[ { "id": 205707, "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": 13, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "CHINESE UNOFFICIAL MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE COUNCILS IN HONG KONG UP TO 1941\n\nT. C. CHENG, O.B.E., M.A.(LOND.)*\n\n(A lecture delivered to the Branch on 29 April 1968)\n\nOn 5th April, 1843, Her Majesty Queen Victoria granted to Hong Kong a Royal Charter which declared Hong Kong a separate Colony. The main provisions of this Charter, published in Hong Kong in June 1843, included, among other things, the following:\n\n(i) There should be a Legislative Council to be composed of the Governor and of such Public Officers within the said Colony, or of such other persons as shall from time to time be named or designated by Her Majesty for the purpose;\n\n(ii) An Executive Council should be established to advise and assist the Governor, who was authorized to summon as an Executive Council such persons as may from time to time be named or designated by Her Majesty.\n\nIt was, however, not until January 1844 that the Legislative Council first met, being composed of all officials, viz., the Governor (Sir Henry Pottinger), the Lt.-Governor (Major-General D'Aguilar) and the Chief Magistrate (Major Caine). The Clerk of Councils was the Legal Adviser to the Governor (R. Burgass).\n\nMajor-General D'Aguilar and Major Caine were also appointed members of the Executive Council.\n\nIn June 1850 the first British unofficial members were nominated to the Legislative Council. They were Messrs. David Jardine and J. F. Adger, both elected by the unofficial Justices of the Peace. Even at this early period of the history of Hong Kong, dissatisfaction was already expressed, mainly among the British community, with the small number of unofficials serving on the Council. In the case of the Chinese, they were, however, inarticulate because there were then very few Chinese who were educated through the medium of English and who could communicate adequately in that language.\n\n\"Mr. Cheng has been President of United College in The Chinese University of Hong Kong since 1963. Prior to that he was in Hong Kong Government service since 1939, his last post being Chief Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205961, "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": 41, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862-1941\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE*\n\nThe British Civil Service contains administrative, executive and clerical classes. The administrative class in Britain and the colonies was an elite generally recruited directly from the universities. The term 'cadet officer' denotes the administrative grade of officer in the Hong Kong Government Service in the period under review. It remained in official use for almost a century, until 1960.\n\nAltogether 85 cadets were appointed in the period 1862-1941. 9 died in office, 12 transferred or were seconded, and four resigned or retired on medical grounds. Three became governors of Hong Kong - Sir Francis Henry May (1912-18), Sir Cecil Clementi (1925-30), and Sir Alexander Grantham (1947-1957); and five became Governors or High Commissioners of other territories - Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (Straits Settlements), Sir James Haldane Stewart Lockhart (Weihaiwei), Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (Weihaiwei), Sir George Murchison Fletcher (Fiji, Western Pacific, Trinidad) and Sir Alexander Grantham (Fiji, Western Pacific). Two became Chief Justices of Hong Kong - Sir James Russell (1888-92) and Sir Joseph Horsford Kemp (1930-33). Four others attained the rank of Colonial Secretary, Hong Kong before retirement - Norman Lockhart Smith (1936-41), David Mercer MacDougall (1946-49), Claude Bramall Burgess (1958-63) and Edmund Brinsley Teesdale (1963-66).\n\nThe number of cadets on the establishment in any one year was never large: only 7 in 1880, 13 in 1900, 31 in 1920, and 37 in 1941. Even these figures are deceptive: they report the strength on the books but not the strength in the field. We must deduct from such totals the number of 'unpassed' cadets2 (cadets engaged in the full-time study of the Chinese language)\n\n* Mr. Lethbridge is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong. He is the author of several articles on Hong Kong subjects. His \"Hong Kong under Japanese Occupation: Changes in Social Structure\" appeared in I. C. Jarvie and Joseph Agassi, Hong Kong, A Society in Transition — contributions to the study of Hong Kong Society (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) pp. 77-127. Another article, on the Tung Wah Hospitals 1870-1970, will appear in a second volume edited by I. C. Jarvie and Marjorie Topley to be published soon. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208375, "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-1978", "page_number": 99, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "THE POLITICIZATION OF CHINESE CRAFT ORGANIZATION IN POST WORLD WAR II HONG KONG\n\nEUGENE COOPER*\n\nIn a private communication to John Stewart Burgess, to which Burgess refers in his 1928 work, The Guilds of Peking, the well-known Chinese economist, Ch'en Ta takes note of three characteristics of the modern industries of the time:\n\n1. that modern industries often came into existence by a process of amalgamation of previously distinct, independent crafts.