms appeared interested only in whether and how they could carry on their businesses in Japanese-conquered parts of China, being otherwise indifferent to the inroads made on Chinese territory. Not until Britain and China were fighting side by side did the British government finally give up the so-called \"treaty rights\" which had been anachronistic for about thirty years—and this, the author points out with justice, was a moment when commercial interests were in abeyance.\n\nSince the end of the second world war and the establishment of the Communist government in China the world has become a much smaller place, and Britain has declined to the status of a second-class power. Mr. Luard's book has one weakness in that as he chiefly discusses British policy it sometimes seems rather narrow: Britain is not now so important that her interests can be considered in isolation from those of the rest of the world. To ponder how she can best promote her own influence rather than to discuss it in the context of world affairs and world survival seems shortsighted. This slightly distorted emphasis—", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204535, "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-1963", "page_number": 16, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN MACAO\n\n11\n\nCompany doing in Portuguese territory? Why did the Protestants need a separate cemetery? What is the significance of the date 1814? These are but a sample of the problems that these few words pose.\n\nThe first Europeans to set up permanent maritime contacts with the Chinese were the Portuguese, and by 1557 they had been granted permission to settle on a small peninsula of the delta island of Heung Shan. This peninsula, covering an area of only about five square miles, thus became the first permanent European trading base in China.\n\nLater came the Dutch, the Spanish and the British traders and navigators; the first and the second of these national groups eventually made their oriental headquarters elsewhere, but the British, through their highly organized East India Company, were more persistent and more successful as far as trade with the mainland of China was concerned.\n\nBut the China of those days was, in the eyes of her own people, the centre of the universe, and all those who lived outside the confines of her ancient and well-tested civilization were considered barbarians. They could only be admitted inside the fold as tribute bearers to the Imperial Court to receive the ethical instruction of the Son of Heaven, and were then sent back home. When such admissions were allowed, portals of entry were carefully chosen and rigidly controlled, and in the case of sea-faring people, the port appointed was Canton, situated ninety miles up the river from Macao, and thus the barbarians were kept as far as possible from the sacred heart of the Middle Kingdom.\n\nBut even at Canton there were further restrictions, geographical as well as political. The ships could only get up as far as Whampoa, which was the deep-sea port for Canton, and about eleven miles down river from it. The foreign merchants were allowed to go on to Canton itself but they had to reside in a place set apart outside the city—the Factories; nor could they remain there permanently; the length of residence permitted was determined by the time it took to dispose of the cargo brought in their ships and to load the return cargo of silk or tea. The time of the year at which these operations took place was determined by the monsoon; foreign trade was therefore completely seasonal—from September to March approximately, and as soon", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204641, "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-1963", "page_number": 122, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\n109\n\nThe Imperial forces had very little success against the Taipings in the next two years, and although it had been stipulated that the three ports on the river were not to be opened until they were defeated, a second naval expedition left Shanghai early in 1861 to establish consular posts at Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow. This expedition went up 158 miles beyond Hankow before turning back. Shortly after the return of this expedition the river was opened to foreign trade.\n\nThere is some ambiguity about Western policy during the Taiping Rebellion. It seems to have been regarded with sympathy in the early stages, when it was looked on as a reforming movement with Christian affiliations; and many foreigners welcomed the prospect of a change from the corrupt and reactionary Manchu régime. The British, American, and French governments, therefore, adopted a policy of neutrality in the early stages of the conflict. Later on, however, a marked change took place, which was not entirely due to the excesses committed by the rebels. Commercial considerations undoubtedly played some part. The Treaty of Tientsin had legalised the opium trade, but the Taipings were against opium and alcohol, and banned this trade in the territory under their control. They also made it clear that under their rule foreign trade would not be carried on in the one-sided manner so favourable to the foreign merchants. The Treaty of Tientsin again had stipulated that foreign ships could not navigate the Yangtse until peace was restored. Because of these and other reasons, the Western Powers abandoned their policy of neutrality. The rebels were looked on and referred to as firebrands and extremists, and the Manchu government as a peaceful and stabilising element, and steps were taken to help the latter. These included supplying the government forces with arms and ammunition — including the new Lee Enfield rifle, not yet used in Europe — allowing foreign steamers to transport government troops, and supplying officers to train and lead them.* As a result Nanking was captured in 1864, and the last vestiges of the rebellion were stamped out by 1866.\n\nIn 1862 the Scotland, a steamer belonging to Lindsay and Company of Shanghai was the first ocean-going merchant ship to go to Hankow, and thus opened the interior of China to direct\n\n* Gordon was the most famous of these officers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204649, "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-1963", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "116\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nThere was intense rivalry between John Swire's China Navigation Company and Russell's Shanghai Steam Navigation Company in the years before the latter's ships were sold to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company. John Swire seems to have adopted and improved on Russell's methods of soliciting business from Chinese merchants, and making his shipping services and godown facilities as attractive to them as possible. This was a policy which the \"Princely Hong\" were much slower in adopting in their shipping services. It is amusing to read F. B. Forbes's exasperated comments on a dinner party which Swire's compradores gave for their Chinese freight brokers, and at which their European clerks were present and assisted in the hostly duties.12 Forbes thought this undignified, but one imagines his real grievance was that he had not thought of this himself.\n\nThe Chefoo Convention between Britain and China was signed in 1876, following the murder of A. R. Margary, a British consular officer, on the border between Burma and China. The connection between the two events may appear remote, but at this time the murder of a foreigner, or any untoward outburst of xenophobia on the part of the Chinese, was often followed by China being compelled to surrender some of her territory or sovereignty to the foreign power concerned. In this instance the Chefoo Convention provided for the opening to foreign trade of several more ports on the coast, and a further 340 miles on the Yangtse, the section between Hankow and Ichang known as the Middle River. Ichang, at the upper end of the Middle River, became a treaty port, and also Wuhu, a port between Nanking and Kiukiang. At the same time, Anking, Hichow, Luhchow, Tatung, and Wusueh, were opened to foreign trade as ports of call. These were ports where passengers and cargo could be loaded and discharged, but where foreigners had no rights of residence. All these ports of call, except Luhchow, were below Hankow; Luhchow being on the Middle River 70 miles above Hankow.\n\nF. B. Forbes was a nephew of P. S. Forbes, a former head of Russell and Company in America. He was a director of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company from 1863 to 1866, and from 1868 to 1872, and president from 1872 to 1874.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204755, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE \n\n47 \n\nby a very powerful clan surnamed Mo. This clan fell foul of authority early in the Sung132 Dynasty and several slightly different accounts of their misdeeds and eventual extermination are preserved in three different clans, one of which claims descent from the sole posthumous survivor of the massacre. The latest edition of the San On Yuen Chi123 has only a brief mention, but earlier editions may have dealt with the subject more fully. The next clan to settle on the swamp land in these parts was surnamed Chan and I have not been able to find any of their descendants. In the wake of the Mo9s catastrophe came the very successful clan of Tang44 whose branches by the end of the Sung Dynasty132 appear to have held most of the best land in several parts of the territory, including some near Tsuen Wan2 from which they have since vanished. When I mentioned that the Chan1 clan had disappeared I do not wish to indicate that there is no evidence to support the tradition that a group with this surname were among the early Chinese settlers. There are several small families found here and there, often in close association with the Tang:44 but none of them has preserved a tradition connecting itself with these early settlements.\n\nThe Puzzle. I must here leave the subject of the earliest Chinese settlers, since my main theme is what they found when they first arrived. I have mentioned these details generally to indicate the strength of the tradition which indicates that the present Deep Bay152 extended over the Yuen Long\" Valley, up to Sheung Shui130 and over Laffan's Plain.27 On the other side of the territory the sea has been gaining; therefore it is much more difficult to be sure of the original coastline, since when the sea gains, sections of submerged land are often churned away to some depth by wave action, whereas when the sea recedes the contours do not otherwise change. However, we do have the evidence of the cadastral survey completed in the New Territories shortly after the British occupation I believe it began in 1902. Comparing this survey with what is now to be seen sixty years later testifies to three instances (one on Discovery Bay,32 Lantao; one on Tolo Harbour;3 and one on Plover Covel) where the sea has not merely encroached but churned away substantial pieces of arable land leaving in their place fairly deep water. They also testify to the obliteration of three villages106 and thus afford", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204780, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "72 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nbe shown for inspection to prove ownership at the land settlement which followed the British lease and, though opinions differ on this point, many old villagers have said that their deeds were handed in to the Government and not returned. This would, in part, account for their being in very short supply today, at any rate throughout the area with which I am familiar; that is the islands and the Sai Kung and Clear Water Bay districts. Following widespread enquiry over a number of years, I am convinced that another factor of great importance in explaining their scarcity is the Japanese occupation of the Colony in 1941-45. Many villagers say that their papers were destroyed at that time, in many cases by themselves, since they feared the questions which might result if the Japanese authorities got their hands on them. The less they knew the better, was the prevailing view, and therefore many families destroyed their papers, to our present loss.\n\nFortunately, to set against this background of loss and decay, there are the valuable records of the land settlement carried out within a few years of the lease of the New Territories to Britain in 1898. These consist of records of a ground survey, carried out mainly to a scale of thirty-two inches to the mile, in which individual lots are set down and numbered, and their ownership listed in an accompanying schedule certified as correct by an officer of the Land Court.2 These constitute a modern \"Domesday\" of all titles to land in the leased territory. Their usefulness to the historian is obvious and apart from their intrinsic value as a contemporary record they provide many clues to the past and enable detailed checks to be made on some of the persons and organisations whose names appear on commemorative tablets and others dated items such as furniture and fittings, which are to be found in the many temples which dot the countryside.\n\nThere are also the recollections of elders, particularly those over eighty years of age, who were young men at the time the territory changed hands. The memories of the oldest men are sometimes good and when this is the case they can do a great deal to fill in the bare bones of the land records and the genealogical trees. Since certain changes overtook the region within the first decade of British rule,3 their testimony is of the greatest importance to a realisation of manners and attitudes and an understanding of the system of civil and military administration which obtained", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204802, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "FENG CHAU\n\n93\n\n26 Dated the thirteenth day of the sixth Moon of the 8th year of Kuang Hsü (27th July 1882).\n\n27 Other examples of local tax-lords are quoted in note 12 of my Cheung Chau article. For an interesting instance from another part of the New Territories see Appendix II to the Report on the New Territory for the year 1900, Hong Kong Government Gazette, vol. XLVII (1901), pp. 1403-4, where a claim by members of a branch of the TANG family of Kam Tin to ownership of the whole island of Ts'ing I was investigated by a member of the Land Court. He wrote \"I have taken special pains to go thoroughly into this case because it seems a very typical example of the curious and unwarrantable pretensions to the ownership of very large tracts of country which are perhaps the most striking feature in the economy of what we call the New Territory.\" Like the TANGS, the CHANS may have owned part but claimed, or aimed to control, the whole.\n\n28 It is interesting that the earliest grave known on the island has a tablet dated Chien Lung fifteenth year (1749) and that the person buried there is a CHAN Yiu Hong & and the person responsible for erecting the tablet (no relationship is given) CHAN Hing Sin. These men may conceivably have had something to do with the CHAN Yan Hop and Yee Ka Tongs. The grave is unlikely to be that of a fisherman and most likely to be that of someone who was living on Peng Chau at the time of his death. Not everyone is provided with a formal grave, and therefore he was probably a person of some consequence. Also, at the time of the land settlement, various persons named CHAN who were not local villagers but belonged to Peng Chau and Nam Tau (BCL) owned land on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau. One of them was the CHAN Yan Hop Tong of Nam Tau. This land may represent the remains of larger holdings left over from an earlier period but mostly sold or mortgaged by 1899, or else not recognised by the Land Court during the re-registration of titles, as being \"not compatible with the principles of British administration\" as happened with some other tax-lord land in the New Territories—see note 12 to my Cheung Chau article.\n\n29 Peng Chau M.S.\n\n30 BCL.\n\n31 BCL, Lantau coast.\n\n32 A lucky day of the first winter month of the year of Tao Kuang (1834),\n\n33 BCL.\n\n34 BCL.\n\n35 BCL.\n\n36 Peng Chau M.S.\n\n37 At the 1911 census (see note 7 above) the population of these villages was Nei Kwu Chau 78, Tai Pak 52, and Yee Pak 59. There were also families living in hamlets at Nim Shue Wan, Cheung Sha Lan, Hai Tei Wan, Hung Shui, Kau Shat Wan and Man Kok, but they are not listed in the Census.\n\n38 There is conflicting evidence about the prosperity of the area in the second half of the century. The decline of population on the Lantau coast opposite Peng Chau has been noted. This is more noticeable elsewhere on Lantau, where some of the more important villages can be shown to have\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204971, "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": 79, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "70 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nmiddlemen in trade between the two countries. There was a flavour of irony in this, as the Portuguese were to prove as great pirates as the Japanese, Their most famous pirate was Mendes Pinto, who flourished in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and who seems to have been a combination of Sir Henry Morgan and Baron Munchausen. Pinto's exploits are characteristic of Portuguese history during those early centuries, displaying that amazing mixture of gallantry and greed, of religious zeal, bigotry, and cruelty. \n\nThe eastern seas had always been full of violence, and the arrival of the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century, and the Dutch a century later, increased that violence. The Dutch lacked the religious zeal of the Portuguese, but substituted an equally unattractive obsession with trade. Much of the European trade in the Far East at that time was based on piracy. The Dutch, for instance, were excluded from direct trade with China until 1729, and in their Japan trade in which Chinese silk was the most important commodity they obtained much of their silk by plundering Portuguese and Chinese ships. \n\n— \n\nThe persistence of piracy in Chinese waters for so long after regular trade had been established there by Europeans, was due to the peculiar conditions under which that trade developed. In India, and in the East Indies, European trade was succeeded by a steady increase in European power, although in both places there was a considerable time lag between establishing political power on land and the suppression of piracy at sea. \n\nBy the mid-nineteenth century, however, British and Dutch naval power had made Indian and East Indian waters comparatively safe for European commerce. The situation in China was very different, however, and piracy continued there for fully another century. Not until after the First China War of 1841-42 were there any centres of European power in China, and the few centres established then were separated from each other by hundreds of miles of Chinese territory. The situation was aggravated by the increasing anarchy and lawlessness which became endemic over much of coastal China from the early nineteenth century, as the authority and power of the Manchu Government declined. \n\nWhen the East India Company's monopoly of the China trade was abolished in 1833, and the trade thrown open to all comers,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205000, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE IN HONG KONG 1841 - 1962 99\n\nwas actually protecting local Chinese. The Colonial Office had no desire to see the indigenous population handed over to the power of the Hong Kong British business interests. It was not considered until the 1870s that the Chinese might have a part to play in the function of government, the Colonial Office believing that \"the testimony of those best acquainted with them represent the Chinese race as endowed with much intelligence but very deficient in the elements of morality\" (Secretary of State for the Colonies to Sir John Bowring). The first Chinese member of the Legislative Council was not appointed till 1880, and he, so a Colonial Office minute tells us, was a cipher. While obviously it was not practical to give much in the way of electoral power to either the British or the Chinese communities in the nineteenth century, it seems a pity that more was not done between the two world wars when it might have been feasible. There was a certain broadening of the Executive Council by greater community representation soon after the first war, and significantly, as Mr. Endacott points out, what had been the continuous representation on the Council since 1850 of Jardine, Matheson was interrupted in 1921. But the slump in Europe, its effect on the Colony's trade, and the rising militarism of Japan all discouraged progress.\n\nIt is true that the Colony has gained some measure of independence over the years from control from London. It is financially self-supporting, and since 1958 the annual estimates have no longer been submitted to the Secretary of State. Representation on the two Councils, Legislative and Executive, has been broadened, though there is still no elected element. Furthermore, an effort has been made to bring local people into the ranks of the Civil Service, though it has not met with the success of similar efforts in, for example, former African colonies.\n\nMr. Endacott notes that in 1952 for the first time a locally recruited officer was promoted to be the head of a government department; unfortunately, he does not tell us which department, or how often this has happened again in the succeeding thirteen years. For many and various reasons, the recruitment of Chinese to the Administrative Service in particular has been slow. At first sight, though a self-governing Hong Kong is an impossibility in view of the international situation, a largely Chinese territory might", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205096, "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-1966", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "THE FIVE GREAT CLANS\n\n47\n\n112 Rth. Sec J. H. S. Lockhart, \"Report on the New Territory\", Sessional Papers, 1899.\n\n113 Hayes, op. cit., p. 83, quotes Lockhart, but does not give any new evidence, though he mentions other similar informal bodies.\n\n114 八鄉\n\n[115] I am not sure that this was the original purpose of the alliance.\n116 Ancestral halls are generally sited outside walled villages for reasons of feng shui.\n\n117 Ho Sheung Heung, Ping Kong, and Kam Tsin. The cannon of this last village was not handed in when British administration began in 1899, and still lies hidden in the corner of one of their ancestral halls.\n\n118 南鄉.\n\n119 That is, in Canton.\n\n120 See J. W. Hayes, \"Cheung Chau”, in JHKBRAS, Vol. 3, 1963, note 12; and the same author's \"Peng Chau\", in JHKBRAS, Vol. 4, 1964, p. 79 and note 27.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205169, "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-1966", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "120\n\nOLD BRITISH KOWLOON\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nOn 19 January 1861 a ceremony took place at Tsim Sha Tsui, a village on the Chinese mainland directly opposite the British Colony of Hong Kong. On that day a mandarin of the provincial government at Canton handed over a paperful of soil in token of the cession of the Kowloon peninsula to Great Britain. In this way a tiny fraction of Chinese territory passed under British rule.\n\nIt is not the object of this article to give a comprehensive account of the development of Old British Kowloon as the area became known after 1898 when another treaty transferred the adjoining area of Chinese territory to England; for this could not be done within the confines of a short article. Rather, it is my intention to give a short description of the peninsula and then to turn to a more detailed examination of some of its villages, with special reference to the origins of the settlers, their way of life, and their local institutions.\n\nWhat was the Kowloon peninsula like in 1861 when it passed under British rule? A contemporary description reads:\n\n44\n\nThe land may be briefly described as being about 2,366 yards in length and 966 in breadth: its surface being extremely rugged from the presence of numerous small hills divided by ravines and patches of marshes and rice fields; rocky and precipitous on its southern and eastern shores and gradual shelving off on its western one to a fine sandy beach.\n\nA good idea of the unpromising terrain may be had from a drawing by Lieut. Collinson made from the Kowloon foothills behind Kowloon City about fifteen years earlier (see the illustration to this article).\n\nA specialised account of the newly acquired territory was sent home to the British Government. This was the report of the Anglo-Chinese Land Commission of April 1862. Due to the\n\nThe author is an administrative officer in the Hong Kong Government service.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205171, "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-1966", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "122\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\npermitted to settle there, and stringent measures will be taken to prevent its becoming as heretofore a resort for thieves and outlaws, who are hereby warned that they will be proceeded against with severity if they attempt to conceal themselves within the above-mentioned limits **6\n\nWho were these people? Most of the inhabitants of Old Kowloon at this time were Hakkas, whereas the earlier inhabitants of the flatter and more fertile areas of the peninsula, especially round Kowloon City, not far beyond the northern boundary of British territory, were Cantonese. The major Cantonese settlements in the area south of the Kowloon hills date back to the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368) and even before, whereas the Hakka settlers of the southern part of the Kowloon peninsula are of much more recent origin. Most of them appear to have come into the area in the first half of the 19th century, especially after 1841.\n\nSeveral factors can be said to have operated in bringing Hakkas into the area in the middle years of the 19th century. In the first place, there appears to have been a continuing movement of Hakkas early in the century, seeking to settle on new land. Then, after 1841, there was the attraction of nearby Hong Kong with its opportunities for work, and perhaps wealth. The development of Victoria, the capital city, brought a demand for granite and this was readily available in the rocky outcrops of Kowloon, from which it could conveniently be transported across the harbour to the new building sites. In 1871 there were no less than eighty-one stone quarries in Kowloon more than for the whole of Hong Kong island. Quarrying is traditionally work in which Hakkas engage: they pride themselves on their strength and ability to engage in such strenuous labour.10 Thirdly, the prolonged unrest of the Taiping Rebellion forced many individuals and even whole families to leave their homes and settle in British territory.\" One of the more picturesque settlers in Ho Man Tin Village in the 1860s was a Hakka who had allegedly been one of the Taiping generals and rejoiced in the nickname \"Seven Legged Heavenly Flying Tiger\".\n\nA contemporary observer who had spent nearly thirty years in South China described these people as follows: 12\n\nParties of tramps, called Hakkas or ‘guests' roamed over Kwangtung province squatting on vacant places along the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205175, "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-1966", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "126\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nin Chinese territory. The village elders retained much of their authority, though I am not yet in a position to assess the degree to which they were recognised, and to that extent supported, by the British administration.27 Two of my informants recall that stealing crops in their villages was a matter for the village elders. If the offender was an outsider the elders would take him back to his own village and expect his own leaders to deal with him. Failing an agreeable settlement the offender would be taken to the nearest police station. For a long time, it seems, the realities of local power lay with the elders. It is significant that as late as 1895 Eitel was able to write:28\n\n\"The Chinese people in town are at the present day under the sway of their own head men (the Tungwa), and the people in the villages are ruled by their elders as much as ever\".\n\nThe same degree of local autonomy existed above the village level where the village organisation was augmented by small regional groupings which were usually based on a temple.29 For example, Mong Kok, Ho Man Tin and adjoining smaller settlements patronised the Kwun Yam [Kuan Yin] Temple (†) at Tai Shek Kwu near Ho Man Tin village. Their fore-bears had apparently built this temple soon after their arrival in the area. It was removed to make way for development in 1926,30 and as the preamble to the commemoration tablet in the new building has it:31\n\n44\n\n\"The Shui Yuet Kung Temple was first built at Tai Shek Kwu over a hundred years ago. It was famed for the exact prophesy of its gods and had many worshippers\". My informants confirm that it was a very popular temple and consequently well-supported. It was given a major repair about 1908 when all the local villagers and the Yau Ma Ti shop-keepers contributed money towards the project.\n\nThe temple building stood on top of a rocky feature to which access and egress was by two flights of granite steps each with thirty steps. Local people referred to it as the Tai Shek Kwu Miu (★☎★A). At the beginning of the 20th century the temple was looked after by four managers, (f) as they were styled. One of them was a prosperous villager called WONG Lan-sang (*) a self-made man from Mong Kok village of whom more", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205324, "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-1967", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "EXPANSION AND EXTENSION IN HAKKA SOCIETY\n\n79\n\nNG, R.\n\n1965 'Economic Life and the Family', Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories, (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch) n.d.\n\nN.T. Report 1900\n\n1900 'Report on the New Territory during the First Year of British Administration', Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong 1900, (Hongkong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers).\n\nN.T. Report 1899-1912\n\n1912 'Report on the New Territories 1899-1912\", Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hongkong 1912, (Hongkong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers).\n\nN.T. Report 1917\n\n1918 'Report on the New Territories for the Year 1917, Administrative Reports for the Year 1917, (Hongkong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers).\n\nPRATT, J.\n\n1960 'Emigration and Unilineal Descent Groups: A Study of Marriage in a Hakka Village in the New Territories, Hong Kong', The Eastern Anthropologists, Vol. xiii,\n\nS., D. W.\n\n1900 European Settlements in the Far East, (London, Sampson, Low and Marston).\n\nSCPH H.K. Chinese\n\n1965 H.K. Chinese in Britain Now Number 35,000, South China Post-Herald, Sept. 12th, Hong Kong.\n\nSIU, P.\n\n1952 'The Sojourner', The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 58.\n\nSKINNER, G. W.\n\n1964/65 'Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China', The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. xxiv.\n\nTOPLEY, M.\n\n1964 'Capital, Saving and Credit among Indigenous Rice Farmers and Immigrant Vegetable Farmers in Hong Kong's New Territories', Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies, Studies from Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean, and Middle America, R. Firth and B. S. Yamey, eds, (London, George Allen and Unwin).\n\nTREGEAR, T. R. and L. BERRY\n\n1959 The Development of Hongkong and Kowloon as told in maps, (Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong Press).\n\nVAILLANT, L.\n\n1920 'Contribution à l'étude anthropologique des chinois Hak-ka de la province de Moncay (Tonking)', L'Anthropologie, Vol. 30.\n\nWILLMOTT, W. E.\n\n1964 'Chinese Clan Associations in Vancouver, Man, Vol. lxiv.\n\nYANG, C. K.\n\n1959 A Chinese Village in Early Communist Transition, (Cambridge, Mass, The Technology Press).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205553, "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-1968", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "90\n\nARMANDO M. DA SILVA\n\nIt will suffice here to say that the exterior defence of the Chu Kong estuary consisted of a series of forts, customs-stations and guard-posts in the Lo Man Shan 老萬山, Kai Pong 鷄澎, Sam Chau Mun 三洲門, Ngoi Ling Ting 外伶仃, and the Tam Kon ## groups of the outer off-shore islands. The civil administration ruled from Nam Tau, the district city of the San On district. The military administration was centred at Tai Pang, on the western arm enclosing Tai Pang Hoi (Mirs Bay). The civil administration operated on a north-south axis, as against the east-west axis of the military coastal defence system. This is understandable when one realizes that the military could facilitate their control of the coast-line by establishing easy communications by water running the length of the coast-line from strongpoints on strategic head-lands and the offshore islands.\n\n3 For the Chinese characters of place names of some locales in the vicinity of Tai Yu Shan see map 3. For names of places within the present territory of Hong Kong see A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1960).\n\n4 So far as I know there has been no published study of this fort by Hongkong's local historians, except for a brief mention in one work which states that Kai Yik Kok fort was of Ch'ing dynasty date. Lo Hsiang-lin, Hongkong and its External Communication before 1842, (Hongkong, Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963) p. 172.\n\n5 The principal ingredients of this cement are clam and oyster shells which are crushed and burnt to produce slaked lime. The lime is then mixed with fine sand to produce a holding cement. Shells and fine sand are common to many local beaches and are, apparently for this purpose, used in lime kilns.\n\n6 San On Yuen Chi, kuen 22, under section on Coastal Defence reads:\n\n看復界後海絮籹寧而設險更捻周密雖今之汎地 及設兵皆與舊制不同而大嶼山雞翼角炮臺南頭 炮臺赤濘炮蠱最為餓要\n\n7 Fan Lau is also known as Shek Sun meaning \"boulder growths\", a reference to the numerous residual boulders at Kai Yik Kok,\n\n8 Luis Gomes, Monografia de Macau (Macau, 1951), a Portuguese translation of the O Mun Kei Leuk p. 70. \"No 7° ano de long Tcheng (1730) construiram-se fortalezas nas duas montanhas, distribuiram-se as guarniçoes para a sua defensa e foram reforçadas as tropas que guarneciam Tai-U-San formando assim como que um angulo semelhante ao que e constituido pelos chifres dum boi, para servir de defensa exterior de Macau e o Boca Tigre\",\n\n9 J. J. L. Duyvendak, \"Sailing directions of Chinese voyages\" T'oung Pao, vol. 34 (1938) pp. 230-237; and \"The true dates of the Chinese maritime expeditions in the early fifteenth century\", T'oung Pao, vol. 34 (1938), pp. 341-412.\n\n10 The district of San On (新安) was formed in the sixth year of Lung Hing (隆慶) ie. 1572-73, Fourteen years later, in 1587, the San On district gazetteer was written by Yan Tai-kon (縣太君), the District Magistrate. Various editions followed. The latest edition was published in 1819. This gazetteer provides the best primary source of information on pre-British Hongkong. Chapters (kuen) XIV and XXII deal with Coastal Defence. These are chapters of special interest to historical geographers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205605, "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-1968", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "142\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nIt is clear from these comments that the Government of Hong Kong at that time was uncertain of the religious affiliations of these halls and it is not possible therefore to say with certainty whether or not they were all sectarian or how many were of the Hsien-t'ien sect. Nevertheless, from the remarks made about the secretiveness of the promoters and managers as to their objects, one must assume that some at least belonged to the sects. It is particularly interesting to note the reference to the opinion of the Government of Kwangtung, and one may wonder how far traditional Chinese ideas of unorthodoxy influenced the ideas not only of the Chinese citizens commenting and who may have known more of their true nature, but also, more subtly, those of the British officer in charge of the District in which the vegetarian hall boom was being experienced. One can of course appreciate Kwangtung's feelings about this boom. Expulsion of sects from its territory would be of little avail if they were planning to set up establishments not far away and from where they hoped to conduct work for the millennium!\n\nIt is interesting, perhaps, to compare the situation here with that in Singapore about the same time, where it is clear from evidence collected by Marjorie Topley there was a similar boom in development. The Singapore Government was clearly unaware of the sectarian connexions of halls built at that time, and indeed is still unaware, as far as she knows, of such connexions with halls built also in the thirties when there was another boom associated with the influx of unattached working women from Kwangtung at that time. Presumably, these developments were too far away to concern the Government of China, or perhaps they were unaware of them also.\n\nToday, in Hong Kong, the Hsien-t'ien sect of concern is a registered company, going under the name of the Sin Tin Taoism Association Ltd. (“Taoism” as used here comes from the term Tao used in the sect's name: Hsien-t'ien Tao, and should not be confused, as in fact it sometimes is, with the religious system of this name). It does not appear to be militant today in its search for its religious goals but, on the contrary, does much valuable charitable work. In 1943, during the Japanese Occupation, the Sin Tin Taoism Association raised money to provide a home for the aged, which it established at Tung Choi Street, Kowloon. In 1945,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205738, "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-1969", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "38\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\nMany of the points mentioned above can be further developed. What interaction was there between gentry leadership, she-hsüeh, and kinship? How were the 'catchment areas' of she-hsüeh established? Is there a relationship between these elements and marketing communities? What was the pattern of consultation which preceded the mobilization of militia? What sorts of relationships were invoked and in what order? How effective were militia as fighting units? How was logistic support provided? Such questions are relevant, not only to moments of opposition to the British, but also to a more complete understanding of social structure and organization in rural Kwangtung at this time. The resistance to the occupation of the New Territories constitutes a 'case-study' which, in conjunction with Wakeman's analysis, provides a further opportunity to attempt at least partial answers to these questions.\n\nDescription of the New Territory.\n\nThe New Territory, it was originally styled in the singular, though currently used in the plural, is an irregularly shaped peninsula jutting down from the coast of Kwangtung toward Hong Kong Island.37 The extremity of the peninsula had been ceded to Britain by the Convention of Peking, 1860. In 1898 an additional 356 square miles were added to the Colony's land (see map at rear of volume).* The territory is surrounded by water on all but its northern boundary and 33 islands account for about one-quarter of its area. Rugged hills and mountains range across the peninsula from northeast to southwest. The eastern section is, therefore, an area of hills and small valleys, while the western and northern sections comprise a large and fertile plain which extends across the Sham Chun river to the mountains in the north of the district.38\n\nJ. H. Stewart Lockhart, Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong at the time of the lease, estimated the population of the territory to be 100,000, living in 423 villages.39 This population was not evenly distributed. For instance, the western plain supported 23,020 people, living in 59 villages. The much larger eastern section of the territory is said to have had a population of only 20,870 living in 182 villages.40\n\n* Plate 21.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205742, "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-1969", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "42\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\ncoterminous with the standard marketing areas mentioned above, each taking its name from the appropriate market town. The fourth tung, Sheung U, was larger. It included much of the eastern section of the territory, from San Tin and Sheung Shui in the north to Sai Kung in the southeast. Within it were the markets of Shek Wu Hui, Tai Po, and Sai Kung. The extent to which these divisions were the units of organization for the resistance movement will be discussed in the conclusion.\n\nThe Occupation of the New Territory in 1899.\n\nThe resistance to the occupation of the New Territory is one of the forgotten episodes in the Colony's history. Present-day government publications dismiss it with a line: \"the British take-over in April 1899 met with some initial ill-organized armed opposition...\"5 Major-General W. J. Gascoigne, who commanded the British forces in Hong Kong at the time, took a different view: \"I am confident that if this rising had not been so promptly met from all sides as it was, it would have assumed very formidable proportions, as it is now discovered that it had been most carefully planned beforehand.\"52 In the paragraphs below an attempt is made to reconstruct the development of the resistance movement, the sequences of events being divided, for purposes of exposition, into three phases: Prelude to Resistance; the Resistance Movement; and the Occupation of Sham Chun and its Aftermath.\n\nPrelude to Resistance — August 1898 to 27th March, 1899,53\n\nAlthough the Convention of Peking was concluded in June 1898, the take-over of the New Territory did not occur until April of the following year. In the interval there were various portents of impending British rule which can have done little to reassure the inhabitants of the territory. In August of 1898 Stewart Lockhart toured the territory and made enquiries about many aspects of social life. At about the same time agents of a Hong Kong land syndicate began to operate in the area. Their object was to acquire land which might appreciate in value as a result of either government purchase, or, the expansion of commercial activities. Unscrupulous methods were used to persuade reluctant owners to sell their land. For example, the syndicate's agents were the authors of a rumour that the Hong Kong government intended to expropriate all privately owned land. It was believed that the syndicate", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205743, "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-1969", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n43\n\nbad informal connections with Hong Kong's officialdom and that its activities were a foretaste of the future.\n\nBy March of 1899, British officials began to appear in the territory. A party was busy near the Sham Chun river, marking out the frontier with China. Meanwhile, the officer in charge of the Hong Kong police was touring the territory, considering alternative locations for police stations. This official—Captain Superintendent F. H. May arrived at Ping Shan on 27th March. His first action was to post a proclamation saying that the Hong Kong government would not interfere with the land, buildings, or customs of the people. He then designated a hill behind Ping Shan as the site for a police station. A crowd gathered and the argument began. “It says that land, buildings, and customs will not be interfered with but will remain the same as before. Why should they, therefore, when they first come into the leased area, wish to erect a police station on the hill behind our village? When has China ever erected a police station just where people live? The proclamation says that things will be as before. Are not these words untrue?”\n\n54\n\nThe Resistance Movement -- 28th March to 18th April, 1899.\n\nThe day after May's visit to Ping Shan, discussions were held in the ancestral halls of Ping Shan and Kam Tin. In both instances, agreement was reached that resistance should be offered to the British. Following the two meetings, a third took place in an ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen. Representatives of all three Tang lineages were present and previous decisions to offer resistance were ratified. Messages were sent to leaders throughout the marketing area, asking them to attend a meeting at Yuen Long market the next day.\n\nSteward Lockhart later argued that the resistance leaders feared for their positions of power and privilege. At the Ha Tsuen meeting, a wider range of anxieties were expressed: “... that under English law a poll tax would be collected; that houses would be numbered and a charge made therefor; that fishing and wood-cutting would be prohibited; that women and girls would be outraged; that births and deaths would be registered; that cattle and pigs would be destroyed; that police stations would be erected, which would ruin the Fung Shui [Mandarin: Feng Shui] of the place. In short, that the evils that would arise would be so great", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205746, "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-1969", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "46\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\nYee Yuen and donated sums to its resistance fund. The two lineages also comprised two yeuk within the Ts'at Yeuk and, as such, were represented in the fighting at Tai Po.\n\nAt some point after 1st April, leaders from the Yuen Long and Sheung U Divisions went together to the Tung P'ing Kuk at Sham Chun and attempted with little success to enlist wider support for their activities. An agent was sent to Tung-kuan Hsien, where a number of 'bare-sticks' were recruited. In addition, the help of the Tang lineage of Pan T'in, in the northern part of Hsin-an Hsien, was solicited. This lineage appears to have stood in a clan relationship with the Tang higher order lineage within the New Territory. Members of the Pan T'in lineage participated in the fighting within the territory and subsequently felt themselves threatened by the British occupation of Sham Chun.\n\nThe first confrontation between the Ts'at Yeuk and the vanguard of the occupying force occurred at Tai Po. Since late March, contractors had been erecting matsheds for the Hong Kong authorities on a hill near the market. Work had been obstructed by local villagers who claimed that the hill was private land and that the matsheds would disturb the feng shui of the area. On 3rd April Captain-Superintendent May set off for Tai Po, with a mixed party of Sikh policemen from Hong Kong and a detachment of Chinese soldiers, which had been temporarily assigned to him by the Commander of the Chinese military garrison stationed at Kowloon City. He hoped to get work on the matsheds started again and intended to leave the soldiers as a guard for the construction materials, pending assumption of British authority in the Territory.\n\nMay arrived at Tai Po early in the afternoon and went to a nearby temple, almost certainly the Man Mo Miu, where he knew he would meet local leaders. A large crowd gathered, both within the temple and in the narrow street outside. His efforts at persuasion failed and the bystanders \"became very offensive in their language and demeanour.\"59 May thought it wise to leave, but hope of a dignified withdrawal ended as soon as the British party reached the street. They were set upon by an angry crowd, wielding brooms, buckets, and other improvised weapons. An escape was made after the soldiers had threatened the crowd with their rifles and the Sikhs had made a bayonet charge to clear a path.