[ { "id": 204408, "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": 40, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CURRENCY PROBLEMS\n\n31\n\nlifted. This issue was forced upon an unwilling community at the dollar-copper exchange rate, i.e., fifteen hundred cash for one silver dollar. A little more than a year later the issue was redeemed at the rate of one million for one silver dollar. Up to the time of my last visit to that district some twenty years ago, the issue was still referred to as the \"sand plate currency\".\n\nBut as with the brass cash so the copper cash content value soon rose above the market rate and the good old suction pump once again went to work directing the flow of China's coinage into the mills of Nippon. Just at this time, one worthy old ship master, commanding a ship on the berth from Tientsin to Hong Kong and calling at way ports, made a reputation for himself. On the occasion under reference he was seen to be experiencing difficulty on clearing Chefoo harbour. His ship was riding well down by the head and considerable trouble was experienced in heaving the anchor. When the harbour authorities came to the assistance of the ship it was found that the anchor chain locker was so full of copper coins that the anchor chain could not be stowed. To the present day, in certain local circles, the old sea-dog is affectionately referred to as the master of the floating copper mine.\n\n++\n\n+\n\n44\n\n44\n\nAs already stated, the baser currencies of brass and copper were related to the value of silver. Silver bullion circulated in the form of slabs, ingots and \"shoes\". The latter ranged from the one tael shoe especially cast for the distribution of the Imperial bounty (similar to the Maundy Thursday distribution of Royal charity) up to the fifty ounce Hunan Yuan Pao. Banks' bullion storage was usually cast in bars. Not only did the fineness of the silver vary from province to province but there was also a variation in the tael so that inter-provincial accounts required cross-rate computations. Thus the traveller on an extended journey had to carry with him a supply of silver which could be changed along the way to replenish his subsidiary currency for daily expenditure. Here again a problem presented itself for such exchanges could only be effected in quantities and weights for which he had transport facilities. For instance a traveller on horseback could only change a very small piece of silver at a time otherwise the deadweight of the cash would be beyond his means of transport. I remember once being on a horseback journey in the company of a Scot. We had been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204645, "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": 126, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\n113\n\ntransport. It was so successful that by 1872 it had a fleet of 17 steamers, had established 9 depots on the river, and found it necessary to increase its capital from Tls. 1,000,000 to Tls. 2,000,000.\" During 1866 and 1867 the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company succeeded in obtaining almost a complete monopoly of the Yangtse river trade, at least in that part of it carried by foreign ships. In these two years the rival American company of Olyphant withdrew their two steamers, Jardine's transferred their two river steamers to the Hong Kong-Shanghai run, and the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company bought the steamers of Dent, Lindsay, and Heard. Their only remaining rivals were two steamers of the recently formed Union Steam Navigation Company, a Shanghai British company. These were not serious rivals to American supremacy, but in five years' time were to be sold to a new British company which was destined to challenge the American near monopoly on the river successfully.\n\nAlthough American steamers were supreme on the Yangtse at this time, and also prominent on some of the coast runs, British trading firms were still the most powerful foreign firms in the treaty ports as a whole, including the three newly opened ports on the Yangtse. British ships were also the most prominent in the foreign trade of China, including that from the Yangtse ports. In 1869, for instance, two British ocean steamers went up to Hankow at the height of the tea season and loaded direct for Europe, and were followed by six in 1870, and nine in 1871.* This, of course, was a serious challenge to the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company.\n\nCompany. Of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company's 17 ships at this time only five had been built in America, six having been built in Britain, and six in Shanghai; while a good proportion of their captains and officers were British. This, together with the fact that Russell and Company always had a friendly alliance\n\n\"Of the original Tls. 1,000,000 capital about one third was contributed by members of Russell and Company, another third by foreign business men in Shanghai, of whom the majority were British, and the last third by Chinese business men, also in Shanghai.\n\n* Six of their steamers were on the Shanghai-Tientsin run, with calls at Chefoo, and two on the Shanghai-Ningpo run.\n\n? As the result of a triangular arrangement between the firms of Russell, Jardine and Dent, Jardine withdrew to the coast, and helped Dent financially, and Russell agreed not to increase their services on the coast.\n\n* One of these was Holt's Agamemnon and the other the Erl King. After this Holt's sent at least two ships to Hankow each season.", "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": 204650, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\nUPPER & MIDDLE YANGTSE\n\nChengtuy SZECHUAN Chungking TID\"E 100 MILES 200 HUPLE H sichang Shesi 117 Hankow Yoshow FUNGTING GLAKE HUNAN Changsha 1104/2\n\nIt was not until 1878, two years after the Chefoo Convention was signed, that the first steamers went up beyond Hankow. In that year the China Navigation Company and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company commenced a joint service between Hankow and Ichang. For technical reasons they were unable to maintain this service during the winter months of low water, and it was not until 1884 that a regular all-year-round service was commenced by Archibald Little with his small steamer Y-Ling, the other companies following suit a short time later. By 1901 there were twenty-two steamers running regularly between Hankow and Ichang, during daylight hours only, and it was not until 1920, after intensive surveys by the Chinese Maritime Customs, that night-time sailing was possible.\n\nA further section of the Yangtse was opened to foreign trade after China's defeat by Japan in the war of 1895, namely the 400 miles from Ichang to Chungking. At the same time Chungking and Shasi, the latter between Hankow and Ichang, became treaty ports. With the addition of Chungking to the list of treaty ports,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204651, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "118\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nthe Yangtse was now open to foreign trade and navigation for almost 1,400 miles from the sea, and access had been gained to the rich and populous province of Szechuen, of which Chungking was the chief port.\n\nThe section of the river between Ichang and Chungking was known as the Upper River, and the first steamer to navigate this section belonged to Archibald Little, whose Y-Ling had been the first steamer to navigate the Middle River. Little was a member of a well-known Shanghai family, and he was the real pioneer of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtse. He had commenced his career as a tea taster for a German firm in Kiukiang in 1859, but soon went into business on his own and was one of the first to appreciate the possibility of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He settled in Chungking soon after it became a treaty port, and started up several industries connected with wool, bristles, and coal—to mention some of the more prominent, and also engaged in marine insurance, specialising in covering cargoes on the Upper Yangtse.1 The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce had sent two prominent British merchants—Alexander Michie and Robert Francis—up the Yangtse to Chungking as early as 1869, to investigate trade prospects there, but no important developments followed. In 1887 Little made a much more intensive trip from Ichang to Chungking by junk, and formed the opinion that there were great possibilities for trade in Szechuen Province and beyond. The following year he attempted to run a steamer service between Ichang and Chungking with a stern wheeler specially built on the Clyde called the Kuling. Because of a clause in the Chefoo Convention stipulating that foreign steamers could only go to Chungking after Chinese steamers had gone there, the Kuling was not allowed to go beyond Ichang. Little then sold her to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, who employed her on the Hankow-Ichang service.