\n\n2. that this synthetic structure often made it difficult to achieve unity between the various constituent craftsmen in a given industry in pressing for their demands as a unified working class (Burgess, 1928:223).\n\n3. that it was often difficult to overcome provincial feeling in organizing workers from different native places into a unified working class (Ibid:227).\n\nThe process of amalgamation of independent crafts into a single industry is one which Marx noted as characteristic of the early stages of European capitalist development from the middle of the 16th to the last third of the 18th century. This process resulted in a mode of production that Marx called “manufacture”, the archetypal example of which was carriage-making in which the wheelwright, carpenter, upholsterer, and blacksmith came together in a single enterprise to produce carriages, each coming to specialize in the production of carriage parts (Marx, 1967:1:336 ff.).\n\nManufacture arose as a mode of production in the Chinese art-carved furniture industry in the 1920's, as the result of just such a process of amalgamation which brought rural temple carvers together under the same roof with carpenters and painters in what became urban Shanghai and Canton-based carved furniture factories.\n\n* Dr. Cooper is Lecturer in Sociology in the University of Hong Kong. This article first appeared as a paper read to the Symposium on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the Politicization of Asian Folk Culture, held at the Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting in New York City, March 25, 1977.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208390, "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-1978", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "98\n\nEUGENE COOPER\n\nFollowing the vice-chairman's speech, the business part of the meeting ended and the entertainment began, performances being given by a patriotic troop hired for the occasion. One number was performed by the children of the school at the Woodwork Carvers' Union premises. The evening was capped by a pro-union play of the Waiting for Lefty agit-prop type, in which a worker injured on the job learns how really insecure his position as a proletarian is with nothing but his own labor to sell. Unless he stands united with his fellow workers in a union, he really has no chance of supporting his family with his now injured arm, as his boss refuses to take him back on the job. He is attended to by a union doctor and two union members, having no money to afford a private doctor. Gradually he and his wife come to see the benefits of union membership, and the play ends happily with all setting out to attend the union meeting.\n\nThere were also dances to revolutionary themes with dancers dressed in costumes of Chinese people in various walks of life, and one dance depicting the victories won by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The troop had its own Chinese style orchestra which rendered the tunes to accompany the dances.\n\nA Broadsheet was published for the occasion in which the yearly budget was printed and circulated to all who attended.\n\nSelection of officers, discussions of rising prices and increases in standard of living, announcements of wage demands, reports on relations with other guilds, reports of income and expenditures were all common items of business at traditional Chinese guild meetings (Burgess, 1928:145-6) and their presence in the proceedings of the yearly membership meeting of the Woodwork Carvers' Union is noteworthy in that regard.\n\nWhile a religious service honoring the guild founder or a patron saint was often part of the traditional program, both Burgess and Morse had already noted the decline or absence of religious ceremonies or common guild worship in the early twentieth century (Burgess, 1928: 176; Morse, 1909:17). Thus the absence of such services at the yearly meeting of the Woodwork Carvers' Union is not of any singular importance.\n\nOf interest, however, is the preservation in the program of musical performances, dances and plays which were typical items in the program of traditional guild yearly meetings (Gamble, 1921:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208392, "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-1978", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "100\n\nEUGENE COOPER\n\nThe Woodwork Carvers' Union has always encouraged the growth of a modern, unified, class conscious labor force. Its ability to weather the struggles of the 1960's and its current vitality in actively promoting its members' interests in welfare, recreation, and livelihood are expressions of the fact that 1.) its Maoist message now finds a more receptive audience in a labor force more thoroughly proletarianized and less hostile to Peking and 2.) its efforts to consciously adapt, transform, and politicize various aspects of traditional craft social structure into modern institutions in a manner consistent with its ideology have been relatively successful.\n\nThe result has been that the purposes which the Woodwork Carvers' Union has made its own now command a greater importance in the lives of most workers than ever before. Politics, and proletarian politics at that, is in command in the art carved furniture industry, and the traditional array of discrete unions for carvers and carpenters of differing native place in differing woods is in retreat.