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205748, "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-1969", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "48\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\n7th April includes entries for approximately 999 catties (about 1,332 lbs.), of gunpowder.\n\nMeanwhile, the Governor of Hong Kong again asked the Viceroy to take whatever steps necessary to maintain order prior to the take-over. A reassuring proclamation was jointly issued by the Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi and the Governor of Kwangtung, and Chinese troops were ordered into the area. The Governor of Hong Kong had already issued his own proclamation to the people of the New Territory. Whatever its intention, his message cannot have appeased the resistance leaders:\n\nthe most respected of your elders will be chosen to assist in the management of your village affairs, to secure peace and good order and the punishment of evil doers. I expect you to obey the laws that are made for your benefit, and all persons who break the law will be punished severely. It will be necessary for you to register without delay your titles for the land occupied by you, that the true owners may be known.\"62\n\nIn other words, control over both land and political institutions appeared to be at risk.\n\nBy 10th April plans for resistance were sufficiently advanced to allow the establishment of the T'ai Ping Kung Kuk (Great Peace Public Council), at Yuen Long market. The inaugural meeting promulgated several policies: (i) a levy of 100 taels of silver was to be made upon each village and, where necessary, force was to be used to secure payment; (ii) the wealthy, and those who appeared to be associated with the British, were forbidden to leave the area. Those attempting to do so were to be killed,63\n\nThe date and place of the formal British take-over — Tai Po, on Monday, 17th April — had been announced in a variety of contexts and must have been widely known. However, the first major clash involved provincial Chinese troops, rather than the British. As part of his undertaking to maintain order the Viceroy had directed a Major Fong, in command of a gunboat and troops, to the territory. The Major sent letters ahead, saying that his intentions were pacific. The implication was that he would not interfere with plans for resistance. These assurances were unacceptable and his landing at Castle Peak Bay, on 12th April, was successfully opposed by militia of the Yuen Long Division,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205752, "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-1969", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "52\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\nthe configuration of the country favoured cover and our casualties were few.\" But, \"had this advance not been conducted with great care the loss to our troops must have been heavy.\"69 After fierce fighting the militia withdrew from the valley, leaving it by way of the saddle which gives access to the Pat Heung district. The soldiers followed and, having lost touch with the Chinese, bivouacked for the night at Sheung Tsuen, on the foothills overlooking the Pat Heung valley.\n\nThe next afternoon a large force (subsequently estimated at 2,600 men), was seen approaching from a distance. It consisted of men from Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Castle Peak and from four villages in adjacent Chinese territory, including Pan Tin. The British force took up positions and stood watching the militia, deployed in three lines, \"advance across the open in excellent skirmishing order.70 The British Officer Commanding later conceded that it was \"distinctly a determined advance for Chinamen.”71 The militia began firing at long range and their rifle and jingal fire shortly became almost continuous. When the distance had been reduced to 500 yards the British tried a few ranging shots, moved forward under cover of a dry water course, and advanced into the open toward the on-coming militia. In the face of such a determined response, which now became a general advance accompanied by heavy fire, the militia broke and ran.\n\nThis battle marked the end of organized resistance within the New Territory. The next weeks were spent in establishing the civil administration and in persuading villagers to return to their normal occupations. The Governor, in attempting to explain what had happened to a remote Colonial Office, drew upon another Celtic parallel. The resistance, he said, revealed \"a state of clan feeling and power of combination not unlike that of the Scottish Highlands two centuries ago . . .\"72\n\nThe Occupation of Sham Chun and its Aftermath-- May to September, 1899.\n\nThus far, operations had been confined to the newly leased territory. Early in May, however, reports reached the Hong Kong Government of an impending attack from across the Sham Chun river. Police informers said that 140 ‘bare-sticks' from Tung-kuan Hsien had assembled in secrecy at Sha Tau, on Deep Bay. They were to form the nucleus of a force which was to be augmented by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205753, "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-1969", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n53\n\nlocal recruits. The venture was rumoured to be the work of the Ming Lan Tong, a literary society of Tung-kuan city. Additional credence was given to the reports when it was learned that some officers of the Tong were members of the Hsin-an Tang clan. Police on patrol in the New Territory also noted that women were leaving their villages. By 10th May the exodus had reached major proportions.\n\nIt was evident that the Sham Chun river was not a defensible frontier and that the best way to forestall attack was to occupy the area from which it was to be launched. On 16th May two columns, numbering 1500 men in all, landed from Deep Bay and Mirs Bay and marched on Sham Chun. That evening the Union Jack was hoisted over Sham Chun market, to the accompaniment of a 21-gun salute. A proclamation was issued declaring that Sham Chun was British territory and that the Viceroy had no further jurisdiction in the district. There had been no resistance and no sign of forces massing to attack the New Territory.\n\nThe occupation of Sham Chun was confined to an area within five miles of the Sham Chun river, including Sha Tau, Sham Chun, and the road between them. Neither civil nor military jurisdiction were extended further. However, in the hinterland the occupation of Sham Chun and the proclamation which accompanied it were interpreted as a prelude to the occupation of the entire district. In particular, the Tangs of Pan T'in feared a punitive expedition against themselves.\n\nMuch of the information about subsequent events comes from one source. The Rev. Martin Schaub* of the Basel Mission had a station at Li Long, near Pan T'in, in the north of the district. Rev. Schaub wrote periodically to the officer commanding at Sham Chun and his letters convey a vivid impression of the activity precipitated by the occupation. Late in May he wrote that the leaders of Pan T'in had asked the larger villages to help in resisting the British. He said money was being collected and that armed men were making their way toward Pan T'in.\n\n* The printed documents call him \"Hart\", but this must be in error for Rev. Martin Schaub of the Basel Mission. A photograph and brief biography are given at pp. 16, 438 of Marshall Broomhall, The Chinese Empire: a General and Missionary Survey, London, [1907]. Perhaps hand-writing was responsible for the wrong transcription into the printed documents, Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205758, "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-1969", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "58\n\n-\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\nThe documents show that the composite force which opposed the British consisted of a variety of semi-independent commands, deriving from lineages and villages scattered over a wide area of the New Territory. Communication between them was chiefly by runner, carrying verbal or written messages. The most rapid form of communication — the signal drum — was also the most restricted in the messages it could transmit. The composition of the force tended to change daily, and this would make implementation of agreed tactics difficult. Inability to maintain continuous communication was reflected in the tendency of the militia to fight set-piece battles. After each engagement, it was necessary to withdraw, re-establish contact with all concerned, and decide what was to be done next. The British, in contrast, established chains of heliograph stations as rapidly as possible.\n\nTactical flexibility was also handicapped by a rudimentary system of support. Logistic responsibility was allocated among the participants for limited periods of time, often no longer than a day. The absence of a commissariat meant that supply lines had to be kept short, and that militia units were restricted to operations close to home.\n\nWithin these limits, the composite force was impressive. It was seemingly well armed and disciplined, and its leaders sophisticated in small unit tactics. Both the total force and its larger components would be effective instruments when used — officially or unofficially — for internal security purposes.\n\nWakeman has described militia forces of this type as \"lumped together assemblage of specific localistic units.\"77 The intent of this article has been to show how one such lumping together occurred. The parallels with the Kwangtung militia of the 1840's and '50's are evident. Scarcely three weeks lapsed between the first meetings of 18th March, 1899, and the final battle on 18th April. Within this time, over 2,000 armed men were mobilized and put into the field. As was the case half a century earlier, this was accomplished by means of well-established and enduring sets of relationships that reflected the close-knit social structure and organization of rural Kwangtung province.\n\nThe arguments presented above have been developed with reference to a few militia corps in one province of China. The general usefulness and validity of the analysis can be tested as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205762, "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-1969", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "62\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\n44 Skinner, op. cit., Part 1, p. 27. The markets of the northern district of the New Territory seem to have been dependent primarily upon Sham Chun, rather than upon several intermediate markets. This may be an example of what Skinner terms a marketing system in a \"topographic cul-de-sac\". Ibid., p. 21.\n\n45 Baker, Hugh D. R. \"The Five Great Clans of the New Territories”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. VI, 1966, p. 31.\n\n46 Freedman, op. cit., pp. 82ff., gives an account of the origins of the Ts'at Yeuk. The character yeuk may be translated as 'covenant', or 'agreement'. The seven covenants' were a confederation of seven groups of villages within the Tai Po marketing area.\n\n47 Papers Extracts, op. cit., p. 192.\n\n48 Hayes, \"The Pattern of Life.\", op. cit., p. 9.\n\n49 Freedman, op. cit., p. 81.\n\n50 Papers Extracts, op. cit., pp. 201ff.\n\n51 Hong Kong 1963, Hong Kong, 1964, pp. 363ff.\n\n52 Papers Extracts, op. cit., pp. 587-8.\n\n53 The following account has been assembled, somewhat in the manner of a jigsaw puzzle, from two sources: Hong Kong. Correspondence (June 20, 1898 to August 20, 1900) Respecting the Extension of the Boundaries of the Colony, Eastern No. 66, Colonial Office, London, 1900; Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1899. Despatches and Other Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1900. Specific references will be given only for quotations.\n\n54 Correspondence, op. cit., p. 261. A brief discussion of the activities of the land syndicate mentioned in the preceding paragraph is to be found in Endacott, G.B., A History of Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, London and Hong Kong, and Paperback Edition, 1964, p. 265, who says: \"The main problem of the take-over was not military but administrative. A land syndicate of Chinese among whom it was suspected Ho Kai [Dr. Ho Kai, a Chinese unofficial member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong] was one, had bought land at a fraction of its value by spreading the rumour that the British would seize all land. Blake threatened to restore this property, but the land problem proved too baffling for him to carry out his threat.\"\n\n55 Correspondence, op. cit., p. 261. Wakeman, op. cit., Chap. V, discusses similar charges made against the British at Canton almost sixty years earlier.\n\n56 One recipient was Liu Wan-kuk, of Sheung Shui. His support for the resistance appears to have been half-hearted throughout. On at least two occasions he protested: \"the villages in our Division have no plans. Moreover, our commissariat and arms being insufficient, how can we offer effective resistance? We request your Division [Yuen Long] to decide on the plan of campaign and we will follow your instruction\". The dominance of the Yuen Long Division—and of the Tang lineages within it—was to become increasingly obvious as the resistance movement developed. Papers Despatches, op. cit., p. 72.\n\n57 Translated in Correspondence, op. cit., pp. 138ff.\n\n58 Baker, op. cit., pp. 35ff.\n\n59 Correspondence, op. cit., p. 147.\n\n60 Ibid., p. 148.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205763, "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-1969", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA. MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n63\n\n61 Ibid., p. 154.\n\n62 Ibid., p. 159.\n\n63 Liu Wan-kuk, of Sheung Shui, later described the inaugural meeting and its consequences in the following terms. \"On the 1st of the 3rd moon (10th April), the Un Long Division made a great show of force, and stated in a most peremptory manner that if we refused to join in the resistance of the British, thousands of men from the Un Long Division with arms would proceed to level to the ground the villages belonging to the Liu, Tang and Pang families. The Sheung U Division was therefore compelled on the 3rd day (12th April) to request the Hau, Liu, Pang, Tang, Man clans to meet in the temple dedicated to a former Governor of Kwang Tung province. There it was decided to raise a small public subscription.... It was also decided that the various villages in our Division should have their trainbands (or militia) in readiness so that we should not be....powerless to check disorder. Our Division was the victim of circumstances.... Our trainband (or militia) was intended solely for the protection of the old and young in our Division.\" Translation of a statement made to the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, 26th April 1899, Papers. Despatches..., op. cit., p. 74. Here and subsequently, the spelling of place names and parenthetical remarks are those of the original translator. Remarks in brackets are my own.\n\n64 Correspondence ..., op. cit., p. 226. Jingals are \"long tapering guns, six to fourteen feet in length, borne on the shoulders of two men and fired by a third. They have a stand, or tripod, reminding one of a telescope being less liable to burst than cannon, they form the most effective gun the Chinese possess.\" J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, London, 1904 edition, p. 44.\n\nPage 13\n\nCorrespondence\n\n65 Stewart Lockhart described the flag as follows: \"the flag has a red border and a white centre, on which are seven Chinese characters meaning: Train band sanctioned by the Government: -Tai Kai (village), surname Man.' The village referred to.... is also known by the name of Tai Hang\n\n, op. cit., p. 180. The militia were so martial in appearance and conduct that the British at first thought they were regulars. The Viceroy commented: \"the Governor of Hong Kong suspected that they were regular troops from the fact that they had guns, cannon, and uniforms. He was not aware that the villagers of Kwangtung, in their constant fights with each other, are always erecting forts, and use guns and cannon, and wear uniforms. This is a matter of common notoriety.\" Ibid., p. 304.\n\n66 Ibid., pp. 188ff. These and similar letters were found in the T'ai Ping Kung Kuk at Yuen Long. A proclamation issued by the Council of the Yuen Long Division was also discovered. It supports Liu Wan-kuk's claim that coercion was a feature of the resistance movement:\n\n\"The English barbarians are about to enter our territory, and ruin will come upon our villages and hamlets, All we villagers must enthusiastically come forward to offer armed resistance and act in unison. When the drum sounds to the fight, we must all respond to the call for assistance. Should anyone hesitate to take part or hinder or obstruct our military plans he will most certainly be severely punished, and no leniency will be shown. This is issued as a forewarning.\" Ibid.\n\n67 Ibid., p. 171.\n\n68 Papers\n\n69 Ibid.\n\nDespatches\n\n, op. cit., p. 66.\n\nop. cit., p. 166.\n\n70 Correspondence", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "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": 205962, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n37\n\nand those on leave, in order to discover, at any moment in time, the actual number of cadets administering the affairs of the colony. However, they formed an administrative corps d'élite: a minuscule band of officials with the same values and from the same social background. They were always in short supply: but in time they changed the style of government in 19th century Hong Kong and routinised its operations. The object of this paper is to examine some changes brought about by the introduction of Sir Hercules Robinson's cadet scheme in 1861,3 and to explore the lives of a few expatriate officials, those who formed the apex of a colonial society with its complicated gradations of race, caste, class, occupation and office.\n\nSuch a research task is not a supererogatory one: Sir Ralph Furse, Director of Recruitment, Colonial Service 1931 - 48, affirms that 'in most colonies the Civil Servant is the Government, and not the servant of Government'24 Sir Ralph's obiter dictum is particularly applicable to Hong Kong in the late nineteenth century. At that time it was a small territory with a population squeezed into a few urban enclaves, where everyone lived cheek by jowl and officials were highly visible and often met in the street. In such a constricted society the quirks of an official, given the system of government, often influenced important administrative decisions, over which the general public could exercise little control. The inclusion of the New Territories in 1899 within the administrative framework of Hong Kong did not substantially alter these facts of life; for a long time, certainly until the re-establishment of British rule in 1945, the New Territories remained curiously peripheral to the older, established areas of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula.\n\nThe cadet scheme instituted by Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of Hong Kong from 1859 - 1865, grew out of a pressing need for correct interpretation and translation in government, especially in the courts. For the first twenty years of its existence, the Colony had very few officials apart from the notorious and devious D. R. Caldwell (at one time General Interpreter to the Government and Registrar-General) who had adequate command of Cantonese and were able to communicate with the mass of the immigrant Chinese population, most of whom were Punti and Hakka. The actions of government were stultified by the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205981, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "56\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nunder the Captain Superintendent in Hong Kong. The islands, and later, an outlying part of the mainland, were organised separately as the Southern District, with an assistant land officer appointed on 1 January 1905; he became an Assistant District Officer in 191054. G. B. Endacott Government and People in Hong Kong, pp. 134-5, Stewart Lockhart's Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong, 1900, says: \"Since Mr. Lockhart's return to Hong Kong in July (1899) the work of the New Territory has been carried on by Messrs. Messer, Kemp and Hallifax, three cadets who are carrying out their instructions in a most satisfactory manner\". The tradition developed of sending newly passed cadets to be \"blooded\" in the New Territory before they took up more sedentary duties in the Central Government Departments.\n\n54 Austin Coates Myself a Magistrate. London, 1968, p. 13; speaking of his appointment as a Magistrate in the New Territories, Mr. Coates writes: \"It was a job which would demand a complete change of thought and attitude after the Secretariat, occupied as I had been there with the doings of the modern world. Yet in this older world, bypassed by time, might I not find the roots—perhaps even the soul of the people who, met with in the city, held in their hearts something that everlastingly eluded me?”\n\n55 G. B. Endacott Government and People in Hong Kong, p. 169.\n\n56 Ibid., p. 169.\n\n57 A particularly acidulous, but fictional, portrait of an Assistant Colonial Secretary is presented in Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil (London, 1925). This so enraged the then Assistant Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, A. G. M. Fletcher, that he threatened an action against the publishers, Heinemann. The name Hong Kong was replaced in the second issue of the book by \"Tching Yen\".\n\n58 Richard Symonds The British and Their Successors, London, 1966, p. 16.\n\n59 G. B. Sayer Hong Kong: Birth, Adolescence, and Coming of Age, London, 1937, p.15.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206121, "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "194\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe map was clearly of potential value for any persons travelling in or having business with the District, and Colonial Office documents now in the Public Record Office, London show that it was, in fact, used by British diplomats and administrators during the important negotiations following the Convention of Peking of 6 June 1898, which leased the present New Territories to Great Britain, and before the take-over of the leased area in March-April 1899.\n\nOn 10 February 1899 the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Blake, sent a telegram to Sir Claude Macdonald, the British Minister at Peking urging him to secure the important market town of Shum Chun, just north of the leased area (an afterthought on the part of local Hong Kong officials) and advising that it could be located on the Missionary map of 1866'. This is clearly a reference to Mgr. Volontieri's map, which includes the date (May 1866) in the descriptive lettering.\n\nAgain, when Governor Blake wired to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Chamberlain, on 10 March 1899 he advised, in an accompanying 'Memorandum regarding the proposed survey of the Territory in Kwang Tung Province leased by Great Britain from China' (being Enclosure 1 to telegram No. 53): 'There is available a fairly correct map of the country, on a scale of an inch to the mile, prepared by the Jesuit missionary (sic). It shows the coast line correctly; the position of all villages, streams, roads, etc., approximately'. This memorandum was drawn up by the Director of Public Works in Hong Kong with the assistance of Colonel Elsdale, R.E.\n\nThese passages make it fairly clear that Mgr. Volontieri's map-making efforts in the early 1860s were of considerable assistance to British officials nearly forty years later.\n\nThe documents quoted above are in CO129/290 in the Public Record Office, London.\n\nHong Kong, 1970.\n\nPostscript\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nThe notice that follows came to my attention recently. It appeared in the Hongkong Government Gazette, 26th May 1866 and is an interesting and valuable addition to our knowledge of this subject, being the original announcement of the project to the Hong Kong public.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206124, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n197\n\ntook place locally, in the areas just across the Sino-British border at Sha Tau Kok. The villagers of these three places became alarmed for the fate of their cherished Tin Hau image and brought it into British territory for safety. They also brought back two incense burners (†) dated in the 2nd and 3rd years of Kuang Hsü (1876-78) that had been donated by local shops and fishermen in one case and by Lin Ma Hang (A) natives then in Australia (J).\n\nThe leaders of the three villages then combined to form the Sha Tau Kok Three Villages Tin Hau Temple Building Committee (沙頭角三鄉籌建天后廟委員會) and obtained a temporary building permit from the Tai Po District Office to erect a temple for the image. The temple is situated at map reference KV 140962 at the west end of Kong Ha Village in the Frontier Closed Area. It is under the management of a special trust, the Sam Wo Tong (*) constituting one manager each from Tong To, Tan Shui Hang and Sha Tsui villages.\n\nPhotographs of this new temple and of the Tin Hau image which inspired such devotion can be seen at Plates 30 and 31.\n\nPlace names used in this note can be found in A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. (H.K. Govt. Printer, n.d. but 1960) pp. 216-218.\n\nHong Kong, 1970.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nPILE HOUSES AT TAI O, LANTAU ISLAND, HONG KONG,\n\n7TH JANUARY 1937\n\nEditor's Note\n\nThe following details of some of the interesting pile houses or matsheds on stilts that survive in considerable numbers in Tai O Creek to the present day are taken from one of Mr. Walter Schofield's notebooks, under the date given in the heading. Mr. Schofield (1888-1968) served in the Hong Kong Cadet (Administrative) Service between 1911-1938 in various posts, including those of District Officer South, Chief Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs and First Police Magistrate. He was also a well-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206219, "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-1971", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "30\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.\n\ncounter.\"'48 But, of course, this act cannot be laid exclusively to Captain Dew. Another contemporary source charged perhaps more penetratingly that the Taiping possession of Ningpo was \"peculiarly adapted\" to thwart British Minister Frederick Bruce's \"schemes for aiding and abetting\" the Ch'ing side in China's civil war. The source noted that Taiping possession of the seaport would enable them to deprive Shanghai of the greater proportion of the customs duties, which not only might now be diverted into their own exchequer, but would frustrate the object of Mr. Horatio Lay's mission to London where he was seeking to put together an Anglo-Chinese flotilla to be used against the Taipings, and \"destroy the main stay of the Imperial cause.\" The Taipings would also be able to obtain needed war munitions. Finally, they would have the opportunity to dispel \"the illusion of their being inimical to foreign trade.\" This source concluded that from \"such cogent reasons\" Admiral Hope came to agree with the Minister's views, and \"resolved on the recapture of the place by fair means or foul.\"49\n\nSmall wonder that the story of the Taiping occupation of Ningpo has received little subsequent attention in Western historical accounts of the Taiping period. When it has, it has too often been sadly distorted. It is not a happy episode to think about. But however that may be, it is an historical experience that is well worth reflection upon. It was a passing moment of history which, in a telescoped span of time, rather accurately reflected a larger contemporary story. It demonstrated that Chinese revolutionaries of the early 1860s had the capacity to achieve major objectives against a weak established government, including the conquest of much of the territory of the richest provinces in the lower Yangtze River basin and the seizure of a principal seaport. It also demonstrated that the Taipings did treat foreigners respectably well and promoted trade, which was, after all, the matter of greatest importance to foreigners. It also proved that neither the apparent military nor the civil capabilities of the revolutionaries made much difference to those key foreign officials who were determined to assist the weak established government. Finally, it showed that the intervention of foreign powers made a great deal of difference in the ultimate outcome of the civil war in China. At the most, the experience at Ningpo from December 1861 to May 1862 suggests the story in microcosm", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206490, "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-1972", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "32\n\nLEIGH R. WRIGHT\n\nSeptember 1841, I was declared Rajah and Governor of Sarawak amidst the roar of cannon, and a general display of flags and banners from the shore and boats on the river. Some observers in Singapore pronounced Brooke's new position a sentence rather than a reward. Nevertheless the new Raja set about vigorously organizing the state and establishing a rule of law, roughly based upon the Bengal code and local adat or customary law. In 1842 he visited the sultan in his ramshackle wooden palace in Brunei Town, an unattractive clutter of Malay huts built on stilts over a sluggish tidal stream. From the sultan he obtained confirmation of his appointment. The following year it was made hereditary, in perpetuity, and in 1846 the sultan executed a deed of cession of Sarawak to Brooke and his heirs. In subsequent years Brunei ceded additional portions of territory to the Brooke dynasty of white rajas, until by 1890 the state of Sarawak reached approximately its present size.\n\nThis, in a somewhat sketchy way, is how Raja James Brooke acquired control of an oriental state almost as large as England and sparsely inhabited by a conglomeration of frequently fierce pagan peoples, a few Malays and some Chinese. In the remaining part of the paper I want to consider ways in which, to my mind, Sarawak under Brooke rule stood out as an anomaly in the British colonial experience.\n\nII\n\nFirst, let me consider Raja Brooke's position in his own state of Sarawak. Brooke considered that he had been prevailed upon by the Malay chiefs to become their raja, that they chose him. He described, in his journals, the scene upon the occasion in 1842 when the Sultan's confirmation of his appointment was proclaimed in Sarawak.4\n\nWhen we returned from Borneo the Sultan's letter giving me the country was read in public, and when finished we had a scene. Muda Hassim, who was standing, asked aloud, whether anyone dissented; for if they did they were now to make it known.\n\n3 For a study of the growth of British influence in Borneo see L. R. Wright, The Origins of British Borneo (Hong Kong University Press, 1970).\n\n4 R. Munday, op. cit., pp. 323-24.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206492, "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-1972", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "34\n\n!\n\nLEIGH R. WRIGHT\n\nThe issue of Brooke's status revolved around, firstly, the question of whether or not a subject of the Queen could hold the position as a sovereign prince of a foreign state; and, secondly, whether Brooke was in fact an independent ruler or a vassal of the Sultan of Brunei.\n\nThe issue, however, was not a burning one in the ministries of Whitehall. Despite the fact that Borneo was of concern to Britain as the guardian of the eastern flank of the South China Sea route to the China coast, and was to assume, gradually, more strategic value as first France and later Germany began colonial operations in the area, at mid-century Britain possessed a colony and naval station at Labuan and a (“good strong”) consular treaty with Brunei which gave her a certain measure of control, if she chose to indulge it, in Brunei's relations with foreign states. Most of the Colonial and Foreign Secretaries in London, until the 1870s were not very interested in defining precisely Raja Brooke's status,\n\nFor the most part, Whitehall grudgingly approved of Brooke's “civilizing influence\" in Borneo. Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary in 1846, offered naval support for the suppression of piracy, and during a later term of office gave standing orders to the Eastern squadron to visit Sarawak at regular intervals. But the Foreign Office generally held to the view that \"it is not the policy of Her Majesty's Government that British subjects should possess territory on the mainland of Borneo\".\n\nLord Clarendon, when Foreign Secretary in the mid-1850s, came close to disavowing Brooke's position in Sarawak. In 1853 the Raja took issue with a Foreign Office statement that seemed to assume that Brooke was a vassal of Brunei. Clarendon minuted,\n\nIt seems to me that the various documents tend to prove how cautiously the government abstained from recognizing his (Brooke's) independence although in various ways the anomalous character of his position has been admitted.\n\nBut Clarendon did not leave it at that. When in 1855 Spencer St. John succeeded Brooke as Consul in Brunei he suggested to the Foreign Office that he also be accredited to Sarawak as an independent state. The Raja agreed and insisted that the new consul must receive his exequatur from him. This act would render the desired\n\n6 FO to Admiralty, 24 July 1846, FO 12/4.\n\n7 Clarendon minute upon Brooke to FO, 27 September 1853, FO 12/13.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206493, "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-1972", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK\n\n35\n\nrecognition. But Clarendon would not agree. He consulted the Law Officers and concluded that while it was legally possible for the Queen to permit one of her subjects to assume the sovereignty of a foreign state and to so recognize him, it is to be done only in exceptional circumstances. Brooke could not be recognized. Lord Clarendon wrote to St. John on this occasion,\n\nHer Majesty's Government entirely agree with you in thinking that British interests in Borneo are so closely interwoven with the prosperity of Sarawak that whatever injuriously affects the latter must also be injurious to the former. Therefore Her Majesty's Government hardly believe that Sir James Brooke will place himself in direct antagonism to Her Majesty's Government by refusing to allow you to act within the territory which is subject to his rule, and thereby compel Her Majesty's Government to make known to the natives that no British subject can exercise sovereign authority without the permission of his sovereign, which permission has not been obtained by him, and that consequently he is acting against the law of England; whereas if he avoids insisting upon a recognition of his independent sovereignty which is inconsistent with his position as a British subject, his supreme authority at Sarawak upon whatever basis it may rest, whether upon the grant of the Sultan or the choice of the people, will remain undisturbed and unquestioned.\n\nAlthough on this occasion Lord Clarendon had his way, it is interesting to note that the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston did not agree. He wrote later,\n\n9\n\nThe question seems to be rather between the sultan of Borneo and the raja of Sarawak than between the latter and the sovereign of England. But so far as we are concerned there does not seem to be any strong reason why we should not deal with Sarawak as an independent state, and if it is so, we might ask for an exequatur from the powers that be.\n\nIII.\n\nThis then posed the question that bothered ministers and under-secretaries for more than three decades in their dealings with\n\n& Clarendon to St. John, 9 April 1856, FO12/23. \nPalmerston memo., 6 August 1856, FO12/23,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206495, "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-1972", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK\n\n37\n\nFrance, and in 1859 he \"broke off\" relations with Britain, upon which the Foreign Secretary, Lord Russell commented,12\n\nTell Brooke that the people of Sarawak are welcome to any independence they can achieve and maintain but that a British subject cannot throw off his allegiance at pleasure.\n\nAnd Spencer St. John noted13 that \"the Raja's correspondence during this year with Her Majesty's Government was not pleasant, and ended, apparently, in complete estrangement”.\n\nOver the years Brooke had acquired a respectable following of supporters in Britain and Singapore, among whom were some influential figures such as Lord Grey, Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford, and the late Victorian philanthropist, Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts, later Baroness Burdett-Coutts. His friends now took up his cause and lobbied Whitehall from the Prime Minister's office down.\n\nBritain refused to extend a colonial or protectorate status to Sarawak on practical political grounds. Henry Layard, an under-secretary in the Foreign Office, wrote that a protectorate was declined because of the \"inconvenience of such relations between this country and a foreign territory\", because Sarawak “would not be of sufficient value politically and commercially\", and because Brooke's title was not \"sufficiently clear\"14\n\nBrooke's friends persuaded the Government to have another look at Sarawak, and in 1861 Lord Elgin, who was about to depart as the new viceroy of India, was instructed to investigate the prospects and potential of Sarawak. He delegated the task to Colonel Cavenagh, Governor of the Straits Settlements. In due course Cavenagh and Elgin provided an optimistic assessment of Raja Brooke's state and suggested making Sarawak a lieutenant-governorship under Singapore. \"I am disposed to think\", wrote Lord Elgin,15\n\nthat the acquisition of Saigon by the French and the persistent endeavor of the Dutch authorities to cripple British trade... give enhanced importance to the preservation of the independence of Sarawak as a matter affecting British interests.'\n\n12 See correspondence between the Foreign Office and Raja Brooke between 26 November and 17 December 1859, FO12/35.\n\n13 Spencer St. John, Life of Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, (Edinburgh, 1879) p. 327.\n\n14 Layard memorandum to Lord Elgin, 2 January 1862, FO12/35.\n\n15 Elgin to Russell, 8 January 1863, FO12/35.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206496, "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-1972", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "38\n\nLEIGH R. WRIGHT\n\nIn the meantime Brooke's friend St. John, the Consul in Brunei, provided strong evidence to support Sarawak's claim of independence. In correspondence between the Sultan and the Foreign Office, Raja Brooke's relations with Brunei were the subject of discussion. Lord Russell in 1861 asked the consul if it was true that Brunei looked upon Sarawak as an independent state. He had been told that the Sultan honoured the Raja with a twenty-one gun salute whenever he visited Brunei Town. St. John replied that the Sultan did indeed consider Sarawak independent of Brunei. St. John also produced minutes of an interview he had had with the leading chiefs of Sarawak in which they unanimously confirmed that they had chosen the Tuan Besar, James Brooke, to rule over them in place of the harsh and tyrannical chiefs of Brunei, and that they owed no allegiance to the Sultan of Brunei.16\n\nWhen, then, St. John's tour as Consul in Brunei ended in 1862 Brooke's friends, with a concerted lobbying effort, prevailed upon the Palmerston government to appoint a consul to Sarawak as distinct from Brunei. In August 1863 the Cabinet approved the appointment \"as the most direct and least formal method of recognizing it as an independent state\". Whatever in the way of reservations Lord Russell may have held concerning Brooke and Sarawak he was aware that the appointment meant recognition. He minuted some time earlier,17\n\nIf we appoint a consul I suppose he must be appointed to reside in the territory of the rajah of Sarawak as an independent sovereign.\n\nAnd later, when Russell was urged to inform Raja Brooke \"that the Cabinet had consented to recognize Sarawak by appointing a consul there\", the Foreign Secretary instructed his undersecretary, \"We may write to Sir James Brooke to say that he has reason to believe it\". The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, concurred.\n\nHowever, bureaucratic procedures now took over, and the Consul's instructions directed him to procure his official acceptance from\n\n16 See L. R. Wright, Origins of British Borneo, pp. 75-76; and St. John, \"Minutes of an interview with Sarawak Chiefs\", 25th October 1855, FO 12/22.\n\n17 Russell minute on a memo, by Brooke, 13 August 1863, in the Layard Papers (British Museum), ADD.MSS. 38989, f. 244,\n\n18 Russell minute, Layard Papers, ADD.MSS. 38989, f. 245.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206521, "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-1972", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n63\n\nOn 16 April Lockhart returned to Taipo and in the presence of the General Officer Commanding, Major-General W. J. Gascoigne, and about 500 men, he hoisted the British flag and then read the Order-in-Council and Convention. The territory was now formally occupied. There had been some resistance from the people and from those living in the Sham Chun area. Lockhart had been asked to return to Hong Kong to attend a meeting of the Legislative Council but in a minute to the Governor he stated: 'I have consulted the General Officer Commanding, who thinks it very desirable for many reasons that I should remain here. I am of the same opinion, so propose to remain.'22 Since the situation was still unsettled, the Governor concurred with Lockhart's proposal and Lockhart stayed behind with the troops, accompanying them on a long sweep through the New Territories to make the British presence known.\n\nLockhart and the troops led by Lieutenant-Colonel The O'Gorman pushed on from Taipo on 18 April to Shek Kong; from that village they passed through Kam Tin, Yuen Long, Ping Shan, Sheung Shui, Fanling, and arrived back in Taipo on 27 April. The O'Gorman reported: \"To the Honourable J.H. Stewart Lockhart, C.M.G., Colonial Secretary, is due the admirable results that have been attained in the Civil Administration of this Territory during this brief state of turmoil; his measures have been taken with great energy and ability and in a manner that, long experience has shown him, were suitable to the occasion. The result has been a most complete success. Only those on the spot can realise the amount of labour and care he has devoted from early morning to late at night to the discharge of these trying duties. A most hearty co-operation has existed throughout between us and no difference of opinion on any one point has arisen.'23 The Secretary of State, Joseph Chamberlain, in a despatch to the Governor, commented: 'without wishing to undervalue in any way the services rendered by others, it is evident to me that much has been due to the energy of Mr. Lockhart, and to his local knowledge.\"24 Lockhart remained in the New Territories until July 1899 in order to start the civil administration. The headquarters of the new administration were fixed at Taipo. He was assisted in his task by C.M. Messer, a cadet officer, Ts'oi Yeuk-shan, First Chinese Clerk, and two Chinese assistants. The problems he had to face were at first formidable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206525, "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-1972", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n67\n\nthe charge of the North Division magistrate, who was also Secretary to Government. The Secretary held a dormant commission to administer the affairs of the Territory in the Commissioner's absence. The South Division contained all the rest of the leased Territory, i.e., seventeen out of the twenty-six districts, and it was presided over by the South Division Magistrate, who also acted as District Officer. This gentleman controlled a diminutive police force of a sergeant and seven men, all Chinese; all his other staff were Chinese. Apart from the District Officer, there was only one other European official resident in the South Division, which contained 231 out of the 315 villages of the Territory.\n\nUntil 1906, however, Lockhart as Commissioner could call upon the services of the Chinese Regiment in any emergency which the police were unable to cope with. This Regiment was raised in early 1899 and owed its origin to a suggestion made by Field-Marshal Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Commander-in-Chief, that Chinese troops could be organised at Weihaiwei for use in other places. According to R.F. Johnston: 'They did good service in promptly suppressing an attempted rising in the leased Territory, and on being sent to the front to take part in the operations against the Boxers in 1900, they behaved exceedingly well, both during the attack on Tientsin, and on the march to Peking.' Johnston, it seems, over-praised their contribution for between 1899 and 1901 over 800 deserted and many of them moved straight into Chinese service after having passed through what came to be known as \"the Wei Hai Wei Military School\". As the India Office pointed out, Great Britain was in effect furnishing a \"steady annual supply of trained soldiers\" to China. At its greatest strength the Chinese Regiment numbered 1,300 officers and men but in 1906, the year the Regiment was disbanded, their numbers had fallen to about 600. A few picked men were retained as a permanent police force, and three European non-commissioned officers were provided with appointments on the civil establishment as police inspectors. In 1910, therefore, the entire Territory was policed by only fifty-six Chinese constables and three inspectors. There was no permanent garrison of British troops.\n\nWeihaiwei was officially designated not as a Colony but as a Territory, which meant that Lockhart as Commissioner was head of the local government and subject only to the control of His Majesty exercised through the Secretary of State for the Colonies in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206526, "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-1972", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "68\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nLondon. His official rank corresponded with that of a Lieutenant-Governor, so that he received a salute of only fifteen guns compared with the seventeen of first-class Crown-Colony Governors, such as that of Hong Kong. But, as R.F. Johnston pointed out: 'his actual powers, though exercised in a more limited sphere, are greater than those of most Crown-Colony Governors, for he is not controlled by a (Legislative) Council.'33 Lockhart's official duties, which of course kept him extremely busy, were nevertheless limited in nature, and the tempo of life in the Territory did not change dramatically during his tenure of office, for after the lease was signed, little was done with the Territory. At first, it was thought that the port could be transformed into a fortified naval base like Hong Kong, but to do so would have been extremely costly and would have involved the construction of a long breakwater and extensive dredging work in the harbour. In fact, the port was never utilised as a strategic naval base; it became merely a naval rest centre and a place where the British China Squadron lay at anchor when it paid its annual summer visit to North China. A few visitors also arrived from time to time and stayed at its European-style hotel, and an English school34 attracted boys from China, Japan, and Hong Kong.