\n\nOne of his brothers was a famous editor of the North China Daily News, and another a well-known doctor in Shanghai.\n\n[Robert Swinhoe, British Consul at Amoy was sent up the Yangtse by Sir Rutherford Alcock, British Minister at Peking, in March 1869 to enquire into the trade of the Upper River. He reached Chungking in May of the same year. His account of this journey was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society Vol. XL (1870), pp. 268-85. It is accompanied by a folding map of the Upper River from the Tungting Lake to Chungking compiled from the charts made by two survey officers specially sent up the Yangtse for this purpose. Ed.]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204984, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n83\n\nAnother case which might be said to have had political undertones was that of the China Navigation Company's Shuntien in June 1934. The Shuntien was the latest addition to the China Navigation Company's large fleet, and was making only her second voyage at the time. She was captured by some thirty pirates after leaving Tientsin for Chefoo, and was taken to the mouth of the Yellow River where she was beached on soft sand. The pirates then made off inland, taking five European and twenty Chinese passengers as hostages. Before leaving, they told the ship's compradore that the piracy was a reprisal for the Chinese Maritime Customs having stationed an extra customs cruiser in Shantung Bay, thus interfering with their smuggling operations. The Europeans returned a few days later, but nothing more was ever heard of the Chinese hostages.\n\nBias Bay, sixty-five miles northeast of Hong Kong, was notorious as the pirates' stronghold in the interwar years. Unfortunately, it was just outside Hong Kong territorial waters, and came within the jurisdiction of the Cantonese authorities, who were either unwilling or unable to co-operate with the Royal Navy against the pirates. The nationalist and anti-foreign feelings of the Cantonese probably contributed to this, as did the fact that the warlords of Kwangtung were suspected of being in league with the pirates. Whether this was so or not, it was definitely established that pirates based on Bias Bay committed nine major piracies between 1924 and 1926.\n\nAlthough the Navy was unable to suppress piracy on the China coast, so much of which took place almost on its own doorstep, the mere fact that naval ships were in the vicinity must have reduced its incidence. The pirates rarely boarded ships at Hong Kong, partly because of the strict naval and police control there, and also because passengers joining ships there were unlikely to have much money or valuables. In the case of the second Sunning piracy in 1926, it was definitely established afterwards that the pirates came on board at Amoy, and that their weapons were smuggled on board by stevedores. The lack of co-operation from Canton meant that the Navy was unable to follow up action at sea by punitive expeditions against the pirates' shore bases. The Kwangtung authorities had been much more co-operative in the first few decades after the cession of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206510, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "52 \n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG \n\ngeneral and governors to send monthly to the Tsungli Yamen foreign newspapers, both those printed in Chinese and in foreign languages, so that we can have at our finger-tips knowledge of the situation between China and foreign countries, and so that we can become more fully acquainted with the way to reform abuses and put right our failings. \n\nA memorial from Prince Hui and others in reply was received at the travelling headquarters on 20 January 1861, and an edict was issued on the same day. As no English version of this edict appears to have been made, a translation of it follows.17 \n\nToday we have received a memorial from Prince Hui and others to the effect that they have deliberated on the memorial of I-hsin Prince Kung, and others on restoring normal conditions and on regulations for trade. According to what they said all the items recommended by Prince Kung and others have a close bearing on the circumstances and that this really is the situation. They request that we should act according to the original proposals. \n\nWe have already issued an edict appointing Prince Kung, Grand Secretary Kuei-liang, and Senior Vice-President of the Board of Revenue Wen-hsiang to be in general charge of trade with the various countries. We have also appointed Ch'ung-hou to be superintendent of trade for the three ports [Tientsin; Newchang; Chefoo]. Let Hsueh Huan continue to control trading arrangements at the five old ports as well as at the newly added ones. In their memorandum Prince Kung and others recommend that Canton and Shanghai should each send two men who understand spoken and written foreign languages to come to the capital on official service. Also that the superintendents of trade as well as the Manchu garrison commanders, the governors-general and governors, and the prefect of Peking ought to report monthly on native and foreign trade conditions at those ports and send the foreign newspapers of the various countries and should communicate [this information and newspapers] to the Board of Rites which will transmit it to the Tsungli Yamen. Let the princes and ministers instruct the Board of Rites to this effect and let the Board communicate these instructions. We also authorize young men to be selected from the Eight Banners to study foreign spoken and written languages; instruct the Russian language school's to draw up appropriate regulations and zealously supervise their lessons. Whenever anyone is able to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206512, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "54\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nCouncillors at Jehol at this time: Mu-yin; K'uang-yüan; Tu Han; Chiao Yu-ying. Information on all these officials can be found in Hummel, Eminent Chinese, especially in the biography of Su-shun. Their power relationships are discussed in Banno, China and the West, passim, but especially 55-56. The term \"minister of the imperial presence\" (yü-ch'ien ta-ch'en) is rendered by Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization, p. 28, no. 101, as adjutant-general.\n\nII Tengchow is on the northern side of the Shantung promontory. In fact it was not opened to foreign trade which was carried on at Yen-tai near Chefoo. S. Wells Williams, The Chinese Commercial Guide, 211-212. Ch'aochow was the old name for Swatow; Ch'iungchow is in Hainan. Taiwan City and Tamsui were ports on the island of Taiwan which came under the administration of Fukien province.\n\n12 Ch'ung-hou was appointed to this post by an edict of 20 January with the designation superintendent of trade for the Three Ports, with his headquarters at Tientsin. Hsueh Huan, governor of Kiangsu and acting imperial commissioner at Shanghai, was made responsible for the newly opened ports along the Yangtze and the coast to the south of it, by the same edict. As far back as 1844 the imperial commissioner at Canton was currently designated imperial commissioner for the Five Ports. With the addition of new ports it was made a concurrent post of the governor of Kiangsu in 1861, until 1868 when it was made a concurrent post of the governor-general of Liang Kiang residing at Nanking. In 1870 the post of superintendent of trade for the Three Ports was raised to an imperial commissionership and held concurrently by the governor-general of Chihli. It is not clear when the commonly used designations for these two posts viz: superintendent of trade for the southern ports and superintendent of trade for the northern ports were first used. Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 40-41; Banno, China and the West, 233-5.\n\n13 Article 3 of the Convention of Peking between Britain and China refers. See W. F. Mayers, Treaties Between the Empire of China and Foreign Powers, 8. The phrase to avoid complications arising is a euphemism for 'to avoid peculation'.\n\n14 Tentatively we have translated the Chinese phrase hui-tan as counter-foil. Note 19 also refers.\n\n15 The term is fuyin. See Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, 793.\n\n16 See Frank H. H. King, A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911.\n\n17 Translated in collaboration with Mr. Vei-Tsen Yang. Chinese text in Ch'ow-pan wu shih-mo, Hsien-feng, 72: 2-3. A second edict was issued on the same day, and on the same subject, to the Grand Secretariat. This edict was translated by T. F. Wade along with the six-point memorandum. Note 2 above refers.