\n\nReferences Cited\n\nBurgess, J. S.\n\n1928 The Guilds of Peking New York: Columbia University Press.\n\nGamble, S. D.\n\n1921 Peking A Social Survey New York: George A. Doran Co.\n\nMarx, K.\n\n1967 Capital New York: International Publishers.\n\nMorse, H. B.\n\n1909 The Guilds of China London: Longmans, Green & Co.\n\nSowerby, A. de C.\n\n1926 A New Art Craft in Shanghai The China Journal of Science and Arts 8(3): 1.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208460, "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-1978", "page_number": 184, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "168\n\nC. MARTIN WILBUR\n\nSu, Sing Ging; The Chinese Family System. New York, International Press, 1922.\n\nTang, Chi-yu; An Economic Study of Chinese Agriculture. No place, no pub., 1924. (Cornell University Ph.D. Thesis.)\n\nTayler, J. B.; See: Malone, C. B., and Tayler, J. B.\n\nTsu, Yu-yue; The Spirit of Chinese Philanthropy; a Study in Mutual Aid. New York, Columbia, 1912.\n\nTyau, Min-ch'ien (Ed); Two Years of Nationalist China. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1930.\n\nWerner, E. T. C.; China of the Chinese. London, Pitman, 1920. Werner, E. T. C.; Descriptive Sociology: or Groups of Sociological Facts, Classified and Arranged by Herbert Spencer. Chinese; Compiled and Abstracted upon the Plan Organized by Herbert Spencer. London, Williams and Norgate, 1910. (Folio no. 9 of series).\n\nWilhelm, Richard; A Short History of Chinese Civilization. (Translated by Joan Joshua). New York, Viking, 1929.\n\nWilliams, Edward T.; China Yesterday and Today. New York, Crowell, 1923.\n\nWilliams, Edward T.; A Short History of China. New York, Harpers, 1928.\n\nYen, James Y. C.; New Citizens for China. No place, Chinese National Association of the Mass Education Movement, 1929 (Reprint. Yale Review, vol. 18, No. 2)\n\nII. USEFUL WORKS NOT CITED.\n\nBrenan, Bryon; \"The Office of District Magistrate in China\" (Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 32, 1897-98, p. 36-65).\n\nChen, Ta; \"Socio-economic Conditions in Two Chinese Villages” (Chinese Economic Monthly, vol. 2, no. 5, 1925, p. 11-23).\n\nChiao, C. M. and Buck, John L.; \"The Composition and Growth of Population Groups in China\" (Chinese Economic Journal, vol. 2, no. 3, 1928, p. 219-235),\n\n\"Chinese Clans and Their Customs\" (Chinese and Japanese Repository, vol. 3, no. 23, 1865, p. 281-284).\n\nDickinson, Jean; Observations on the Social Life of a North China Village. (Chien Ying, Wu Ching Hsien) Oct.-Dec. 1924. Peking, Yenching, no date.\n\nFang, Fu-an; Chinese Labour; an Economic and Statistical Survey of the Labour Conditions and Labour Movement in China. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1931.\n\nGamble, Sidney D., and Burgess, John S.; Peking; a Social Survey. New York, Doran, 1921.\n\nHalhoun, Gustov; \"Contributions to the History of Clan Settlement in Ancient China” (Asia Major, vol. 1, 1924, p. 76-111, 587-623).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209992, "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": 251, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "229\n\np. 60. Day, Peasant Cults, pp. 107-108.\n\np. 60. Burgess, J. S., The Guilds of Peking, New York, 1928, p. 179.\n\np. 69. A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, Hong Kong, 1960, p. 138.\n\np. 69, Maugham, W. Somerset, On a Chinese Screen, London, 1922, p. 138.\n\np. 70. Broomhall, Marshall (ed.), Martyred Missionaries of the China Inland Mission, with a Record of the Perils and Sufferings of Some Who Escaped, London, 1901, p. 8.\n\np. 74. Burkhardt, V. R., Chinese Creeds and Customs, Hong Kong, 1953-58, Vol I, p. 106.\n\np. 81. Ball, Things, p. 75.\n\np. 86. Ibid. p. 668.\n\np. 90. Williams, S. Wells, Middle Kingdom, Vol I, p. 340.\n\np. 92. Ibid.\n\np. 93. Doré, Researches, Vol V, p. 533.\n\np. 94. Ibid, p. 535.\n\np. 97. Ball, Things, pp. 499-500.\n\np. 101. Barnett, K. M. A., The Peoples of the New Territories' in Braga, J. M. (ed.) The Hong Kong Business Symposium, Hong Kong, 1957, p. 265.\n\np. 102. Hashimoto, Mantaro J., The Hakka Dialect, London, 1973, pp. 1-2, p. 109. Obraztsov, Sergei, (translated by MacDermott, J. T.) The Chinese Puppet Theatre, London, 1961, pp. 27-28,\n\np. 110. Dolby, William, 'The Origins of Chinese Puppetry'. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978. Vol XLI. Part 1, pp. 109-110.\n\np. 112. Spencer, Cornelia, Made in China: the Story of China's Expression, London, 1947, p. 122.\n\np. 114. Burkhardt, Creeds and Customs, Vol I, p. 13.\n\np. 114. Clemens, John, Discovering Macau: a Visitor's Guide, Hong Kong, 1972, p. 121.\n\np. 114. Werner, Dictionary, p. 503.\n\np. 117. Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842: the History of Hong Kong Prior to British Arrival, Hong Kong, 1963, p. 83.\n\np. 118. Peplow and Barker, Around and About, pp. 4-5.\n\np. 122. Ride, Lindsay, \"The Old Protestant Cemetery in Macao', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong, Vol III, 1963, p. 14.