\n\nLockhart was administering a mainly agricultural region, equivalent in area to a small-sized Chinese district magistracy (hsien). The leased Territory, with its population composed principally of fairly well-to-do peasant farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, and artisans, was in composition like that of the New Territories which he had left. Lockhart did not feel called upon to alter drastically the life of this old, settled community, nor indeed was it the intention of the Colonial Office that he should. The Order-in-Council under which British rule in Weihaiwei was inaugurated stated: 'In civil cases between natives, the Court should be guided by Chinese or other native law and custom, so far as any such law or custom is not repugnant to justice and morality.'\n\nLockhart attempted, then, to preserve as much of the fabric of Chinese society as was possible. In his report for 1902, he wrote: \"With the policing of the territory at Hong Kong as a guide, it might have been thought that this question (the maintenance of peace and good order) was one easy of solution; but it required no long residence here to reveal that the conditions existing in the new territory of Hong Kong and those of Wei-Hai-Wei are widely different. In the former case, the natives had lived for about half a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206527, "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-1972", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n69\n\ncentury in close proximity to Hong-Kong, and were acquainted with its methods of administration and system of law and police, many of them, indeed being engaged in trade or working as labourers in that Colony. In the latter case, the Chinese of Wei-Hai-Wei had never had any experience of British administration until the territory was leased in 1898, and were, therefore, quite ignorant of the principles underlying that administration. Again the Chinese of the new territory of Hong Kong did not enjoy a good reputation for orderly behaviour, whereas the natives here have shown themselves law-abiding, docile, and orderly. After due deliberation I came to the conclusion that the most effective and economic plan would be to continue the system of policing the territory through the headmen of the villages and to retain it so long as it continued to work satisfactorily, instead of dotting Police Stations throughout the territory in charge of Inspectors, who would be unable to communicate with the people except through interpreters, a system which almost invariably results in corruption and malpractices. That system, which is suitable to the whole of the territory, except the town of Port Edward and the island of Liu Kung, is based on the fact that the unit of society is the family or village and not the individual as in the west. Headmen are appointed for each village or group of villages and are held responsible for the maintenance of peace and good order in their villages. If any trouble arises, the headman reports the matter and aids in making any arrests that may be necessary.\n\nThe principal source of revenue, as in the New Territories, was at first the land tax. In Weihaiwei this was based on the old land registers handed over by the Chinese magistrates. For many years past, R.F. Johnston wrote, 'every village had paid through the headman or committee of headmen a certain sum of money which by courtesy is called a land-tax. How that amount is assessed among the various families is a matter which the people decide for themselves on the general understanding that no one should be called upon to pay more than his ancestors paid before him unless the family property has been considerably increased.'35 The Territory under Lockhart's administration prospered, for in four years the Imperial Grant-in-Aid was reduced to less than one-third of its amount at the time when he first took office; however, owing to the reduction of the British Fleet in China in 1906 and the less frequent visit of men-of-war to Weihaiwei, the business of Port Edward was\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206538, "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-1972", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "80\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\n8 E. T. C. Werner, Autumn Leaves: An Autobiography, Shanghai, 1928, pp. 487-8. Werner, a student interpreter, studied Chinese in Peking in 1884. With him were two Hong Kong cadets -- Henry Francis May and Thomas Sercombe Smith. May became Governor of Hong Kong and Smith Puisne Judge in the Straits Settlements.\n\n6 E. H. Parker, John Chinaman and a Few Others, London, 1903, p. 210.\n\n7 Ibid., p. 211.\n\n8 Lockhart's preface to A Manual of Chinese Quotations, 1st edition, 1893, p. iii. Lockhart also states: 'my attention was first called to the Ch'êng Yu Kao by my late teacher Mr. Ou-yang Hui.... I commenced to translate it under his guidance.'\n\n9 A report of Ho Kai's speech is given in one of a series of articles called Old Hong Kong by 'Colonial', published by the South China Morning Post (June 17, 1933-April 13, 1935). Mimeographed copy, University of Hong Kong Library,\n\n10 See, for example, T. O. Ranger, ‘African Reactions to the Imposition of Colonial Rule in East and Central Africa', in L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan (eds.), Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960, Cambridge, England, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 293-324; Lord Hailey, An African Survey, 2nd edition, London, 1945, pp. 527-8; and also J. D. Legge, Britain in Fiji 1858-1880, London, 1958, especially his ch. ix, 'Native Authority Systems'.\n\n11 For a more detailed account of Lockhart's design see my article, \"The District Watch Committee: \"The Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong\", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xi, 1971, pp. 116-141.\n\n12 Hong Kong Sessional Papers (cited henceforth as Sessional Papers), no. 26 of 1896, pp. 425-427.\n\n13 T. H. Whitehead (1851-1933). See obituaries in the Times of 17 May, 1933, and in the South China Morning Post of 18 May, 1933. He was from 1883 to 1902 manager of the Hong Kong office of the Chartered Bank. Whitehead, a great imperialist, was a member of the Royal Empire Society, the Fellowship of the British Empire, and the China Association. The Times speaks of him as a typical Scot, of rugged energy and determination, and of great intellectual force.... In the domestic politics of Hong Kong Colony he took an active, not to say aggressive part.... In his retirement he was active in promoting emigration to the Empire, especially of boy scouts.\n\n14 Sessional Papers, no. 26 of 1896, p. 431.\n\n15 Ibid., p. 428.\n\n16 Ibid., p. 429.\n\n17 Most of the clerks in the Registrar General's Office were recruited from Queen's College. 'In March 1900, at the Queen's College Prize Giving, the Hon. Stewart Lockhart, C.M.G., said: \"I do not know what the Government would have done if it had not had the College to turn to when it wanted a staff at work in the New Territory, and I cannot give them any higher praise than to say they are carrying on their duties in a manner worthy of the College in which they received their education.\" See Gwenneth Stokes, Queen's College, 1862-1962, Hong Kong, 1962, p. 66.\n\n18 Norton-Kyshe, op. cit. vol. 2, p. 461.\n\n+3\n\n19 See 'Extracts from a Report from Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong', Sessional Papers, no. 9 of 1899.\n\n20 Ibid., p. 198.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206539, "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-1972", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n81\n\n21 'Despatches and Other Papers Relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong', Sessional Papers, no. 32 of 1899, p. 13.\n\n22 Ibid., p. 36.\n\n23 Ibid., p. 65.\n\n24 Ibid., p. 69.\n\n25 'Report on the New Territory during the first year of British Administration', Sessional Papers, no. 15 of 1900, p. 252.\n\n26 'Report on the New Territory for the Year 1901', Sessional Papers, no. 22 of 1902, p. 4.\n\n27 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1921.\n\n28 Alfred Hancock and his brother Sydney were partners in the firm of A. and S. Hancock of Queen's Road, Hong Kong. In 1906 Alfred Hancock had resided for over fifty years in Amoy and Hong Kong. In the 1920s the firm had moved to Des Voeux Road and the chief partner was H. R. B. Hancock, Lockhart's brother-in-law. The firm was still active in 1940.\n\n29 The walled city of Weihaiwei, captured by the Japanese in 1894, by the terms of the 1898 Convention was not under British jurisdiction but nominally under a Chinese sub-district deputy magistrate. The British sphere of influence extended for an area of 1,500 square miles east of the Leased Territory.\n\n30 On the Chinese Regiment see: Captain A. A. S. Barnes, On Active Service with the Chinese Regiment, London, 1902; C. E. Bruce-Mitford, The Territory of Wei-Hai-Wei, Shanghai, 1902, pp. 22-24; R. F. Johnston, Lion and Dragon in Northern China, London, 1910, pp. 82-3; and Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1906. The only servicemen left in Weihaiwei after 1906 were the small body of Royal Marines of the Island Guard,\n\n31 Johnston, op. cit., p. 82.\n\n32 L. K. Young, British Policy in China 1895-1902, London, 1970, p. 73.\n\n33 Johnston, op. cit., p. 80.\n\n34 The Weihaiwei School was opened with only four pupils in 1901 by a Mr. H. J. L. Beer. In 1903 a new school house was built near Port Edward, partly with the aid of a debenture loan subscribed by British subjects in Shanghai. The new school had dormitories for forty boys. The school, which took boys between ages of 8 to 14, was mainly for the sons of British expatriates. Pupils came from places as far apart as Mukden, Canton, Kobe, and Chungking. The school closed in 1925 when it became apparent that the rendition of Weihaiwei was close at hand. Weihaiwei's fine climate contributed to the school's success with expatriate parents.\n\n35 Johnston, op. cit., p. 96.\n\n36 Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston, K.C.M.G. (1874-1938). Johnston was educated at Edinburgh University and Oxford. He arrived in Hong Kong as an Eastern Cadet, fresh from Magdalen, on Christmas Day, 1898. In 1904, Robert Walter, Secretary to Government and Magistrate at Weihaiwei, was seconded for service as Emigration Agent at Ch'iu-wang-tao for the Transvaal Government and Johnston was appointed to take his place. In 1906 he was appointed District Officer and Magistrate and resided in the heart of the Territory. In 1919 when he took up his appointment as tutor he was Senior District Officer. In 1927 he returned to Weihaiwei as Commissioner. After the rendition of Weihaiwei in 1930 he became Professor of Chinese, University of London, and Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Studies, 1931-37.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206540, "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-1972", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "82\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nIt is an interesting comment on Johnston that he visited England only twice in twenty-eight years of residence in China. See Johnston's obituary in the Times of 8 March, 1938.\n\n37 R. F. Johnston's, Twilight in the Forbidden City, London, 1934, describes his experiences as an Imperial tutor.\n\n38 Much information on Johnston's experiences as District Officer and Magistrate are given in his book, Lion and Dragon in Northern China.\n\n39 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1921, p. 3.\n\n40 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1903, p. 5. From time to time the Magistrate's office issued proclamations in Chinese, notifying the people of the wishes of the Government. All the villages of the Territory were provided with large notice boards on which such proclamations were posted. The style of governing in Weihaiwei owed much to Chinese example.\n\n41 Annual Report on Weihaiwei for 1904, p. 26. The statement is taken from Johnston's 'Report of the Secretary to Government for the Year 1904'. This is a most interesting report on Chinese society in Weihaiwei,\n\n42 The China Review was founded in 1872 by N. B. Dennys. The publication terminated with vol. xxv, 1901. It was published bi-monthly.\n\n43 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1937, pp. 391-3.\n\n44 In his obituary notice of E. H. Parker, E. T. C. Werner wrote: \"The editor's request to write this notice puts me in a rather awkward position, for I cannot but refer to the very great amount of valuable sinological work which has been done by members of the British Consular Service in China. Considering its relatively small size, the Service has produced proportionately more brilliant sinologists than any body connected with the Far East.” See Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (henceforth cited as JNCBRAS), vol. lvii, 1926, p. vi.\n\n45 Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947). Educated at Oxford. Hong Kong cadet in 1899. Governor of Hong Kong 1925-30. He published, among other books, The Chinese in British Guiana, Georgetown, 1915, Cantonese Love-Songs, Oxford, 1904, and Summary of Geographical Observations taken during a Journey from Kashgar to Kowloon, 1907-8, Hong Kong, 1911.\n\n46 Lockhart's interest in the Chinese language is recognised in the dedication to him of Mok Man-cheung's Tah Tsz Anglo-Chinese Dictionary, 2nd edition (Chinese foreword dated 9th October, 1914). Mok had served in the Registrar-General's department with Lockhart, and moved to the Supreme Court as an interpreter in 1891. See also note 71 below.\n\n47 China Review, vol. xxi, 1892/93, p. 405.\n\n48 Vols. xx to xxii. The disputants included E. J. Eitel, E. H. Parker, E. D. H. Fraser, H. A. Giles, and Lockhart. The first edition of Lockhart's book was dedicated to Dr. John Chalmers, the distinguished sinologue, and the second to Dr. James Legge as well. Lockhart spoke of them as 'two famous Aberdonians'.\n\n49 China Review, vol. xxi, 1892/93, p. 412.\n\n50 China Review, vol. xxii, 1893/94, p. 547,\n\n51 T'oung Pao, vol. viii, 1897, pp. 412-430.\n\n52 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 6, 1930-32, p. 812.\n\n53 Chinese Recorder, Sept. 1903, p. 464.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206545, "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-1972", "page_number": 93, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n87\n\n'Report on the New Territory during the First Year of British Administration', Hong Kong Sessional Papers, no. 15 of 1900, pp. 251-263, (same as Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong).\n\n'Memorandum on Land', Hong Kong Sessional Papers, no. 15 of 1900, pp. 266-269.\n\n'Report on the New Territory for the year 1900', Hong Kong Sessional Papers, no. 28 of 1901, 565 (pp. 1-9).\n\n'Report on the New Territory for the year 1901', Hong Kong Sessional Papers, no. 22 of 1902, pp. 553-556.\n\nADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS AND OTHER DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS\n\n'Census Report 1891', Hong Kong Sessional Papers, no. 30 of 1891, pp. 373-395. Annual Reports of the Registrar General, 1891-1892, 1894-1897, 1899-1900, (all published in the Hong Kong Government Gazette).\n\nWeihaiwai: Report for 1903, Colonial Reports — Annual, London, H.M.S.O. Also: Reports on Weihaiwai for the years: 1904-1916, 1919-1920.\n\nCOMMITTEE REPORTS\n\n'Report of the Committee of the Legislative Council appointed to consider the advisability of raising a Public Loan', Hong Kong Sessional Papers, no. 12 of 1892, pp. 187-8.\n\nReports of the Special Committee on the Po Leung Kuk, Hong Kong, Noronha & Co., 1893.\n\nReport of the Commission to Enquire into the Working and Organization of the Tung Wah Hospital, Hong Kong, Noronha & Co., 1896.\n\nReport of the Committee appointed to enquire into the condition of British trade in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1896, pp. 611-613.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "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": 207051, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "116\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nindicates that the main users of the outer islands through the centuries were probably outsiders, and not Cantonese. Hsü points out that Fukien people use the character yue (shữ) to mean a small island, and use the characters chou and shan for larger ones: whereas the Kwangtung people rarely use yue for this purpose. He cites this, together with the use of the homophonous character for 'fish' in the name for Lantau given in the Ta Ch'ing I T'Ung Chih of 1738, to suggest that the persons who first gave the island this name were either fishermen or pirates from Fukien. There may be something in what Hsü says, because Giles', Eitel's and Wells Williams' dictionaries all support the Fukienese usage of 'Yue'.1 Hsü states that the 36 'Yue' round Tai Yue Shan, mentioned in the older Chinese local sources,2 are islands of this kind, and derive their name in this way. The use of these important local seaways by turbulent Fukienese seamen helps to explain official concern with security.\n\nI shall conclude this section on Hsin-an in Chinese historiography by doing what the Chinese histories do not do; considering the outer islands as settlements and, for the purposes of this article, showing their former connection with parts of present-day Hong Kong.\n\nMost of the Hsin-an and adjacent islands are shown on the 1:20,000 British maps of the Hong Kong area, published in 1948 but based on earlier mapping. They have not been included in the latest maps, now issued in full3 because since 1949 it has no longer been possible to land survey parties on or overfly adjacent Chinese territory, to the disadvantage of all geographers and historians.\n\nBy the late 19th century, it seems, their settled inhabitants were mostly Hakkas who had strong economic ties with Hong Kong island, Cheung Chau and Tai O on Lantau. Many women came on marriage to Hong Kong and the inner islands, especially to Lantau. Private property also linked the islands and the mainland, in that some of them belonged in whole or in part to the Wong clan of Nam Tau and Cheung Chau. These connections were\n\n1 Giles, p. 593; Eitel, p. 919; Wells Williams, p. 819. The last named states 'An islet which has level arable land at the foot of its hills; applied to many islands on the coast of Fukien'.\n\n2 e.g. TMITC chuan 79.\n\n3 Cooper, p. 137.\n\n4 See Hayes 1963: 90-92 for this major local lineage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207061, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "126\n\nHe went on to say,\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nDuring my time in Kowloon territory, i.e., from 1893 to 1901, piracies were so common that we regarded it as extraordinary if a day passed without one. Indeed, it was the daily routine for junk masters to report at the Customs Station that they had been pirated and all of their cargo looted.\n\nCustoms duty was 'practically confined to chasing pirates and smugglers', and Arlington states that 'at one time I had no less than sixty pirates chained to old cannon to prevent them from escaping pending their transfer to Canton for trial'.*\n\nWhilst some villages were blameless and the victims of raids and assaults, there were others whose innocence was doubtful. Arlington mentions one case in which pirates had disappeared with an entire cargo consisting of 250 huge vats of indigo weighing as much as 500 lbs each vat, besides 100 head of cattle and 500 pigs, of which there was no trace when a Customs cruiser arrived on the scene only two hours after the piracy was reported by signal at Cheung Chau. It was, he says, 'a safe bet that the pirates came from these villages, and had secret places to hide their booty where it was safe from discovery'.2 The villages in question were on the mainland but he does not say where.\n\nIn the wider area, the reports of the British Consuls on the trade of Canton, Amoy, Sam Shui and Pak Hoi in the 1890s—all save the second within the Kwangtung Province—reveal a disturbed situation. One Canton report comments, \"The old free-booting spirit still survives among many who are now apparently peaceful traders and fishermen, of which we occasionally get startling proof in some unexpected daring act of piracy on the high seas or along the coast.3 His colleague's report from Pak Hoi was more down-right. 'Piracy\n\n'Piracy is in the blood of the race. A glance through the year's diary shows a monotonous record of petty coast raids, hoverings of pirate junks (which still terrorise the neighbouring coastline) and robberies of every degree of dignity from the sacking of the larger pawnshops to the plunder of a returned emigrant from the Straits or Sumatra',4\n\nArlington's evidence shows that the Hong Kong region was scarcely better in these respects than any other. Thus it is not\n\n1 Arlington, p. 171. 2 Arlington, p. 163. 3 FO Report 1606. 4 FO Report 1983.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207065, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "130\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nHowever, despite the foregoing recital of disturbances over the years, many old persons in the Hong Kong region who were born between 1875 and 1900 have told me that their early years were very peaceful. This serves as a reminder not to telescope time and place too readily; and not to confuse occasional excitements with the regular rhythm of rural life. Nor too readily to deduce from them that there was a deterioration in institutions at the local level, as at the centre, in the later 19th century—a point made by Rhoads Murphey in his study of China's modernization.1\n\nPOSTSCRIPT\n\nThere are two other happenings that must be mentioned in this survey of events. One, the establishment and rise of Hong Kong from 1841 on, and its effect on the surrounding and adjacent territory, I do not intend to treat with here.2 The second, rural depopulation, though it might appear to have some connection with the first, is in fact a separate phenomenon. Linked to over-population, malnutrition and disease, it is important enough to warrant a concluding notice.*\n\nThe problem of depopulation early intruded itself into my village studies through the preoccupation with feng-shui noted in many places, so much of it linked to a reported decline in the numbers of local populations. I have encountered this in many villages on Lantau Island3 and in other parts of the old Southern District, in places as far distant from Lantau as Pak Lap on High Island in the Sai Kung District, and Ho Pui with Muk Min Ha in Tsuen Wan. These have also claimed depopulation in the 19th century and after. In the northern New Territories the well-known Tang clan of Kam Tin records a similar loss of population;4 whilst at Lin Ma Hang, a large village on the present Sino-British frontier,5 a stone tablet dated in 1893 was erected to detail the geomantic\n\n1 Murphey: 27-30.\n\n2 The first is well-documented, the second scarcely at all, though discussed in Potter 1968.\n\n3 See JHKBRAS 3, 1963: 143-144; JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 156-158 and Hayes 1967:22-30.\n\n4 Sung in HKN, VII, Dec. 1936:256.\n\n5 See Gazetteer: 214.\n\nEspecially as, in Hsin-an, it is not to be linked with devastating Taiping campaigns and official retribution, nor with Hakka-Punti wars on the scale that occurred in some parts of the province,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207515, "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": 283, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n275\n\nA direct assault on the Japanese homeland using conventional weapons was being prepared at the time the bombs were dropped. In spite of their reduced nutrition and lack of supplies of all kinds, there seems little doubt that an Allied invasion of Japan would have been bitterly resisted and would have proved very costly. The cost of the invasion of the sacred territory will now never be known. It seems quite possible that in the prevailing mood at that time, reprisals of all kinds might have been ordered to be taken upon any Allied personnel in Japanese hands. The execution of the airmen captured in the Doolittle air raid on Japan in 1942 comes to mind.\n\nI do not intend to examine the morality or the political implications of the use of the atomic bomb at all, nor the fact that two were dropped. Opinions on these matters will always differ. I confine myself here to what I see as the facts as they affected us. A Japanese-Chinese war in the neighbourhood of Hong Kong would have been prolonged; situations would certainly have arisen in which our safety would have been jeopardised, and at best, many of us might not have survived at all. The decision by President Truman to use the atomic bombs resulted in our release almost overnight. Seen in contrast with the other possibilities which might have been envisaged, this was a wonderful outcome.\n\nA VIEW IN PERSPECTIVE\n\nThirty years after the events and after making allowances for the discreet phrasing of my diaries and for the effects of the passage of time in scaling down the few peaks of elation and levelling up the much more numerous troughs of depression, I conclude that we, the staff and patients in the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong, fared better than many other prisoners in Japanese hands. The published accounts of others, most of them written nearer to the events than my present story and so perhaps more influenced by passion, are far too numerous and ring true. I am allowing myself now to speculate on the somewhat privileged position we enjoyed, privileged that is by the standards of those who were Japanese prisoners.\n\nFirstly, our unit fell into Japanese hands as a fully equipped and staffed hospital with a full complement of patients seriously wounded in action, and hence, perhaps, in the eyes of our captors, more worthy of consideration than men who had surrendered, even though", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207790, "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-1976", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA\n\n163\n\nValley. A tea committee was formed whose findings were favourable, and experimental tea gardens were opened at Jaipur in Upper Assam. By 1859 over 4,000 acres were under cultivation, and the industry was assured of a bright future. Ample British capital was available for expansion, the British public's appetite for tea seemed inexhaustible; but scarcity of labour was a serious handicap. Assam was thinly populated, and the planters were dependent on Bengalis, who took a long time to get acclimatised. The idea of importing Chinese labour by the overland route was suggested, as at this time Chinese labour was considered indispensable to economic development in the tropics, and the Indian government was sympathetic. There were several possible land routes between India and West China, some passing through Burma, and Article 9 of the 1862 Commercial Treaty between Britain and Burma allowed entry into British territory from the Burmese side. The tea planters, however, failed to recruit Chinese workers, and blamed their lack of success upon the difficulties and hardships of the overland routes. This led to pressure on the government to improve the major land routes, and to several expeditions across the debatable borderlands between India, Burma, and China.\n\nFrom the 1860s until near the end of the century, therefore, there was rivalry between British commercial circles in India and those in China, over access to West China. In addition to these two approaches, from India and from the Yangtze, there were others from the south; by the Mekong or Red River from Indo-China, and by the West River from Canton and Hong Kong. Anglo-French colonial rivalry was acute during the second half of the nineteenth century, especially in the Far East. The French were keen to find and exploit a trade route to West China; and while Britain was investigating routes from Burma, the Yangtze, and the West River, France was investigating possible routes from the Mekong and Red Rivers.\n\nAs became widely known by the end of the century, and suspected by realists before then, West China and its borderlands comprise some of the most difficult regions of the world in which to build roads or railways, or in which to improve river navigation. There are high mountain ranges divided by deep valleys, densely forested in many places; and all the great rivers—the Yangtze, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Red River, and Salween—are seriously impeded by rapids", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207820, "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-1976", "page_number": 208, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\nOther field workers, both British and American, are likely to follow them.\n\n4. My own work would have been impossible without the generous help of many officers of the New Territories Administration; I should like to thank them collectively, expressing my gratitude in particular to the District Officer Tai Po and his staff. I have also the pleasure of thanking many officers in other branches of the Government; among them my thanks go especially to Mr. K.M.A. Barnett, Mr. J.W. Hayes, Mr. K.W.J. Topley, and Mr. P.K.C. Tsui; I am in the debt of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, the Department of Co-operative Development and Fisheries, various officers of the Courts, and the Colonial Secretariat Library. To my host in Tai Po, Mr. Tsang For-piu, I am specially obliged. I should like also to thank my colleague Dr. Marjorie Topley for much guidance and several teachers at the University of Hong Kong whom I had the privilege of consulting.\n\n5. In what is to follow I shall discuss the general background to social research in the New Territories, report on some of the problems I have myself looked into, and suggest what further work could be done (and how it might be done) to promote the interests of both scholarship and administration.\n\n6. Until the advent of the Communist regime in China the New Territories did not interest social scientists. (It can also be argued that they were of little interest to anybody outside the New Territories Administration). Chinese scholars could not be expected to concern themselves with territory under British rule, while scholars from the West were far too preoccupied with China to consider the claims of a stretch of the Chinese countryside which, from their point of view, was no more than the railway route into Kwangtung. And of course it must be remembered that the number of social scientists working on Chinese themes was, before the Second World War, extremely small. Since 1949 the New Territories have come increasingly to be appreciated as a field for research: they have been politically accessible and have had the advantage of offering for study perhaps the best living example (however much affected by British rule and modern changes) of traditional Chinese country life. So far three anthropologists have completed field studies in the New Territories: Miss Barbara E. Ward, from London, who was primarily concerned with Tanka fishermen in the Sai Kung area (and who will probably be revisiting the New Territories this", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207830, "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-1976", "page_number": 218, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 203\n\nsuggest that the fight over the market was a quarrel between Hakka and Punti as such, and I incline to the view that, whatever may have been in earlier decades the state of feeling between communities speaking the different dialects, by the 1890s local alignments did not depend on ‘ethnic' solidarity. (Indeed, I think too much should not be made today of the cultural differences between Punti and Hakka in the New Territories and of the social cleavages which are presumed to rest on these differences).\n\n22. The first British administrators seem not to have appreciated the local significance of the term yeuk, for when the New Territories were arranged in districts and sub-districts in accordance with the Local Communities Ordinance, 1899, boundaries were drawn round units (themselves labelled with the word yeuk) bringing enemy villages together. Since, however, the ordinance was never fully brought into force no harm was done. The Ts'at Yeuk continued under British rule to be masters of the new market and to dominate local affairs, and it has been only in recent years that a Tai Po Rural Committee has emerged, under government encouragement, to provide a strictly territorial form of local council. The Rural Committee is made up of seven units: six of the Ts'at Yeuk (Fan Leng being excluded because of its remoteness) and a new unit composed of all the scattered villages which are not members of the Ts'at Yeuk. The Ts'at Yeuk and the Rural Committee share the same offices (they were built by the former) and the same officers (the chairman of the one being a vice-chairman of the other and a second vice-chairman being common). In local eyes the Ts'at Yeuk remains dominant, not least because only it has access to the revenue brought in by the public weighing scales.\n\n23. It is possible to piece together sketchy accounts of yeuk-complexes in other areas of the New Territories. One of them operated in the area now covered by the Ta Kwu Ling Rural Committee. This was the Luk Yeuk (the six Yeuk), a union which was cut in two by the new international frontier created in 1898. It appears to have been flourishing a hundred years ago when the father of my sole informant on it (I stress the fact that in this case I was unable to cross-check the assertions made) took part in a battle between it and a village in Chinese territory. Each of the six yeuk had an average of three villages, taking its name from the largest village. The Luk Yeuk had a common estate, most of it now inaccessible in China, which was managed in turn by each yeuk.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207858, "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-1976", "page_number": 246, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n231\n\ninhabiting the village point to the ruined ancestral halls of their late rivals and ascribe their own fortune to the cunning of their ancestor who, at the time when all the ancestral halls were being built in a line, surreptitiously made a slight alteration to the direction in which his own hall was to face. If ever there was such an incident, which I take leave to doubt, the alignment now to be seen bears no trace of it. The jubilant survivors cannot detect it either; they merely assume it to be there.\n\n64. Just as the fung shui (and in consequence the status) of people may be attacked by poaching on grave-sites, so conflict can arise over buildings. X's attempt to build higher than my house is an affront. I say he is ruining my fung shui. I am implying that he has no right to put himself above me. Y has pierced his wall to make a new window. It has caused sickness in the village. We protest against his lack of consideration; he should have taken precautions. Perhaps we are also saying that he should not have done what others do not do. And fung shui objections become intensified when those who have been held to be at fault are outsiders: strangers or the government. For then the community as a whole can be united in its determination to defend its interests.\n\n65. A village is not just the ground on which its fields are made and its houses stand. It is the whole area which, by custom, falls within the control of the community. When the British arrived they acknowledged rights not only to building sites and cultivations, registering these rights in the land records, but also to a wider village territory within which the local population had certain privileges, especially for burying their dead, grazing their beasts, and collecting fuel. Villagers stand by these rights in the sense that intrusion is resented and attempts made to force trespassers to pay for their boldness if they cannot, or it is not desirable that they be, excluded. The immigrant vegetable-grower or poultry-farmer may think that he has acquired the right to put up a shack but he may find himself the centre of a dispute from which he can extricate himself only by paying a sum of money. An industrialist may have all the necessary permits but he may be forced to come to terms with the people in whose area he wishes to operate. The wise immigrant and the wise industrialist make their terms before they begin to build. Similarly, the government undertaking public works may fall foul of objections which are phrased in fung shui language. A hole is being drilled; a child falls sick; the work must stop.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207994, "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-1977", "page_number": 33, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "BRUNEI A HISTORICAL RELIC\n\n17\n\nand ruled over people not territory per se. The structure was somewhat feudal in social terms. \"Everyone owned somebody else; everybody was owned by someone\" is not too inaccurate a description of society. Southeast Asian traditional society was, and is, hierarchical. Headmen of villages owed allegiance and tribute to a riverine chief; the chief (pengeran or dato) in turn owed allegiance and was protected by a higher chief, a prince, or his sultan. The feudal dues of protection downward and allegiance and tributary payment upward pertained. The sultan was a despotic ruler, but a limited despot, restrained in practice by a council of the chief princes of the royal blood, whose sanction was usually necessary in important matters. One of the chief functions of the council was to provide for the succession.\n\nBrunei on the northwest coast was well located in a flourishing trade center between China on the north and the Arabian-Indian dominated trading system of south Asia. Brunei suffered the fate of most maritime southeast Asian states when European mercantile monopolizing practices entered Asia. The Dutch and the British eventually wrested the dominance in the south Asian trading system from the Muslims. At the same time Spanish encroachment from the north considerably limited Brunei's power. The result was a falling-off of trade and a shrinking of revenues. A long, slow decline set in. The sultan's power, his ability to collect revenue and tolls and to command respect for his title, shrank until he could be said to hold authority only over the immediate coastal and riverine areas close to Brunei Bay.\n\n17\n\nWhile Spain neither acquired nor probably coveted Borneo, the impact of Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries, plus the declining fortunes of Brunei, caused a vacuum of sorts around Borneo which was filled by pirates. The pirates of the area were nominally Muslim seafarers from southern Philippines and Borneo -- some were impecunious princes of the royal houses of Sulu and Brunei -- who raided shipping and coastal villages; whose communities were, by the 19th century, located all around the northern coasts of Borneo in territory nominally within the sultan's realm. As he could neither tax nor control the pirate communities, and as his revenue-income was shrinking or already non-existent, the sultan often condoned piracy. Sultans and princes invested in pirate cruises and shared the profits. Brunei Town became one of the major pirate", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208000, "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-1977", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "BRUNEI: A HISTORICAL RELIC\n\n23\n\nSpaniards. She worried about the presence of France in Indochina on the opposite side of the South China Sea at mid-century; and later on she suspected imperial Germany of coveting northern Borneo and the Philippines.\n\nThe British sphere was initiated by the private efforts of an English adventurer, James Brooke, a former officer in the Bengal Army. In 1840, he helped bring an end to an insurrection in the Sarawak River, in the southern-most area under the nominal rule of the Sultan of Brunei, and was rewarded by being granted the province. In 1845 Brooke was appointed diplomatic agent to Brunei and supervised the transfer of the island of Labuan to Britain as a colony and a naval station. He also, in 1847, negotiated a consular treaty with the Sultan which effectively gave to Britain control over Brunei's foreign relations. The colony of Labuan languished but the quasi-protectorate over Brunei served as the de facto and legal base for Britain's sphere of influence in Borneo. Such a sphere was proclaimed in 1868 as a warning to all European nations to keep out.\n\nThe real carving-up of the carcass of Brunei began in earnest in 1878 with the founding of another private venture, that of a syndicate of City of London businessmen which later became the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company. The syndicate was under the control of Dent Brothers Company. Alfred and Edward Dent were sons of the owner of the former Hong Kong firm of Dent and Company. Raja Brooke had annexed, by treaty with the Sultan, additional chunks of territory before 1878. In 1853 he purchased northward to and including the large district of the Rajang River. And in 1861 he purchased the five so-called “sago rivers” as far north as Kidurong Point. When that point was reached, the Governor of Labuan objected to any further northward encroachment of Sarawak and Labuan's wishes were supported by Britain.\n\nWhen, however, the British North Borneo Company purchased the large area of Sabah, the whole of the island of Borneo to the northward of Brunei Town, with strong support from the Foreign Office, both Raja Brooke and the Colonial Office protested. It is interesting to note that the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office who midwifed the company charter through officialdom in Whitehall was Julian Pauncefote, who was a former attorney-general.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208001, "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-1977", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "24\n\nLEIGH WRIGHT\n\nof Hong Kong (1866) and who acted on occasion as legal representative of Dent and Company in that Colony.14\n\nThe Colonial Office by 1879 was favourably disposed toward Sarawak's expansionist plan in Brunei. A compromise was eventually achieved between the Colonial and Foreign Offices whereby Brooke was allowed a further cession of Brunei territory, the Baram River district, while North Borneo was confirmed to the company and it was allowed to acquire several territories on the north and east of Brunei Bay.\n\nAs to the attitude of Brunei toward the carving-up of its territory, few of the rajas of Brunei Town objected, for they were paid handsome cession monies from both Sarawak and North Borneo. In general, the temptation of a considerable monetary payment in hand overrode any desire to retain nominal title to territories over which Brunei sultans had long since ceased to rule and from which little, if any, revenue was obtained. That the presence of the British and the monetary payments tended to bolster a declining court and infuse it with vigour, if but superficially, was not lost upon the sultan and his rajas.\n\nThe keen competition which arose between Sarawak and North Borneo over the charter issue and the cession of Baram created a strong and bitter rivalry between the two states. Their attention was soon drawn to the remaining territory of Brunei. It seems clear that both Raja Brooke and the Company fully expected the demise of the sultanate, and each was determined to obtain as large a share of the remaining territory as possible. Raja Brooke had, for example, as early as 1874, offered to take over the administration of Brunei.\n\nIn 1890, Raja Brooke did annex the Limbang River district at the invitation of its Kayan chiefs, who had carried on a long rebellion against the extractions of corrupt Brunei rajas. After some on-site investigations, Britain reluctantly agreed to the acquisition. The raja was on firm legal ground, for he had obtained the chop of the sultan to the cession. But the loss of the Limbang was bitterly objected to by the rajas, who at almost the eleventh-hour began to realize that their individual selfishness and rivalry was bringing about the gradual extinction of the sultanate. The Limbang issue remains to this day a point of controversy between Brunei and Sarawak.15 No one at the time seemed to notice that Sarawak's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208036, "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-1977", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN\n\n59\n\nThe study of perpetual tenancy systems has long constituted an important, if overlooked, avenue of research into the diversity of economic life which characterized pre-revolutionary rural China.13 Though the institution of perpetual lease was widespread, the degree to which it dominated the agricultural sector—as well as the particular form it took—varied considerably over short distances. In a communication to the Colonial Secretary's Office in January 1904, an officer of the Land Court complained of difficulties facing administrators attempting to codify the land tenure system:\n\nChinese law does not, so far as I can ascertain, contain any mention of perpetual lease and I am informed that the custom of leasing land perpetually is local in the New Territories and does not prevail a short distance from our borders.14\n\nThe variant of perpetual tenancy found in 19th-century Hsin-An closely corresponded to the ti-ku (地骨)/ti-p'i (地皮) system found in Ch'ung-An Hsien (崇安縣) of Northern Fukien. Hsu Tien-t’ai, in his \"Study of the Tenancy Systems of Fukien” (福建租佃制之研究), groups this system with the t'ien-ku (田骨)/t'ien p'i (田皮) category of perpetual tenancy (永佃制). His description follows:\n\nConcerning t'ien k'u (lit: \"field's bones\") and t'ien p'i (lit: \"field's skin\"), or k'u t'ien (骨田) and p'i tien (皮田), this system is found in several counties throughout the province, the names changing slightly from place to place. The value of the \"bones\" belongs to the landlord, and the value of the \"skin\" belongs to the tenant; both sides can freely sell their respective rights. While the landlord (\"bones-master\") can freely sell his title, he can, in no way, affect the rights of the tenant to the \"skin-value.\" Moreover, the responsibility of paying the land-tax resides, as usual, with the landlord. When the tenant sells his title, even if disputes arise, there is no way for the landlord to interfere. Indeed, even the government finds it difficult to intervene.15\n\nOne of the earliest British accounts of perpetual lease in Hsin-An is to be found in Lockhart's \"Memorandum on Land\" appended to his Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong (1900):\n\nThe relation between landlord and tenant is often a complicated one, chiefly owing to the system of perpetual lease. Under such leases the landlords have practically renounced all rights to the\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208044, "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-1977", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN\n\n67\n\n12 Lockhart lists 255 villages occupied by Hakkas, with a total population of 36,070 in the Tung Lo in 1898. Assuming a population of 250,000 for the total district in 1900, Hsin-An probably had a Hakka population of around 90,000.\n\n13 Rawski's bibliography in Agricultural Change and the Peasant Economy of South China offers the most complete listing of works bearing on perpetual tenancy.\n\np. 64.\n\n14 CSO280/04 Extension. See note 4, Essay 2.\n\n15 Hsu T'ien-tai, Fu Chien Wen Hua (福建文化), Vol. 1, No. 1, (1941),\n\n16 Correspondence Respecting Affairs of China, March 1898-September 1900. \"Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong,\" (Presented to both Houses of Parliament, November 1900) p. 19.\n\n17 The Shih Chien T'ang Chia P'u (世鑑堂家譜), a collection of genealogies from Kam Tin, gives the following settlements of lineal descendants in Tung Kuan: Chuh Yuan (竹園), Yen Tien (燕田), Fu Lung (福龍), Huai Te (懷德), Shih Ching (石井), Tu Kao (土高), and Ping Hu (平湖).\n\n18 \"These clans gain their local influence, not through numbers alone, but owing to the fact that certain of their numbers have official rank, gained through competitive examinations, or obtained by purchase, which keeps them in touch with the Magistrate and even higher officials.