\n\n18 Not to be confused with the Russian Hostel nor with the language school for the Russians in Peking, both of which were often referred to in Chinese documents as O-lo ssu-kuan, thus making confusion likely with the Russian language school referred to here. See Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 111, note 48.\n\n19 Lit. 'draw up a joint document'. Glossed by T. F. Wade as a paper signed by both parties showing that the amount deducted is in due proportion to the collection'. Translation of Peking Gazette in F.O. 17/352 p. 42.\n\n20 Presumably referring to Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and the westerners serving under him. On the general subject of foreigners taking part in the administration of China after the middle of the nineteenth century see Fairbank, The Chinese World Order, 273-5; also Fairbank \"Synarchy under the Treaties\" in Fairbank (ed.) Chinese Thought and Institutions, 204-231.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207742, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "CHAN LAI-SUN AND HIS FAMILY\n\n115\n\nHe served as chief secretary at the Chefoo Convention in 1876, and until the time of his death assisted at the many transactions Viceroy Li had with foreign powers. He was to have joined Li in his mission to Japan after the Sino-Japanese War, but Li excused him saying, “You are old and so am I; but I have to go because there is no help for it.\"\n\nAt the time of his death Chan Lai-sun was survived by his widow, two sons and two daughters. He was predeceased by his son William and a daughter. The death notice of his widow, who died at the age of 92 on 17 Jan. 1917, was published in the Chinese Recorder (v. 58, p. 258). Her son Spencer T. Lai-sun had died only thirteen days before.\n\nSpencer had been educated at Queen's College, Hong Kong, before being taken to the United States by his father at the inauguration of the Chinese Educational Mission in 1872. He and his elder brother, Elijah, attended Yale. According to his obituary (South China Morning Post, 23 Jan. 1917), Spencer had an “extraordinary command of English” and was remarkably well informed on Chinese affairs, being one of the first to forecast the gravity of the Boxer Uprising. He was simultaneously on the staff of a Chinese language newspaper, the Hu Pao, and of an English language paper, the North China Daily News, both published at Shanghai. In 1911 he abandoned his newspaper career and as an expectant Taotai joined the staff of Viceroy Tuan Fang at Nanking. Early in his career in 1885 he undertook a special mission to India. When a reporter of the Times of India interviewed him, he was impressed with Spencer's European style clothing and the absence of a queue, for the latter he was said to have been given special permission by the Chinese authorities.\n\nDuring his school days in Hong Kong, Spencer had become acquainted with the family of the Reverend Ho Fuk-tong, being most likely a regular attendant of the Chinese congregation which met in the afternoons at Union Church. He married Ho Man-kwai, the daughter of the pastor. She died in Shanghai in 1894 at the young age of twenty-eight, leaving a young daughter, Daisy.\n\nThe other two daughters of Chan Lai-sun married Europeans. The husband of the eldest daughter was a Danish ship captain, N. P. Andersen. He had seen service in the Taiping Revolution and had a long career in the Coast Staff of the Chinese Customs. He was somewhat older than his wife and married in middle age.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207797, "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": 185, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "170 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\ndays later rumours of an ambush by Chinese and Shan tribesmen led to Margary deciding to go in advance as scout, and he left the main party on 19th February with five Chinese companions. Three days later word came back that he had been murdered at Manwyne, with rumours that 4,000 Chinese troops were on their way to annihilate the whole expedition. Before Browne had time to recover from this blow, the camp was attacked by an advance guard of the Chinese force, but was beaten off by the Sikh and Burmese soldiers. Next day confirmation of Margary's murder came from the King of Burma's commercial agent at Bhamo, and on 20th February Browne's whole expedition retraced its steps to Mandalay and Rangoon.\n\nMargary's murder, and deteriorating relations between the British and the King of Burma, prevented further expeditions from Burma; but ironically led to further progress on the Yangtze,\n\nSir Thomas Wade, British Minister at Peking, took advantage of the Chinese government's failure to protect Margary to press for further trade relaxations, and the result was the Chefoo Convention of 1876 between Wade and Viceroy Li Hung-chang. This provided for the opening of five more ports to foreign trade, and of the 400 miles of the Middle Yangtze to foreign shipping. Among the new treaty ports was Ichang, located at the upper end of the Middle Yangtze and 400 miles below Chungking, the main port of Szechwan. When the Convention was ratified in 1885, a supplementary clause provided for Chungking to become a treaty port; but not for free navigation on the 400 miles of the Upper Yangtze between Ichang and Chungking. This was granted after the Treaty of Shimonoseki between China and Japan on the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95.\n\nMore than ten years before this, however, the remarkable Archibald Little had appeared on the Yangtze scene. Little began his career as a tea taster in Kiukiang in 1859, but soon started up business on his own. He was attracted to the possibilities of trade in Szechwan and West China, and fascinated by the problems posed by steam navigation through the famous gorges of the Upper Yangtze. He made a trip by junk from Ichang to Chungking in 1883 to investigate trade and navigational prospects, and in 1887 attempted to run a steamer service between Ichang and Chungking, by the Kuling. This was a Clyde built stern-wheeler of 450 tons", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209659, "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": 316, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "294\n\nG\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nIn 1884 Brenan was H.B.M. Consul at Chefoo. His position in 1880 is not clear from papers to hand, but he appears to have been making official visits to various places on the China Coast.\n\n* China, Imperial Maritime Customs, Reports on trade at the treaty ports for the year 1879. Shanghai, 1880, p. 246,\n\nIbid., p. 247. It was on behalf of one of Thomas Piry's grandsons that this volume of the trade reports was consulted, leading to the discovery of the two letters to W. Keswick.\n\n& Ibid., p. 246.\n\nTHE VILLAGE WATCH IN THE\n\nHONG KONG REGION\n\nBefore 1899 most New Territories villages of any size had watchmen or constables employed by the elders to enforce local rules, and in the bigger villages these may have had permanent employment. Lockhart wrote of “kang fu (kaang foo) or village constables, who are appointed by the village, and paid out of contributions made by the villagers according to the extent of their holdings in land\". He continued, \"Their duty is to keep watch, especially at night. They have the power to arrest, which is deputed to them by the gentry and elders of the village\". Writing four years after the transfer of the New Territories, another official, F. H. May, added a qualification: \"The so called Police really only village watchmen formerly and still in some instances employed by the villagers were only responsible for prevention of larcenies between villagers. They were not held responsible for robberies by outsiders which were supposed to be beyond their power to prevent\".2\n\nThe village watch was still a feature of the local security arrangements in the 1960s. Baker gives an account of it in the Sheung Shui villages of the northern New Territories in the 1960s, whilst Watson mentions it in his book on the Man lineage of San Tin, in an adjoining area. My own notes, which follow, made at Nga Tsin Wai, the last surviving village of central Kowloon, in the mid 1960s also offer some information on the subject.\n\nBefore and after 1899, this old walled village* had an office\n\nthere was no wall as such, but the houses all faced inward, giving the same effect as an enclosure.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210896, "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": 247, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "230\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nplague, the Hongkong Government cleared most of the district of Taipingshan. This had been the city's most congested area, and its removal displaced a large number of people.