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213156, "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "206\n\nfor this appears to be connected to the issue of gaining access and cooperation. For even when the Chinese are present in sufficient numbers in smaller geographical areas, e.g. London, Liverpool, Manchester (thus reducing the difficulties of sampling and locating the Chinese) the process of gaining access and cooperation can still pose a substantial obstacle. Persuading most Chinese to participate in a study is a constant struggle, Some Chinese do not want to express their views; some Chinese struggling in a small family business do not have the time to express their views; and some Chinese do not believe they have views worth expressing.\n\nWong (1992:6) explicated her reasoning thus:\n\n'Chinese in Britain, are reserved, conservative and complex. Many Chinese people are reluctant to reveal their problems as they are afraid of \"losing face.\" Some business proprietors worry that their personal privileges will be interfered with by the government. Some Chinese educated professionals and politicians do not want to cooperate with researchers as knowledge of Chinese communities has become a key to leadership and power. It is therefore not surprising that previous research indicates that gaining access to Chinese people is a major problem in conducting research on Chinese communities in Britain.'\n\nSocial ties however, have proved useful under such circumstances in negotiating access and cooperation. Consequently in several studies there was the bias resulting from the researchers' utilisation of social networks, for instance to supplement figures or to increase the response rates, exemplified by the Commission For Racial Equality survey where the interviewers' contacts were used; also O'Neill's heavy reliance on informal contacts; and Tan's inclusion of personal friends in that study (Taylor, 1987:302).\n\nIn my research study it was eventually decided that postal questionnaire survey method would be distributed in a social network using a snowballing technique. According to Burgess the snowballing technique 'involves using a small group of informants who [are] asked to put the researcher in touch with their friends...then asking them about their friends...until a chain of informants has been selected' (1984:55).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213159, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "I may speak the English language because I learnt it early in life. But I have not got the Western value system inside; mine is an Eastern value system. Nevertheless, I use Western concepts, Western words because I understand them. But I also have a different system in my mind.\n\n209\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nBaxter, S.C.C. (1988) A political economy of the ethnic Chinese catering industry. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Aston in Birmingham.\n\nBurgess, R.G. (1984) In the field: an introduction to field research. London: Allen & Unwin.\n\nMerton, R.K. (1972) “Insiders and outsiders: a chapter in the sociology of knowledge”, American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 78. pp. 9-47.\n\nNg, K.C. (1965) Some aspects of the social organisation of Chinese engaged in the restaurant business in London. M.A. thesis. University of London.\n\nOwen, D. (1992) Ethnic minorities in Great Britain: settlement patterns. NEMDA 1991 Census statistical paper No. 1. Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick.\n\nPang, Y.N.M. (1993) Catering to employment needs: the occupations of young Chinese adults in Britain. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Warwick.\n\nSteier, F. (1991) Research and reflexivity. London: Sage.\n\nTaylor, M.J. (1987) Chinese pupils in Britain, a review of research into the education of pupils of Chinese origin. Windsor: NFER-Nelson publishing company.\n\nWatson, J.L. (1977) “The Chinese: Hong Kong villagers in the British catering trade” in Watson, J.L. (Ed) Between two cultures: migrants and minorities in Britain. Oxford: Blackwell.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214992, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "44\n\nIt was considered that more rapid progress could be made with the utilisation of the Chinese [British] officers as they had technical knowledge and could speak the language. At a meeting at which the CO of the 78th Labour Group, Lt Col. Cline, together with all the Chinese Company officers, it was decided that 2Lt Carter be attached to the Works Office staff to administer the Chinese Labour with one Chinese Company officer attached to each section to supervise the Chinese labour. They were responsible, amongst other duties, for bringing to the notice of Section Commanders any coolies for trade training. This scheme produced better results in that the Chinese were continually supervised and also that they appreciated someone looking after their interests.\n\nIn March, 1918, a total of 248 Chinese were skilled at varying jobs from fitters, riveters, carpenters and strikers amongst others. Squads were formed for performing particular jobs such as detracking and changing engines.