\" Correspondence Respecting Affairs of China ibid., p. 20. The Shih Chien T'ang Chia P'u records that, from Cheng Hua (Ming Dynasty) to Tao Kwang (Ch'ing Dynasty)—that is, from roughly 1470-1820—fourteen Kam Tin Tangs passed the state examination. Several of these became office holders. Another indicator of gentry connections with officialdom was the construction, in Kam Tin, of a temple (祠堂) dedicated to the two officials (Chou Yu-te (周有德) and Wang Lai-jen (王來任)) who petitioned the Emperor, on behalf of the inhabitants of the coastal areas, to allow resettlement.\n\n19 Introduction to the Nan Yang Tang Shih Tsu P'u (南陽堂世族譜), compiled by the Ping Shan Tangs.\n\n20 Sung Hok-P'ang, in his articles on the Kam Tin Tangs in the Hong Kong Naturalist, claims to have seen references to Tang lands on Hong Kong in the Land Register (土地冊) of Tung Kuan. \"One may judge that the land was owned by the Tangs before the first year of Maan Lik, AD 1525, (sic) as after that the San On District was formed” (Vol. VIII, nos. 3 and 4).\n\n21 HKTCSMTC, \"Details of Cultivated Land” (耕地詳情).\n\n22 ibid.\n\n23 The landlord clans were often referred to by the British as \"first cultivators.\" See, for instance, CSO3172/1915 cited in the essay on tax-lordism.\n\n24 Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, ibid., p. 16.\n\n25 Hsin-An Hsien-chih, ch'uan 8.\n\n26 In this regard, note the high degree of correlation among the different \"tax-burdens\" in Table II. One is tempted to speculate that a native formula for the conversion of rent rates from tax-rates existed.\n\n27 In the 1934 edition of the Chung-Kuo Ch'ing-chi Nien-chien (中國經濟年鑑), chapter 7 (Chinese Tenancy Systems), contains the following description of the Fen Chih Chih (分種制) system, a form of perpetual lease found in the East River counties of the Kwangchow Prefecture: \"This", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208045, "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-1977", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "68\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nsystem of land distribution had its origins several centuries ago. At the time when the land was distributed, the tenant paid the landlord a certain sum; this sum represented the rent which the tenant thereafter handed over each year. The landlord could not increase the rent, nor could the tenant refuse to pay it. Furthermore, the landlord could not investigate his tenants in order to take back the land.” (G236).\n\n28 Data from the land memorials, which register sales of subsurface values, indicate that a one-mow plot of land seldom exceeded 6 taels during the late 18th century. As we shall see later in the text, these prices necessarily remained constant into the 19th century. In the Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for 1846, we learn that the tenants valued each mow of rice paddy at $40.00 (1 tael = 1.11 Mexican dollars in 1846). Granted that tenants made good profits from the sale of land, still this example tends to illustrate the great potential disparity between the two values. (Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for 1846, Note on the Island of Hong Kong by A. R. Johnston; written in 1843).\n\n29 Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, ibid., p 7.\n\n30 CSO306/1899 Extension; \"With reference to the petition of Tang Yung Ping and others they naturally, at present, prefer the old feudal system of payment of rent in kind.\"\n\n31 HKTCSMTC: Hong Kong Almanack, “Note on the Island of HK”.\n\n32 CSO150/1901 gives a detailed account of these negotiations.\n\n33 In general, the maintenance of perpetual tenancy systems presupposes the existence of communal landownership. The British found over 25% of all lots held in clan names in 1898; later Chinese sources place the estimate at 30%. These figures are probably not reliable for the earlier part of the century. The Tangs, as we have seen, held landlord rights over all of Hong Kong Island. They similarly held over 60% of the territory in Kowloon ceded to Britain in 1860, Land in North Kowloon was lost by \"fraudulent sale” in 1898 (CSO2982/1898). Other clans, besides the Tangs, apparently lost sizable tracts as “individual initiative” replaced clan solidarity throughout the period,\n\n34 CSO150/1901.\n\n35 CSO109/1902.\n\n36 Nan Yang Tang Shih Tsu P'u, \"Notes on Land Tax.\"\n\n37 Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, ibid., p 18.\n\nESSAY II: TAXLORDISM\n\nThe peasants and gentry of Hsin-An witnessed two concrete manifestations of the growing power of foreign countries in China during the waning years of the nineteenth century. In April 1887, the Kowloon Customs House of the Imperial Maritime Customs was established under provisions of the Anglo-Chinese Opium Agreement of September 1886. As was the case with all customs houses established during the era, supervision of the revenue stations was entrusted to a European career officer in Sir Robert Hart's service, J. McLeavy Brown. A great expansion in customs activity", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208060, "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-1977", "page_number": 99, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN\n\n83\n\ninto Tung or Divisions. Each council of a Tung contains representatives of the villages which make up the Tung. In addition to a council of a Tung there is a general council for the whole of the Tung Lo or Eastern Section, which is practically that portion of the district of San On contained in the map attached to the Convention. This general council is styled the Tung Ping Kuk or Council of Peace for the Eastern Section. It has its council chamber at the market town of Sham Chun, which is regarded as the centre of the Eastern Section.\n\nIf the decision of the council of the Tung or of the General Council is not regarded as satisfactory, an appeal lies to the magistrate of the district.\" (pp. 55-56, Extension Papers.).\n\n32 Extension Papers, p. 34.\n\n33 Ibid., p. 174.\n\n34 K'ang Nan-hai Kuan-chih I (***T**), pp. 15-16.\n\n35 Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China, pp. 91-92.\n\n36 K'ang Nan-hai, op. cit., p. 15.\n\n37 Other evidence which supports this hypothesis is drawn from the fact that the production and distribution of agricultural produce within the tung tends to be regulated by specific and unique processes. Hence, the tau chung (#), or local measures for payment of rent in kind, differs from tung to tung. Lockhart, in his Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong (Presented to both Houses of Parliament, November, 1900), relates the problems encountered in rationalizing land tenure: \"But even this tau varies in different localities. The Kun Tau, or Chinese official standard measure of 10 shing, is adopted at Tai Po, in the Sheung Yu District, and at Shat'aukok. The Ts'ong Tau, or grain measure of 11 shing, is used throughout the Un Long District. The Ts'in Tau of 8 shing is employed in the Ts'un Wan (ed. previously Kowloon District) and some other Districts. (p. 6). Moreover, the schedules of periodic markets within tung tend to complement each other, while they often clash with the schedules of markets in a neighboring tung.\n\n38 See petition from Tung Wo Kuk (\"i.e., the Committee appointed to deal with the affairs of the Shataukok Division\"). pp. 318-320.\n\n39 In a rough translation of a pamphlet obtained by the German missionary Schaub in Tung-Kuan, local gentry propose a strategy for obtaining funds for fighting the British: \"It is the best plan that the six confederations (six market places) keep together as we hear. But the outlay for the soldiers should not be collected by an extraordinary field tax. It is not right that the various confederations should pay the costs.... We should use the usual field tax. Let first the six confederations come together and ask our Government for help. Will the soldiers not come to help us, then let us ask the Mandarin for the present not to collect the field tax, that we can use the money to meet the barbarians. This would not be rebellious. Afterwards in peaceful times, we could pay our duties to the Government. (Extension Papers, p. 347.) See also, K'ang Nan-hai, op cit., p. 15.\n\n40 CSO433 in 1899,\n\n41 The British often experienced great difficulty in distinguishing landlords from taxlords, especially since members of large, gentry clans like the Tangs were one and the same. In a memorandum on the work of the Land Court, Lockhart writes: \"The most serious matter of all, however, is the stand taken by the farmers against the clans, their former landlords.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208061, "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-1977", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "2\n\n84\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nThe clans and farmers agree that the farmers are absolute owners of the soil in perpetuity, but have been paying money or produce to the clans for generations, which the clans claim to be rent payable to them. The case for the farmers is that the land has always been theirs absolute free from rent, and that the amount paid by them to the clans was the Government land tax.\" p. 23, Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong.\n\n42 Chinese civil administration across the border offers interesting contrasts to the British colonial model. After the fall of Ch'ing, the county was renamed Pao-An (†), and was subsequently divided into seven \"wards\" or ch'ü (E). These wards generally followed the topographical features of the countryside, with the result that tung and ch'u were probably quite homogeneous (the evidence for Sham Chun certainly indicates this). As we noted above, agricultural production within the tung tended to follow specific, if not unique, patterns; the authors of the Kwangtung Nung Yeh Kai-K'uang T'iao-ch'a-pao-kao Shu Hsuan-pien (***)'s chapter on Pao-An link this phenomenon, which they note in the various ch'u, with the relative availability of arable land within the district. Aside from the presence of elements of the police force, the Nam Tau government kept a low profile in the ch'u, and depended on these areas to collect the land tax and hand it over by themselves (see Kwangtung Ch'uan-sheng t'i-fang Chi-yao (✯✯✯****★)), p. 189.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208112, "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-1977", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW - LONG ISLAND\n\n135\n\nburned or sunbaked. There are many mean huts of wood and wattle, and except in the main street where the Public Works Department of Hong Kong has insisted on drainage and paving, the streets are full of wallows, and the wallows full of pigs. As often as not the sleeping pig is being carefully searched by a fowl or so.\n\nOf the foreign buildings the most conspicuous are the Meeting Hall of the European residents situated in the midst of their rather scattered bungalows, and in the village, the red brick Police Station and the new School. All through Hong Kong the territory the Police Stations occupy the strategic positions, looking like a strange modern variant of the frowning castle which overhangs so many ancient settlements in Europe. And the analogy is not far-fetched, for there are raiding kidnappers and pirates to be repulsed, and Cheung Chow Police Station has itself been besieged, and successfully too, by pirates. The present building is surrounded by barbed wire, and garrisoned by Sikh police, and could stand siege long enough to enable it to summon a swift and powerful police launch by wireless from Hong Kong. The new school was opened only last year, and while the Police Station holds itself aloof on the ridge just outside the village, the school nestles more intimately among the good people, some of whose children pursue learning within those cheerful walls.\n\nThe Europeans are the Highlanders of Cheung Chow. Like the Hebrews in Canaan, they leave the plains to the original inhabitants and occupy patches of the bare hills. The Chinese use these little hills only to pasture a few tiny cattle, to supply fuel, and to afford a last resting place for their dead. Among the grass and the graves the missionaries have built small stone huts in the strangest of styles. Some are reminiscent of little Bethels and Bethesdas which drew their original inspiration from the stone barns where sectaries used to meet. Others are refuges among the great clusters of rocks, to which and between which they cling and clamber like the nests of some strange and gigantic insect. Amongst these there are some half-dozen more comfortable bungalows of permanent residents. All these Europeans live in amity with one another. There are British, Americans, and now and then some Germans. They elect a little committee and officers for their Association to deal with the Colonial Government, and with the Kaifong which governs the village. A tiny fund is expended with admirable results.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208127, "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-1977", "page_number": 166, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "150 \n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nmorning visiting Nei Kwu Chau to discuss the problem of their fifteen children. They had been taught by a private teacher in the ancestral temple: but he had left, and the Education Department were asked to find someone to replace him. They had replied that the children would have to go to Cheung Chau, thus raising in an acute form the problem common in villages all over England to-day. Few if any teachers would volunteer to teach fifteen children in so poor an island as Nei Kwu Chau in those days. The problem of providing one was then found insoluble, and as the only means of transport to Cheung Chau was by junk or sampan, I fear the rate of literacy on Nei Kwu Chau must have declined badly.\n\nAnother event which affected life in Cheung Chau in 1925-6 was the change of Governor in November 1925, during the great Communist-inspired but mainly Nationalist strike which started in June that year. Sir C. Clementi increased the D. O. South's public works vote from the absurdly small figure of $400 to $1000 or more. This made it possible to repave some of the chief streets of the village with granite blocks set in concrete, which cost about $800. He also paid a State visit to the island in the summer of 1926. Flags and decorations were put up, and practically all the proceedings were in Chinese, including a lengthy prepared speech by H.E., written out in characters by (I believe) Mr. Sung Hok Pang. He walked through the main streets, keeping up conversation with the Kaifongs, and showing that despite a long absence in British Guiana and elsewhere his Chinese scholarship had undergone no observable decline. The chief impression of the day that remained with me was the heat!\n\nWhile I was District Officer South I attended two other functions of importance, both in the Northern district. In 1925 the Government had had the imagination and sympathy to restore to the Tang clan the village gates of Kam Tin, removed in 1899 because of the clan's opposition to the original leasing of the New Territory and taken, as I heard, to Sir Henry Blake's estate in Ireland. The ceremony of reopening the restored gates took place in May, just before the big Strike began: its central point was to be the opening of the gates to admit H.E. Sir R. Stubbs. As he rose up from his seat the local band struck up, and this so startled a small pig rooting in the moat that he fled for shelter over the causeway to his sty in the village, just getting ahead of H.E. and bursting through the gates! The reward for the Government's attitude was seen in the autumn", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208571, "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": 28, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE UNITED STATES AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG, 1941-45\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG*\n\nWhat the question of Hong Kong boiled down to during the Pacific War was the British colony's future status when war was over. Throughout the war China, now Britain's ally, was clamouring for Hong Kong's retrocession when the Japanese were driven out. Britain was naturally concerned, as she wished to retain the territory. But her worry was greatly aggravated by the unsympathetic attitude of the United States, on whose manpower and material support she heavily relied for winning the war against Germany. Britain's, especially Prime Minister Churchill's, response was characterized by a concern disproportionate to Hong Kong's importance in the British empire. Yet the reaction was justified by the fear that concession over Hong Kong would trigger off the disintegration of the British empire, a process Britain refused to recognize as unavoidable. The question of Hong Kong during the period under discussion has been dealt with from the British point of view. This essay attempts to further review the subject by focusing on the American side of the picture.\n\nIn the main, the United States' attitude towards the question of Hong Kong was influenced by two much broader issues: the treatment of China as an ally, and the aspiration to end imperialism and colonialism in the post-war world. For some time after the United States' entry into the Pacific War, certainly during 1942 and the greater part of 1943, the American attitude towards China was characterized by admiration, a sense of guilt, anxiety, and eagerness to compensate. These feelings were connected and interwoven. Admiration is simple to explain. Pearl Harbour, which the Americans took as “an insult to the entire nation”, immediately highlighted China's bravery in having fought single-handedly for over four years against Japan, now a common enemy. For the greater part of the war, Americans seemed never to tire of praising China along this theme.\n\n* Dr. Chan is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208576, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "6 \n\nand support.24\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\nThe first time the American government was called upon to act on the question of Hong Kong occurred towards the end of 1942 in connection with the extraterritoriality negotiations which the United States and Britain were conducting simultaneously with China. The initiative of the negotiations clearly belonged to the United States.25 Britain, however, was anxious that her treaty would as far as possible be identical with the American one, and that she would not lag behind the United States in signing the treaty. In this Britain keenly felt the pressure of time in that the United States, eager to please the Chinese, attempted to have the matter settled as fast as possible. Negotiations, which began early in October, were well advanced by about mid-November when disagreement remained on three questions which involved America and Britain alike: national treatment for commerce, coastal trade and inland navigation, and the right to acquire real property in China. Britain, however, had the additional problem of having to face China's demand, made on 13 November, for the rendition of concessions and to provide for the termination of the territory leased to Britain in 1898, i.e. the New Territories of Hong Kong, which included the area known as New Kowloon.\n\nBy the beginning of December 1943, the United States had given way over all the three questions with which she was concerned. Britain's disappointment and exasperation were thus summed up by Sir John Brenan: \"The Americans have now let us down on the three subjects to which we attached the greatest importance, namely national treatment for commerce, coastal trade and inland navigation, and the right to acquire real property. Moreover, by their rush tactics they have deprived us of any opportunity of real negotiation with the Chinese. We could hardly have done worse for ourselves if we had acted alone. It now remains to be seen if the Chinese, having got all they want from the United States, will hold up our treaty over the Kowloon question.\" Eden made a strong remonstrance to the United States on the way she had treated Britain in the latter phase of the extraterritoriality negotiations.27\n\nBy then the British Foreign Office had already reached a decision with regard to the Chinese demand for the return of the New Territories. Britain did not want to accede to the Chinese proposal, in that the New Territories were interdependent with, and economically and strategically vital to, Hong Kong and Kowloon. She", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208581, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45\n\n11\n\nBritain of Hong Kong, and the development by Great Britain of a great port which he felt had benefited the whole world. He said that it was British territory and he saw no good reason why it should cease to be such. He went on to say that perhaps some arrangement could be made with the Chinese whereby the question of sovereignty could be adjusted but the political control and administrative responsibility remain with Great Britain. He referred to public utterances of his own to the effect that he was not Prime Minister for the purpose of being a party to a liquidation of the British Empire. He said that he had convictions on that subject and that he was perfectly willing to say so frankly to anybody.\"45\n\nIt might well have been his own weak performance in London, among other things, which prompted Hornbeck early in January 1944 to urge the Secretary of State not to repeat Woodrow Wilson's mistake in being too much of a \"gentleman\". The American government must obtain from Britain agreement and cooperation in any reasonable course of action upon which the United States might choose to insist, especially in relation to colonial matters, before the defeat of Germany when Britain still depended on the Americans for their preservation.46\n\nThe Secretary's reaction to the advice is not known. But it appears from his memoirs that he was not in favour of coercion in dealing with the Anglo-American differences, and specifically with the question of Hong Kong.47 In any case, the Department of State had become less and less consulted by the President with regard to general war and foreign policies. The War and Navy Departments and the Treasury were far more important in the President's mind. On the personal level, moreover, Hull was certainly not one of Roosevelt's trusted few. Hull himself was conscious and sensitive of the truth: that FDR was his own Secretary of State.\"48 In fact, many of Roosevelt's utterances at the major Allied conferences, beginning with the Cairo Conference late in 1943, were made without prior reference to and consultation with the Department of State. Hull resigned late in 1944, frustrated and in poor health.\n\nDespite Roosevelt's well-known anti-imperialist and anti-colonial stand and his interest in Hong Kong, his behaviour regarding the future of the British colony was generally characterized by weakness and the lack of persistent and direct pressure on Britain. At the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208868, "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-1980", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "KEITH G. STEVENS\n\nTemples and monasteries can be classified as follows:--\n\na. By religious belief-Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian and traditional folk religion,5\n\nb. By the contents of the altars - deities, ancestral tablets or charms.\n\nc. By their typological features such as the size and shape of their plans (square or rectangular); by their elevation into floors; by divisions and sub-divisions; whether free-standing or not; and whether the courtyard is enclosed or in front of the main building.\n\nd. Whether residential or non-residential.\n\ne. Whether permanent or temporary.\n\nf. By ethnic grouping (regional traditional types),6\n\nWithin Hong Kong and Macau, there are about four hundred and fifty Buddhist, Daoist, and folk religion temples, Buddhist and Daoist monasteries and nunneries, and ancestral temples. A few pre-date the advent of the British and Portuguese whilst the majority, built since 1840, have been established as specialised temples with a specific deity on their altars well known for a unique function such as destroying demons, protecting seafarers, foretelling the future, protecting mothers during childbirth and children during childhood, and the like.\n\nIt is unfortunate, out of interest in such historic places, that neither Hong Kong nor Macau have the large national temple or temples at which the official state religion was worshipped. This is due to the fact that before the arrival of the British and Portuguese, neither territory contained a county town and were primitive rural areas. Nor are there in Hong Kong or Macau the large City God temples which in Imperial China were to be found in all provincial and county capitals.\n\nWhereas the Chinese government in 1928 closed many temples throughout China during their campaign to suppress superstition,* the practices condemned by the Chinese authorities continued in Hong Kong and Macau where British and Portuguese administrators treated native susceptibilities with great caution. Hong Kong and Macau temples therefore, retained deities and practices which have probably long since disappeared on the Chinese mainland.\n\n* described in some detail by C. B. Day in his Chinese Peasant Cults (Nanking Theological Seminary English Publications, 1938), pp. 190-195.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208926, "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-1980", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "56\n\nLEWIS M. CHERE\n\nevents of 1884. In this category would be Chinese language newspapers, the records of the court proceedings against the native newspapers and rioters, and whatever private records, diaries or papers which might have survived from that time. Because these materials are not available outside Hong Kong it is the purpose of this article to raise the question of what did happen in the Colony in 1884 in the hopes that those scholars who do have access to the winds of materials necessary to answer the question will be made aware of the importance of having those answers. Because a study of the question cannot help but advance understanding of Chinese history in the 1880's—not to mention the illumination it could provide for the history of Hong Kong itself—I have attempted to provide an outline here of what the question entails, and what little is known about it.\n\nHong Kong occupied a position in the events of the Sino-French War which was unique even for the ports of the China Coast. Unlike Treaty Ports such as Canton or Shanghai, Hong Kong was not even technically Chinese territory. Though Shanghai may have been effectively controlled by the representatives of the foreign community sitting on the city council, the city was still Chinese territory and the problems it experienced during the Sino-French War were largely due to that fact. Hong Kong was formally a possession of a neutral power. As such, most of its problems arising from the war were those which resulted from differing French, Chinese and British positions on the obligations of a neutral in an undeclared war. However, Hong Kong's overwhelming majority of Chinese residents, most of them adult male workers whose families were still living in their home villages in the Southern Provinces of China, presented a problem even more complex than those arising from the city's neutrality.\n\nThe reactions of those Chinese residents to the Sino-French conflict could be vital to an understanding of the development of nationalism in China. In Hong Kong the legendary influence of anti-foreign mandarins, which was so frequently blamed for anti-foreign feeling among the Chinese populations in the Treaty Ports, could only be indirectly applied—if at all. Even then many of the European accounts of what happened in the Colony in 1884 attempted to find outside influences, meaning the mandarins, to hold responsible for Hong Kong's troubles.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209145, "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-1981", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "34\n\nEDGAR WICKBERG\n\nOne might infer that in such cases the large owner was using mortgage loans as well as direct purchases to expand his holdings over a large span of territory. Not all large \"absentee\" owners appear as mortgage holders, however.\n\nOur interpretation of the mortgage data is severely limited by the fact that we are looking at a single slice in time, 1905, which may not give us a full picture of the lending and borrowing operations of individuals as they might appear over several years of activity. It also is well known that at the time of British takeover of the New Territories many long-standing customary mortgages were paid off under an apprehension that they might not be recognized by British policy. Therefore, the situation of 1905 as reflected in the Block Crown Lease Schedules, does not necessarily typify that of any given year in the nineteenth century.\n\nIt would be of interest to compare land tenure in Hakka areas and in Punti areas. Of the four major villages that make up my area of study, only one is completely Hakka, although Hakkas are found in one other. In addition, much land in this region was owned by the Hakka clans of the large village of Wang Toi Shan, which is in the eastern part of the Pat Heung but outside the scope of my research so far. The limited amount of information I have allows little generalization. The small Hakka village of Shui Lau Tin contains a few major owners whose holdings are well beyond the lands of the village itself; but many \"outsiders\" owned lands right up to the gates, so to speak, of Shui Lau Tin. The Wang Toi Shan Hakkas, on the other hand, owned land all over the region of my study. More about them below.\n\nHakkas were important as landlords. We do not normally think of Hakkas as landlords. But in this region Hakka-owned tenant-cultivated land amounted to about 175 acres out of 1,472, or about 12 percent. Locally speaking, about 20 percent of tenant-cultivated land in the western end of this area was Hakka-owned; and in the western extremity Hakka-owned land was almost 50 percent of all tenant-cultivated land.\n\n―\n\nThus, of four reasons commonly given for relatively high rates of tenancy - population pressure on land; existence of sizeable land-owning clans; frontier or land reclamation; and commercialization it would appear that the presence of the clan was clearly the most important reason for the level of tenancy in this part of the New Territories, and probably in the entire New Territories as well.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209232, "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-1981", "page_number": 135, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "EDUCATION AS A BY-PRODUCT OF FISH MARKETING\n\n121\n\nHow does it come about that this pleasing mixture of American Youth camp and English public-school sports day should come to represent the emotional high point of the year for these fifteen schools which cater for the Shui-sheung-yan (water-folk), traditionally the lowest of all Hong Kong's social strata. Organised quite separately from the normal Education Department schools, the F.M.O. school cater for less than 0.4 percent of the territory's school population.\n\nSeparate educational systems for religious and ethnic minorities, often assisted by the state, are not uncommon; wholly state-run separate school systems for occupational minorities, apart from members of the armed forces posted overseas, are extremely rare. The nearest parallel that comes to mind is that of the special education projects for European Gypsies, developed to cater for children whose schooling is often prevented by frequent moves and social prejudice, just as that of the Hong Kong people used to be. Indeed, it was experience with Gypsies since running the first caravan summer school in 1967, which led me to what seemed, from the European end, a remarkable parallel with projects started for the boat people of southern China, and Hong Kong.\n\nThe Development of the F.M.O. and its schools\n\nIt can be argued that the Hong Kong Government, despite its ever-reiterated ideological commitment to laissez-faire economics, began to intervene to ensure the future of the fishing industry as early as the building of the Yaumatei typhoon shelter in 1911-15. During the Second World War the Japanese government began the building of regulated fish markets, such as that at Shaukeiwan, guaranteeing a better deal for the fishermen from the buyers. Since we are assured on all sides that all sections of the population suffered grievously under the Japanese occupation, the returning British government could hardly do less for the fishing population than had the Japanese. After 1945 a scheme was introduced under the old Defence Regulations of 1940 to provide \"orderly and efficient Fish Marketing facilities\", developing the industry, and protecting the interests of consumers. That is to say both fishermen and public were to be protected from the entrepreneurial wholesale fish merchants or middlemen. There are now seven publicly owned and regulated wholesale fish markets, and three other collecting depots. Underlying the economic goals, there was also a stated objective of improving \"the socio-economic status of the fishing community.\" Of course, to state this too publicly would be self-defeating, but in\n\n7\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209249, "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-1981", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "138 \n\nTA ACTON \n\nindividuals, though rare in Hong Kong, might find their way through the system more easily if the F.M.O. schools were to become part of the general educational system, which they now so closely resemble. \n\nConclusion \n\nSpeaking at the closing ceremony of the 12th annual summer camp of the F.M.O. schools, at Wukaisha Youth Village, the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Hon. J.M. Riddell-Swan J.P. said: \n\n\"There are clear advantages in completing secondary education, whether a child wishes to follow a career in the fishing industry or ashore. In common with other industries, fishing and fishing vessel technology are advancing rapidly, and the well-educated fisherman will obviously be able to take better advantage of this and so increase family prosperity.' \n\n* 46 \n\nThe two major themes of this education policy appear in this speech: its benefit to the efficiency of the fishing industry, and its contribution to slimming it down (“a career in the fishing industry or ashore”). It is noteworthy, however, that the speaker applies these themes specifically to secondary education. The battle for primary education has already been won (give or take the odd thirteen-year-old who suddenly appears at a remote school, refusing to admit to any previous schooling; but this happens far less often than in Gypsy school projects.). \n\nThis is an indication of how much more educational policies for the Shui-sheung-yan in Hong Kong have \"achieved\" than those for Gypsies in Britain. There has been a much greater penetration by the schools system, and by the dominant attitudes of industrial society to education among the Shui-sheung-yan than among the Gypsies. This paper quoted the SOCO study which showed that 32.5 percent of 263 poor Shui-sheung-yan respondents declared they wanted no more than primary education for their children. If such a question were asked of a sample of nomadic Gypsies in Britain, the figure would be nearer 90 percent, one would guess. \n\nIn Hong Kong progress towards better education for the Shui-sheung-yan is general throughout the territory. The 11 British West Midlands Local Education Authorities, with their claims of achieving 800-1,300 children attending out of their estimated 1,500–2,000 constituency, are merely the brightest spot in Britain. Many other local education authorities are doing nothing, and the Department of \n\n47", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209500, "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": 157, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "135\n\n1911.40 After the First World War, the number had risen to over 2,000. (These figures do not include several thousand seamen, mostly firemen, stokers and stewards, without permanent domicile). At the beginning of the century, it is claimed, Chinese tended to ‘avoid Scotland and Wales', but were strongly attracted to London, especially Limehouse. With such small numbers present in Britain, it seems certain British judges and lawyers rarely came in contact with Chinese, only very occasionally perhaps in certain Liverpool or London courts; but never, one surmises, in normal social intercourse. In the 1920s, then, the Chinese in Britain were still a mysterious, but minute, social entity, habitually caricatured in the press and by novelists as 'vellee' strange people who spoke a particularly difficult and dissonant language and wrote, as Dr. Johnson noted, a script that was perversely pictorial to alphabet-lovers. Even professors of Chinese, sinologues and sinologists, were regarded at that time with as much wry amusement as were Assyriologists or Egyptologists, seekers after equally rarefied knowledge of no great practical importance.\n\n47\n\nThe first mass movement of Chinese to the outside world occurred in the nineteenth century. It was mostly 'coolie emigration', to use Campbell's descriptive term, the drift of mainly uneducated and relatively unskilled, though hard-working, Chinese to places where opportunities appeared to be brighter than in the homeland (a territory then much wracked by rebellion, foreign wars, famine and other afflictions). Lock Ah Tam, as mentioned above, is representative of the first wave, an emigrant who did well in his adopted country. As China was forced reluctantly into the modern world and into normal diplomatic relations with foreign powers, a different type of Chinese was becoming known abroad — the educated Chinese, a member of the 'Mandarin class', as Europeans were wont to describe him. In 1876 Kuo Sung-tao was appointed as the first Chinese minister in England.18 A Legation was then established in London, in 1877, with a normal complement of officials and secretaries. Chinese diplomatic staff became a common sight in Whitehall although, until the 1911 Revolution, most wore traditional Chinese attire and sported the queue. (After 1911, they took to frock-coat and top-hat and adopted European hair-styles).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209645, "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": 302, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "280\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\npotential dangers to the colony argued the need for a governor with an intimate knowledge of the territory and the reputation of being a strong disciplinarian.\n\nThe situation to which May returned was very different from that which he had left seventeen months previously. The early part of the year 1911 was fairly peaceful2 in spite of the abortive uprising in Canton in April and the assassination of the Manchu general there in August. But the outbreak of the revolution in central China in October soon spread to Canton and the Manchu governor was forced to flee to Hong Kong in early November. These successes were wildly celebrated by the Hong Kong population with demonstrations and firecrackers. But rejoicing soon gave way to hooliganism and violence as the feeling grew that the overthrow of the foreign Manchu government in China ought soon to be followed by the ousting of the British from Hong Kong. Shops were looted in broad daylight, the police were stoned, Europeans were threatened and attacked on the streets, bomb-making factories were discovered, and laws were openly defied. When police made arrests they were liable to be attacked by mobs attempting to release the prisoner. There was a rush by Europeans to buy firearms for self-defence.3\n\nLugard took strong measures to deal with this situation. There were daily route marches through the streets of the city by soldiers with fixed bayonets. On 30th November emergency powers under the Peace Preservation Ordinance were invoked by proclamation, giving the police wide powers to disperse crowds, enter houses and make arrests, and the same day an amending bill was rushed through the Legislative Council in one meeting to give magistrates the power to impose the penalty of up to 24 lashes with a cat o' nine tails for a wide range of offences, in addition to any other penalty prescribed by law. In the three months from December 1911 to February 1912 fifty-one prisoners were flogged with the cat o' nine tails for such offences as theft, assaults on the police and resisting arrest. At the same time the garrison was reinforced with two battalions of infantry and a battery of artillery sent from India,\n\nThese strong measures had their effect and before Lugard departed in March 1912 he felt sufficiently confident that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209705, "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": 362, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "340\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nThe author sticks strictly to plan and plunges directly into the issues (and intrigues) of Brooke rule, giving the space of only twelve pages to a historical background.\n\nThis is very much a book centering upon the characters who played roles in Sarawak public life during the three eventful decades of the reign of the third white Rajah, Charles Vyner Brooke (1917-1946). The author says directly what Somerset Maugham would have (and did partially) veiled in fiction about the intrigues, pettyfogging and peccadillos of Englishmen in a remote corner of tropical Malaysia, and the dedication and opportunism in their relationships with an often fickle native elite.\n\nCharacters worthy of a Hollywood drama flit, and more often linger, across the engrossing narrative: the opportunist-adventurer (and unbalanced?) T. E. Lawrence-like G. T. M. MacBryan; the feckless and no less opportunistic camp-followers of the Brooke family; the forever feuding Brookes themselves (although in the present century they are pale shadows of the energetic giants of the last century represented by Rajah James and Rajah Charles, the first and second rulers.)\n\nThe author's style is an entertaining and revealing approach to the recent history of this always appealing little state. But it is more, for it weaves the characters and episodes into the major serious issues which have confronted Sarawak in its journey from the status of a backwater private estate into the modern \"third-world\" of Southeast Asia. Such issues as the propriety of the Brooke cession of the territory to the British crown following World War II; and the very real issue of economic modernization in balance with the protection and preservation of traditional ways and rights. The pages on the development of political awareness and activity among the various ethnic groups is most interesting.\n\nThe one major criticism of the work is that the author can't seem to make up his mind whether the Brookes were progressive or conservators of the traditional status quo as regards economic and social policies. On pages 9 and 10 Rajah Charles was \"preparing\" the way for drastic change as the state moved into the twentieth century. But in summing up two pages later the author decided that Rajah Charles was \"opposed\" to change that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209864, "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-1983", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "101\n\nThe\n\nThere are two similar settlements nearer the Police Station. boatpeople's huts are designed on the model of a sampan or junk, it would seem. Almost certainly the boatpeople are a sign of a non-Chinese element in the population. Several fires have happened, the last in 1930, since when galvanised iron has become popular as roofing, replacing the older roofing of woven palm leaf matting.\n\nTemple funds are often applied to small public works, and in such cases the District Officer gives dollar for dollar from his vote. Works such as repairing tracks, or steps to the water, or paving streets in Tai O often use this source of funding. The District Officer often holds court in the charge room of the Police Station, which is one of the coolest and healthiest in the Territory.\n\nA little to the south of Tai O is Yi O (“Second Heaven\"), which is a mere village, and a little further south again Tsin Yu Wan (\"Arrow Fish Bay\") which has a beautiful sandy beach with a temple, but is otherwise deserted.\n\n1.1\n\n0\n\nOn the extreme south-west tip of Lantau is Shek Sun (“Stone Bamboo-shoots\") on a typical dumb-bell isthmus of sand between two bays. The isthmus connects Lantau proper with the low granite hills forming Fan Lau point which is the end of British territory in this direction. On one hill is an ancient fort, thought to be Dutch; if so, it was probably built and occupied at the time of their attack on Macao in 1622. (The failure of this attack led to the Dutch occupying Taiwan in Formosa, thus drawing Chinese settlers there, who expelled them about fifty years later.) The fort may, however, in fact be Chinese. The name of this village probably comes from the way the boulders stick out of the hills above it, like low pillars.\n\nThere are some fields on the hill above Shek Sun enclosed by dry-stone walls: evidently these were once used for dry crops, but they are now abandoned. They were not pastures: animals are never enclosed when grazing.\n\nTurning to the south coast of Lantau, and moving eastwards from Fan Lau Point, you see in succession three valleys each with a group of villages, all of which are purely agricultural and fishing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210932, "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-1986", "page_number": 282, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "265\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nMORE ABOUT THE KOWLOON WALLED CITY\n\nThe Kowloon Walled City, situated to the north of the present Kai Tak Airport, was the most important military base in the Hong Kong region during the later Ch'ing Dynasty. It was built in the 27th year of Tao Kuang (1847) to strengthen the fortification of Kowloon.1\n\nThe first invasion that it faced was not of British troops but of Chinese bandits. On the 26th day of the Seventh Moon in the 4th year of Hsien Feng (1854), bandits under Lo Ah-tim2 took possession of the Walled City. Seven days later, on the 4th day of the leap Seventh Moon of the same year, imperial forces under Cheung Yu-tang recaptured the Walled City. The fighting lasted for only one day, over thirty bandits were killed, and only two soldiers, Liu Tat-bong and Lam Yu-ping*T, died. Since then, the Walled City remained under the rule of the Ch'ing Government.\n\n3\n\nThen in the 24th year of Kuang Hsu (1898), the New Territories was leased to the British. The following terms were stipulated by treaty: \"The Chinese officials stationed there (i.e. the Kowloon City) shall continue to exercise jurisdiction, except so far as may be inconsistent with the military requirements for the defence of Hong Kong. Within the remainder of the newly-leased territory, Great Britain shall have sole jurisdiction. Chinese officials and people shall be allowed as heretofore to use the road from Kowloon to Hsinan. It is further agreed that the existing landing place near Kowloon City shall be reserved for the convenience of Chinese men-of-war, merchant and passenger vessels, which may come and go and lie there at their pleasure; and for the convenience of movement of the officials and people within the city.”\n\nHowever, in the 25th year of Kuang Hsu (1899), when the British encountered strong resistance to the occupation of the New Territories,\" according to Chinese sources, they asked for the help of the Ch'ing Government. Six hundred soldiers were then sent to assist the Brigadier of the Tai Pang Battalion to suppress the upris-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210933, "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-1986", "page_number": 283, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "266\n\ning in the New Territories. Unfortunately, the British misunderstood that the soldiers were sent there to assist the uprising.