\n\nTo provide needed housing, Ho A-mei explained that the Fuk Tin Co was building houses across the harbour, where it was still rural. There would be fresh air, wide streets and better sanitary conditions.\n\nSome several scores of houses were almost completed and site formation for others was in progress. The houses were of brick with tile roof, two storeys high and with ample room between the blocks. The intention was to build several hundred. Built in bulk, the properties could be sold at a bargain price, at the same time the promoters could realise a substantial profit.\n\nThe hope was that \"many respectable Chinese will buy land and houses over the way as family residences and that thus many well-to-do Chinese who have houses in the interior will find it convenient and pleasant to 'pitch their tent' in the neighbourhood of this thriving colony.\" Nor need there be any anxiety about security as there were military personnel at the Chinese custom's station at Laichikok.\n\nBut looking ahead only a little farther, there was the prospect of the area becoming British, for as the interviewer stated, “such an extension of Hongkong has long been needed, and, I am glad to say, the day when it will be un fait accompli is now within measurable distance.\" The distance was three more years.\n\nOPIUM MONOPOLY AND HO CONNECTION\n\nSomehow Ho A-mei became involved in a Chinese scheme to solve the opium question. Some background will aid in understanding his role in the scheme.\n\nIn 1875 the British took the opportunity presented by the murder of a member of a British exploratory expedition in the province of Yunnan to press China for a treaty revision. As a consequence, the Chefoo Agreement was negotiated the following year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211117, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "153\n\nclaimed: “We believe that such a creation of an imperium in imperio would produce alarm and dissatisfaction among the Chinese residents here; and by unnecessarily pressing on the Chinese the adoption of such a measure, Her Majesty's Government would be taking the surest course to develop, during times of peace, the worst vices of Chinese rule in a population under British protection; and, on the other hand, in the event of approaching disturbances, or the cessation of friendly relations with Peking, we would be creating in our midst a dangerous centre of rebellion, plots and hostile actions.”\n\nThe basic insecurity of a small group of colonials dwelling in the midst of a large population, whose customs and language were unfamiliar and strange, welled up at the prospect of the approval by Britain for a Chinese consul to assume duties in Hongkong.\n\nPressure from Hongkong and from merchants in Britain interested in the China trade caused the matter to be dropped.\n\nIt was revived in 1875 and again in 1891. It was in the latter year that Ho A-mei spoke out on the matter.\n\nCONSUL NEEDED ‘FOR FAIR TREATMENT\n\nThe suggestion that a Chinese consul be appointed for Hongkong reappeared periodically. The idea was first advanced in 1868.\n\nAt that time the Governor, Sir Richard MacDonnell, sent a strong protest to England.\n\nTwo years later the Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce expressed its views on the subject.\n\nThe Treaty of Tientsin between Britain and China was signed in 1858. It contained a provision that it should be reviewed after 10 years. These revisions were embodied in the Chefoo Convention.\n\nThe Foreign Office asked the various Chambers of Commerce", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211120, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "156\n\nIn its memorial the Chamber of Commerce maintained that both foreigners and Chinese who were British subjects, when travelling or reading in China, needed the protection of a consul and the right to be tried in a British Consular Court.\n\nOn the other hand, the Chinese on the British soil of Hongkong needed no such protection. They could rest confident in the fair administration of British justice. In addition it was pointed out, \"they have an important official in the Registrar General, to whom as 'Protector of Chinese' they can always have recourse for advice and assistance.\n\nThe Chefoo Convention was never ratified by Britain. Therefore China could not claim by treaty rights the privilege of appointing a consul for Hongkong.\n\nThe question arose again in 1874 as the result of the so-called \"blockade of Hongkong.\" This development had been anticipated by Sir Rutherford Alcock, the British Minister to China, at the time China had first asked for permission to station an official in Hongkong as a check to smuggling.\n\nIn 1868 the Viceroy of the Two-Kwangs had opened customs stations near Hongkong to collect provincial duties on goods carried by Chinese junks sailing from Hongkong.\n\nTwo of them were near the eastern and western approaches to the Hongkong harbour. Another was on the island of Cheung Chau. In 1871 the stations began collecting the treaty tariff duty on opium,\n\nIn addition, armed revenue cruisers were introduced to see that the stations were not bypassed. They patrolled Chinese junks, chased smugglers and attempted to ensure that proper duties were paid. The foreign merchants in Hongkong labelled this effort of the Chinese to protect their interests as a \"blockade.”\n\nThe Chinese, however, had not given up their wish to have a consul in Hongkong. The expense of maintaining a fleet of armed vessels near Hongkong was heavy. There was always the danger", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211631, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "21\n\nto be regarded as such by mankind and to be revered only as the representation of that power. However, over the centuries, he has developed into a god in his own right, depicted as a gilded image of an emperor sitting on a throne, and is accepted by the masses as the ruler of the Heavenly bureaucracy.\n\nIn T'aishan in Shantung province it was claimed that the Jade Emperor in mortal life had been merely a learned doctor of medicine who had lived during the 12th century AD at the Sung court in Kaifeng. He attended the emperor Hui Tsung during a serious illness and saved his life with a miraculous cure. He was known as Chang Yu-huang, but, on his death, he, like many a hermit, was deified by imperial decree.\n\nBritish representatives met the imperial representative, Li Hung-chang in 1876 in the temple (Yuh Huang T'ing) dedicated to the Jade Emperor to the west of Yent'ai (Cheefoo) in Shantung province to arrange the Chefoo Convention. Another incident involving the British in North China and connected with the Jade Emperor concerned Sir Meyrick Hewlett of the China Consular Service at the turn of the century during the clearing up after the siege of the British Embassy during the Boxer Rebellion. He found in the house of Sir Ernest Satow, HM Ambassador in Peking, a tablet with a background of sky-blue, framed in rich gold and inscribed with the four characters in gold — 'Huang T'ien Shang Ti'. Prince Ch'ing identified it as an item from the Temple of Heaven which had been missing for more than a year. When Sir Ernest asked how to restore it to its rightful place, the Prince begged the Ambassador not to send it round to his palace as should it be placed in the entrance he could neither leave nor enter his home without kowtowing twenty-seven times before it. Another more enlightened official helped out by bearing it off at dead of night in a Peking cart to the vaults of a European bank where it awaited a favourable day for restoring it to the Temple of Heaven. Some thirty-five years later, Sir Meyrick, paying his farewell visit to Peking, visited the Temple of Heaven and asked the attendants whether he could see the tablet, kept with the other tablets sacred to the emperors of the Ch'ing dynasty in a small temple opposite the Altar of Heaven. They replied that this was quite impossible, since even in post-imperial Kuomintang days no-one was allowed to see it. Sir Meyrick related the story of its recovery, upon which the attendants agreed to show him the tablet together with the tablets to the 28 Major Constellations, to Thunder and Lightning, and to the other forces of nature, but said that the tablets to the emperors were all lost after their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212495, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Table 6\n\nZheng Guanying's Investment in Modern Enterprises\n\n29\n\n \n Item\n Amount (taels)\n Place\n \n \n Union Steamship Navigation Co.\n ?\n Shanghai\n \n \n China Merchants' Steam Navigation Co.\n 1,200\n Shanghai\n \n \n Yuehan Railway Co.\n ?\n Canton\n \n \n Renhe Insurance Co.