[
    {
        "id": 204673,
        "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": 154,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "138\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nto convince the Chinese and their rulers that they represented nations and civilizations which were in no way inferior in dignity, status and achievement to China herself. Macartney's mission, though most carefully planned and equipped, was no more successful than those of his predecessors in concluding any kind of treaty or agreement on the basis of equality and mutual respect.\n\nIn a brief review such as this, one is faced with an “embarras de richesses”, for there are many aspects of this unusual book that would be tempting to follow up. The eighteenth century European's view of an Oriental overlordship; the relationship of trust and friendship that developed between Macartney and his attendant Mandarins, Wang and Chou; the travelogue itself and its curious but obvious omissions; the detailed study of Chinese achievements revealed in the Appendices; all these and many more invite the reviewer's comment. But it is perhaps the nature of the diarist himself that offers the most rewarding study, for here is the unconscious self-portrait of a man typical in many ways of his own age and culture, set against a wholly strange background. Macartney's early career, added to his personal qualities, marked him out for this mission. He was an experienced diplomat, well versed in dealing with oriental peoples and with rulers enjoying despotic power. He had served his country well in India, and as envoy-extraordinary to the Court of Catherine the Great, he had negotiated a commercial treaty with Russia. He was of proven integrity, indeed as Governor of Madras he had refused the perquisites accepted by his predecessors. He was a man of the world, much travelled, of a flexible turn of mind, far from intolerant in matters of politics, religion or race. Accustomed to control, he was schooled in self-control. Moreover he was of known ability in recording his observations of other countries and their peoples, and realised full well that not only the opinions of rulers but everything about a people their manners, customs, history and achievements -were of vital importance to Great Britain in formulating policies in relation to the country concerned.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205105,
        "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": 61,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "56\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nThese Northern European traders, then, were the first Europeans that ever came to China, or so it seems. They left very little, if any, impression on the Chinese. Not even the annalistic chapters of the Yüan-shih recorded their arrival, and but for the court diary kept by a Chinese official in Kublai's residence we would never have known about them at all. The same is true for the Polos, who are, as indicated above, not recorded in any Chinese source. But this applies not only to the Venetian travellers. The many missionaries, mostly Franciscan friars, who came to China have left no traces in Chinese records and we would not know about their visit if Western sources had not preserved their accounts.\n\nGiovanni da Montecorvino, who was dispatched to the Great Khan in 1289 by Pope Nicholas IV, went to Peking (Khanbaliq) and we have in a medieval chronicle his letters dated from Khanbaliq 1305 and 1306 respectively. There he reports on the progress of his evangelistic work, on baptisms, and he asks to have sent to him an antiphonarium, a collection of legends, a psalter and a graduale. He pretends to have learned the Tatar language; that is, either Mongolian or Turkish. Otherwise nothing in his letters indicates things Chinese. They could have been written anywhere where the \"Tartar\" language was spoken and that was almost everywhere between the Black Sea and the Yellow Sea. He did not notice that the majority of the Peking inhabitants did not speak Tatar but Chinese.\n\nA similar impression is given by most of the other letters written by Franciscan friars residing in China all of which points to a singular lack of contact between China and representatives of Occidental civilization. There are, on the other hand, a few remains of an archaeological nature proving that Latin Christianity reached China after all. The most famous relic is the \"Latin Tombstone\" in Yang-chou, which has been called, not inappropriately, by the author of a study of the monument, “a landmark of Medieval Christianity in China.\" This stone was discovered in 1951 and has a Latin inscription saying that \"In the Name of the Lord Amen here lies Catherine, Daughter of the Late Sir Dominic de Viglione, who died in the Year of the Lord One Thousand Three Hundred Forty-Two in the Month of June.\"\n\nAbove the inscription there are several finely chiseled drawings of Mary with the Child and scenes of the martyrdom of St. Catherine, the patron-saint of the girl. These representations of Christian art show an impressive combination of Western motifs",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211615,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1989",
        "page_number": 30,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "Cinema, at North Point (constructed in the early 1950s), is suspended; or the English style, Kentish-Rag, stone retaining wall on the south side of Battery Path in Central. One wonders if the latter was commissioned by some homesick Englishman.\n\nAnd, while parts of the Territory have been disparagingly called \"concrete jungle”, there are modern structures of merit. Depending on your taste, the St. John's Building (Lower Peak-Tram Station), Admiralty Centre; and the Macau Ferry Terminal spring to mind. The foyer at the Landmark, and the high-rise, high-tech Exchange Square, with its \"electronic plumbing\" so tenants can plug in for centralised computer services, are also of merit. Other recently completed buildings show an impressive degree of distinction and aesthetic sensitivity.\n\nIn an article written by Doctor Alan Birch in 1978, previously Reader in History at Hong Kong University, he stated that 95 per cent of the Territory's buildings had been erected from 1946 onwards (even if the deterioration of some belies their age). Although that was probably a very approximate estimate, since then many more old buildings have been torn down. Hong Kong is a city-state where, with the exception of the plot on which Saint John's Cathedral stands (which is freehold), all land is leasehold held from the Crown: this demands that landholders maximise their income from the land in as short a time as possible.\n\nTo give some idea how dramatically the skyline has changed: until World War II the seven-storey Peninsula Hotel, on the Kowloon waterfront, which served as the Japanese army headquarters during the occupation, was considered tall. Since then, the skyline has changed dramatically every decade.\n\nCatherine II (Catherine the Great) (1729-96), Empress of Russia, who together with her many architects erected royal palaces and public buildings, said that building was a disease, like alcoholism. Not too dissimilarly, in Hong Kong, Aw Boon Haw, the son of a Chinese herbalist, who together with his brother, Boon Par, produced the famous \"cure-all\", Tiger Balm, was told by a sooth-sayer that he would lose his fortune and die if he stopped building. When he eventually departed he had erected 26 castles around Asia, as well as the well-known Tiger Balm Gardens in both Singapore and Hong Kong. These, which contain figures depicting stories in Chinese history or mythology, were built to promote Aw's well-known pharmaceutical products.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    }
]