\n\nWith this as an excuse, the British invaded the Walled City on the 8th day of the Fourth Moon (i.e. 19th May) and drove away the Imperial officials and the three hundred soldiers.\n\nThis ended the Ch'ing rule over the Kowloon Walled City.\n\nHong Kong, June 1987\n\nAnthony K. K. SIU\n\nNOTES\n\n2\n\nSee JHKBRAS 20(1980): 139-141.\n\nThey were said to be Hakka stone workers and Triad members.\n\nCheung Yu-tang E, a native of Wai Chau H, was a Fu-cheung #or Brigadier of the Tai Pang Battalion in 1854. He was stationed in the Walled City for thirteen years. Then he retired in the 5th year of Tung Chih (1866) and died four years later in the 9th year of Tung Chih (1870) at the age of 76.\n\nSee Chapter 82 of the Kwangchow Fu Chi, Kuang Hsu edition 廣州府志卷八十二,\n\n5 See the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong, 1898 (signed at Peking, 9th June, 1898): Treaties between China and Foreign States Vol. 1, P. 539-540. Shang-hai, 1917.\n\n6 See Despatches and other Papers relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1899.\n\nSee the Report of Viceroy Tam Chung-lun and Governor Luk Chuen-lam of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces to the Imperial Court on the Lease of Kowloon Customs and her territory on the 9th day of the 4th moon in the 25th year of the Kuang Hsu Reign (1899).\n\nSee the Report of Viceroy Tam Chung-lun and Governor Luk Chuen-lam of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces to the Imperial Court on the British Occupation of the Kowloon City and the French Occupation of Ng Chuen and Shui Kai Prefectures 奧督撫譚鈺麟鹿傳霖泰英人佔據九龍城法人圖佔吳川遂溪兩縣請飭籌 on the 15th day of the 5th moon in the 25th year of Kuang Hsu (1899).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210993, "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": 55, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "30\n\nKOWLOON WALLED CITY: \n\nITS ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY \n\nELIZABETH SINN \n\nThe Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong is one of history's great anomalies. Until recently, it was a place over which two governments claimed jurisdiction but with neither actively administering it; anarchy reigned while secret societies presided. Above the maze of dark filthy narrow alleys with open drains hovered high-rise apartment buildings, constructed with neither respect nor reference to Hong Kong's building ordinances. Drug pedlars, addicts, pimps and prostitutes operated openly in this favoured hideout for criminals. Small factories, some supplying food for the rest of the territory, proliferated beyond the prying eye of factory and sanitary inspectors. For many years it did not have any water supply. Dentists and doctors unable to register with the Hong Kong government served the poor while lining their own pockets and upholding their professional dignity. Outsiders were immediately recognized and suspiciously watched. The Kowloon Walled City, in fact, was a world unto its own.\n\nIt has always aroused curiosity, and fear, and few dared venture inside. Since the announcement in January, 1987 of its demolition under the auspices of both the British and Chinese governments, interest has multiplied. Hardly a day passes now without some group of visitors trooping down the alleys hoping to see this unique physical, legal, historical and social edifice before it is gone forever. But, in a way, the City remains an enigma. This paper attempts to unveil some of the mystery by tracing the origin of the historical anomaly and revealing its pre-War development and the unusual role it played in the history of the region.\n\nThe City's site at the northeastern corner of Kowloon peninsula was first fortified in 1668 when a signal station was established. About 1810, a small — and according to one account, “miserable”\n\nDr. Sinn is Resources Officer at the History Department, University of Hong Kong. Her book on the history of the Tung Wah Hospital will appear shortly. Author's note: I am grateful to Mrs. Eunice Price, Mr. Liang Tao and Dr. James Hayes for drawing my attention to many interesting sources.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210994, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "31\n\n- fort was built at the head of the beach.' Its strategic, administrative and economic position remained relatively insignificant until the British occupied Hong Kong Island in 1841. In 1843, after the ratification of the Treaty of Nanking, the hsün-chien (Assistant Magistrate) of the Hsin-an county, with administrative responsibilities for 491 villages, was transferred there.2 Also transferred there was the Commodore of Ta-p'eng, the chief military officer of the county, and the garrison was increased to 150.3\n\nIt soon became apparent that these measures were not enough. In 1846, Ch'i-ying, the Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, further memorialized the imperial court pointing out the exposed position of the site, and suggested constructing a “walled-city” (tsai-ch'eng) mounted with cannon. He also proposed building offices and barracks, not only to provide accommodations for the civil and military personnel who had hitherto been billeted in private homes, but also facilities for drilling. Such measures, he felt, would have a “constraining effect” on the barbarian base in Hong Kong, and would greatly strengthen the coastal defence of the area.\n\nThe wall was completed in 1847, and the “Kowloon Walled City\" came into being.\n\nReports on the dimensions of the wall varied. As described by James Stewart Lockhart, who reconnoitred the newly leased territory in 1898, it formed a rough parallelogram measuring 700 ft. by 400 ft., enclosing an area of 6.5 acres. It was built of granite ashlar facing, 15 ft. in width at the top, and averaged 13 ft. in height. There were six watch towers and four gateways, with doors of wood lined with iron sheeting. Officially the main gate was the South Gate over which the four characters “Chiu-lung tsai-ch'eng” (Kowloon Walled City) were engraved, but it seems that the East Gate, which opened onto the market place, saw the most traffic. The parapet had 119 embrasures and an unknown number of cannon were mounted. At a later date, the wall was extended from the northern corners up the hill behind, forming the apex of a triangle at the top. The knoll, known both as White Crane Hill and Twin Phoenix Hill, had a number of romantic legends associated with it.4 With large boulders perched precariously on its slopes,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210998, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "35 \n\npirates carried out a vicious attack on the s.s. Namoa. Some suspects were arrested in Hong Kong and two of them were committed for trial, but they were released for lack of evidence. Those arrested in Kowloon were less fortunate, for they were convicted and beheaded on the beach in front of the City, with British officials invited to witness the execution.\" The Chinese were of course also interested in keeping Chinese waters free of pirates and joint efforts were made to this end.\n\n18 \n\nOfficials at Kowloon performed more than their strictly official duties. Numerous temple inscriptions testify to their active involvement with the community activities of the territory, on both sides of the border.\" The stone tablet over the entrance of the Pei-ti Temple at Wanchai, with the temple's name inscribed in Chang Yu-t'ang's calligraphy is particularly significant.\n\n29 \n\n30 \n\nThe Chinese community in British Hong Kong were obviously very aware of the Chinese official presence across the harbour. Sometimes they looked to it for protection. For instance in 1886 when it was rumoured that 500 children would be required to consecrate the Tytam Water Works, children were sent to Kowloon City for protection, to the extent that hardly any child was to be seen anywhere for two days.\"\n\n31 \n\nThe Chinese in Hong Kong also looked to Kowloon as a source of authority and patronage, and this was most clearly seen in 1896 when the first Chinese Chamber of Commerce opened in Hong Kong. As was customary, rites were performed before the Kuan-ti M, or martial god. The Kowloon Commodore, Ch’en Kun-shan 120!!, officiated, as the dragon flag of Ch’ing China fluttered above,32 as if to establish the Chineseness of the occasion. Not surprisingly this display of loyalty to Chinese officialdom incurred the resentment of the local English press. The Daily Press leader lamented that the Hong Kong Governor had not been invited to officiate instead, and saw this as a move \"to insult the established order of the colony\".\" This, in fact, suggests that to some of the foreign community at least, Kowloon, as a Chinese base, was too close for comfort.\n\nThere were other problems. Gambling, prohibited in Hong\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210999, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "35 \n\nKong except for a short interval between 1867 and 1871, was a major attraction of Kowloon City.” Gambling houses fronting the beach offered free launch services and carried on a thriving business. This caused so much consternation in Hong Kong that, after a series of stunning embezzlement cases and a connection with the gambling \"hells” of Kowloon had been established, the Hong Kong government passed an ordinance making it an offence for civil servants to visit Kowloon for the purpose of gambling. Under pressure from the Hong Kong government in the late 1890s, Chinese officials actually suppressed gambling. Ironically, it was under “British rule” in the twentieth century that gambling was re-introduced. But it was only after the Second World War, when Hong Kong prohibited brothels and opium that the Walled City was transformed into the squalid enclave of vice for which it later became notorious.\n\n36 \n\nThe City had other attractions. Both the Walled City and the fort had been frequently visited by foreigners since the 1850s. It was the terminal point of several interesting walks on the mainland popular with European residents. They were not required to produce passes or go through other kinds of formalities normally required in a garrison town. Often at the end of an excursion, visitors took a quick walk around the wall, snapped a few pictures of \"this curious and particularly dirty town\", and left for the Island by launch from the Lung-chin jetty.\n\nThe great change came in 1899. In the previous year, the Convention of Peking had been signed between China and Britain leasing territory south of the Shumchun river to Britain. However, in face of strong Chinese insistence on retaining jurisdiction in the Kowloon Walled City, the British agreed to include a clause that \"within the city of Kowloon the Chinese officials now stationed there shall continue to exercise jurisdiction except so far as may be inconsistent with the military requirement to the defence of Hong Kong.\" This reservation of Chinese jurisdiction upset many sectors of British interest, not least of all, foreign residents in Hong Kong, all seeing this Chinese enclave in the midst of a British administered territory a security risk.\n\nThe matter came to a head in 1899. The Hong Kong govern-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211000, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "37\n\nment, when attempting in April to occupy the New Territory (as the New Territories were then called), encountered much more ferocious resistance than anticipated. At this juncture, 600 men were sent into the Kowloon Walled City by the Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, and the British authorities, convinced that they were there to support the resistance, demanded their withdrawal. The Colonial Office went so far as to threaten starving out the garrison at the City until troops were removed.41 The Chinese, however, claimed that the troops had been sent by special request of the Hong Kong government to preserve order, and though some of the men were withdrawn, by 4th May, 200 were still stationed in the City.42\n\nThis prompted the British to take action to attack Shumchun and Kowloon City as punishment for the Governor-General's duplicity in abetting the local resistance. On 16th May, at 3:00 p.m., a force of 300 men consisting of Royal Welsh Fusiliers and 100 Hong Kong Volunteers proceeded to Kowloon and occupied it, apparently meeting little resistance.43 All Chinese civil and military officials were ordered to depart as the British claimed that their continued presence and the retention of Kowloon Walled City in Chinese hands had proven inconsistent to British military requirement. To “legalize” the situation, an Order-in-Council was issued in December, announcing British jurisdiction over the Walled City which was to be administered in the same manner as the rest of the Colony.44 Yet this remained a unilateral revision of the Convention which the Chinese government never recognized.\n\n44\n\n45\n\n46\n\nThe Chinese naturally responded bitterly to the development. T'an Chung-lin, the Governor-General, protested vehemently to the court of the undignified manner in which the military officers and soldiers were cast out.45 At Peking, the Tsungli Yamen complained to the British Minister.46 Chinese eagerness to recover jurisdiction at Kowloon is best revealed in the letters from Lo Feng-lu****, Chinese Minister at St. James, to the Foreign Office.Yet, paradoxically, this eagerness was not accompanied by action; no attempt was made by the Chinese to reinstate an administration in the Walled City.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211025, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "62\n\ndeterioration in the relations between the Chinese and the British communities as the colonial authorities struggled to contain the first outbreak of the Bubonic Plague. Some of the less educated Chinese rioted because medical and sanitary precautions intruded on their property rights. Others, estimated as at least 80,000, fled Hong Kong. And many panicked because of superstitious rumours similar to those which were beginning to spread in China about the activities of the Western missionaries.38 It would be interesting to discover Mok Man Cheung's attitudes and activities during these tense years. The last time his name appears in the Blue Book as Chinese Clerk and Translator at the Supreme Court is 1898. It seems probable, therefore, that he left Government service at the end of 1898 or early in 1899 and, aided perhaps by family connections, entered the even more profitable undertaking of serving as an assistant compradore for a major European trading company. In January 1899, he made first use of his career experience as an interpreter and translator by publishing a very substantial (2,717 pages) English-Chinese Dictionary, entitled Ta Tsz's Dictionary, a project more notable for its industry than its originality.\n\n40\n\nShortly after he left Government service as a translator at the Supreme Court, the cause célèbre was the assassination of a radically-minded (Sun Yat-sen supporting) school teacher in his own classroom by gunmen hired by the police chief in Canton. Relations between the British, many of whom were shocked at the \"gross and daring violation of British territory” by the Chinese Imperial Government, and the Chinese in Hong Kong did not improve as a result.\n\n41\n\nIn that year (1901), Mok Man Cheung was on the compradorial staff of Butterfield and Swire, one of the leading European Hongs in Hong Kong. Thereafter, he remained in the business of commercial go-betweening, both as a fully-fledged compradore and as a free-lance \"commission agent\". In 1910, he was appointed a non-official Justice of the Peace. His name appears in the Hong Kong Government's Blue Book on the list of JPs from 1910 to 1917. One may, therefore assume that he died at the end of 1917 or very early in the year 1918.42 In 1918, his name also disappears", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211174, "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": 235, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "210\n\nloving wife, as a devoted mother, and as an excellent grandmother to her children's children.\n\nHer Majesty's life was a model for all, for \"in her private life she has been almost irreproachable and her conduct has been such as to draw forth the admiration of nearly the whole world (applause).\"\n\nThe meeting began with sentiments no loyal son of the Empire could deny. After the chairman's stirring tribute there was no doubt that the meeting would be of one mind on the resolution he proposed: “That the Jubilee of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen should be celebrated by her loyal subjects in Hongkong.”\n\nAbout halfway through the meeting the Acting Attorney-General, Mr. E. J. Ackroyd, again expounded patriotic reasons for the proposed celebrations. He extended the sentiments expressed in the chairman's introductory speech.\n\nThough he had arisen to second a resolution made by Mr. Chater that the permanent memorial in Hongkong to the celebration be in the form of a park in the Wongneichong Valley, he seized the occasion for a bit of oratory which was only indirectly related to the resolution.\n\nHe began: \"This is a special occasion which ought to call forth the loyal sentiments of all Her Majesty's subjects, for on June 20 next we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Her Majesty's accession to the throne of the British Empire.\"\n\nIt was an occasion for reflection on the achievements of a glorious half century of Britain's history: \"If we look back on the years that have passed since that event, I think we must do so with feelings of great pride in view of the immense progress made on all sides during this period.\"\n\nThe speaker then enumerated various areas in which progress was particularly notable: \"If we consider the expansion of the empire itself, we shall find it has been wonderful, both as regards the extent of territory and of population. During these years trade", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211256, "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": 317, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "292\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nPamela Atwell, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers: the British Administration of Weihaiwei (1898-1930) and the Territory's Return to Chinese Rule, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. 302 + xxiii pp. Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Glossary (with Chinese characters), Index.\n\nThe year was 1898 and the sun was setting on the Ch'ing dynasty which had ruled the Chinese Empire since 1644. China's defeat by Japan in 1895 had revealed its weaknesses once more to the world. Foreign powers sought to take advantage of the vulnerability of the Ch'ing government to intensify their demands for territorial and economic concessions. The Powers rushed, or \"scrambled\", to attain their objectives before others could get to them first.\n\nIn one respect, the Powers had the support of Chinese officials, who, implementing traditional Chinese policy of using barbarians to control barbarians, sought to achieve a balance of power in China. By 1898, the Russians built a naval base at Port Arthur while the Germans established their presence over the province of Shantung. In April 1898, the Chinese government leased Weihaiwei to Britain. Weihaiwei, at the tip of the Kiaochow Peninsula in northern Shantung, was then occupied by the Japanese. It was hoped that, from this vantage, the British would be able to counter Russian and German strength in North China, and all of them would keep out the Japanese.\n\nThe British stayed at Weihaiwei until 1930, when it was returned to Chinese administration. During the interim, the Kaiser and the Tsar had collapsed and China had gone through the Boxers uprising, a series of reforms, a revolution that toppled the Ch'ing dynasty, a period of disunity and warlord rule, and, finally, the establishment of the National Government at Nanking led by Chiang Kai-shek in 1927. The rise of Chinese nationalism increased demand for rendition of all foreign concessions in China, including Weihaiwei.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211619, "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": 34, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "recounts that the crew of the Sulphur landed on Hong Kong island on Monday 25 January” and as 'the bona fide first possessors' drank the health of Queen Victoria on Possession Mount. Then 'On the 26th the squadron arrived; the marines were landed, the union hoisted on our post, and formal possession taken of the island, by Commodore Sir J. G. Bremer, accompanied by the other officers of the squadron, under a feu-de-joie from the marines, and a royal salute from the ships of war'.\" Bremer himself was no more expansive. In his official despatch to R. More O'Ferrall M.P. at the Admiralty, written on 24 February but received only on 8 June 1841, Bremer reported that on 26 January he proceeded to Hong Kong ‘and took formal possession of the island, and hoisted the colours on it, with the usual salutes and ceremonies'.\n\n12\n\nNews of the acquisition of the island of Hong Kong became public knowledge in England on the morning of Friday 9 April 1841, but yet again there was no description of the ceremony of possession. On this day Elliot's circular of 20 January was printed in The Times, and it was discussed in an optimistic editorial: it was considered good news because Hong Kong was much more convenient for trade than Macao and a settlement there would be able to maintain itself independently of the Chinese.\" By the following day the tone of the editorial had changed. Its author wrote that 'the nominal cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British crown, though apparently promising considerable advantages to our mercantile interests, has been clogged with conditions which in practice may substantially defeat them', and then referred to the island as an 'insulated and unfrequented locality'. One factor which may have been decisive in settling on Hong Kong in the negotiations was, as the merchant James Matheson noted, the Chinese language, for such, he felt, is its ambiguity that it is difficult to fix in it a definite meaning.\" Matheson believed that, when Ch'i-shan remarked in one of his communications ‘as we have granted you territory you do not now require another port', Elliot in consequence gave up thoughts of British access to a port in northern China in the hope that he could hold Ch'i-shan to an interpretation of the Chinese characters which meant that the British had been granted the territory of Hong Kong rather than merely being given a trading factory there.'5\n\nTwo letters to The Times published in the same week expressed dissatisfaction with the new British acquisition. The first was dated Macao, 22 January and was presumably written by a merchant: 'Regarding the terms of Captain Elliot's treaty with the Chinese, I have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211621, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "1} \n\nAmerican missionary, the Reverend Elijah Bridgman,1 merely noted the formal possession of the island in its journal of occurrences; it gave no precise date nor any details.24 Another reference in the same journal in a historical review of events in China was only marginally fuller.25 The Canton Press, published at this point from Macao, expressed itself slightly puzzled by the lack of information about the event: 'On Tuesday last, the 26th January, the Island of Hongkong, the new settlement ceded by the Chinese to the English, was taken possession of in the name of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. The English colours were hoisted, and saluted from the ships; we have not yet heard any further particulars of the ceremony.' Two weeks later the incident was mentioned again, but no further details were forthcoming.26 The Canton Register made no mention of the possession of Hong Kong except in the context of Elliot's treaty with Ch'i-shan; it seemed unimpressed by the terms and referred to 'the paltry island of Hong Kong'.\n\n› 28\n\nThe two groups with the most immediate interest in the acquisition of Hong Kong for the British were the merchants and missionaries. Unlike the troops, for whom the possession of the island was just one part of a long and arduous expedition in a foreign and unhealthy part of the world, the merchants and missionaries were already operating from the area and found Chinese restrictions on their movements irksome. And unlike the British government and its officials, the traders and propagators of salvation were most cognizant of the advantages that a piece of British territory in South China would afford them. They were not politically or ideologically committed to punishing China for the 'disrespect' it had shown to Britain. It is not known whether any missionaries attended the ceremony on 26 January, but some merchants who were late to have their fortunes inextricably bound up with the colony turned up to witness its official birth. According to a study of the Indian community of Hong Kong, at least four Indian merchants were present in Hong Kong at the flag-hoisting: Cawasjee Pallanjee, the representative of Cursetjee Bomanjee and Co. of Bombay; F. M. Talati; Albert Sassoon;29 and Rustomjee Dhunjee Shaw of P. F. Cama and Co. of Bombay. James Matheson of Jardine Matheson and Co.30 went from Macao to Hong Kong precisely in order to witness the hoisting of the British flag, and afterwards, as he wrote to William Jardine in a postscript to a letter of 30 January, he circumnavigated the island.32 Thus the future character of the colony can be gauged from the type of person with most to gain from its possession by the British.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212023, "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": 438, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "413\n\nMind Landscapes has been laid out with great beauty and intelligence. It would have been impossible to produce such an outstanding volume without financial support. This was provided through grants from the Henry Art Gallery Association, PONCHO, the University of Washington Press and the J. Paul Getty Trust. Yet it is rare to have such a thoughtful and handsome product even if one has the resources. Kudos is also due to the designer, Douglas Wadden.\n\nThe publication of Mind Landscapes coincides with a major retrospective of C.C. Wang's work and serves as a catalogue to it. This book is a fitting climax to Mr. Wang's career and sets a standard of excellence in its field. Let us hope that young scholars in Asia and the West will take note.\n\nJOAN LEBOLD COHEN\nTufts University\n\nPamela Atwell, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers: the British Administration of Weihaiwei (1898-1930) and the Territory's Return to Chinese Rule, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. 302 + xxiii pp. Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Glossary (with Chinese characters), Index.\n\nThe year was 1898 and the sun was setting on the Ch'ing dynasty which had ruled the Chinese Empire since 1644. China's defeat by Japan in 1895 had revealed its weaknesses once more to the world. Foreign powers sought to take advantage of the vulnerability of the Ch'ing government to intensify their demands for territorial and economic concessions. The powers rushed, or \"scrambled\", to attain their objectives before others could get to them first.\n\nIn one respect, they had the support of Chinese officials, who, implementing traditional Chinese policy of using barbarians to control barbarians, sought to achieve a balance of power in China. By 1898, the Russians had built a naval base at Port Arthur while the Germans had established their presence over the province of Shantung. In April 1898, the Chinese government leased Weihaiwei to Britain. Weihaiwei, at the tip of the Kiaochow Peninsula in northern Shantung, was then occupied by the Japanese. It was hoped that, from this vantage, the British would be able to counter Russian and German strength in North China, and all of them would keep out the Japanese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212034, "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": 449, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "424\n\nthe collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and written text by Craig Clunas, this work is an attractive volume for general readers interested in Chinese furniture.\n\nRobert Ford, Captured in Tibet, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, reprint of 1957 edition. 266 pp. Index, Photographs. This is a reprint of a highly readable account of the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1950, with an additional introduction by the Dalai Lama. The author, seconded by the British Army as a radio communications officer to the Tibetan Army, spent a year as a prisoner of the Red Army.\n\nChristmas Humphreys, A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism, London: Curzon Press, 1984. Paperback reprint, 1987. 224 pp. Little more than a dictionary, this book will be of help to English-readers who need a quick reference to Buddhist terms in Sanscrit, Chinese, or Japanese.\n\nRobin Hutcheon, First Sea Lord — The Life and Work of Sir Y.K. Pao, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990. 170 pp. Index, Photographs. A short commissioned biography written by the former editor of the South China Morning Post, this book is attractively presented with a number of photographs. A definitive study of the shipping and property giant, Sir Y.K. Pao and his phenomenal accomplishments, both in Hong Kong and worldwide, is still required.\n\nNigel Cameron, The Chinese File, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. paperback, 246 pp. Illustrations. First published in 1958 by Hutchison and Co. in London for an English readership, this book has been reprinted by Oxford University Press in Hong Kong. By now, the author is a well-known prolific writer in the territory. Cameron's observations as a serious traveller in China before he became a specialist, on such various topics as the Great Wall, the Minorities, the Deep South, and Sian, are interesting and enlightening.\n\nValery M. Garrett, Mandarin Squares, Oxford Images of Asia Series, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. 66 pp. Bibliography, Glossary, Index, Illustrations. In addition to delightful descriptions of the embroidered squares from court robes of the Qing officials, popularly known by Western collectors as Mandarin Squares, Garrett has presented in this most attractive volume in very simple terms how the Manchus came to the Chinese throne and how young men were trained to become officials.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "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": 212198, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "117\n\nHotel, was Japanese. So were the majority of the photographers' shops. It was known that a proportion of the workers in the Royal Naval Dockyard were Japanese, passing themselves off as Chinese. Even the Chinese could not distinguish between one of their own countrymen and a Japanese after he had lived amongst them sufficiently long to speak the language fluently. There was a police regulation under which all persons entering the Colony of nationality other than British or Chinese must register. But Koreans were classed as Chinese, and so Japanese, who wished to avoid observation, described themselves as Koreans. To overcome the difficulty it would have been necessary to make registration of Chinese compulsory, and that was a task beyond the capacity of the existing police personnel; moreover, the Chinese might have resented such a regulation as a slight on their dignity.\n\nThe Hongkong weekend continued much as usual. You could run your car onto the vehicular ferry, take it over to Kowloon, and drive the 17 miles to the border of the New Territory, either by the road which wound in and out amongst the bays along the coast, or by the road which followed the railway gap through the Kowloon hills; and play golf at the Royal Fanling Golf Club where there were two eighteen hole, and one nine hole, courses. Or you could bathe from one of the numerous beaches, or go on a launch picnic. These last were popular. On Sunday morning the time would be spent taking turns on a surfboard towed behind the launch, or sunbathing on top of the awning; in the afternoon a heavy lunch would offer the lazy an excuse to sleep.\n\nThe Japanese were bombing the railway line between Hongkong and Hankow. In those days the confidence of air enthusiasts in regard to the results which could be achieved by desultory bombing had not yet been discounted by the hard test of experience. Moreover, we were yet to learn of the devotion and sacrifice, the skill and efficiency, of the Chinese railway repair gangs. With a minimum of equipment they performed wonders, and through traffic was seldom interrupted for more than a few hours. I was instructed to reconnoitre an alternative route for the despatch of supplies from Hongkong to Central China against the time when the railway might be finally disrupted. It was a thankless task because opinion in Shanghai continued to assume that the Chinese government would soon collapse under Japanese pressure.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212209, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "128\n\nis an immense shortage of persons qualified to fill the professions; doctors, engineers, chemists, and even lawyers. In the interests of the future all students are automatically exempt from conscription; so are all those of whatever station in life who have escaped from Japanese occupied territory. There would be no inducement to escape otherwise. Under the circumstances we can appreciate the necessity for these exemptions. When recruits are required for the army, a quota is allocated to each district: the magistrate in turn calls for a levy from each village to fill his quota. Those with money or influence can buy off their sons; it is the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden who are taken. They are roped together, with a loop round the left forearm, so that they can still use the bamboo pole to carry a load, and marched off to the training centre. There many die, and others desert. Indeed, there is now a class of professional deserter. If recruiting is going on in a district, these men will turn up and offer to serve in the place of anyone who has the price. They collect their money, march off with the conscripts, and desert at the first opportunity, to repeat the performance elsewhere. There are means in China of tracing missing men back to their families, but amidst the confusion caused by years of war it is easy for the vagabond to give a false name and address.\n\nThere are so many millions of displaced, homeless, nameless people in China now; we should not be too critical of these methods. The wonder is that the Chinese government has been able to carry on at all under such immense difficulties. Instead of an insistence on saving face, and thus misleading world opinion, had there been a reasonable relaxation of the iron censorship in order that the world could learn of the prodigious efforts the Chinese have made, there would, I think, be a better understanding of, and greater sympathy for, China's problems.\n\nThe afternoon of the third day we rolled over the iron bridge that spans the North river, a tributary of the West river, into bomb-shattered Kukong. Here I waited for the train and was fortunate to find a carriage, which had been reserved for a party of British sailors from the crews of the gunboats at Hankow; they were being evacuated to Hongkong, and kindly made room for me in their compartment. The track near Canton had been broken during a recent raid. We had to alight there and make our way to the city as best we could; riding through in a rickshaw I had leisure to observe the extent of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212325, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "244\n\nParsees. At one time, with a German Chairman and an American Deputy Chairman, the Board had no British members. The financial failure of Dent, in 1867, had the effect of freeing the Bank from dependence on any one enterprise and brought about more independent management control. Within months of setting up its headquarters in Hong Kong a branch was opened in London, and further branches were established in San Francisco (1875), New York (1880), Lyons (1881) and Hamburg (1889). By the 1880s The Hong Kong Bank had become banker to the Hong Kong Government, and to this day it is, in effect, the Central Bank of the Territory.\n\nWorld War I proved a difficult period, and its German directors resigned shortly after hostilities commenced. The Bank resumed its leading position in China and the Far East in the 1920s and 30s. Like the Chartered Bank, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank's branch in Shanghai operated without interruption all through the Cultural Revolution.\n\nToday 'Wardley' is the name of an investment company associated with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. In 1864, Wardley House (demolished in 1882 when its new bank building was completed) was the first premises of the Bank. William Henry Wardley was a staff member of Gibb Livingston. He started his own firm about 1850. Although the company was taken over by F.B. Johnson and James Bowman the name was retained. It stopped trading about 1861, before the Bank was established. But the name, Wardley, has been perpetuated.\n\nThe Mercantile Bank\n\nThe old Mercantile Bank can be traced back to October 1853, with the founding of the Mercantile Bank of Bombay. Within two months it had become the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, a co-partnership of four Indian proprietors and four British. An office was opened in London almost immediately, and other offices, in 1854, in Madras, Colombo and Kandy. In 1855 branches started at Calcutta, Singapore, Canton, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Comparing these dates with the Chartered Bank, Mercantile got off to a quicker start, although both banks were established in the same year. Mercantile had a branch in Hong Kong, for example, four years before Chartered.\n\nSkipping a century, in 1958 the name was shortened to ‘Mercantile", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212402, "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": 344, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "321\n\nDudden's work is essentially narrative history based upon Western-language secondary sources. Beginning with a summary of early American involvement in the China trade, he proceeds to describe the United States' acquisition of and subsequent relations with Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines. After surveying the contrasting course of American dealings with Japan and China up to World War I, he covers the Pacific War, the beginning of the Cold War, and American intervention in Korea and Vietnam. A final chapter deals with the somewhat ambiguous developments of the past two decades.\n\nThe early portion of the book tells the fascinating story of how the American Republic gained its two last states and its largest colony. An irredeemably commercial nation, the United States purchased two large tracts of its own territory, Louisiana from the Emperor Napoleon I of France in 1803 and Alaska from the Russian Tsar Alexander II in 1867. Until 1910 the near exclusive domain of fur trading companies and gold miners, Alaska's sparse population and remoteness meant that, despite its mineral wealth, only in 1958 did it win statehood. Not until 1778, when Captain James Cook's final expedition landed there, did Westerners discover the Hawaiian islands, \"the most isolated archipelago in the world\". Once found, they became a magnet attracting American whalers, merchants, and missionaries. In the 1820s the last group assisted Queen Kaahumanu, one of the widows of King Kamehameha the Great, 'a six-foot, three-hundred-pound, strong-willed beauty', to overthrow the dominant religious kapu system which among other things banned women from exercising political power. From then onwards successive rulers were under the tutelage of Americans, who eliminated the native religion, advised the monarchs, and introduced private property rights in land. Soon afterwards, American sugar and pineapple interests acquired large holdings, which would dominate Hawaiian economic and political life until after World War II. In the 1890s the efforts of the anti-American Queen Liliuokalani to restore the powers of the monarchy led to a coup, backed by American sugar interests, and suggestions that the United States annex the islands, also long coveted by French, German, and British imperialists. Congress initially rejected the suggestion, but in 1898, in the war-generated expansionism of the Spanish-American War, reversed itself. Hawaii would become a major American naval base, a centre of tourism, and a focus of Japanese immigration: the attack on Pearl Harbour", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212627, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "161\n\nwhich could talk sceptical generals into agreeing to his suggestions. Not that the generals were not most co-operative: they usually went out of their way to meet us. In fact, we found it was true here, as it is always true of all wars, that the best elements of the nation were up at the front.\n\nIn May, the party of two Americans and one Englishman, already mentioned as having escaped from Shanghai, came through our camp, and I decided to proceed with them, in the lorry by which our two officer reinforcements had arrived, to the headquarters of the British Military Mission in Hunan. There were so many things of which we were in urgent need, and the replies to our signals were so vague, this seemed the best course. We covered the 1500 kilometres to Hengyang in six days. After a night spent with American missionary friends, we were turned out at dawn by an alert, and we were picking our way in the lorry through the crowds making for the countryside, when I saw an officer in British uniform moving with the crowd. I stopped to speak to him and discovered he was a Russian doctor, who had been recruited in China the year before for work with the British Army in Burma. He had been granted leave to proceed to Eastern China to try and get into touch with his wife to get her out of occupied territory. He was making his own way as best he could, had arrived by train that morning, as the alert sounded, and so found himself moving into the country with the crowd. His hope of reaching Eastern China without adequate credentials was vain. I suggested he should jump into our lorry and go back to Headquarters, to return with me to Chin Ya, as I felt sure his best hope of getting into touch with his wife would be through our guerilla connections. That was a great stroke of luck because one of our most pressing needs was a doctor and medical supplies, and Dr. Petro was to remain with us for half a year and do much very useful work. The Mission had no other doctor they could spare for us.\n\nAt Headquarters there was a good deal of confusion as the British troops were on the move, and then received counterorders. I was disappointed in my hope of receiving any further officer reinforcements, and all that could be spared in the explosive line was mostly ammonal. Ammonal is an explosive with a slower rate of detonation, so that it has more of a pushing or lifting effect. It is used for cratering roads and destroying buildings, and though that type of demolition was not likely to be of much use to us, it was better than nothing. It comes packed in 25 lb tins, about the size of 5-gallon kerosene tins. Two tins of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212758, "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": 67, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "52\n\nbecoming increasingly financially desperate.\n\nHis fourth volume on better paper, weekly fascicules published on Sunday instead of Saturday as in previous volumes, begins with a photo of himself in Chinese robes with his mandarin's cap beside him in the manner of Chinese officials in the standard photographs of themselves. He apologised for the delay between Volumes III and IV, from 1899 to 1905, some five years, because he had been overwhelmed with misfortune and had lost all his savings at a stroke.' In the final fascicule in June 1905 he advised readers that he was unable to afford to continue the Miscellany but would be publishing Mesny's Commercial Guide from that date. In June 1905 after the completion of Volume IV he expresses gratitude to his subscribers but was, he regretted, unable to undertake the publication of a fifth volume as yet due to insufficient support.\n\nDuring almost the entire six months of the production of the weekly parts of Volume IV Telegrams of the Week reflected the mounting excitement of the Russo-Japanese War and contained hundreds of items detailing the departure, the 'secret' journey and arrival of the Russian Baltic fleet in the Far East ending with its catastrophic defeat by the Japanese navy in the Tsushima Straits at the end of May in 1905. The unfolding picture of the Russian navy's progress, route and activities from their almost inexplicable attack on British fishing vessels in the North Sea [believing them to be Japanese torpedo boats] to the devastating destruction off Japan makes compulsive reading, and though of secondary interest as far as Mesny was concerned, the series continued to highlight the fear entertained by the Chinese of Russia swallowing up further large parts of northern Chinese territory.\n\nTwo questions stand out: did he ever get round to a fifth volume? and what happened to all the unused notes he must have had stored away?\n\nFrom an advert in the second to last issue of the Miscellany Volume IV, it is possible that Mesny, giving up the idea of the Miscellany, perhaps only temporarily, requires a 'Job Printing Plant' suitable for printing a small daily newspaper and a small illustrated magazine (nfd). It may be a coincidence but most likely there is a connexion. An advert in the very next Miscellany, the final issue, offers Mesny's Commercial Guide to be published immediately after the completion of Volume IV of the Miscellany.\n\nFrom Mesny's own hand we learn that he frequently advised senior", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212809, "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": 118, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "316\n\nMESNY'S CHINESE MISCELLANY\n\n1420. HSIANG SHAN HSIEH ш:-\n\nThe Hsiang Shan Brigade, composed of two regiments. Each regiment is commanded by a Tu-stu, Major, who has a Shou-pei, or Second Major, for his Adjutant. At the same time the Major commanding the Left Wing Regiment performs the duties of Brigade-Major and Adjutant to the Brigadier-General. Each regiment is divided into two Shao or companies, called in both cases the Tso Yu Shao, or Left and Right (Wing) companies. Each company is commanded by a Ch'ien-tsung, Captain, who is assisted by a Tou Ssu Pa-tsung, First-Lieutenant, and a Er-ssu Pa-tsung, Second-Lieutenant, thus giving a total of seventeen officers for the whole brigade, besides the usual complement of non-commissioned officers and men.\n\n1421. TA PENG HSIEH :-The Ta Peng Hsich Brigade stationed at Chinese Kowloong, opposite the British Colony of Hong-kong.\n\nThe brigade as usual is commanded by a Brigadier-General, Fu Chiang, or Isich Tai, called Hip Toi in Cantonese.\n\nThe brigade has a Tu-ssu, Major, as Adjutant to the General, but it is composed of two battalions, only each commanded by a Shou-pei or Second-Major. Each battalion is divided into the usual Left and Right (Wing) Companies or Shao, having a Ch'ien-tsung for Captain to each Company, with Tou and a Er-ssu Pa-tsung, First and Second-Lieutenant, besides the usual number of non-commissioned officers and men, thus giving a total of sixteen officers.\n\n1422. CHIEH SHIH CHEN # #- The Chieh Shih Chen division, composed of a staff corps or Chên Piao of three regiments and a territorial regiment called the Ping Hai Ying.\n\nJan. 9th, 1896.\n\nmanded by a Ts'an Chiang, or Colonel. Each regiment has a Shou-pei, or Second-Major as adjutant.