\nShanghai Cotton Mill\nA Paper Manufactory\nA Glass Work\nA Dairy Co.\n ?\n?\n50,000\n?\n?\n Shanghai\nShanghai\n?\n?\nShanghai\n \n \n A Silk Filature\n ?\n ?\n \n \n Tongwen Book Co.\n 14,000\n Shanghai\n \n \n Ma'an shan Coal Mines\n ?\n ?\n \n \n Jinzhou Coal Mines\n 100,000\n ?\n \n \n Jilin Gold Mines\nXuancheng Coal Mines\nShandong Mines\nPingchuan Gold Mines\nMianning Gold Mines\nJianping Gold Mines\nChefoo Coal Mines\nYongping Gold Mines\n ?\n?\nseveral thousand\n36 shares + 4,320\n20 shares + several thousand\n?\nseveral thousand\n?\n Shanghai\n?\n?\n?\n?\n?\nPingxiang Coal Mines\nHupei\nNantaiwu Shan Coal Mines\nFujian\n \n \n Chengping Silk\n several thousand\n ?\n \n \n Kaiping\nCanton Land\n 5,000\n Canton\n \n \n Tianjin Kutang Land Reclamation\n 3,000\n Tianjin\n \n \n A Nacre Co.\n ?\n ?\n \n \n A Reclamation Project in Malaya\n ?\n Malaya\n \n \n Tianjin Peihailou\n ?\n Tianjin\n \n \n A Gambling Co.\n 5,000\n ?\n \n \n Total\n 232,520+?\n \n \n\nSources: Wu Chang-chuan, Cheng Kuan-ying: A Case Study of Merchant Participation in the Self-strengthening Movement (1878-1884): Xia-Dongyuan, Zheng Guanying Zhuan.\n\nearly development of modern Chinese enterprises. As shown in the case of Xu, Tang and Zheng, they not only provided funds to modern", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "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": 212905, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "199\n\nGROWING UP IN CHINA:\n\nLECTURE TO THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, HONG KONG BRANCH, 14 MAY, 1993\n\nDENIS BRAY\n\nIt is quite a challenge to compose a talk on the first 13 years of your life when there are practically no books to consult and friends from those days are scattered or gone. To the challenge is added an audience much more knowledgeable than I on the history of the area. I think I can only get away with it because nobody can check on much that I have to say. As I do not speak Putonghua or write Pinyin I am going to stick to spellings for place names used in the thirties and Cantonese for local names.\n\nThere are some references. There are three books of reference on the China Inland Mission School at Chefoo. Two are written by students who went there long before I did. They are Mrs Jean Moore and Dr. Gren Wedderburn. A full history of the school from start to finish has been written by Gordon Martin who was classics teacher when I was there and who was one of the longest serving teachers the school had. I am sure that the Methodist Missionary Society in London has copious records on the mission in Fatshan and South China.\n\nI Was Born\n\nI did not start life in China but in Hong Kong — at the Matilda Hospital in fact. My father was working in the Methodist Mission in Fatshan at the time, running Wah Ying School. This school was founded in 1913 near to a hospital, also run by the mission, which was founded in 1881. The hospital, now known officially as the Number One People's Hospital, but spoken of as the Chun Do Yi Yuen, or Methodist Hospital, celebrated its 111th anniversary last year. The school, now known as the Number One Middle School but spoken of still as Wah Ying, will celebrate its 90th anniversary in December this year.\n\nJanuary 1926 towards the end of the General Strike, when all Chinese were urged to boycott any form of service for foreigners, was accompanied by incidents of unrest in China and in Hong Kong itself. It was no time for a pregnant woman to remain in China unless it was...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212912, "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": 221, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "206\n\ncups and plates and rewarded us with magnificent Orders of Chivalry. We usually found some acquaintance in the ports or fellow missionaries. Aden was a coaling port where a ceaseless stream of labourers carried basket after basket of coal on board. We had to keep port-holes shut to keep the coal dust out. At sea we had a good deal of freedom and were taken on exploratory trips to such places as the engine room. Here we saw the huge pistons of the steam engine driving the propeller shaft and walked down the tunnel in which it turned to the very end. The heat was terrific.\n\nIn 1934 leave was up and my father and I returned early to get me into school in September. The two of us travelled by the scenic route, first on the Canadian Pacific ship, the Duchess of Bedford which we boarded at Liverpool and which took us across the Atlantic to Montreal. Then by Canadian Pacific Railway for three days and four nights across Canada to Vancouver. That was a glorious journey. The first day was through pine forests and by lakes. The second was across endless prairie country and the third through the Rocky Mountains. At the back of the train there was an observation coach from which we had an excellent view of the scenery. Each evening beds were made up and each morning they were folded up.\n\nFrom Vancouver we sailed on another Canadian Pacific ship, the Empress of Asia to Shanghai a long journey which must have included a stop in Japan. A funny thing about sojourns with my father was that he introduced me to simple gastronomic delights. During my convalescence in the Matilda Hospital from appendicitis it was kippers and on the trans-Pacific trip it was celery, curry and Worcestershire sauce in the soup to prevent sea sickness. All have been favourites ever since! And he patiently read from The Swiss Family Robinson each evening.\n\nChefoo Schools\n\nFrom Shanghai we took a coastal steamer north to Chefoo. Chefoo is the name of a small village on a bluff of land connected to the mainland by a sand spit. The school was called after this village though the town, in which it lies, is now called Yentai after the nearby walled city dating from the Ming Dynasty. The China Inland Mission had established primary and secondary schools for European and American children from all over China. There were about 100 children in the primary school,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212914, "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": 223, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "208 \n\n'breaking up storm'; a wild blow whose climatic explanation I cannot remember. Then came the first snow and the wooden frames for the verandahs were brought out again.\n\nWhen I was at the school a new building was completed for the Prep School and a new classroom block was built where the boys from the Boys' School and the girls from the Girls' School could take co-educational lessons. Reading Jean Moore's account of her days at Chefoo I learned that boys and girls were not only kept apart in their sleeping accommodation but also for lessons. This had been dropped by the time I went so it was strange to find myself in a school for boys only when I went to England later on. We only mixed for lessons and church (where we sat apart except in the choir which I joined) and for the rest we existed in entirely separate schools.\n\n—\n\nIn this school we were also kept pretty isolated from the local population. We did not learn the Shantung language, though the teachers were entirely bi-lingual. We did not go into town but would come across Chinese on our walks in the hills. Here we would see men pushing incredible loads on massive wheel barrows or carrying loads on bamboo poles. Mules were the beasts of burden as there were no motorable roads outside the town.\n\nWhen the Japanese overran Chefoo they set up a road block right outside the school and we would try to engage the soldiers in chat. The Japanese controlled the town but the hills were infested with guerrillas and we could occasionally hear firing in the night. The Japanese left us alone at that time for they were not at war with Britain. I had left China before Pearl Harbour but once the Japanese were at war with the British and Americans the school was closed down and shipped off to another location as part of a prison camp.\n\nOut of School\n\nIn the Prep School our lives were confined to the school area and, in the summer, the beaches in front. We also went for long hikes in the hills behind the schools but it was the beach that was most fun. On Sundays we walked in crocodile the couple of miles along the waterfront to a church in the town most going to the Union Church but some went to the Church of England. I do not recall any Roman Catholics among us and doubt whether I had heard of them then.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212915, "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": 224, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "209\n\n1935 was a memorable year because it was the Silver Jubilee of King George V. The British Consul in Chefoo put on a great fair to which we all went. Here we were given bank notes specially drawn for the occasion, which entitled us to rides and ice cream and so forth. The bank notes were so attractive that I could not bring myself to spend them all and kept some for years.