\n\nBetween January and March, under 2Lt Burgess, the Chinese were extensively used for the construction of the new workshop at Teneur. Under Captain Jackson, all cement foundations were laid, together with the Decauville Lines system and sleeper roads. At Teneur the Chinese performed similar tasks as previously, first on the repair of Mark IV tanks and then on the conversion and subsequent repair of male and female Mark V tanks. [see photograph no. G]\n\nAs a result of heavy demands in the Engine Shop during September and October, 1918, the Chinese skilled labour was increased, with a result that 24 big-end bedders were employed. These men considered themselves the highest grade and refused to work on any other job.\n\nThe Camouflage Section responsible for the painting of all tanks and the repair and manufacture of all camouflage material consisted of about 70 Chinese.\n\nAccording to Sir Albert Stern, a Malay donor, Mr Eu Tong-sen, who was a member of the Federal Council of the Malay States, offered a sum of £6,000 towards a tank, the average price at that time being between £4,000 and £5,000, but whether from his personal resources or as a gift of the Federal Council is not clear. A Mark IV male tank", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215168, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "A Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong\n\nsystem. After all, most people have been to school and, therefore, many are instant experts.\n\nClaude Burgess, Colonial Secretary from 1958-1963, said that Hong Kong was a problem of people. Indeed one sometimes wonders how other countries' education systems would have fared if their populations had increased at the rate Hong Kong's has. Post-World War Two education started from a low base line, but by 1981, universal, compulsory, free education had been introduced.\n\nThe proof of the rice dumpling has to be in the eating, just as you judge an education system by the students who graduate. Many of those who studied technical education in Hong Kong have gone right to the top of their chosen fields. A few have graduated from the Polytechnic, or its predecessor the Technical College, and have become members of the Legislative or Executive Councils.\n\nTo achieve what we have, certainly in the old days when funds were restricted, there had to be a force of long-serving, dedicated teachers. Members of staff who gave stability and shape to the technical education scene, in spite of its limitations some of which have been noted in this brief paper.\n\nIf you cannot live with change Hong Kong is not the place to be. Certainly over the past half century the pace of change has been staggering. I cast my mind back to when we teachers were invited in 1956, by past building students, to a Chinese dinner in the woodwork workshop, at the old Technical College in Wood Road. They engaged outside caterers and the food was cooked in the corridor. The cost was around $100.00 per round, Chinese table seating 12 persons. Today, every New Year I am graciously invited by my past students, some of whom have already retired, to a Technical College/Polytechnic/Polytechnic University Ball at the Grand Hyatt. How things have changed! As you can see I still keep in touch with some of my old students, both locally and overseas, some of whom I taught over 40 years ago.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216105, "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": 404, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "338\n\nour concrete framed building, where I lived in Argyle Street, Kowloon, swayed. You could hear glass breaking, there was a constant job of mopping up. Water seals were sucked out of toilets.\n\nA problem of people\n\nAs Claude Burgess, Colonial Secretary from 1958 to '63, was fond of saying, Hong Kong has a problem of people. They have swum in on pigs' bladders across Mirs Bay and Deep Bay and come in by just about every means possible. Up until 1980 there was a touch base policy. Any illegal immigrant who reached the urban area was allowed to stay. But after that date all illegal immigrants caught have been repatriated.\n\nIn 1962, the Communists had a trial run and opened the 'flood gates.' Over a period of 25 days something like 70,000 men, women and children were allowed to surge into Hong Kong. The communist guards stepped back and directed the masses. They walked over the hills. Hong Kong was overwhelmed. And then, just as abruptly as they had opened, the flood gates shut. It seems to have been a move by the People's Republic to embarrass the colony. They wanted to show that they could take over Hong Kong at any time.\n\nWater shortage\n\nHong Kong was invariably short of water, from the early years of British rule when everyone depended on streams and wells. Up to comparatively recent years the water supply situation was a common subject of conversation.\n\nIn 1963, 'the year Hong Kong ran dry,' we were down to four hours of water on tap once every four days. In resettlement estates people started queuing for water eight hours before it was turned on and at Diamond Hill, it was reported, 20,000 people were dependent on one hydrant. Thieves stole water. Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists and Christians all prayed for rain. Water was shipped in by tankers from higher up the Pearl River.\n\nPeople would say at a reception, 'I must slip off early. Our water is turned on tonight.' Of course we, who lived in flats, also stored water. Bathing in a small amount of water was an art. Children went in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]