\n\nThe Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the central regiment acts as the General's Adjutant. Each regiment is divided into the usual left and right wing companies, and is commanded by a Chien tsung, Captain, assisted by a Tou-ssá Pa-tsung, First-Lieutenant, and a Er-ssu Pa-tsung, Second-Lieutenant, in each case, thus giving a total of twenty-four officers for the staff corps, besides the usual complement of non-commissioned officers and men to each regiment, besides the General.\n\n1423. PING HAI YING\n\nThe division is commanded by a Tsung Ping, or Chen Tai, Lieutenant-General. The central and left wing regiments of the staff corps are each commanded by a Yu-chi, Lieutenant-Colonel; the Right Wing Regiment is commanded by a Tu-ssu, or Major, the Territorial Regiment is commanded by a Ts'an Chiang, Colonel.\n\n-The Ping Hai Regiment. This territorial regiment, as I have said, forms part of the Chieh Shih division, and is commanded by a Ts'an Chiang, Colonel, who has a Shou-pei, or Second-Major, for his Adjutant. The regiment is also divided into two companies, each having a Chien-tsung, Captain, a Tou-ssŭ Pa-tsung, First-Lieutenant, and a Er-ssŭ Pa-tsung, Second-Lieutenant, that gives eight officers, besides non-commissioned officers and men.\n\n1424. NAN AO CHÊN YU YING ★ UЯ6\n\n-The Nan Ao (or Namao as it is pronounced locally) division has but two staff regiments, Tso Yu Liang Ying, and one of them, the left wing regiment, is paid and equipped by the government of Fu-kien province, as the station is partly in Fu-kien territory and partly only in Kuang-tung territory. The Right Wing Regiment, belonging to this province, is commanded by a Yu-chi, Lieutenant-Colonel, who has a Shou-pei, Second-Major, for his Adjutant.\n\nThe regiment is divided into two Shao or companies, each commanded by a Chien-tsung, Captain, assisted by a First and Second-Lieutenant, thus giving nine officers, including the General, besides the usual complement of non-commissioned officers and men. Beside its staff regiments the Nan Ao division has two territorial regiments and one territorial battalion in the Kuang-tung province.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212820, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "114\n\nits population. With the fall of Tengyueh, soon after, the rebellion was finally suppressed. Survivors of Sultan Suleiman's family took refuge with King Mindon at the Court of Ava in Mandalay. Two years later a British consular official, Margary, who had been appointed with the consent of the Chinese government to accompany a British expedition, which was to leave Bhamo to explore a commercial route to Tengyueh - now called Tengchung - was murdered under treacherous circumstances near the latter town. It was thought at the time, but not proven, that a Chinese official, named Li Su Tai, whose mother was Burmese, was implicated: the incident led to negotiations between the Chinese and British governments and was settled by the Chefoo Convention.\n\nAfter the British occupied Mandalay and Upper Burma in 1885 they sought to define the boundary between Burma and China. The question was not found to be easy because the Chinese advanced claims to large sections of territory which had obviously been part of the Kingdom of Ava. However, a considerable length of boundary was agreed upon and marked by enormous stones: they are the size of a small cottage, I suppose to discourage easy removal, and each stone is numbered and its position is marked on the quarter-inch map. The length of border left undefined made for an unsatisfactory situation, not unlike that between the United States and Mexico before that boundary was fixed, or like the situation which now exists on the border between China and Tibet. Various attempts were subsequently made to agree the undelimitated part of the boundary, and by 1942 only a stretch of the frontier from just N.W. of Tengchung up to Tilset remained undemarcated.\n\nThe railway from Haiphong, through Indo-China, reached Kun-ming in the early years of this century and so opened the province to French influence; whether, however, owing to strong local conservatism or a lack of enterprise on the part of the French, their influence appears to have left little mark. It was only with the opening of the Burma road in 1939 that Yunnan for the first time felt the full impact of the modern world.\n\nI had had no previous experience of western China. I knew that Lung Yun, the Old Dragon, as the Governor of Yunnan was generally called, had for long been almost independent of the National Government. It was only with the transfer of Government troops to Burma through Yunnan in 1942, and their subsequent retreat to Yunnan, where they remained, that the Chungking government had established a partial", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212822, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "116\n\nAmerican air forces based in China and to the extensive establishments supplied to train and equip the Chinese Expeditionary Force, as the army which had been built up in Yunnan by the Chungking government to assist in driving the Japanese out of Burma was called.\n\nI was sent to Kun-ming to see about giving assistance to the Myosa of Kokang, prince of a small Burmese border state. The longest unnavigable river in the world, the Salween, rises in Tibet, flows through China, and enters Burma at about the level of Bhamo. For a stretch the river flows from east to west; to the north of it the territory is still China, to the south lies Kokang. The river then leaves China altogether, bends south, and lower down at Kunlong receives the Nam Ting flowing in from the east. The Nam Ting forms the southern boundary of Kokang, while the mountain-tops that divide the Salween watershed from the next river to the east form the state's eastern boundary. The stones marking this boundary were set up in 1898 as a result of the agreements made at that time. Kokang also spreads across the Salween to the territories of the large Shan state of North Shenwi, of which Kokang is actually a sub-state. The greater part of Kokang though is sandwiched between the Salween and China. Kunlong is the site of one of the most frequented of the Salween ferries, and it is down the valley of the Nam Ting that the projected railway from Kun-ming to Lashio, connecting China with Burma, will run. The embankments to carry the line had been nearly completed before the Japanese advance into Burma put an end to the work. To the south of the Nam Ting are situated the Wa states, inhabited by wild head-hunting tribes.\n\nThe Myosa of Kokang was a most loyal subject of the British crown, and because of that loyalty he was to suffer great injuries. When the Japanese advanced up the length of Burma in 1942, the British troops, who were covering the western flank, that is the flank towards India, withdrew into India. The civil administrative staff of the Shan States also withdrew to the west, while the Chinese armies, on the eastern flank,\n\n\"One British administrative officer, Evans, withdrew from Kengtung, away to the south of Kokang, into south-west Yunnan. He had established cordial relations with the Chinese troops there, and with their assistance organised local levies, drawn from the dispersed ranks of the Burma Rifle regiments; he used these to wage a small campaign of his own against the enemy until he was killed during an assault on a position manned by Siamese troops. He died unknown, unsupported, unrewarded, but not unsung, because at a time when throughout the East the British star was thought to have set for all time, this lonely man left a record of British pluck which will long be remembered on the border.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212839, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "133\n\nif we did not stay. They were not merely glad to see us because we were British; they hoped we would be able to arrange reimbursement to them for the cost of feeding the Chinese troops. At Nancha I had been most embarrassed by my large escort, which even after the subtraction of the men who were sent to accompany Stan on his reconnaissance, still numbered twenty; they ate at the headman's table and, when I offered to pay, the situation became difficult because it set a precedent inconvenient to the Chinese. Percy refused to allow me to pay, and I had to get around it by making a gift to the headman of some packets of needles that I had brought from India. Needles were very scarce and correspondingly valuable, and these particular packets had got wet when a truculent bullock had kicked off my box into a river, the day before we reached Nancha.\n\nAt the moment the Chinese troops in Kokang did not number many. The battalion had long since been withdrawn from the south, where the Japanese had established a bridgehead across the Salween at Kunlong. Of the fifteen other ferries in Kokang, six faced north across to Chinese territory. Over there the Chinese maintained guerilla forces behind the Japanese lines, and they had small guards on this side at the ferries, perhaps a hundred men in all. These troops sometimes brought in their own rice, of which Kokang was short, but they relied on the headmen to produce the rest of their supplies, cooking oil, vegetables, salt, and pork. In Kokang they fed better than in China, a small advantage which no one could begrudge them in view of the terrible hardships the Chinese troops had to endure, but it came hard on the Kokang villages. I was glad to learn that nominal prices had been fixed by the Chinese, after our arrival, though at much below current market costs, and that at any rate sometimes these were actually paid. The Chinese also called for free transport from the villages, and at Nancha the headman frequently had to produce plain clothes, taken off the backs of the all too scantily clothed people, for the use of Chinese troops crossing the river to join the guerillas on the far side. There, as in Eastern China, most of the guerillas were disguised as local inhabitants. There was nothing I could do about all this, except to suggest to the headmen that they carefully keep any receipts issued to them by the Chinese officers for supplies taken.\n\nIn Burma before the war paper rupees had largely displaced silver coins; but in these conservative border districts paper was not welcome, and silver coins were preferred. Of course, the paper money of the Burma", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212842, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "136\n\nme whether I was afraid I would be arrested and carried off in the same way! It was because of the Lopez incident that for a long time some of the most useful men in Kokang, intimidated by Chinese threats, did not dare to work for us.\n\nAt Hsintang we occupied the thatched wooden building which the people of the village had erected for Lopez and in which he had been surrounded and arrested. It had two stories, with three small rooms on each floor, and packed into these rooms were no less than twenty beds, in layers. Though small, the building could thus house the whole of our party. All the furniture was made of bamboo, the beds, the steps leading to the upper storey, the stools on which we sat, and the table off which we ate. In the centre room below, Lopez had installed a mud fireplace, where of an evening we lit a fire, because here we must have been somewhere about 7,000 or 8,000 feet up and the nights were bitterly cold. The chimney, a hollowed bamboo over which we had to throw water every now and then, was unsatisfactory and the smoke hung about the top floor to the discomfort of those trying to sleep above.\n\nOur wireless was a great asset; it made such a contrast to the isolation which had been our lot when in eastern China. We could send and receive signals, and by laying the headphones in a tin basin, we could make a near-enough imitation of a loud-speaker to sit by and listen when the news came in. It was about this time that the Japanese made their desperate attack on the British at Imphal in an attempt to cut the railway, which supplied General Stilwell's Chinese divisions; in this attempt they were to exhaust themselves, and open Burma to reoccupation by the Allies. A little later General Wingate's second l.r.p.g. - long range penetration group - operations were launched. We were later to discover that the withdrawal of Japanese troops from all along the Salween to meet Wingate's threat offered an explanation of why they failed to raid across the river to disperse us.\n\nStan rejoined us, reporting that there was no flat territory in central Kokang, but that he found a hill slope which would do well enough as a dropping zone. The slope was near the large village of Lunghtang, two days march south, and we prepared to move there. The country became more open; the jungle on the mountain slopes was replaced by long grass. We passed herds of brood mares, with their young. The Myosa in the past had been the contractor for the supply of mules to the Burma Government; we were passing the breeding centres. A lonely", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212876, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "170\n\nto the [good] fung-shui of these graves.\n\nMembers of the clan are upset by your notice. Please be considerate, and do not cause damage to the fung-shui graves of our family. [Followed by 56 names of descendants]*\n\nIn an equally strong response, a Wong lineage long resident in Yuen Long, was greatly perturbed by an official notice posted in 1988 at their grave at Tsing Lung Tau, Tsuen Wan. This time, the government required them to remove it for development, in connection with a large private residential project being undertaken by a realty company which had acquired the site from the Crown. The clan concerned had this to say in their letter to the District Office:\n\nConcerning damage to fung-shui and harm to an ancestral grave: please have regard to our situation and cancel the order, so as to preserve the fung-shui and calm the people's minds.\n\nWe have lived in Shui Pin Village for several hundred years, engaging in agriculture and always being law-abiding people with nothing untoward in our history. The founding ancestor of our Wong clan was first buried at Tsing Lung Tau in the 3rd year of Chien Lung [1738], and the grave was repaired in the winter season of the first year of Tung Chih [1862]. Several hundred years and seven generations have now passed since the original burial.\n\nThis site was previously Chinese territory, now loaned to the English under the Sino-British Convention [of 1898]. If the [English] government wishes to use the people's land, the people's agreement is necessary.\n\nThrough all these years our Wong clan's founding ancestor's grave has produced many descendents. Who would have thought that we would now hear that the government wished to use the site? After hearing this news we were extremely concerned [for our future prosperity]. If you investigate the fung-shui [you will find that it had produced many] persons who attained great age in the past.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213107, "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": 175, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "157\n\nThe villagers in the central part of the northern New Territories, accustomed to marketing at Sham Chun, were able to make do after 1899. They had the old satellite market of Shek Wu Hui (Sheung Shui) within British territory; as soon as the new frontier came into effect, Sheung Shui saw its business boom - it quickly replaced Sham Chun as the primary market for this area. At Sha Tau Kok the population within British territory accustomed to shop at Sha Tau Kok had no alternative but to continue to do so. Problems abounded. Village memories of the Customs are uniformly bad.\n\nThe Customs officials caused the goods of the merchants to be seized unless bribes were paid. They demanded a payment of 18 bushels of rice from each merchant. The villagers from the New Territories would come to the market to have their cloth dyed. Even if the amount of cloth was very small, 25 or £10 would be charged as a licence fee - if it was not paid, the goods would be seized and the villagers penalized. As for the merchants, if they sold a pig, or if a seed-pig was bought for rearing in the villages, when they went to the Customs they would have to pay $40 per tan as registration fee for the pig. At festivals, the village ladies would come to the market to buy oil or local sugar in small quantities. They would have to pay 50 or 60, or even 120 or 130 cash (#5 - #13) as fee before they could get an export licence. For cattle, for every cow crossing the frontier - in either direction for farm work, a Certificate had to be issued, at $20 Haikwan.\n\nAnd, if the Certificate was lost, there was heavy punishment, and a replacement had to be taken out, to avoid confiscation of the cow. Further, at the harvest, if the crop was carried across the frontier, you had to pay what was demanded - it is said that a percentage of the crop was taken. The Customs swallowed money whatever purchases were made. These sorts of evil practices caused the villagers to hate the Customs to the very pit of their stomachs.\n\n12\n\nIt is unlikely that the Customs were as corrupt as they are often portrayed by the villagers. The payments complained of were all reasonable, if it was accepted that the transactions were \"imports\" or \"exports\". The villagers could never see that their day-to-day marketing should be so regarded - they were only doing what their ancestors had always done.\n\nThe elders of the Shap Yeuk petitioned the District Magistrate on 19 April 1899, begging that the lease of the New Territories be not proceeded with. Their concern was, essentially, that if it did proceed, then they would be faced with “excessive taxation\", especially Harbour Dues and Marine Fees, given that the waters off Sha Tau Kok would become Hong...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213108, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "158\n\nKong waters. This petition was probably written because of fears as to the practical problems they would face if they lived in British territory, and their market was in Chinese territory. \"In the early years after the lease, grievances over the Customs remained at high heat. In the winter of 1906, the villagers from the New Territories went on strike, and refused to go to market. In 1907 there was a full-scale riot, triggered by a Customs official beating a villager for not paying duty. Later that same year, the elders of the Shap Yeuk petitioned to the authorities at Canton, begging that the Customs officials at Sha Tau Kok be restrained.4 Later, relations with the Customs improved a little, but the duty demanded from villagers remained a major irritant and grievance throughout the period from 1899 to 1951.\n\nAnother irritant, and brake on economic development, was the political chaos in the border area of China. As can be seen from the Calendar of Border Disturbances at Appendix 1, political trouble in this area began even before the Revolution of 1911. An abortive rebellion in the Wai Chau (Huizhou,H) area in 1900 saw the Ch'ing Government lose control of the wild lands east of Yim Tin. A second abortive rebellion was centred in these hills, at Sam Chau Tin (Sanzhoutian,E), in 1904-1905.\n\nA second period of disturbance came after the Revolution, during the years 1911-1928, when the area immediately north of the frontier was the plaything of various competing political groups and would-be warlords, passing from one to the other week by week - 'In those days, when we went to market, the soldiers would be wearing yellow, but the next week, they would be wearing brown'. This period was marked by large-scale banditry, piracy, and general turmoil. With the large garrison of Customs and military personnel at Sha Tau Kok, bandits never threatened the town itself, but the Yim Tin Customs post was sacked by bandits in 1913 and (three times) in 1916, Nam O (Nanao,) Customs post at the entrance to Mirs Bay, was sacked in 1913 and 1914, Chan Hang in 1915, and, a little east of Chan Hang, Kai Chung (Xichong,) Customs post was sacked in 1916 and 1917. The Customs post at Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong,) was sacked in 1919 and 1920, while the Sha Yue Chung Ferry (the lifeline of the market to the east) was captured by pirates in both 1921 and twice in 1922. For nearly one and a half years in 1918-1919, indeed, all the Customs Stations in Mirs Bay east of Yim Tin were forced to close, so lawless had the area become. The irregular soldiers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213146, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "196\n\nfor fishermen in the north-east New Territories for the Year 1936, p. J11, where the District Officer notes that \"dealers were further encouraged by a reduction in the duty on dried fish\" It seems likely that the trade in both fresh and dried fish was affected\n\n31 This is a reference to a scheme introduced by the Customs in 1937 (see Jiulonghaiguan Bainian Dashiji, op cit., sub anno), by which every cow in the border area was to be registered and branded, and a record kept of every time it crossed the frontier All this was part of an attempt to control \"smuggling\" of cattle—i.e. the buying of new plough animals in the market, and bringing them back to the New Territories villages without paying export duty on them The animals had been taken across the frontier on the pretext that they were crossing the frontier to work fields on the New Territories side\n\n32 Shatoujiao de Lishe, op cit ch 2 I have heard very similar comments from elders in Wo Hang in the New Territories Fees of $20 for a seed-pig, and $20 for a new wok were quoted to me\n\n33 Petition translated in Enclosure 22 to Item 204 (pp. 272-273) in File No. 66 Extension of the Boundaries of the Colony, op cit\n\n34 Shatoujiao de Lishe, loc cit\n\n35 Elder at Wo Hang village\n\n36 Administrative Reports for the Year 1924, Appendix J. “Report on the New Territories for the Year 1924\", p. J2\n\n37 The Jiudonghaiguan Bainian Dashiji, op cit has no records of events in the Sha Tau Kok area from 1925-28, suggesting that the Customs records for this period have been lost\n\n38 The District Officer had this to say \"Conditions on the frontier, however, gave rise to considerable trouble and anxiety, the undisciplined and licentious conduct of the armed strikers' pickets extending to acts of violence and robbery committed even within our Territories British Sha Tau Kok suffered especially in this respect, so much so that on two occasions at least armed forces had to be summoned to assist, in the first case in August when H.M.S. 'Foxglove' was despatched to recover two junks, laden with merchandise, which had been seized by the \"strikers\", and later, in November, when troops of the Punjabi regiment were stationed at Sha Tau Kok in order to discourage the armed pickets who were terrorizing the inhabitants of British territory The close of the year brought more peaceful\n\nFor the history of the Kowloon Customs, see SF Wright, Hongkong and the Chinese Customs, Inspectorate Series, No 7 (Confidential), Statistics Dept, of the Inspectorate-General of Customs, Shanghai, 1930, SF Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs, Belfast, 1950, and Jiulonghaiguan Bainian Dashiji, op cit. The arrangements of the Patrol Districts and duty Stations were constantly re-ordered; the arrangements mentioned in the text are the standard arrangement for most of the 1920s and 1930s As for staff, establishment and strength figures varied widely, depending on funds—levels of manning were particularly low in the early 1920s, when the Customs were starved of funds, but greatly improved in the 1930s", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213158, "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": 226, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "208\n\ngenerally perceived to be diligent, law-abiding citizens who make few demands on the social services. As such they are treated with much more tolerance than other ethnic groups who tend to be more vocal in demanding their rights. For their part the Chinese try to maintain a low profile.\n\nIt was not until I went to America that cultural identity became an issue. As I mentioned earlier, in England I never considered myself other than Chinese. Yet when I went to America in 1991 to do a one-year research fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was made to reflect on this point. In America I was more sensitive to this new environment and people's treatment and attitudes towards me were a complete revelation. I noticed that strangers typically assumed that I was an overseas student who could speak only minimal English (and they would over-exaggerate their speech for my benefit), or they would assume that I was an Asian-American, who would speak with an American accent. When I spoke in an English accent I would instantly captivate their undivided attention. My English accent made me very popular in America, for not only was I a novelty to them (a Chinese speaking flawless English) but most Americans are Anglophiles. Typically the American would proceed to ask me about my background, and I would inform them that I was British. Under these circumstances it seemed natural and automatic that I introduce myself as British, my 'Chineseness' becoming an afterthought. In an immigrant society like America, it was accepted that I could be British first and then Chinese.\n\nOn returning to Hong Kong, it raises the question of whether I am \"coming home\". It seemed a most natural move for me to come back to Hong Kong to work. Over the years I had made fairly frequent visits to the Territory. While I was completing my PhD, I had witnessed more and more of my Chinese friends and relatives of my generation making this transition, and I felt eager to rush back to join them. The economic recession in England during the past decade was undoubtedly a major factor in influencing all of our decisions - the substantially better job prospects, higher earning power, and exciting pace and style of life were all attractions to this generation of young Chinese professionals.\n\nYears after I have returned from America and finished my PhD, if someone was to ask me now how I perceive myself, then I would give the answer that Lee Kuan Yew, the ex-Prime Minister of Singapore once gave, which is that:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213161, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "My friend, Mr. Lee Yuen Tsaan, was born in Heung Shan, China, opposite to Macau, in December 1903. This, coincidentally, was also the birth place of Dr. Sun Yat Sen (alias Suen Chung Shan), who graduated in 1892 from the Hong Kong College of Medicine. After his death the name, Heung Shan, was changed to Chung Shan in memory of Dr Sun.\n\nMr Lee told me, as a boy, he enjoyed life in the village of Haang Mei (meaning ‘constantly beautiful”), which had a population of about 2,000. It was a single-lineage village. Every person had the surname ‘Lee’. He recalled living close to a stream with running water which contained shrimps. He is proud that his father was the first Christian in the village where he was known as ‘Christian Kwoon-hor’ (his given name on marriage). He had been baptised in Australia where he lived when he was young.\n\nXenophobic disturbances, such as the anti-foreigner Boxer Uprising in 1900, sometimes created waves of people who had been associated with western firms on the Mainland. These Chinese often felt it prudent to move to Hong Kong. Others went there just because it was a better place to do business.\n\nIn a speech to students at Hong Kong University, in 1923, Sun the Revolutionary contrasted the peace, law and order and good government of the British Colony with the backwardness and corruption of China.\n\nUntil after World War II, there were no immigration restrictions when travelling from the Mainland to the British Territory. Many Chinese looked upon it as little more than moving from one part of China to another.\n\nThe Lee family moved to Hong Kong, from Heung Shan, in 1987, when the population of the Colony was just over half a million. Although electric fans started to replace punkas as early as the late 1890s, when young Lee arrived in Hong Kong some punkas could still be seen. For instance in offices, schools and barbers shops. Electric fans were expensive and coolie labour (to pull the punkas) was cheap,’ Mr. Lee explained.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213261, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "63\n\nIn another case a post-graduate Chinese student told the author:\n\n'Before, I thought it was all superstition. But now I realise it makes sense to proceed in harmony with nature. In life, one of the most important things is to maintain harmony. Although Mother is a Catholic she also believes in fung sha.\n\nThe author, years ago, personally knew young Hong Kong Chinese teenagers who did not believe in, or were not convinced about the efficaciousness of fung shui. But now, after becoming middle-aged or elderly, they have become firm followers. 'A woman who did not believe nearly died,' the author was informed. 'After recovering, she became convinced.'\n\nAs Hong Kong has become more developed and affluent, people have had more money to spend on 'luxuries', such as fung shui. Certainly, modern education alone seems not to deal the final blow (Freedman, 1976:235). Yet it is more likely that a New Territories' villager, who lives close to nature and is a member of a tightly knit group, is more likely to believe in fung shui than his urban cousin. Urban society is divorced from close, everyday contact with mother earth and her cycles. For the urban dweller the modes of thought which underly the practise of fung shui have to be consciously cultivated in order to comprehend them. There are, of course, some New Territories' villagers who do not believe in fung shui in spite of the close web of relationships in rural life.\n\nEugene Ho (who one assumes is Chinese although he could be Eurasian) wrote in the South China Morning Post letters to the editor columns, on 25 May 1987- 'I find the whole theory of fung shui wholly devoid of cognitive content.' He went on to say that many of the casual 'laws' of fung shui, (if they are really \"laws\" at all) are no more than half a probability.\n\nNonetheless, when the British took over the New Territories on a 99-year lease in 1898, they promised to respect the then existing (Qing Dynasty) religious rites, ceremonies and social customs. The Hong Kong Government Gazette of October 7, 1899, published (one year after the New Territories were taken over) as a supplement to the Convention of Peking, said that graves in the leased Territory were never to be removed. Some law lecturers at Hong Kong University feel, however, that, because", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213343, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "148\n\nThe Beginnings; Local History before the 1970s\n\nWhile the first History of Hong Kong was published as early as 1862, systematic research on local history began only in the 1950s/early 60s, when a handful of pioneers helped to lay the foundation. Though few in number, they may be divided roughly into five groups, based on different background, training, approach, focus and methodology.\n\nMainstream Chinese Historians\n\nOne group were Chinese historians arriving in Hong Kong from the Mainland after the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Their interest in Hong Kong was a new phenomenon since in the eyes of 'mainstream' Chinese historians, Hong Kong was simply too peripheral to 'real history', i.e. 'dynastic' history, and therefore, too insignificant to warrant serious scholarly attention. However, now that they were to work in Hong Kong, they began to devolve some of their energy on local studies. They 'discovered' Hong Kong, so to speak.\n\nThe first scholar to study the localities was Lo Hsiang-lin who joined the Chinese Department of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 1951. One of the courses he taught, ‘Introduction to Historiography', had a Hong Kong history component which lasted ten weeks, and during this time, students were taken to visit historical sites throughout the territory. His first major work on Hong Kong was published in 1959 in Chinese, An English version appeared in 1963, entitled, Hong Kong and Its External Communications Before 1842 the History of Hong Kong Prior to British Arrival. Each of the ten chapters deals with one locality or topic, and the book represents the most detailed local study to date\n\nLo Hsiang-lin also researched into Dr. Sun Yat-sen's history in Hong Kong, and discovered a large number of documents and sites related to Sun.\n\nOther historians in this group included Jen Yu-wen, Jao Tsung-yi and later, Lin Tien-wen, but it must be emphasized that Hong Kong was quite peripheral to their main studies They wrote only occasionally on Hong Kong, and only where it featured in mainstream history. For instance when Jen Yu-wen wrote about the Sung Wong Toi, (a knoll near the Hong Kong International Airport), it was because the two last emperors of the\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213383, "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": 205, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "193\n\nSPECIAL FEATURE\n\nAN ENGLISH BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHINA STUDIES\n\nBETTY WEI\n\nAbeel, David, Journal of a Residence in China and the Neighbouring Countries from 1830 to 1833, London: Nisbet, 1835.\n\nAbel, Clarke, Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, and of a Voyage to and From That Country, in the Years 1816 and 1817, London: Longman, 1819.\n\nAlley, Rewi, Travels in China 1966-77, Beijing: New World Press, 1973.\n\nAlmack, William, A Journey to China from London in a Sailing Vessel in 1837, 252 leaves (photocopy of manuscript at Hong Kong University Library MSS/915/1/A44).\n\nAlsop, Gulielma Fell, My Chinese Days, Boston: Little Brown, 1918.\n\nAnderson, Aeneas, A Narrative of the British Embassy to China in the Year 1792, 1793 and 1794, London: Debrett, 1795.\n\n1\n\nAnderson, John, Mandalay to Momien: A Narrative of the Two Expeditions to Western China of 1868 and 1875 Under Colonel Edward B. Sladen and Colonel Horace Brown, Maps. London: Macmillan, 1876.\n\nAndersson, John Gunnar, The Dragon and the Foreign Devils, Boston: Little Brown, 1928.\n\nAnville, Philippe, Voyage en divers états d'Europe et d'Asie (Travels into diverse parts of Europe and Asia for a new land route to China), London: for Tim Goodwin, 1693.\n\nArlington, L.C. and William Lewisohn, In Search of Old Peking, Peking: Henri Vetch, 1935 (Hong Kong Reprint: Oxford University Press).\n\nAtwell, Pamela, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers: The British Administration of Weihaiwei (1898-1930) and the Territory's Return to Chinese Rule. Hong Kong, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.\n\nAtwell, William, The Ta-ch'ang, Tien-ch'i, and Ch'ung-chen Reigns, Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, 585-640.\n\nAuden, Wystan Hugh and Christopher Isherwood, Journey to a War, New York: Random House, 1939.\n\nBaber, Edward Colburne, Travels and Researches in Western China in Royal Geographical Society of London Supplementary Papers, London, 1886, v. 1.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213439, "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-1995", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "The New Territories were leased from China for 99 years from 1st July 1898. Then followed the New Territories Order in Council of 20th October 1898, by clause 1 of which those territories were declared to be\n\n\"part and parcel of the Colony of Hong Kong in like manner and for all intents and purposes as if they had originally formed part of the said Colony.\n\nBy Clause 3 of the same Order-in-Council it was ordered that, from a date to be fixed by the Proclamation of the Governor, all laws and Ordinances which should on that date be in force in the Colony should take effect also in the New Territories. The laws in force in the Colony of Hong Kong at that date were such of the laws of England as existed on the 5th April 1843,\n\n\"except so far as the said laws are inapplicable to the local circumstances of the Colony or of its inhabitants.\n\n718\n\nand local Ordinances modifying the laws of England in force on 5th April 1843.\" The Secretary of State instructed the Governor in a despatch dated 6th January 1899-\n\n\"On the principle that the new territory shall be taken to be and so far as possible be treated as an integral part of the Colony, it is desirable that as many of the existing laws of Hongkong as are applicable to its circumstances should be at once applied, the administration of the laws being carried out with tact, discretion, and sympathy with native custom and prejudice\n\n+++\n\nA week before the British flag was hoisted at Taipo and the territories were taken over from the Chinese authorities the Governor, Sir Henry A. Blake, issued a Proclamation which included this passage:-\n\n\"I would also impress upon you that this territory having been leased by His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China to Her Britannic Majesty the Queen, as subjects of Her Majesty's Empire, your commercial and landed interests will be safeguarded, and that your usages and good customs will not in any way be interfered with.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213578, "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-1995", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "144\n\nseen largely as protection forests. Most of these plantations were approaching maturity, although they were totally destroyed for fuelwood during the Japanese occupation when supplies of fuel wood from China were cut off.\n\nAn interesting account of village forestry is given in the Hong Kong Government Gazette of April 1905. \"When the New Territory was taken over by the British in 1899 there were about as many large pine trees growing in the district as there are small ones now. The Chinese, being afraid that their new masters would confiscate the trees, began to cut them down wholesale. From the accounts which have been collected there must have been something like eight million disposed of in this way, a course which has been ere now, no doubt, bitterly repented; for as a matter of fact the only restrictions enforced by the Police was with regard to the cutting down of large wild trees and Fung Shui trees round the villages. The confidence of the tree farmers towards English rule having become gradually re-established and safety from encroachments by neighbouring owners being further secured by the presence of the Police, re-afforestation soon began. The scheme of defining and registering the plantation was therefore received in general with great readiness by the farmers who came forward when called on and paid their licence fees. The scheme was designed to encourage the farmers to re-afforest by giving them secure tenure of the trees, to secure re-sowing of felled areas and to provide a proper demarkation of the ground in case of disputes\". About 57,000 acres (23,750 ha.) were licenced for planting in 1905.\n\nEarly in the British occupation of the New Territories the conservation of the remaining natural woodlands was considered. “It is evident to the most casual observer that primeval forest has almost ceased to exist in this part of China. There can be little doubt that our valleys and probably the greater part of our mountains were once plentifully clothed with luxuriant virgin forest. Patches of such forest can still be seen at Little Hong Kong, in this island and in the more inaccessible parts of the New Territories. The Committee appointed to report on the forestry possibilities of the New Territories in 1904 recommended that certain of these areas should be reserved and protected by Government. During 1905 the areas of natural forest in the greater part of the New Territories were carefully examined and mapped by this department. The total extent of that mapped is about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213629, "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-1995", "page_number": 225, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "199\n\n# THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR LABOURERS BURIED IN FRANCE\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nThis article complements the piece by Keith Stevens (RAS Journal No. 29), about Chinese Labour Corps members buried in England during or just after the First World War (1914-18).'\n\nBy 1916 there was a shortage of manpower in Britain. Conscription was introduced into the armed services and more men were recruited from various parts of the British Empire. These included Chinese who actually mostly came from Shan Tung (Shandong), but some were recruited from Honan (Hunan) Province. Together with British missionary and sinologue officers, many labourers were shipped from Weihaiwei (now called Weihai). This was British Territory and served as a naval base from 1898 until the Union Flag was lowered in 1930.3\n\nServing under British military discipline, in the region of 100,000 Chinese were shipped to France to dig trenches and construct fortifications for the allies. About 2,000 died from illness, wounds, or injuries sustained during or just after the war. Some were blown up by mines as they cleared battlefields after hostilities had ceased. Others succumbed to the influenza epidemic that swept Europe in 1919. A handful were shot dead in a mutiny near Boulogne. Those that did not return to China lie far from their native soil, in such places as Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension, Albert French National Cemetery, Arques-La-Bataille British Cemetery, Asco Communal Cemetery, and Ayette British Cemetery, in France. The largest and most decorative is the Noyelles-sur-Mer Cemetery, which has a portico built in Chinese style.\n\nOne September morning in 1995, my son, Barry, and I drove from Brussels to Foncquevillers, a village situated in the fertile, undulating French countryside between the Arras-Doullens and the Arras-Amiens roads. There are a total of 645 graves in this military cemetery, which is bounded by a brick wall and a hornbeam hedge. It is planted with catalpa and other trees. Many of the graves here are seldom or never visited by outsiders. In this well-cared-for tranquil spot, there are two graves of Chinese Labour Corps labourers, one of a French civilian.\n\nPage 225\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213646, "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-1995", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "218\n\nThe book is a remarkably accurate and sensitive account of life as a public servant in the Colony of Hong Kong (this term with its perceived pejorative overtones was de-emphasised in the eighties in favour of Territory; Now, of course, we have become a Region) in the decades after the Second World War. Hong Kong in the fifties, when James arrived, was far from what we know it to be today: still recovering from the ravages and privations of the Japanese occupation; swamped with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the civil war and subsequent revolution in China; tuberculosis and other diseases rampant; people living from hand to mouth; the squatter areas - the list of maladies could go on. Amongst other things which come out vividly in this book is how well Hong Kong has done. There has always been a tendency amongst Westerners to compare the worst in Hong Kong with the best elsewhere, which is unfair. Hong Kong has had more than its share of problems but now has the money to minimise them. In the fifties and sixties, the wealth was simply not there.\n\nThe author came to Hong Kong as a “Cadet”, the rather noisome name given to members of the Administrative Service. As such, in James' words, he “…belonged to a grade of the civil service that was generalist in nature, whose members were moved around, filling middle and upper level posts in key departments and in the Government Secretariat.’ The Administrative Service is a proud, elite force which produces most of Hong Kong's public sector leaders but it is often criticised for this 'Jack of all trades, master of none' mentality; its members being likened by its more vocal critics to 'lighthouses in the desert' (brilliant but useless). This is going altogether too far. Like all organs of Government, the Service has had its share of incompetents, but James was demonstrably not one of them.\n\nJames also accurately describes the ethos in post-war Hong Kong and how it has evolved. Many, if not most, expatriates existed in small, enclosed, expatriate ‘rings’, almost completely cut off from the real Hong Kong. It was rather like living in a cocoon. To the modern-day observer, this lack of contact, other than professional, between the main ethnic groups seems amazing. But when you get down to it, have things changed that much? There was also, at any rate below the surface, a fair amount of racism, parochialism and delusions of grandeur around. It has been said more than once that many allegedly competent and successful, and certainly senior, British Hong Kong civil servants", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213680, "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-1996", "page_number": 33, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "4\n\n+\n\nparticular was expected to make in increasing contact between the city and the eastern New Territories: \"The railway will bring the Territory into closer contact with Hong Kong and western ideas ... Country folk who used to require a full day to reach Hongkong can now go in and out and do their shopping in the day.\" It is, however, clear that the district officer considered that this development had not yet begun in any significant way at the date when he was writing.\n\nIn these circumstances, it is not surprising that the district officer felt that the broader picture in 1912 was of a generally unchanged traditional life: \"A visitor to the Territory of 1899, upon returning in 1912, would find changes to remark in the outward appearance of the country, but he would not find the life or character of its inhabitants greatly altered... The domestic life of the villager does not differ much from that of Chinese in other parts of China, nor has it altered much during the few years of British occupation: if anything, it falls rather behind the general standard of freedom and enlightenment in the Canton Province.. even now the customs and habits of the people are probably little changed from what they were a hundred years ago.” The district officer feared that modernisation, when it came, would cause the inhabitants \"to lose their simple old-fashioned virtues,\" But clearly he felt that this unwelcome development had yet to begin.\n\nIn summary, therefore, the district officer's view was that the New Territories in 1912 were ripe for modernisation, but that this process had only just begun.\"\n\nBy 1921 it is interesting to note that another well-informed European - the Census Officer - could still make very similar remarks: \"The opening of the railway seems, contrary to expectations, to have produced little change\", and the effect of the Government schools “is just becoming apparent\n\n*12\n\nThus, by 1911, the village society of the New Territories, while more prosperous than a decade or two earlier, and aware of, and at least partially receptive to, modern ideas, was still (other than for New Kowloon, the southern strip immediately around Kowloon City and Sham Shui Po) almost entirely traditional. The 1911 Census, therefore, took place in one of the last years in which the old, traditional society survived more or less unchanged. By 1921 that society was beginning", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213854, "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-1996", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "179\n\nStewart II Lockhart. Report on the New Territory during the First Year of British Administration, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1900, p. 251\n\nBrum, op cit. p.94\n\n12 David Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 100\n\nInterviews: \"Uncle Lau\" (age: 73), Lam Che, Jun 18, 1991; Cheng Man Yim, op cit.; the Tung Chung Public School, Jan 24, 1991; K'ung Chuo-Yim (age 56), Ma Wan Chung, Jul 11, 1991; Headmaster Mui Wen Hsi (age 50), the Tung Chung Public School, Jun 6, 1991; Tseng Jung Wu (age 53), Ngat Au, Jun 28, 1991\n\n14 Interview of Lo Ch'uan Mei (age 82), Shaek Mun Kap, Jun 22, 1991\n\n15. Ha Wan Yee, \"Tung-chung-hsiang te min-chien tsung-chiao hsin-yang chi ch'i han-tung,\" Unpublished Graduation Thesis, History, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991, p. 4\n\nSessional Paper, 1911 (Hong Kong: The Government Printer), p. 103 (38)\n\n17 Interview of Teng Ch'iao (age 66), Ha Mei, Jun 26, 1991\n\n18 Interview of Teng P'ei (age 61), Ha Mei, Jun 18, 1991. According to her story, the Teng's ancestral hall was damaged by the Japanese, and since then the lineage has failed to raise money for its reconstruction. San Tau's Hsiehs also lost their genealogy as well as medical books to the Japanese, according to the interview of Hsieh Ch'i, op. cit., Jun 21, 1991\n\n19 Interview of Huang Wu (age 80+), Village Head of Tai Po, Aug 12, 1991\n\n20 Interview of Cheng P'o, op cit.