\n\nFrom time to time ships of the Royal Navy called at Chefoo and there would be sure to be some entertainment. Sometimes it was open day on the ship, once they dressed up as pirates and came ashore on our beaches and gave us a party there. We also played football against them. The main port for the Royal Navy was Wei Hai Wei, some sixty miles down the coast. Chefoo was the summer home for the American fleet, who would have come up from the Philippines, and who also took us on boating expeditions to nearby islands.\n\nHolidays at School\n\nAfter two years in the Prep School I was old enough to go to the Boys' School. The transfer took place during the summer holidays which I was, like many others, spending at school. As I said, children came to these schools from all over China. Most were children of missionaries but businessmen also sent their children there. Some came from nearby Tsingtao or Tientsin or Shanghai. These children could go home for the month-long summer holidays and some even went for the two weeks at Easter. A party of us came from Hong Kong and South China and, as it would take us ten days to get to Fatshan, we only made the journey once a year during the two-month long winter holidays. Others came from so far away in Yunnan Province that they never went home. So there were always a good many children in the schools during the holidays. These holidays were made very enjoyable times for us. In the summer it would be swimming and tennis. In the winter some went skating but at all times the staff would think of amusements and games, hobbies and outings which came in great variety.\n\nIn 1937 my father had planned a trip to Peking but the outbreak of hostilities with the Japanese prevented this. Instead my mother came to Chefoo for the summer holidays and we all stayed at the Missionary Home. This was a simple hostel where we had our meals and slept but that was about all. There was an Anglican church nearby and I recall the atmosphere of peace and reverence at my first Evensong there. During", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212916, "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": 225, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "210\n\nthe day we would be off to the beach annex of the Chefoo Club where there were rowing boats and canoes. From nine in the morning till lunch time and all afternoon a crowd of us were in and out of the water, rowing out to the raft which was a converted junk with diving boards. I got so brown that summer that the mark of the swimming trunks was still visible at Christmas time!\n\nHolidays at Home\n\nA great part of school life was the holidays at home. Home at this time was in Tung Shan Terrace off Stubbs Road, when my father was building the Chinese Methodist Church in Wanchai—the triangular red brick building at the junction of Hennessy Road and Johnston Road.* This was home not in a flat but a three-story house, with a garden overlooking Happy Valley. At the back we had access to Bowen Road which was a safe place to play as there were no motor vehicles. Those holidays I remember chiefly for rambles up to Sir Cecil's Ride and a major hike over to Tytam from Wong Nei Chong Gap. And we went to a school pantomime at the Central British School (now King George V School) where the bad guy called himself “ZBW my middle name is trouble you\" ZBW being the embryo Radio Television Hong Kong. We had our first family car here, an Austin Seven with a folding roof and went for picnics to the beaches at Repulse Bay and Big Wave Bay, and at Stanley where a new prison was being built. Although it was winter in Hong Kong the climate was comfortable for us from the north and we had no hesitation in swimming.\n\n—\n\nOur journeys home in the winter holidays were considerable undertakings. Of course there was no air travel nor was rail travel possible. Instead we went by sea on the B. & S. ships of the China Navigation Line. These were coasters of about 7,000 tons which made their way up and down the China coast carrying cargoes of all sorts, a small number of passengers in cabins and a much larger number of deck passengers. Sometimes we were able to get a ship that went all the way from Chefoo to Hong Kong but often we had to get off in Shanghai and wait in the China Inland Mission hostel for a suitable connection. Some luckless schoolmaster had to accompany some twenty or so children more as far as Shanghai on these journeys. They were carefree days and I have wondered how we all survived. We would sit up on the taffrail undeterred by the possibility of toppling over into the sea. I remember getting into frightful trouble from practising throwing a penknife into the cabin bulkhead. In the ports we watched\n\n*Since demolished [Editor]\n\n—\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212917, "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": 226, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "211\n\nthe loading and unloading of cargo, listening to the varied languages of the coast in Foochow, Amoy and Swatow. It was always a thrill to catch the odd Cantonese phrase as we neared home. At one port we took on board a large number of pigs which were housed in pens on the deck forward of the accommodation. The loading of these pigs involved tremendous squealing generated by the beating of the pigs to make them move. We thought this was cruel so, in the evening, when the loading was finished, several of us sought out the bamboo poles that had been used for beating the pigs and threw them overboard. At sea off the ports we would come across massive fishing fleets. On one occasion our ship was in collision with one of these fishing junks and took the crew on board. We heard that one man had been lost but the rest rescued, including the family of the owner. They looked a miserable wet group on board and I imagine there was a good deal of argument about whose fault the collision was and bargaining about compensation. In any event the ship was stopped for several hours before the fishermen were taken off by one of the other boats.\n\nStorms and Pirates\n\nThese journeys were made in the winter so there was no danger from typhoons but the North East Monsoon produces almost continuous gales in the Taiwan Strait and China Sea. This monsoon sped us on our way south and held us up on the way back. The little ships bucketed about all over the place but any seasickness was soon over. It was great fun hanging over the very bows in a big sea watching the ship's stem come right out of the water and plunge back. The year when the sea froze over we found the first ice in the form of tiny plates like fish scales. These got larger and larger until we found drifts of serious ice. The ship had to take one or two runs at some of these drifts and we had a great struggle to get alongside when we reached the port in Chefoo.\n\nPirates were common on the China coast but only once was a school party involved in a piracy. This was the Shanghai party travelling back to school on the Tungchow in, I think, January 1936. The pirates, believing that this ship had a load of silver, got on board in Shanghai as deck passengers. The deck passengers were segregated from the cabin area and bridge by bars and locked gates while armed White Russian guards patrolled the decks near the bars day and night. Once at sea the pirates killed the White Russian guard and took over the ship. The ship disappeared for days. Nobody had any idea where on the thousands of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212918, "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": 227, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "212 miles of China coast to look for her. As time wore on, the distance she could travel extended until it could be anywhere from Tientsin to Hainan. The Royal Navy had an aircraft carrier in Hong Kong and this was drafted into the hunt. An aircraft from H.M.S. Hermes spotted a ship like the Tungchow anchored in Bias Bay (Days Bay) which was a well-known haunt of China coast pirates. It was indeed the Tungchow and the pirates, seeing the plane swoop over, realised that they had better decamp. Once they were away, the Captain sailed for Hong Kong where he arrived a few hours later. Although the pirates escaped, they had a frustrating piracy. They had got the wrong ship. The silver was on another ship which delivered its cargo safely. The Tungchow carried no silver but a cargo of oranges. The pirates broke open the crates in their hunt for the silver so that the ship was running with oranges which the boys gathered in quantities. The pirates did no harm to the children but at first kept them shut up in the passenger accommodation. You can imagine what tales the Shanghai party had to tell when we all got back to school.