\n\n21 Faure, op. cit., pp. 70-71; Marjone Topley, \"Chinese Religion and Rural Cohesion in the Nineteenth Century,” HKBRAS, Vol. 18 (1978), pp. 9-43\n\n22 Interview of Tseng Jung, op cit.\n\n23 Ho, op cit., p. 5\n\n24 For details of the ceremony, see Faure, op cit., p. 71\n\n25 C.K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society. A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of Their Historical Factors (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), pp. 11-12, 99\n\n26 For details of the chan festival, see Faure, op cit., pp. 84-86; David Faure, \"Hong Kong and China in the Village World,” HKBRAS, Vol. 24 (1981), pp. 76-79; Tanaka", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213965, "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-1997", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT\n\nAs of 15 March 1998, the library collection had increased to 3,429 volumes. A total of 240 volumes were added during the year. There was a reduction of books purchased by Dr. James Hayes from Australia. However, a large donation was received from the Command Library (British Armed Forces Library), amounting to around 60 books. Most of these books are about Hong Kong, China and Southeast Asia. Donations of books were also received from Dr. Gillian Bickley, Dr. James Hayes, Dr. Li Shu-fan, Mrs. Patricia Lim, Mr. Liang Xi-hua, Dr. Elizabeth Sinn, Dr. Anthony Siu, and The Hong Kong Archaeology Society.\n\nMembers of the Royal Asiatic Society visited the Hong Kong Collection of the University of Hong Kong Libraries together with the Hong Kong University Museum on 22 November 1997. The comprehensive collection of books, records, newspapers, microfilms and other documents is renowned as the best collection relating to Hong Kong in the territory. The group was given a guided tour by the curator of the Special Collections, Mr Y.C. Wan. Mr. Wan also gave a brief history of the unique collections in the Rare Book Room. Members were particularly interested in the antique maps of Hong Kong and China.\n\nTo help publicise and promote the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, as part of the University of Hong Kong Libraries' digital project, it was suggested that selected articles of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society could be mounted on the HKU Libraries web server for wider access. The proposal is still under consideration because of copyright concern. Consent of the authors is required to launch the project.\n\nAs of November 1997, the RAS Collection is available for searching on the Internet (http://www.uc.gov.hk/ucpl) via the On-line Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) of the Provisional Urban Council Public Libraries. Users may search the catalogue by author, title, subject, and/or keywords. The RAS collection is one of the special collections in the City Hall Library.\n\nxxxiii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214030, "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-1997", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "65\n\nmarket began to boom. As a result, more urban people were hitherto willing to rent New Territories village houses because of their lower rent as compared with that in the urban area. In Fanling Wai, village houses for rent are now in great demand. This is because the village is situated near the railway station and modern highways linking Fanling to urban Hong Kong. Besides, a large shopping mall, swimming pool, sports field, hospital and park are also available in the vicinity of Fanling Wai.\n\nZu wu: Transfer through the Patrilineal Line\n\nIn retrospect, when Hong Kong was under the rule of Imperial China, villagers were free to build houses without restrictions. But after the British Government took over the lease, village houses could be built and rebuilt into cement houses, which did not exceed 25 feet in height and 1,000 square feet covered area. In Fanling Wai nowadays, most of the zu wu are three and a half storeys, with a covered area ranging from 250 to 800 square feet. They are customarily transferred in the Pang's male descent line. When villagers dispose of them due to financial difficulties, their segment members have the priority to purchase them. In fact, the needs for collective agricultural activities such as irrigation and the defense of property and life were incentives for them to share a common residence. Villagers also believed that this settlement was propitious for them and their descendants, and also for their wealth. For achieving these aims, the Pangs transferred their housing property through the patrilineal line, which thereby defined this space/territory as their common settlement and generated a shared sense of lineage identity or of rootedness. The Pangs today still claim that, albeit the vanished pragmatic needs, they should abide by this customary practice for maintaining their lineage community. Fanling Wai has hitherto been considered by the Pangs as a native place to claim their identity, and the settlement itself also serves as a religious centre to give them spiritual protection against ill-health and economic insecurity.\n\nThe villagers' statement is further supported by the legal transactions of 100 out of 634 house lots of the zu wu from 1898 to 1994, in which all were transferred through the male descent line. Though the market value of housing property has been increasing since the mid-1980s, the sale of the zu wu to non-Pang lineage members is socially prohibited.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214052, "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-1997", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "87\n\nof the Island This was completed in 1904, partly with filling material obtained from Chinese territory. The limits in Victoria of these two earlier major reclamations are marked by Des Voeux Road and Connaught Road respectively. During the next 30 years reclamation continued on the Island, the largest schemes being those at Tai Koo for the dockyard (21ha which included 13ha of land site formation, completed 1908), Wan Chai (36ha, completed 1929) and around North Point (nearly complete before the Pacific war), together with a smaller reclamation at Shau Kei Wan.\n\nSoon after the cession of Kowloon under the Convention of Peking in 1860 there was some reclamation adjoining deep water in Tsim Sha Tsui, primarily for wharfs, and at Hung Hom for the dockyard, to be followed by extensive reclamation in Tai Kok Tsui and Yau Ma Tei and, to a lesser extent, at To Kwa Wan, Sham Shui Po and Lai Chi Kok, the latter two both lying just to the north of Boundary Street. Subsequently an important reclamation was formed by the Kowloon-Canton Railway in Tsim Sha Tsui and Hung Hom bays (16ha, completed 1910) primarily for its own use which included three deep sea berths on the extreme south-east tip of the Kowloon peninsula. In the period after 1922 there was considerable reclamation in and near Kowloon just as there was in Wan Chai on the Island. Large areas were reclaimed at Sham Shui Po (26ha, completed 1928), Kai Tak (83ha, completed 1931) and Lai Chi Kok (c35ha), all these areas lying in the New Territories close to the old Kowloon/China boundary with much of the filling being obtained from Kowloon Tong, then being developed as a garden city. Just before the Pacific war, reclamations were also started in three other areas of Kowloon Bay, at Ma Tau Kok, Ngau Tau Kok and Kwun Tong.\n\nRoadworks\n\nConstruction of Queen's Road in Victoria was started in May 1841, only four months after the British landed on the Island, by the Royal Engineers following the alignment of a narrow bridle/tow path high above the beach which extended some 7 kilometres from the water's edge at Kennedy Town on the west to within a short distance of Happy Valley on the east. Another road, from Wong Nei Chong to Shau Kei Wan was built at the same time, a causeway with two bridges being constructed to carry it across what is now known as Causeway Bay.\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214061, "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-1997", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "96\n\nThe Shing Mun Valley scheme was started in 1923 and initially a 2km-long 3m-diameter tunnel was driven to Shek Lai Pui. Subsequently, the largest pre-Pacific war reservoir was constructed, which was to double the Territory's total water storage capacity to 27,000 million litres; it was formed by the main Gorge Dam, which was the highest in the old British Empire at that time (1936), and the subsidiary 25m-high earth/rockfill/concrete core Pineapple Pass Dam. The remarkable Gorge Dam, 85m high with a bold and probably unique design, consists of a downstream shoulder of rockfill faced with pitching and an upstream face comprising a slender near-vertical reinforced concrete diaphragm wall supported by a massive concrete thrust block. Between the upper part of the thrust block and the downstream rockfill, there is a narrow wedge filled with sand for the purpose of taking up any settlement of the rockfill and to cater for possible earthquake movement. Any leakage through the upper part of the diaphragm can be observed from an inspection gallery behind it. Elaborate experiments were made to determine the correct design of the reservoir overflow bellmouth in order to reduce vortexing and to neutralise the destructive vacuum forces which could occur at the base of the bellmouth overflow shaft. For this investigative work, the young Geoffrey Binnie was awarded a Telford premium by the Institution of Civil Engineers. Subsequently, preliminary investigations for the Tai Lam Chung scheme were started shortly before the outbreak of the Pacific war, by which time the Territory's population had risen to about 1.6 million.\n\nAs a result of an acute water emergency on the Island, work started on a 300mm steel pipe cross-harbour main in 1929, the sixty-two 30m-long bolted sections taking less than 2 months to lay, and a further 450mm main was laid in 1935. Due to corrosion problems, it was necessary to replace these pipes in 1939 with two 530mm steel pipes, protected with a 12mm-thick cement lining on the inside and a 60mm coating of vibrated concrete on the outside, which were laid on reinforced concrete blocks bedded on rockfill with a protective rubble mound on the east side of the pipelines to prevent damage from dragging anchors.\n\nThese pre-Pacific war water schemes not only involved building dams but also needed construction, often in difficult site conditions, of a multiplicity of extensive catchwaters, tunnels, trunk mains, treatment plants, service reservoirs, pumping stations, and distribution mains in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214113, "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-1997", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "150\n\neve of the Mid-Autumn Festival. In recent years visits have also been paid to such destinations as Taiwan, Vietnam and various parts of China.\n\nBefore looking in greater detail at what the Hong Kong Branch (RASHKB) does, let us review briefly the history of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS 1979).\n\nHistory\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in London in 1823, and it received its Charter of Incorporation as a Royal Society the following year. It is the oldest and most important learned society of its kind in Europe, and it is the doyen of societies promoting the study of Asia. Its membership has included generations of eminent scholars and explorers with a deep understanding of the East.\n\nA large part of the Society's work has, however, always been carried out through its branches and affiliated societies. Branches were formed in such places as Bombay and Madras about 1838, and in Ceylon in 1845. The Hong Kong Branch followed in 1847, the North China Branch at Shanghai in 1857, the Japanese in 1875, the Malayan in 1878 and the Korean in 1900 (RAS1979: 15). Such countries as Japan and Korea were never, of course, part of the British Empire, and, in any case, British territory today is reduced to a few small pink dots on the map; such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Gibraltar. Thus the RAS can now be thought of, very much, as an international organisation rather than as being purely British.\n\nAlthough the Hong Kong Branch was first established in 1847, it ran into difficulties and, consequently, ceased to exist after the end of 1859. It was, nevertheless, resuscitated a century later (Hayes 1997: 129).\n\nAchievements\n\nGoing back to the middle of the last century, although the Branch was comparatively short-lived, it was nonetheless productive. With its emphasis on practical projects one of the most conspicuous notches in its belt must have been the proposal that a piece of land be requested", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214119, "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-1997", "page_number": 187, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "156\n\nwhich came out at the end of the last century (about Europeans living in the Colony), that (Spurr 1995: 48):\n\nThere was no real pleasure, nothing but a heavy and pompous extravagance, with no return on the large sums fooled away, an outstanding ignorance of all the surroundings, the Chinese, their language and their ways, or even of the very place itself.\n\nYet, having said that, today, as in the past, many Europeans do come to Hong Kong and, during their stay, they do learn something about local history, and Chinese customs and culture. This need will no doubt continue. In such cases the RAS can help.\n\nIn addition, a number of scholars visit Hong Kong or write to the RASHKB from overseas. Information has been requested on the pre-World War II Fox Hunt, held at Fanling in the New Territories, details regarding past Hong Kong personalities and wildlife sightings, to give but a few examples.\n\nHong Kong can be proud of its religious tolerance, with regard to temples, ancestral halls and the like, and, when the British took over the New Territories in 1898, on a 99-year lease, they promised that Ching dynasty laws would be retained and local customs respected (Endacott 1958: 38). Consequently, unlike many territories occupied by more oppressive colonial powers, in spite of the British and the Chinese keeping largely apart, an affinity of sorts developed between the two races. Governor Sir John Bowring, too, who chaired RASHKB meetings in the 1850s, disliked weaning the Chinese away from their own religious beliefs and practices (Spurr 1995: 51). A fair amount of local culture has been retained in spite of westernisation and the passage of time.\n\nThis retention of local culture in the Territory means that, if scholars want to study \"things Chinese\" which are closer to customs of the old China, and to visit locations where fewer changes have taken place, they are more likely to come to Hong Kong (or go to Taiwan). Here old customs and the modern can be seen side by side. This is less likely to be the case in the People's Republic where much has been disrupted by the influences of Communism over the past half century, including such events as the devastating Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214131, "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-1997", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "170\n\nlocated. The Seventh Day Adventist Church, which stands at numbers 6-8 on the tree-lined Sun Yat-sen Road (formerly part of Tung Sui Road), was on the site of a building used during the war years as an officers mess (see Plate III). The clinic, which now stands at No. 28 Shui Dong Kai (Water East Street), is on the site where a 'hospital' and the BAAG headquarters were situated during World War Two. Then, Huizhou stood in a kind of ‘no-man's-land'. It was not part of 'Free China' nor was it really in Japanese occupied territory. But the Japanese did make regular incursions into the city which was an undercover centre for Chinese guerillas and the British Army Aid Group.\n\nMembers of the Allied Forces would occasionally escape from prisoner-of-war camps in Hong Kong and make their way, with the help of Chinese guerillas, to Sai Kung. From there they would sail over to the coast of China and proceed on up to Huizhou to link up with the 'East River Column' of guerillas. After rest and medical attention escapees would make their way to the hinterland and Free China proper. Huizhou was well positioned as an escape route which was provided by a road network, of sorts, and the East River which flows along to the Bocca Tigris in the Pearl River Delta.\n\n5\n\nMen who managed to escape included Colonel Anthony Hewitt (at the time Captain) of the ‘Die-Hards', the Middlesex Regiment, who gave a talk in November 1996, to the RASHKB entitled 'The Defence of Leighton Hill during the 1941 Battle for Hong Kong'. Colonel L.T. Ride also escaped to set up and head the British Army Aid Group. Sir Lindsay, who was Vice Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1949 to 1964, was also a founder member of the RASHKB, in 1960, when it was reestablished. He was President of our Branch from 1969 to 1972.\n\nAlthough members of our RAS Group saw a considerable amount of new building as we drove from Shenzhen to Huizhou on that November day in 1997, one was struck by the number of walled villages and watch towers. This part of China was, obviously, a pretty lawless region at one time, and, to some extent, it still is. One occasionally sees cars plying the roads without number plates and right-hand drive vehicles which have probably been smuggled in, one assumes from Hong Kong.\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214512, "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": 370, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "339\n\ncucumber. When we asked why we could not have stayed here as well, we were told that \"it would not be appropriate.\" Draw from that what you will.\n\nInstead we stayed at the adequate Pacific Ocean Hotel. Perhaps a better choice would have been the Yantai Marina Hotel on the eastern end of the sea front. This would have been nearer to the Chefoo School and the other main places of interest to us along the seafront.\n\nWeihaiwei - An Uncertain Possession\n\nThe pace never slackened for a minute. The following morning it was “all aboard” for another anachronistic piece of Britishness. On the way to Weihaiwei, about an hour's ride from Yantai, we received a briefing from Carol Tan on the background to Britain's involvement in this piece of territory that was leased by the British from 1898 to 1930.\n\nOne or two of the party, including myself, had been there before. Indeed, Jessie Stewart had lived there as a child in the 1930s. Gillian Sunderland's family had lived here many years ago, and Rowan Callick's grandfather had been a member of the Weihaiwei Masonic Lodge. But none of us had been to Liu Kung Island, the site of the naval base, and so this part of the journey was to be a bit of a challenge - not least for the \"organiser\".\n\nPort Edward\n\nany\n\nWhat we wanted to see in Weihaiwei fell into two areas: remains of the former Port Edward in the city itself and those on Liu Kung Island. Armed with a vast collection of old photographs from the early days of the British tenancy, thanks to Arthur Hacker, we went off in search of what we could find. The most likely area seemed to be the low hill rising at the north end of the bay around which the present-day city is clustered.\n\nUp above the small naval base, set off from the main road by a small garden, is a small but charming bungalow. Was this the former governor's residence? Some controversy here. The majority view was that the building was not grand enough. Perhaps it was the naval", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214556, "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": 414, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "383\n\nMONUMENT\n\nTO THE WESTMORELAND REGIMENT THE 55TH REGIMENT OF FOOT\n\nIN\n\nDINGHAI CITY ON ZHOUSHAN ISLAND\n\nKEITH STEVENS AND JENNIFER WELCH\n\nIn October 1998 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society organised a visit for members to Ningbo [Ningpo] and Zhoushan Island [Chusan Island] off the East coast of China in the archipelago of the same name. The object of the visit to Dinghai, the county capital of the archipelago, was to try and follow the course of the British military campaign there during the First and Second China Wars, the First being the so-called Opium War of 1840-1842 and the Second, the Arrow War of 1856-1860, and see if any monuments to the British victory and subsequent occupation remained. In particular we were looking for the military cemetery and tombstones.\n\nThe Chinese guide who met us in Ningbo and who was to accompany us to Dinghai was most doubtful about our mission. We did not think she was even aware that the British Army had been on Zhoushan 150 years ago. However by the time our ferry docked at Dinghai, maps relating to the campaign, which had been brought along with us, had been studied in detail, together with an account by the Reverend Wright.\n\nIn Dinghai our first call was at the local museum where we collected the Curator. We were most fortunate in that he was interested in the China Wars, and not only knew the accounts - albeit from the Chinese point of view - but was able to lead us to the sites of action, and to the one remaining monument to the British.\n\nDuring the two China Wars Zhoushan had its moments of glory in history after which both conflicts gradually faded from both British national and Chinese local memories. Between the 5th of July 1840 when the city of Dinghai fell before a British attack for the first time, and the 5th of June 1846 when the British restored Zhoushan to the Chinese, the island was ruled twice by the British with its claim to fame as the first Chinese territory ever to be occupied and controlled", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214581, "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": 439, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "408\n\nwas said to have been a British Member of Parliament. Alice was a gracious lady. Choa gives her maiden name as Walkden. It is sometimes elsewhere, puzzlingly, quoted as Whitcome. Did she have a step father one wonders? Or was this an unfortunate mistake by some writer and a case of give a slip-up five minutes start and the truth never catches up with it?' This could be the case. Certainly the name on the huge family memorial, in the Hong Kong Cemetery at Happy Valley, is carved as Alice Walkden.\n\nBefore the couple arrived back in Hong Kong in 1882 the then Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy, announced to the Legislative Council that this young Chinese had taken the highest honours at Lincoln's Inn. 'It was something that a gentleman belonging to the Colony should have gained such honours.'\n\nAnyway, back in the British colony in those days the 'superstitious' Chinese generally did not take readily to 'newfangled,' western medicine and Ho Kai switched to law. But a brilliant Chinese with fluent English was rare in those days. He was enticed into business. He also entered public service and, in addition to sitting on a number of other government committees, sat on the Sanitary Board (the forerunner of the Urban Council) and, in 1890, became a Legislative Councillor. He was the third Chinese to sit on this august body. He was also a Justice of the Peace.\n\nHaving lived in the West for a number of years it is not surprising he developed strong views about social reform and the modernisation of China. He became an associate of statesman Dr Sun Yat-sen. This was at a time when China was striving to rid itself of the Qing dynasty and there was danger the country would be assimilated by colonial powers.\n\nIn his latter life Ho Kai spent most of his time serving the community. He helped, together with his colleagues, to mould the Territory in which we now live. Ho Kai was capable and, understandably, there was no need for him to take to heart the Chinese axiom: 'If you do not become a good minister be a good physician.'\n\nHe was 'lionised and eulogised' after his death by all sectors of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214582, "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": 440, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "409\n\nthe community as a shining example of a native son. He certainly helped bridge the vast gap between Victorian, colonial society and the Chinese community and he frequently presented - and clarified the often-misunderstood Chinese viewpoint. One gets the impression that, in spite of his western background he was still at heart very Chinese. In spite of having an eminent pastor father, the Reverend Ho Fuk Tong (Ho Tsun Shin), he was not opposed, for example, to concubinage.\n\nIn the same way that Sir Kai Ho Kai was a son of whom Hong Kong could be truly proud, so too the author's family has roots going back in the Territory for a number of generations. As a true Hongkongese, Choa has had a lifetime of experience as a physician, scholar and senior government administrator. He is a long-time, life member of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch. Such a background fits him admirably to write such a book. It has been well researched, contains a wealth of detail and is a good read. Understandably, with limited information in some areas, this account is often more about the times in which he lived than Ho Kai himself. But that does not detract from the value of the book.\n\nAs one of Hong Kong's true sons Sir Kai Ho Kai deserves to go down in history, during an important period, as one of the few Chinese who was able to leave his indelible mark. The book, together with its epilogue, bibliography and 11 appendices, should be on the shelves of every serious researcher of Hong Kong history.\n\nAt the same time the book is a good product, on good quality paper with clear print and a stout, attractive cover, unlike so many books published today. Although some of the 25 illustrations, which are mainly photographs, are more common, there are some the reviewer had not seen before.\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Susanna Hoe, The Private Life of Old Hong Kong: Western Women in the British Colony 1841 - 1941, Oxford University Press (1991), pp. 293; and Univer-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214597, "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-1999", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH\n\n1999/2000 PRESIDENT'S REPORT PRESENTED AT THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY, ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING ON FRIDAY 24TH MARCH 2000\n\nNo man can know a country who only knows what is happening in it today. Anon.\n\nAs you know the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch (RASHKB) took the 1997 Handover of the Territory, from Britain back to China, in its stride. That Hong Kong has rejoined its Motherland makes little difference to the way our Branch operates. More recently, we have taken a further leap into what most people have come to accept as the New Millennium. This year is also, incidentally, the 40th anniversary since our Branch was reconstituted. Our Branch was first established in Hong Kong in 1847. Unfortunately, it survived only 12 years. It then slumbered for a century and was reconstituted in 1960. Now, moving on into the 21st century means in effect that the RASHKB has played an active part in the local community during three centuries. That is from early British colonial times to the present day when Hong Kong forms a part of the People's Republic of China. Our Society is pleased to have been able to contribute to our community in a variety of ways as this report amply illustrates.\n\nAlthough we are a Royal Society with our head office in London we are at the same time, with branches in several parts of the world, international in character. Together, we share a rich history. Nevertheless our local Branch ploughs its own furrow entirely and we receive no financial assistance from Headquarters. Our Branch is very much part of the Hong Kong scene doing its best to serve the local community, foster goodwill and provide close working relationships between locals and expatriates.\n\nLet us examine various aspects of our Branch's activities since the 1999 Annual General Meeting one year ago. I should emphasise that the Branch has continued to be strong and virile as you will see from the following pages.\n\nxi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214810, "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-1999", "page_number": 225, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": ".... \n\n190 \n\nby unnatural ones, namely nations and states', an argument against the discourse of the authentic/inauthentic which raises some of the problems of real/virtual communities dealt with here in Conclusion. \n\n6 Baudelaire (1863) in Harvey (1989). \n\n7 \n\n8 \n\nAs Lowenthal (1985) noted of the whole industrial era, \"The great changes of the time...made nostalgia pervasive. By the turn of the century all Britain seemed bent on nostalgic quest'. \n\nCf. Evans and Tam (1997) on the expatriate interest in 'tradition' in Hong Kong. \n\nFor a detailed assessment of the works of some of these local scholars, see Law (1998). \n\nIt is not only the colonialist 'who becomes defender of the native style', as Fanon had it, but to some extent the colonial subject and the post-colonial. For a very general overview of Chinese globalisation, see Ong (1999). \n\nAbbas (1997) confuses the discussion of Hong Kong as a place with its people, and talks of the 'cult of the ephemeral' as if modernity had only happened in Hong Kong. This is poetry (and somewhat hysterical poetry), not analysis. It is easy to say that 'the difficulty with locality in Hong Kong is locating it', or to emphasise as Siu (1999; cf.1996) does that 'the Hong Kong identity is attached to a territory without clear boundaries', or to emphasise as Wong Siu-Lun (1999) does the skilled manipulation of multiple identities by migrants from the south China coast. But Wong emphasises that these identities are also ‘effective shields to deflect state domination', while Siu (1999) speaks of ‘a distinct Hong Kong ethos' which is unique and has emerged from a particular history; 'Hong Kong was not a barren rock when the British came'. \n\n12 Chan (1994) starts from an outmoded notion of culture which he thinks is anthropological'. He then finds it difficult to understand how Hong Kong can have contradictory or diverse cultural values. \n\n13. The notion of 'Chinese' here, though, would repay further examination. Is it zhongguoren which is meant (citizens of China), or tongren, the conventional term for the southern Chinese? \n\n14 Dirlik (1994) too, seeing the post-colonial as a critique of the ideology of global \n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214829, "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-1999", "page_number": 244, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "211\n\n\"THAT SINGULAR AND HITHERTO ALMOST UNKNOWN COUNTRY\"; OPINIONS ON CHINA, THE CHINESE, AND THE \"OPIUM WAR” AMONG BRITISH NAVAL AND MILITARY OFFICERS WHO SERVED DURING HOSTILITIES THERE.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nIntroduction\n\nIn February 1840, the British Government advised the Qing authorities of the dispatch of an expeditionary force of troops and warships to the China Coast. Its purpose was to force the Chinese authorities to cease their harassment of British traders and officials resident in China, and to make reparation for goods and property taken from them. A blockade of China's principal ports was to be established, and one or two islands demanded as a place of residence and commerce for British subjects. A piece of Chinese territory was to be occupied, to be restored only when matters were settled to the British Government's satisfaction. Hostilities continued on and off until August 1842 when three specially appointed Chinese commissioners signed the treaty of Nanking on board a British warship in the Yangtse River.\n\nThis much is, of course, common knowledge. However, the subject matter of this paper is perhaps less well known. Among the by-products of the China Expedition were the books written by British naval and military officers about the War and their experiences in China. Some of the letters sent to family and friends at home have also found their way into print. Such books and letters, together with official papers, are used here to illustrate the sentiments, opinions and attitudes of the day towards China and the War, and I have occasionally quoted from them at length, in order to provide greater realism.\n\nScant Knowledge of China and the Chinese\n\nThis was the first time that British forces had fought in China. Consequently, there was no one with experience of conducting operations there on land or sea. Moreover, the higher levels of society to which the British officer corps mostly belonged - the aristocracy, the landed gentry and the professions - had little or no knowledge of China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214955, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "6\n\nmet in armed conflict - futile and unnecessary. Ironically, both were strongly devoted to tea though their actual taste in tea may have been different.\n\nThe Chinese did not call their country China. To them it was the Middle Kingdom, the kingdom between heaven and earth, the Celestial Kingdom. The Emperor was the Son of Heaven who possessed divine powers. Their civilization was 5,000 years old, and for nearly half that period they lived in solid houses, dressed in silk, and produced works of art which are still admired today. Almost completely isolated from the western world since the Song Dynasty, China was oblivious to the achievements of the West in many fields. Proud and self-contained, China shunned outside contacts. In their self-proclaimed superiority, the Chinese in the 18th century still believed that only barbarians lived beyond their boundaries and that their countries were automatically vassal states of the Celestial Kingdom. Chinese contempt for foreigners persisted into the later periods, no doubt fuelled by the shameful behaviour of the foreign powers towards China, humbled and humiliated by the defeats in the Opium Wars. 'Barbarian devils' was a description often uttered even by relatively enlightened Chinese. Is it then any wonder that even in our time “Kwai Lo” (though no longer “Fan Kwai”) is still often heard, though perhaps more in jest, and used even by the foreigners themselves?\n\nBritain, on the other hand, in the early 19th century was opening one of the most glorious pages of its history. Napoleon was defeated and France was no longer a threat. The Royal Navy reigned supreme over the waves and Britain had become truly a great imperial power dominating huge areas of territory and much of the trade from the New World to the Far East. In 1837 the young Queen Victoria ascended the throne and a long period of British colonial rule had asserted itself. The British nation had every reason to feel proud and superior. But with superiority came also arrogance and a deep distrust of foreigners.\n\nWe live in a time when the world has discarded Imperialism and Colonialism, the right of strong nations to rule over weak ones, when some disputes at least are settled in a forum of nations, when the right of all peoples to self-determination is recognized. The latter is a recent principle: born of the Versailles Treaty, after the 1st World War, it has forged ahead without stopping. But in the 19th century, imperialism", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214958, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "been claimed that during this journey Macartney tried to obtain information about tea growing in China but was unsuccessful. This is incorrect. In fact, he was allowed to collect shoots of tea plant. These were later carefully transported to Bengal with samples of soil where they flourished and very likely gave rise to present Indian tea. This was perhaps the only success of Macartney's Embassy.\n\n14\n\nWe know of Macartney's open instructions on his mission, which included negotiating opening ports for trade and establishing full diplomatic relations with China. There is also a strong conjecture that Macartney was authorised to offer the Chinese active British efforts to stop opium trade, if negotiations achieved their principal aims. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to obtain confirmation of this very important directive. Although Macartney's Embassy was unsuccessful, the Ambassador wrote a rosy account of the mission suggesting that it was not a total failure but had achieved a great deal of goodwill between the two nations. Not so, writes Dr. James Dinwiddie, member of the Embassy, whose official duties as astronomer and scientist were to demonstrate the scientific instruments brought as presents. If we are to believe this meticulous observer with scientific training, it became apparent early during their sojourn in Beijing, and later in Chengde, that the Chinese including the Emperor were not impressed either by the members of the mission or the elaborate scientific instruments offered as presents. \"These things are good enough to amuse children,' the Emperor was supposed to have said after briefly examining them. Their reception, wrote Dr. Dinwiddie, was at best perfunctorily polite, at worst impatient and abrupt. From the day they stepped onto Chinese territory, a feeling of fear and mistrust seemed to pervade the motions of Chinese officials who appeared to check every move of the members of the Embassy; soldiers constantly guarded the Embassy. They were warned, early during their stay in Beijing, that their visit would be terminated shortly, and it seemed clear to the good doctor that the mission was doomed from the start. Even if Dinwiddie was unduly sensitive to the attitude of their hosts, it seems clear that the Embassy had achieved little towards establishing friendly relations, or an atmosphere of mutual trust, between China and Britain. Macartney's mission has been aptly summed up by Peter Auber1 as 'Received with the utmost politeness, treated with the utmost hospitality, watched with the utmost vigilance, and dismissed with the utmost civility.' Subsequent embassies were not so well treated.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215282, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "where the territory was not debarred from doing so by treaty. In preparation for the negotiations at Ottawa the colonies were also asked to consider what preferences might be accorded them by the dominions and what preferences they might give to the dominions in return on the lines of the Canada-West Indies agreement.”\n\n34\n\nThe governor, Sir William Peel, discussed Hong Kong's position while visiting the Colonial Office in June 1932. Officials agreed with him that Hong Kong's status as a free port made it impossible to impose anything like a general tariff. Any such tariff would ruin the entrepôt trade which was vital to Hong Kong's existence and no practicable means could be devised of landing goods in bond for re-export without involving so much inconvenience as to drive the entrepôt trade to other neighbouring ports. Peel was prepared as a gesture to give a preference to empire products on articles such as spirits and tobacco which were subject to excise duty and to impose a higher rate of first registration tax on foreign motor cars than on cars imported from Britain and Canada. He did not ask for any preference from the dominions in return since in his view the bulk of Hong Kong exports consists of foreign goods the proportion of the cost of which, due to treatment in Hong Kong, was not large enough to secure a preference...” This showed a surprising ignorance of Hong Kong's growing trade in domestic manufactures which were largely exported to neighbouring Asian countries.\n\nThe Ottawa conference convened in July 1932. The British delegation was led by Stanley Baldwin, the former prime minister, and four other cabinet ministers. Canada, Southern Rhodesia and Newfoundland were represented by their prime ministers; Australia and New Zealand by former prime ministers; South Africa and the Irish Free State by their finance and trade ministers. India, which had been given the freedom to establish protective duties in 1923, was represented by Sir Atul Chatterjee and other members of the Viceroy's Council. The interests of the colonial empire were safeguarded by the secretary of state for the colonies, Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister and one civil servant from the Colonial Office, G.L.M. Clauson.\n\nThe conclusions of the conference were embodied in agreements between the United Kingdom government and the governments of the dominions and India. Britain consented to continue the free entry of goods grown, produced or manufactured in any part of the empire, and to impose additional duties on specified foreign goods which would give empire produce a preferential margin higher than the 10 per cent tariff already imposed by the Import Duties Act. Britain also agreed to 'invite' the non-self-governing colonies and protectorates to extend to all the dominions any preference at present extended to any part of the empire, and to increase the margin of preference or impose specific duties on a long list of items requested by the dominions. In return the dominions confirmed the existing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215286, "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": 63, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "II\n\nasked that Britain should approach Australia to secure for Hong Kong the same tariff preference as Britain enjoyed, in accordance with article 15 of the Ottawa agreement. He pointed out that Hong Kong had granted Australian brandy a preference in the excise duty of three dollars a gallon and had received nothing in return. Cunliffe-Lister refused to take any action minuting that he was not prepared to press for equal treatment in the dominions for British and colonial industries like shipbuilding in which owing to different standards of living the levels of cost were necessarily different. This attitude shocked the civil servants in the Colonial Office. One senior official minuted, 'I have always assumed that the Secretary of State would be the advocate of colonial interests.' The matter was not allowed to rest there in spite of the views expressed by Cunliffe-Lister. Officials consulted the Board of Trade and when that department raised no objection a letter was sent to the Australian High Commission asking for the grant of preference. The Australian government was most unwilling to extend preference to a territory with oriental wages even though it was part of the empire, but eventually granted all the colonies preference at the same rate as Britain in respect of vessels over 500 tons only.\n\nIn 1933 Hong Kong manufacturers followed the lead of the Singapore factory in vigorously expanding their exports. Sales to Britain grew from HK$16,190 in 1930 to HK$454,252 in 1933 and to HK$1,823,874 in 1934. British manufacturers protested to the Board of Trade about this competition in their home market and the Board of Trade passed on their complaints to the Colonial Office. Cunliffe-Lister suggested that Britain should confine its preference to primary products and that entry free of duty should be refused to colonial manufactured goods which could compete with an efficient British industry. This proposal did not find favour with the civil service. Instead officials proposed that an interdepartmental committee should be set up to consider the whole question of the industrial development of the colonial empire. The committee was composed of officials from the Board of Trade, the Department of Overseas Trade, the Dominions Office and the Colonial Office. The first meeting was held in January 1934. R.V. Vernon of the Colonial Office was the chairman and was said to have been largely instrumental in drafting the committee's report.\n\nThe committee concluded that industrial development in the colonial empire was an inevitable contingency which could not be prohibited or indefinitely retarded; but the committee saw no reason why a conscious policy of the artificial encouragement of industry should be undertaken by the institution of a tariff high enough to protect the products of local industry from imports from Britain or elsewhere. The interests of British manufacturers and of colonial consumers who would have to pay a higher price for products previously imported should also be considered. So the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215522, "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": 299, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "249\n\nThree years later in 1885, five cemeteries were simultaneously set apart for the Chinese. These were described in a government notification as follows:62\n\nKAULUNG.— Situated on the North Side of the Road from Yaumati to the village of Mat'auwai, and near this village and within a short distance of the limits of British Territory. The site is an irregular figure bounded by Government ground, measuring on the North, 520 feet; South, 300 feet; East, 290 feet; West, 520 feet.\n\nSHAUKIWAN. Situated in the valley facing the East, lying between the Lyeemoon Pass, and the road from Shaukiwan to Stanley; is nearly triangular in shape, and bounded on the North, South-East, and West by Government ground, and on the East by the sea-shore, and measures on the North, 1,650 feet; South-East, 1,650 feet; West, 1,800 feet; East, 550 feet.\n\nSHEKO. Situated about 1/4 of a mile to the North-East of the northern portion of the village of Sheko; bordered by the Cliff facing the Sea on the East, and on the three other sides by Government ground, measuring on the North, 550 feet; South, 500 feet; East, 340 feet; West, 300 feet.\n\nSTANLEY. Situated about 1/4 of a mile to the South-East from the Stanley Barracks; bordered on the South-East by Tytam Bay on the North-West, East and West sides by Government ground, and measuring on the North-West, 480 feet; South-East, 520 feet; East, 560 feet; West, 500 feet.\n\nABERDEEN. Situated on the promontory 1/2 mile to the South-East of the village of Aberdeen, and bordered on the Southern side by the Aberdeen Channel, and on the North, East and West by Government ground, measuring on the North, 1,200 feet; East, 300 feet; West, 350 feet.\n\nIn 1891, two more Chinese cemeteries were added to the list:7\n\nMOUNT DAVIS.68 Situated on the West side of the Pokfulam Road and about one mile to the North-West of the village of Pokfulam, bordered on the North by Government ground, the boundary line being marked by granite posts, on the South-West by the Chinese Christian...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215562, "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": 339, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "289\n\nIn 1888 the Chinese and Hong Kong Governments reached agreement. Gap Rock Lighthouse would be built by the British and maintained by them. The island remained Chinese territory not to be used for any other purpose. On the Chinese part, the Kowloon Customs was to contribute $7,500 towards the initial cost of the light and $750 annually towards its maintenance.22 The agreement was not put into effect. Towards the close of the nineteenth century, however, the proposal for lighthouses at the two main approaches to Hong Kong, on Gap Rock and Waglan Island, was revived. The previous agreement was then implemented.