\n\nWe Leave China\n\nIn 1939 my father's tour was up and he decided, after twenty-five years, to retire from the mission field. He was in his mid-fifties and few stayed so long. Today this sounds an early retiring age, but today we have the untold advantage of constant air-conditioning to temper the severity of our summers and much greater control over diseases. The advance of the Japanese and the threatening war situation in Europe may well have influenced his decision too.\n\nIn any event, my parents and our younger sister set off from Fatshan, while my brother, other sister, and I set off from Chefoo on the last of our journeys on a B. & S. coaster for Shanghai. My parents travelled up from Hong Kong on a Canadian Pacific steamer, the Empress of Russia, which we joined in Shanghai. By this time, Shanghai had been occupied by the Japanese, though they were still at peace with Britain and America. In the occupied city, security was tight, especially round the docks, and we had to pass through several check points manned by pretty rough soldiers. Once at sea, those worries were left behind, but, as a postscript, when we sailed from Yokohama a few days later, we found ourselves in the midst of large-scale manoeuvres by the Japanese fleet and accompanying aircraft firing and bombing targets not far from us.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212919, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "213\n\nNow, more than fifty years later, I find myself living on Bowen Road along which we used to play in the winter holidays. For some years my wife and I lived across the valley from the Matilda Hospital where I was born and where I forgot how to walk. The other day my brother and I went on a visit to Fatshan. The bungalow where we often stayed on Cheung Chau was still there last time I visited the Island. In all these places I have seen traces of the past. I have yet to get back to Chefoo. Now that I have finished this talk I am most grateful to you for demanding such an effort of memory -- because, I am glad to say, it is the pleasant and happy memories that have come back.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214302, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "124\n\nschool in Chefoo in Shantung province before returning to England where he attended the Bath Art and Technical School. There he studied art before switching to Bristol University to read for a BSc in science. He would appear to have given up his higher education following the shattering of his romantic aspirations when he ran away to sea and worked his passage to Canada. He toiled for a while in Canada before returning to his parents in Taiyuan in 1905 with vague plans to hunt and explore the wild and barren areas of north China; he was twenty at the time. In practice he took up a teaching appointment at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin and only during the vacations was he able to hunt and seek specimens for the natural history museum he was establishing at the college. From the vague evidence available he would appear to have remained at the school for only a matter of a year as he was invited at the end of the final term to join the Duke of Bedford's expedition to collect zoological specimens in Shensi province for the British Museum. Shensi is the neighbouring province to Shansi and lies to its west.\n\nThe Duke of Bedford's expedition travelled through Sowerby's home province of Shansi where they lived for a week or so in one of the typical village cave houses of the Yellow Earth country, in a village some fifty miles west of Taiyuan. From there they continued west, across the Yellow River to Yenan in Shensi and on into the Ordos desert. Their return route took them north to the Great Wall, which they then followed to the east before turning south to Taiyuan down the main route through Shansi. The whole expedition took some five months and Arthur Sowerby would have been just twenty-one. It was during this expedition that Sowerby discovered a new species of jerboa [kangaroo rat] which was sent back to the British Museum and subsequently named after him, Dipus sagitta sowerbyi.\n\nComing from a missionary family he would have had little or no financial support from his father and would have needed to work for a living. He was sponsored for a number of years by a wealthy American, Robert Sterling Clark, who remained a friend for most of Sowerby's life, and although it is no more than supposition he may well have continued teaching at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin especially in view of his marriage in that city in 1910, at the age of twenty-six. The long vacations would have been an advantage enabling him to gather the material he later used in the China Journal, especially his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214502, "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": 360, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "329 \n\nBITS OF BROKEN CHINA: \n\nTHE RAS VISIT TO NORTH-EAST CHINA IN SEARCH OF COLONIAL REMNANTS 15TH TO 21ST OCTOBER 1999 \n\nROBERT NIELD \n\nThat I led a group of 25 people to the Shantung Peninsula and successfully brought 18 of them back to Hong Kong was, I have to say, a major achievement - and one of which I am very proud. \n\nMy part in this trip dates from an earlier RAS China visit, that to Ningpo, Chusan and Dinghai in 1998. Even as long ago as that, the ever-resourceful Geoffrey Roper had already largely planned a visit that would take in an inspection of the remains of German influence in Tsingtao, and of the British presence in Chefoo and Weihaiwei. During the boat trip back to Ningpo from Dinghai I discussed Geoffrey's plans with him, and innocently suggested that it would rather complete the set if the trip also took in the former Russian and Japanese possessions over the water in Dalian and Port Arthur. And there the matter rested. \n\nMany months later, by which time I had totally forgotten my “helpful\" suggestion that torpedoed Geoffrey's careful planning, it came about that he, unfortunately, could not lead the trip himself - and he asked me if I would volunteer for the job. Never having organised anything like this before, and having no idea of what was involved, in my blissful ignorance I said that I would be happy to oblige. \n\n:: \n\nMy job as a professional accountant (a partner in a very large firm, no less!) involves me sitting at the top of an enormous pyramid of very capable and industrious people, such that more often than not completed pieces of work are presented to me for my review. It came as a major shock, therefore, to find out how much work is involved in putting together what, for the people who accompanied me, was hopefully six pleasant and relaxing days exploring interesting places. \n\nI was sure that everything \"would be alright on the night\" - and sure enough, more or less it was. But only with the significant help of \n\nPage 360\n\nPage 361", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214503, "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": 361, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "330\n\nthe team that formed around me to make sure that I did not leave everything to the night before we were due to leave. The team comprised Dr Peter Barker, Sarah Parnell and Michael Broom - and of course Elace, the representative from Swire Travel who was our contact point with the local agents and guides on the ground in China. In fact, there were further significant contributions from many of the tour members. I hope to have given full credit to all of them on the text that follows.\n\nPeter's contribution was, in a way, the greatest. His heavy travel schedule meant that he could not attend any meetings that might have been called to discuss progress. However, this made him feel that he was always missing something, so every time he returned to Hong Kong he had the effect of reminding me that nothing more had been achieved since the last time he contacted me. Once real planning got under way, Mike, Sarah and I met a number of times, and we decided to take one area each for the purposes of research and itinerary setting. Mike volunteered for Tsingtao, Sarah took Chefoo and Weihaiwei, leaving me with Dalian and Port Arthur.\n\nThis arrangement worked well, and we each managed to put together some notes and extracts from various sources, which I put together as a handout for the tour members. A copy of this booklet, \"Bits of Broken China,\" is available in the RAS Library and may be a useful source of reference for people planning a similar trip.