\n\nIn 1891 a lighthouse was built on Gap Rock, at the south-western extremity of Lema and Kypong Islands. Lighting equipment was constructed in Sweden and the light was first shown in April 1892. Three years later the lantern was smashed by a severe typhoon. According to experts' opinions later the lighthouse should have been built on the northern part instead of the southern part of the rock. But to rebuild it would cost somewhere near $140,000. So, the original light continued to function usefully through forty years of typhoons until the Japanese invasion in 1941.\n\nGap Rock is in the form of two hillocks, about 80 to 100 feet high, and the gap between gave the place its name (in Chinese it is called Man Mei Chau, meaning the last island or Mosquito Tail Island). The lighthouse tower is nearly 50 feet high, and the light is thus about 142 feet above mean sea level. In heavy storms seas broke right over the lighthouse but it stood, as a tribute to its builders and a pointer to the developments which have marked the growth of the port of Hong Kong.23\n\nWaglan Lighthouse\n\nUnlike Gap Rock Lighthouse, Waglan Lighthouse has a different history. It was constructed by a Paris company for the Chinese Customs Light Department of the Imperial Maritime Customs in 1893. It started to operate on 9th May in the same year. It was run by the Chinese Maritime Customs from Shanghai. Following the lease of the New Territories by Britain, in 1898, it was transferred to the administration and control of the Hong Kong Government on 1st January 1901.\n\nWaglan was a First Order light of 45,000 candle-power burning", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215563, "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": 340, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "290\n\nmineral oil with rotating apparatus floating on mercury. This method for rotating lights by floating the apparatus on a bath of mercury, which eliminated friction and permitted revolutions as frequent as every 15 seconds, was invented in 1890. The technique led to a system of identifying lighthouses by the pattern of intervals of light and darkness. Waglan Light was one of only two such modern pieces of equipment introduced and installed in Asian waters at that time. The other one was installed on the Lao-t'ich-shan Light at Dairen. The British, after taking Waglan over, installed a diaphone fog signal. During its eight-year history as a Chinese light, no fewer than 222 fog-signal guns were fired during the month of April 1894. The fury of the sea at this spot during typhoons is notorious. In 1896, waves flooded the fresh water tanks and completely carried away the derrick used for landing stores, while the spray reached the lantern, 225 feet above high water, pitting the panes with sand and gravel.\n\n24\n\nThe cast iron tower is 52 feet high in the shape of a cone. It is painted white with a red upper portion. During the Second World War Waglan Lighthouse was extensively damaged by bombing. Repairs took place after 1945. It has been unmanned since August 1989. Waglan Lighthouse acts not only as a navigation aid but also as an outpost where weather information on the eastern corner of the territory is collected and fed to the Hong Kong Observatory,\n\nTang Lung Chau Lighthouse\n\nSituated on Tang Lung Chau, a small island to the west of Hong Kong Island, Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse is also commonly known as Kap Sing Lighthouse. It was put into service on 29th April 1912. It has a skeletal steel tower, 11.8 metres high, with a white lantern on top. The steel tower and light apparatus were obtained from England. Skeleton structures are normally used for supporting lights on soft or insecure bottoms - such as on sandbanks, coral reefs and shoals. The brick building which was the light keeper's house has a bedroom, a kitchen, a latrine and a storeroom. Rainwater was collected from the roof and diverted into an underground tank as there was no spring or fresh water supply on the island. The lighthouse is now unmanned and automated. Together with Waglan, this lighthouse was declared a historical structure on 29th December 2000.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215771, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "3\n\nbecame British territory. Malacca was administered by the Dutch until the signing of the Anglo-Dutch treaty in 1824, whereby it was ceded to the British among other terms. Two years later, Singapore and Malacca came under the Penang Presidency.\n\nAccording to Turnbull, the Straits Settlements were the East India Company's most incongruous offspring….The Straits Settlements formed a scattered unit, which was difficult to administer efficiently.” In legal terms, it included Western laws at constitutional level, and local legal systems under the control of sultans.\n\nPhysical/geographical problems\n\nPenang Island lay opposite Province Wellesley (a strip of land about 30 miles long and three miles wide) which the EIC acquired from the Sultan of Kedah in 1800. Malacca was about 260 miles to the south of Penang. Singapore Island was a further 120 miles south, at the tip of the Malay Peninsula.\n\nThere were problems of communication between these settlements, being only by means of sea. Until 1861, the Straits government possessed only two antiquated sailing gunboats and one steamer, used mainly to ferry the governor, recorders and senior officials between the three stations. Communications with the EIC's headquarters in Calcutta were also poor, and until 1864, a monthly steamer service between Calcutta and the Straits Settlements remained the only link with the seat of government.\"\n\nAdministration problems\n\nAccording to Turnbull, '[d]ivision of interest between the East India Company and its eastern dependencies was even more formidable than the geographical and physical problems of administration. The sole value of the Straits Settlements to the East India Company was to protect and stimulate the China trade. When [the EIC] lost its monopoly of this trade in 1833 Calcutta was left with an unrewarding and expensive burden. She could not abandon the Straits Settlements but constantly begrudged the drain they made upon India's financial resources and upon the time and attention of senior officials over the next thirty years.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215785, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "in the Straits, for example in negotiation for the settlement of Penang Island in 1786 where the Supreme Government remained steadfast in refusing to promise military aid to the Sultan of Kedah. Thus, in a Siamese invasion in 1821, the Penang Government did not offer military aid to the Sultan, but only political asylum and mediation. Indeed the whole history of Anglo-Siamese relations in the Malay Peninsular shows evidence that the non-intervention policy was adhered to as much as possible, (cf. Mills, supra, Chap 8 (Anglo-Siamese relations)) For the obvious political and economic reasons the British did not want to antagonise the Siamese (cf. Tarling, Anglo-Dutch Rivalry in the Malay World, 1760-1824) by interfering in the affairs of the Malay States (such as Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu) which were within the Siamese sphere of influence.\n\nSevere censures were passed upon Captain Low for his treaty with Perak in 1826; and the treaty between James Low and Perak and Selangor in 1826, received strong criticism from the Supreme Government and resulted in Low's being suspended from his duties. (Tan DE, Supra, p 119) The Indian Government only relented when Governor Fullerton managed to convince it of the necessity of protecting British interests, a clear instance of the Indian Government's unwillingness to intervene in any of the Malay States. This was further proven when appeals of Perak and Trengannu for defensive purposes were likewise rejected. In the Naning War of 1831-2, Governor Ibbetson was told that the extension of territory was not desired. (Ibid. p 119)\n\nAn even more striking instance occurred in 1833, when the boundary between the Malacca Territory and the tiny state of Johol was debated over. Between the two lay a debatable piece of land which had formerly been claimed by both states, containing rich mines of tin and gold. Governor Ibbetson regarded the frontier delimitation as an excellent opportunity for showing that accessions of territory and encroachments upon their rights is the furthest from our views and intentions' (Mills, supra, p 177), thus resigning any claims that the British might have to it, and even included it within the area of Johol.\n\nThrough the above examples, I would say that the British were pursuing a policy of non-intervention in the Malay States between 1824-73. They upheld this policy whenever possible, though in some cases intervention was unavoidable. And it is significant that sometimes even in instances where British merchants' interests were threatened (for example in Negri Sembilan), the policy of non-intervention was still observed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215788, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "20\n\nintervened to prevent the chiefs of Rembau and Sungei Ujong from levying illegal duties on British merchants. However, these cases of intervention were brought about by individuals such as Governor Cavenagh who deviated from the Government's non-intervention policy. In cases like the Naning War for instance, the Supreme Government did express their unwillingness to extend territory. (Mills, supra, Chap 7 p 127) Thus the Calcutta Government did play an inactive role in these cases which they disapproved of, and from these examples, it could be argued that the merchants had reasonable grounds for their complaint to the House of Commons. Further examples would include the British intervention in Pahang where a civil war had broken out between Wan Ahmad and Wan Mutahir. The Siamese intervened and later it was followed by Trengganu's involvement. This greatly disrupted the trade of British merchants there. Thus, this led to the bombardment of Trengganu by the British in 1862. The motives were partly to protect British trade, but the main reason was to check Siamese aggression. Even then the British bombardment was a violation of the Burney Treaty and the governor's action was highly condemned. (Mills, supra, pp 167 - 173)\n\n55 Thio, supra, p xvi - xvii\n\n56 for example, the disturbance of the Larut wars which continued into the 1870s and was further complicated with the succession disputes there. (Mills, supra, Chap 9, p 180)\n\n57 Hall, supra, p 512\n\n58 as compared to the period after 1874\n\n59 In Selangor, the disturbances of the Klang war and frequent piracy along the coast led to British intervention in 1871. These cases of piracy later served as an excuse for the British to intervene officially in Selangor in 1874, (Mills, Ibid, p 241 - 242)\n\n60 The Straits Times and Singapore Journal of Commerce, supra; Buckley, supra, p 756\n\n61 this point should be read in the context of the chapter as a whole, because the problems discussed are associated heavily with this issue\n\n62 Mills, supra, p 90", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215806, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "38\n\nAfrica. History has shown that the weather, a factor that most folks accept as a part of daily life, has helped decide the outcome of a few military campaigns.\n\nHong Kong's climate was not as extreme as that of the Soviet Union or North Africa, but it could be a potential nuisance or menace to opponents battling for its control. Up to this time (1943), it had not shown itself to be a factor during the two most recent times Hong Kong changed hands in 1841 and 1941. If the Allies returned to reclaim Hong Kong by force, they would likely be deprived of such a walkover.\n\nUsually, the weather favours the defender, because he should have a greater degree of familiarity with his stronghold and probably be more entrenched against the invader and the weather. Although Hong Kong had been British territory for 100 years before the war, Japanese knowledge of Hong Kong was fresher because they were in control of it. Allied knowledge of Hong Kong's weather was an inadequate substitute for actually being in Hong Kong. Things were certain to change in the territory after the British were kicked out, and they did.\n\nFactors to consider\n\nHong Kong's collection of unfavourable weather included rainfall, cloud and fog, temperature, humidity, and winds. All of these factors had already been experienced by the Allies elsewhere. If they considered the control of a specific territory to be crucial, then they would do just about anything to obtain it. Therefore, any objective's weather could be no more than a secondary factor. Simply put, if an objective is chosen, the rationalisation would be that it was chosen regardless of its weather - because the advantages of having it outweighed the potential disadvantages posed by the weather or any other factor. Its weather would be played down, and the attackers would be prepared to suffer the consequences of trying to take it. On the other hand, if an objective is rejected, its weather could be played up (especially if it was potentially violent) as a cause for the rejection.\n\nRainfall\n\nHong Kong received an average annual total of 85 inches (2,159 mm) of precipitation, with the bulk of this amount falling in the middle\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215824, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "56\n\ntemporarily) of so many valuable amphibious vessels would have set back any invasion of Japan, or elsewhere.\"7\n\nIn addition, after Japan agreed to surrender in August 1945, several ships of the RN heading to Hong Kong to re-establish British rule over the territory were caught in a typhoon and suffered losses.58 In all four cases, together with the 1937 and 1946 typhoons that straddled the war, the Allies suffered substantial losses without being able to hit back - because there was nothing to hit! Hence, the Japanese got their \"divine winds,\" but none were able to save them from defeat,\n\n## Conclusion\n\nIt should be noted that neither of the two typhoons that consumed the Third Fleet nor the one that hit Okinawa right after the war were as powerful as the 1937 or 1946 typhoons that hit Hong Kong. Still, the typhoons were strong enough to rattle and even damage the largest and best-protected warships, including collapsing the forward flight decks of two aircraft carriers and slicing the bow off a heavy cruiser in the June 1945 incident. (The ships survived, but the cruiser and one of the carriers were knocked out of the war.)59 Support vessels, which are not as sturdy nor as fast as the biggest warships, would stand to suffer even more from a typhoon, as demonstrated by the October 1945 storm.\n\nFor the weather to prevail in a military campaign is one of the most cost-ineffective ways to lose the campaign. The enemy would have suffered few or no losses in return, which is damaging to morale. On the other side, however, if by a certain stage of the war the weather has become one's most formidable ally, then that is usually an indicator that he has shot his bolt, and has to depend on something outside of his control.\n\nThe weather factors examined range from seemingly trivial to potentially devastating. All, however, are capable of causing unnecessary losses if either side has paid insufficient heed to any of them. In land operations on terrain as mountainous as Hong Kong's, more weight is put on the ability of the foot soldier to achieve key objectives, because the help afforded by machinery would be relatively limited. But the foot soldier is usually more vulnerable to the elements than his supporting machinery. Certainly, machinery could be replaced,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215825, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "57\n\nbut it was harder to replace soldiers with combat experience.\n\nBecause the weather changes from day to day, so must the extent to which it could influence the approval or rejection of a certain operation in war. Hong Kong's weather, as formidable as it was, could not by itself determine if it merited recapture or not. Nor could any objective's weather be the lone factor. If it was, then many of the war's campaigns would not have taken place. If the control of a specific territory was judged crucial, then the powers concerned would do anything within their capacity to seize or retain it.\n\nNo place in the world has perfect weather at any time of the year. In Hong Kong's case, its worst weather occurs during the middle of the year. Had a Hong Kong operation taken place, Allied planners would have naturally preferred that it take place towards the end of the year. That would give the Allies up to six months of relatively trouble-free weather with which to work.\" A Hong Kong operation was bound to include amphibious landings, and these were very susceptible to bad weather. It was important for the Allies to gain at least a foothold on land, as it would give a political and psychological boost to the Allied war effort, as well as put them in a better position militarily vis-à-vis Japan. The China Coast was a perimeter within Japan's empire, and any breach made here would accelerate Japan's demise. So that first foothold was vital, just as it was equally vital for the Japanese to prevent it. In Japan's history, foul weather had worked in her favour when she had to defend against an amphibious invasion, so it wasn't unprecedented for the weather to play a decisive role in war. For the Allies, the last thing they would want was to see a Hong Kong operation in progress be thwarted by a non-human entity like the weather. Such a contest would be a no-win situation for the Allies.\n\nIn the end, the Allies never carried out any landings on any port on the China Coast. Their destruction of the IJN and blockade of Japan by sea and air was so complete that they didn't have to worry about the Japanese in China, which remained a secondary theatre at the end of the war. Hong Kong's weather was never specifically mentioned as a factor, but was probably on the minds of some Allied planners after the poundings their navies had taken in the last months of the war. Hong Kong returned to British, and eventually Chinese, rule, and was fortunate to have not undergone a destructive campaign for it to change hands again.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215908, "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": 207, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "141\n\nDr. Waters arrived in Hong Kong in 1954, at the age of 34, not so young but not so old.\n\n\"I can remember there used to be parades in the street over in Chatham Road of troops marching, the army marching and there were British types around with bowler hats and furled umbrellas and things like that. And it was then really very colonial and very British. Funnily enough, I never realised it would change so much...I mean I thought things would be like that forever.\"\n\nHe sailed to Hong Kong on a ship and the journey took 31 days. He came to work for the colonial service and right from the beginning, he had come to stay. Waters sold his builder's business back in England to take on a permanent job teaching for the now Hong Kong Polytechnic. Waters met his wife, a local Hong Kong Chinese, in the territory. In his book \"Faces of Hong Kong: An Old Hand's Reflection,\" Waters talks about how his father-in-law never approved of their relationship. His father-in-law died in 1959, and Waters and his wife married in 1960.\n\nHis mother-in-law and sisters-in-law welcomed Waters to the family. But it was a time when interracial marriages were not tolerated by many. At work, things were less than comfortable, at times.\n\n\"It's got much better,\" said Waters. \"I married on the Queen's birthday in 1960. We were married in the morning and we went to the Governor's garden party at Government House in the afternoon. But, oh yes, there was without a doubt a certain amount of racism and there was a certain amount of ostracism in the institution where I worked. I felt it myself. Now of course, it's very common for mixed marriages.\"\n\n72\n\nWaters joined the RAS in 1964 but hadn't heard of the society before then. He was invited to join the RAS Council in 1990 and became president in 1996, just before the handover. Since the handover, the RAS is one of the few organisations to have kept the 'Royal' in the name.\n\n\"No one has bothered us. We carry on the same way. We make sure our roots are planted here.\"\n\nWaters very naturally falls into Cantonese when he speaks. Every once in a while, his statements end with 'hai m hai' (isn't that right)?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215911, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "144\n\n\"My car is white so wave at me when you see me, I'll be there in seven minutes,\" said Hase as he gave me directions to wait at the McDonald's in Tai Wo KCR station for our interview. It has taken me almost an hour to get here. I'm in the New Territories.\n\nHe is dressed in a loosely fitting top with colourful embroidery around the edges, and his hair is shorter and seems to have gone a bit lighter than when I last saw him a few months ago. He is friendly and I'm feeling relaxed despite having been a bit nervous in anticipation of our meeting. I fear my questions will not be good enough, or intelligent enough for him.\n\nHase's home is just as I had imagined it: east meets west, and serene. I am served English tea in a Chinese mug and we are using bronze coasters with Chinese characters on them.\n\nWhen I go back to Toronto, my friends often say I sound a bit British, and sometimes they say they don't know what I sound like. But Hase's English accent hasn't been corrupted by his learning Cantonese.\n\n\"Cantonese is difficult because of two things. The first is, it's not written,\" said Hase. \"Now if you're learning Mandarin, you can learn to read it and learn to speak it and the two help each other...The second problem is the tonal structure, which is very complicated, infinitely more complicated than it is in Mandarin and that's very difficult for foreigners...\"\n\n\"So, when I'm speaking Cantonese, my tones are not bad but if I get angry, if I lose my temper, then my tones start to change.\"\n\nHard to believe that Hase arrived in the colony not knowing a word of the language. The government wasn't looking for people who knew the language, just for people who wanted a job.\n\nHase was born in the United Kingdom and got his Ph.D. from Cambridge in an aspect of 7th Century English History. Hase was unable to get a job teaching and opted for a job with the government as an Administrative Officer with his first posting as Administrative Assistant in the Urban Services Department. He arrived in the territory in 1972\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215936, "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": 235, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "169\n\nindependently of each other, with little communication. History is written about those who create documents, not by those whose duty was to leave no trail. Nonetheless, it does appear that there were several groups quietly focussing on different aspects of resistance, not all military, should the day come when the Japanese took over.\n\nUsing his cover as a businessman working for Butterfield and Swire, where his \"manager,\" Mike Turner, also seems to have had SOE connections, Kendall also travelled through China, setting up contacts and listening posts, including those installed by Chauvin and Chinese intelligence. Indeed, because SOE tapped into an existing Chinese network, the intelligence it was able to access was far more sophisticated and accurate. SOE continued to fund another Chinese organisation, the RII (Research and Information Institute) throughout the duration of the war. This was a Chinese operated service using British equipment and a small British staff, working for, not in charge of, the Chinese. Many of its reports still exist, showing just how detailed was the information they gathered: exact ammunition supplies and strengths of Japanese units, area by area, names of officers, postings and movements. When, later in the war, efforts were made to amalgamate various British agencies operating in China, SOE managed to insist that RII was to remain separate and unaffected because it was a Chinese force.\n\nDespite what seems to have been a working relationship between the SOE and various forms of KMT intelligence, it is evident that Kendall also cultivated strong links in the hinterland of Hong Kong where KMT influence was weak. These areas were relatively remote and fiercely resistant to central government influence. The villagers were clannish, and their communities closed, united internally by family and traditional ties. Many of these villagers had emigrated overseas to work in places like South America and Malaya. They also had traditional systems of defence and security, but piracy and banditry were endemic, almost part of the economy. These regions were alien territory to urban Hong Kong people, European or Chinese, who as outsiders would have been treated with suspicion. Political loyalties varied, and before Hong Kong was attacked, people had no automatic regard for the British who were not yet ‘Allies, and whose record in China was not edifying. In many ways, this work was much easier after the occupation when locals and British forces, though humiliated by defeat, shared common ground. Kendall went into these areas, often alone, meeting and talking\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215938, "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": 237, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "171\n\nCommunists and the China coast for Major Egerton Mott of the SOE. * Holmes referred to guerrillas who would be known to Kendall. He was convinced that the expansion of the Communists into British territory in the New Territories 'was planned in some detail before the Japanese attack on the Colony,' so working with this group required uncommon discretion and diplomacy on the part of any Britisher trying to win their support. Holmes, working with Kendall before the war and with the guerrillas later, would have been unusually well informed. He identified the Communist leader in the Hong Kong area as Tsoi Kwok Leung, a man ‘formerly connected with minor Chinese industrial enterprises in Hong Kong and Amoy and...consumptive.'\n\nSome form of SOE organisation was clearly in place in China, covertly, awaiting the Japanese attack before becoming fully activated. Col Chauvin had been removed from Hong Kong on 18th December, on the very day that the Japanese landed on Hong Kong Island, and sent to the British Military Mission in Chongqing. As the battle raged around them, Kendall, Talan and McEwan were stood by for special orders. Col. Harry Owen Hughes who had ostensibly been seconded to liaise with Chinese Armies in the 7 War zone, moved back to the Hong Kong area to await the arrival of something important. This was the arrival, in deep secrecy, of perhaps the most important escape party to ever leave occupied Hong Kong.\n\n[\n\nAt the very moment that Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese, a car was hurrying towards Aberdeen harbour. Inside sat Admiral Chan Chak, the Chinese Nationalist government's chief representative in Hong Kong, and a number of his KMT assistants. The group was led by DM MacDougall, an official seconded to Hong Kong from London to work on political affairs. He had been assigned to look after the Admiral personally, and maintained twenty-four-hour contact with the Admiral's party during the hostilities. They were to rendezvous with five boats of the 2nd Motor Boat Flotilla, who had been held back in battle. Reaching the pier an hour after the surrender, they found the boats gone. The only functioning vessel they could find was a fifteen-foot launch but the party piled in, knowing that the Japanese would be on them at any moment. Hardly had they gone 500 yards when they were fired on by Japanese occupying a post on Brick Hill, opposite, on the southern side of Hong Kong Island. The boat's engine disintegrated under the heavy fire, killing several men and wounding others, including", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215941, "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": 240, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "174\n\nwhich the Police Commissioner handed over $20,000 without question when advised of the plot, though it was claimed that the bribe money came from the Shanghai triads leader Tu Yueh Sheng, then a refugee, albeit wealthy, in Hong Kong. Whatever the truth behind the story, it gained currency as it made the escape of General Yee and Admiral Chan Chak palatable to colonials by portraying it as an honourable act by the British to reward Yee for his assistance in saving them.\n\nIt was almost certainly also a smokescreen to disguise the removal from Hong Kong of something important to the British. MacDougall claimed in 1942 that he had not planned to go but had been persuaded at the last moment by senior government officials. MacDougall however was circumspect, careful not to betray sensitive information in an open letter. He could, however, say that during the last two years his work had 'become increasingly political in character. Officially neutral in the Sino-Japanese War, I had nevertheless behind the scenes consistently exerted what influence I possessed toward blocking and hampering the propaganda and other activities of the Japanese and the adherents of the Wang Ching Wei....I had worked very closely with Chinese organisations and did all in my power, consistent with the interests of the Colony, to aid them.' It should also be noted that he was not an officer of the colonial establishment but belonged to the Ministry of Information. He was to return to Hong Kong on liberation to reinstate the administration. While no high-profile officers escaped with the Chan Chak group, it is probable that some were carrying information. There were men from Army, Navy, and Air Force, and they were chosen for the mission, only one man being a \"guest.\"\n\n* xviii Major Goring was to spend much of the war attached to various strategic planning groups in the China theatre.\n\nThe extent of KMT activity in Hong Kong was considerable. Hong Kong was a sort of open house where all factions of Chinese politics from left to right could operate, as long as they were discreet. Overt acts of terrorism and subversion in other colonies, like the Malayan federation, were suppressed. The territory was also the port through which arms and armaments flowed into China. Technically this was in breach of the Hague Convention as Britain was supposed to be neutral, but there were ways of smuggling and circumventing the system. Baileys, the Hong Kong shipyard, built river gunboats that were outfitted with guns once they entered China. The same technology that enabled\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216028, "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": 327, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "261\n\nwere keen to claim association with the first rulers of the Zhou, of the 12th century BC, and also with the infamous first ruler of China, Qin Shih Huangdi who, it was claimed, had used the area of Dantu as a penal settlement.\n\nDuring dynastic times Zhenjiang was a walled administrative seat, an important prefecture, and one of twelve prefectural cities in Jiangsu province, in a major region known as Jiangnan [South of the River]. Zhenjiang means 'Guard-post of the River', a title given in 1113 during the Song dynasty, and its location, guarding the junction of the Grand Canal and the Yangzi, is such that it was a fortified post at the point where the southern arm of the Grand Canal crosses the Great River to join the northern arm, as well as being the first and ideal position to control the upstream passage of the Yangzi. The British political aim, when their soldiers captured the city in 1842, was to cut off the vital supply route, the Grand Canal, from southern China to the north in order to exert maximum pressure upon the Imperial government.\n\nAlthough Zhenjiang lays claim to a number of incidents, destruction by nature and by human hand, visits by royalty, legendary happenings we shall restrain ourselves to note but a few.\n\nSun Ce**, who was assassinated in 200 AD, conquered a wide territory down to the mouth of the Great River, to which region he gave the title Jiangdong [East of the River]. His brother, Sun Quan of Wu# succeeded to his throne, and it is to him that Zhenjiang is said to owe its existence as a city. Moreover, it was here that he came to court the beauty, Pan Furen, whose father Sun Quan had condemned to death. He pursued her until he was able to make her his wife. Although Nanjing was Sun's main city Zhenjiang had reminders of his fortifications still visible during the early years of the Republic. The foundations of the fortifications that he built round his Governor's Residence could still be traced in a line of crumbling masonry that capped the ridge of heights connecting the then existing Zhenjiang city wall northward to the monastery, Ganlu Si. Also, inside the present city stood a high solitary gateway, with a building on it known as the Old Drum Tower. The masonry foundations of the gate were alleged to date from the time of Sun Quan, and some graves outside the North gate were also said to be those of some members of his line.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216036, "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": 335, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "269\n\nthe time ripe for an insurrection..\n\nThe rebellion began among the Hakka people in the southern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong and by 1853 was spreading north and west, led by Hong Xiuquan, a schoolmaster who had picked up a smattering of Christianity. Whilst suffering from an illness he experienced severe hallucinations and saw that his mission was to free the Chinese from Manchu rule. He also convinced himself and others that he was the younger brother of Christ and a son of God sent to save mankind. The Taiping rebels were known colloquially by the Chinese peasants as the Long-haired Rebels, Chang Mao, as they refused to shave the front of their head. [China's Manchu conquerors had ordered that all Chinese males would shave the front half of their head and wear the rest tied into a lengthy queue or 'pigtail'.] Hong Xiuquan's liberated territory was known as the Kingdom of Great Peace, Taiping Tianguo and by 1860 he had more than a quarter of China under his control. Much of the fighting between the Manchu Imperial forces and the Taiping rebel armies took place across Zhejiang province and down the Yangzi, especially around the Taiping capital at Nanjing. With Zhenjiang captured by the Taiping in April 1853 [a mere eleven years after the British had taken the city], their control of the southern bank of the Yangzi was virtually complete. Zhenjiang lay deserted during the Taiping era, being no more than a fort occupied by the Taiping rebels. The pagodas and temples were all destroyed with the usual Taiping iconoclastic fervour, and in many places their stones used as fortifications. The city, surrounded on three sides by a remarkable line of Taiping trenches some ten to eleven miles in length, was besieged several times by the Imperial forces. Each time they were driven off, with the city remaining in Taiping hands until compelled by a failure of supplies the rebels were forced to evacuate it early in 1857. Zhenjiang never fully recovered. The Taiping were finally defeated in 1864 when their capital at Nanjing finally fell to the Imperial forces - assisted by several foreign-led armies of Chinese and western mercenaries, one of which was the Ever-Victorious Army under General Gordon. Rasmussen in 1905 refers to the decayed trench system as 'Gordon's trenches', with some of his guns still to be found sunk deep into the soil of their old embrasures. He added that 'the only reminder now [1905] of the Taiping Rebellion was the thousands of graves covering the countryside, and the ghost-ridden walled city where the whole population had been put to the sword'. Thomas Adkins, the British Consul in Zhenjiang,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216098, "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": 397, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "331\n\nTram with an open-neck shirt and an off-white, wet-wash Saigon-linen suit. He had a necktie in his pocket to put on for meetings. He carried a Hong Kong (rattan) basket: no briefcase for him. One thing you did not do, in those days, was to mention the expiry of the lease and the hand back of the Territory to China in 1997, I did once, at a reception, and regretted it. You could hear a pin drop. It really was a 'borrowed place on borrowed time.'\n\nWhen I arrived conscription was still in force and every able-bodied British subject had to serve. If you were young, in your twenties, you usually joined the Regiment (the Volunteers). People like me, in my thirties, served in the Special Constabulary (in 1959 it became the Auxiliary Police). Those over 40 were drafted into Essential Services, such as air-raid warden duties. New recruits such as me, in the police European contingent, did three months basic training and 10 days at camp every year. At the latter the European contingent was grouped with the Portuguese and Eurasian contingent. There was a separate camp for Chinese. This was said to be largely for language reasons. Of course we all turned out during the five days of the 1956 riots. These were sparked when a junior civil servant pulled down a Nationalist flag, on the \"Double Tenth\" (10 October), from a Shek Kip Mei resettlement block in north Kowloon. The riots were very much Communists against Nationalists. Later, triads stepped in and took advantage of the situation.\n\nRoutinely, we Special Constables went on street patrol a couple of nights a month and raided opium dens and brothels. One of the interesting places we enjoyed going to was Circular Path, to the south of Queen's Road Central. With urban renewal this path has now disappeared. It contained, among other accommodation, a number of back-street workshops where reputedly stolen jade items and the like were \"re-worked.\"\n\n**\n\nI remember being on police patrol in Central, in April 1956, when we received news that the twice knighted, grand old man, Sir Robert Ho Tung, had passed away. He was 93, although for much of his life he did not enjoy good health. A Eurasian, he had \"gone the Chinese way.\" With his fabulous wealth he lived the life of a Chinese gentleman. It is sometimes said, 'All rivers which run into the China Sea turn salty.' In other words, all ethnic groups living in China get assimilated sooner or later.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216100, "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": 399, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "333\n\nSuyin's autobiographical novel, A Many Splendoured Thing, was partly shot there in the mid-1950s. In real life the boyfriend, a war correspondent killed in Korea, was British. In the film he miraculously became an American.\n\nI frequently walked past the FCC on Saturday nights when riotous parties were in full swing. The old number 41, \"Fairview,\" was the first private residence in the territory to have a lift. This came right up from road level. The house depended on water from a watercourse, on Po Shan Road, for flushing toilets. There is an artist's embellished painting of the old \"Fairview\" in the Hong Kong Museum of Art's collection at Tsim Sha Tsui.\n\nRemaining from the days when it was occupied by a private family, the master bedroom had four bell-pulls. These were connected to the bedrooms of his four concubines. In fact, during his lifetime he was said to have had eight (some say nine) concubines. This was by no means unusual. When a rich Hong Kong man went to the United States in the 1930s, a headline in a newspaper read, 'Here comes the man with 20 wives!'\n\nA Chinese could legally take a concubine up until October 1971, just as up until the 1960s most weddings were customary Chinese marriages. Some concubines taken before October 1971 remain legal secondary wives to this day. There was, of course, a customary ceremony for concubines too and they had their place in the hierarchy of the family. I did know families however where, when the principal wife found out the old man had “another woman,” she was brought in to live with the family. There, the principal wife could keep an eye on her. She was not infrequently made by the first wife to live and eat with the servants. Later, if the first wife died, the concubine, who was usually quite a bit younger, sometimes took her place as a “fill the room” (t' in fong) as a succeeding main wife is known.\n\nAnother important event, in October 1971, was the legislation that came into force making it compulsory for everyone to have at least one day's holiday a week. Up until then, certainly in the 1950s, there would be no problem with crowds on beaches. But no, it was not all work and no play and I swam in the Cross-harbour Race in 1955 and took part in the 42 mile 'Round the Island Walkathon' the following year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216102, "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": 401, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "335\n\nOther Ranks Coloured\n\nAT'S (Auxiliary Territorial Service - women)\n\nBut of course race was not just something for westerners. It was not so dissimilar for some Chinese. I have a friend who said to her daughter, ‘All right, you can go to Britain to study. But you must promise you will never marry a westerner.' Such views are still not so uncommon. There is an obituary in the HKBRAS Journal, Vol. 27, 1987, page 5, for RAS member KMA Barnett OBE. The writer suggested that Barnett's 'occasional sourness could be traced to a resentment that his (most happy) marriage to a Chinese had blocked his promotion.' The writer also said that Barnett was inclined to believe that AIDS was a divine (or nature's) deserved punishment for societies which tolerated, even glamorised, “deviants.”\n\nIn the case of my own Anglo-Chinese wedding, although I did receive a certain amount of ostracism from a few colleagues in the early days, most accepted my marriage without too much difficulty. Certainly I received no objections from my employer, the Hong Kong Government. In my case I was married in the morning and, in the afternoon, my Chinese wife and I were invited to the Governor's garden party on the lawn at Government House. This was held annually, on the Queen's Birthday, 21 April, which was then a public holiday. We held a Chinese dinner that evening, in the old Sun Ya Restaurant on Nathan Road. The cost was $130 per Chinese table each seating 12 persons.\n\nMany people, certainly pre-World War Two, took the view that stratification was correct and necessary as lifestyles of the Chinese and westerners differed so considerably. The Chinese, at least outwardly, were not too disturbed by racial discrimination. They took it all quite stoically. After all, they knew who was really superior. Was not their country the Middle Kingdom, with a complex culture and a continuous civilisation going back 5,000 years? They did not want to live on the Peak anyway, it was far too humid up there. Yes, like the British, at heart the Chinese knew who the superior beings really were. Today, while there is still some class distinction and snobbery in the Territory, both among Europeans and Chinese, the old days of racial discrimination have fortunately largely gone. Mixed marriages make the world go round.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216109, "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": 408, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "342\n\nthey would have provided (had they been left) and for the urban lineage they would have represented. Those wonderful old buildings are no longer with us to provide anchors in times of need.\n\nThey were replaced within a few years by high-rise air-conditioned buildings. Many depend upon artificial lighting and ventilation and have windows which do not open. Today, so many live and work in an artificial atmosphere. This major change led long ago to people discarding shorts and open-necked shirts and wearing two-piece suits and more formal and more uncomfortable clothing. The new lifestyle meant the better off were stepping from their air-conditioned homes, carrying brief cases, into their air-conditioned cars and then being conveyed to their air-conditioned offices.\n\nAt the end of World War Two the Chinese Nationalist Government was waiting in the wings just over the border to take over Hong Kong. But the British beat them to it. If the Americans had had their way, and British rule had been terminated in Hong Kong in 1945 and the place had been returned to China, it is possible to speculate what would have happened. In 1949 Hong Kong, like other big cities in China, would have been taken over by the People's Republic Government. This would have meant that, after 30 or so years of communist rule, Hong Kong would have been as backward economically as the rest of China. There would have been no 'Hong Kong miracle'. After 1978 the Territory would not have been able to form a nucleus for the economic development for the rest of China with its 'Open Door Policy.'\n\nPigeons\n\nUp until 1914 every marine launch of Hong Kong's Water Police (as the Marine Police were known then) took a few pigeons on board. These were used to fly messages back to headquarters in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. But in spite of the introduction of radio the pigeons were kept on strength. Members of the force contributed to buy them food. The flock of about 50 birds came to be looked upon much like the Barbary Apes at Gibraltar or the Ravens at the Tower of London. It was said when the pigeons departed from Marine Police Headquarters so would the British from Hong Kong.\n\nThe pigeons disappeared during the Japanese occupation but were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216216, "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": 515, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "PROJECTS AND ENQUIRIES\n\nDAN WATERS\n\n449\n\nThe main role of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society is to organise lectures and visits both within and outside the Territory. We also publish an annual Journal together with other occasional publications and mount infrequent exhibitions. But in addition, the HKBRAS also undertakes various projects. Some of these are carried out by its Volunteers who assist the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office. See JHKBRAS, Volume 40, 2000, page 231.\n\nYour Branch also receives enquiries, often from overseas, requesting assistance or information about Hong Kong history and the like. We normally help the enquirer if we can and treat it as a form of community service.\n\nA typical example was in 1998 when we received a letter from the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia. They had received enquiries about the locations of seven graves thought to be in Hong Kong, 'Could we help?' Yes, we would try. This project has been written up in some detail under the title, “Tracing Graves in Hong Kong: Research Methodology,” by Dan Waters, see JHKBRAS, Volume 38, 1998-1999.\n\nThen again two of our members living in England, Mrs Rosemary Lee and Captain Tony Bromfield, were undertaking research for the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia, about a Captain Samuel Plant. He was an authority on navigating the Upper Yangtze. There is an article about the good Captain and his wife in JHKBRAS, Volume 41, 2001.\n\nIn 1999, we received an enquiry from Australia from Victoria Brown. She wanted information about her great-grandmother, Miranda Main (née Mann), who was headmistress of Kowloon British School during the first decade of the 20th century. Again we were able to help.\n\nThen we had an enquiry from a relative of Lieutenant Henry Dallas who died in Hong Kong in 1844. Up to World War Two there was a memorial to him in Saint John's Cathedral. 'No,' we were informed, it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]