\n\nWhat now follows is a description of what we saw, from the perspective of the person fortunate enough to have been the tour leader. The notes below certainly do not pretend to be in any way a history of the places we saw; there are many far more learned and authoritative places to look and people to talk to in order to gain such information. Nevertheless, I hope this brief article shares with its readers some of the fun that was had in making the whole thing possible.\n\nGetting Settled in and Briefed\n\nThe mid-day flight from Hong Kong got us to Qingdao in the late afternoon. Why is it that all travelling that is done by \"a group\" seems to be far more complicated and time-consuming than for the same number of people travelling independently? Be that as it may, by the time", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214509, "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": 367, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "336\n\nI do not know if a couple of bus-loads of \"extras\" were sent on in advance of our arrival at the beach, but we were greeted again by the sight of bridal couples - a beachful of them! I have a photograph that clearly shows more than 30 couples, the brides for the most part in western white gowns and the grooms in black suits. The heavily decorated taxis were present here too, but so was a totally different kind of conveyance, one that is rather hard to describe. Bright red in colour, it appeared to be the sort of car that might have been designed by Walt Disney - long and open with running boards and big frog-eye headlights. Our guide explained that the city had commissioned 20 of these wonderful creations. One of our number (the dashing and debonair Philip Bruce) found out that such cars were available for hire (with driver) during the evenings when not being used for weddings - and so off he went later that night for a very special city tour.\n\nAt the eastern end of the beach is the commanding building that was once the governor's seaside retreat and hunting lodge. Fully open to the public, and containing a souvenir and trinkets shop, it affords a wonderful panorama back across the city and the beach full of brides.\n\nThe day finished with dinner in a nearby restaurant, where our enthusiasm to support the local beer-making industry easily broke the budget of our unfortunate China Qingdao Overseas Tourist Company guide.\n\nDespite the preponderance of good beer in all the places we visited, some of our number preferred to sample the local wine. Chinese wine has been around for some time, during which it has steadily been getting better. A local find worth noting was the excellent Hua Dong, which really took by surprise those who sampled it. Comments were heard such as: \"I have never tasted a good Chinese-made wine before.\" In fact the Hua Dong winery has been made famous by none other than the globe-trotting Michael Palin, who went there in his TV series as well as managing to stay at the German Governor's residence in Qingdao.\n\nChefoo - The Brighton of China\n\nThe road from Qingdao to Chefoo (or Yantai as it is now known)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214510, "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": 368, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "337\n\nis good and allows for reasonably fast travel; the journey took about three hours. I had suggested to the guide beforehand that perhaps a stop along the way for \"refreshment\" would be in order. The bus pulled into an establishment that looked for all the world like a desert caravanserai, or some hostelry from the Wild West. The only commodity of any sort on sale was a type of large black mushroom, and a tea-like drink made from it. Our main interest, however, was with the toilet facilities - until we saw them, that is. A few of us were in enough need to make the considerable effort to go inside. Others decided to cross their legs for another couple of hours. I can only presume that German influence had not spread this far north.\n\nOn the way into the city of Yantai a large street-side sign was spotted saying \"No Whistling within the City Boundary\". Nobody could explain the purpose of this, unless it was a reaction to endless British tourists whistling Colonel Bogey.\n\nThe first point of interest in Yantai was the Fujian Hall. This was not in keeping with the colonial flavour of the trip, but was relevant to us southerners as being an outpost built in the north by the Fujian community that had been very active in business in the early days of Chefoo.\n\nMost of the old British remains are concentrated in a fairly small area - from the promontory of Yantai Hill east along the sea front to the former Chefoo School.\n\nYantai Hill is the place that once housed the British and other foreign consulates. It is very pleasant to walk the narrow roads and paths in this small area. A number of buildings remain, although very few are still used. Some are boarded up, and some remain only in the form of their foundations. It is not clear which was which, even with the benefit of old maps from the last century. However, a clear impression can be had of the peace and tranquility that still reign here, and of the commanding position that the residents must have had. I could almost hear a scratchy wind-up gramophone playing and the chink of ice in glasses of G&T.\n\nTo the west of the hill is the port, and there are still a number of small dock-side buildings that might date from the 19th century, but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214511, "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": 369, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "338\n\nthere does not seem to be much more of interest in that direction. On the seafront at the foot of the hill to the east is the former Chefoo Club building. Now a restaurant, but with apparently some residential facilities, the main structure has been well preserved. I think I have seen a similar building at the bottom of Quay Hill in Lymington in Hampshire - at least, this one would be very much at home there.\n\nFurther along the seafront to the west, and just inland from the front, is the site of the main former British residential and business area. A number of solid Brighton-like houses still stand along the front, where waves crashing over the sea wall complete the British picture. Inland for a block or two are many buildings that would have housed businesses as well as the houses of the less well-to-do. These buildings are very suggestive of the bustle that once took place in this small outpost. One was dated 1930, according to a carved stone plaque on its wall.\n\nIn Chefoo as well as Tsingtao (and later in Dalian) it was a great help to have Tess Johnston and Deke Erh's wonderful book \"Far from Home”, and to try to spot as many as possible of those buildings that feature in its beautiful photographs.\n\nTowards the eastern end of the long beach is a group of buildings that once housed the famous Chefoo School, a boarding school for English boys from all over North China. Next to this, rather incongruously, is a small military establishment that houses a 1950s-looking bomber and a motor torpedo boat in its front yard. Nearby, a number of other well-preserved and very English buildings could have housed the more wealthy and influential residents and their families and servants.\n\nDinner that night was in the splendid and luxurious Government Guest House, a modern complex standing in its own spacious grounds at the far eastern end of the city. The service here was the best we experienced on the whole trip - as one might expect of people trained to look after visiting dignitaries from the capital. The food, also, was what one would expect from such an establishment - and not to my somewhat unadventurous taste at all. We were treated to such delights as braised crunchy silk worms, boiled fish stomachs and wobbly sea", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "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": 214530, "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": 388, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "Chefoo Club building\n\n357", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214531, "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": 389, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "358\n\nFormer Chefoo School", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215595, "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": 372, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "322\n\nracing through the Gorges make this section difficult and dangerous both at low and high water. Chongqing, the chief commercial port of western China and an important distribution centre, was opened to foreign trade by an Additional Article [1890] to the Chefoo Agreement of 1876. This stretch also includes the River down to Chongqing from its junction with the Min River at Yibin [Suifu].\n\nThe fourth and final stretch, the Upper Yangzi of 1,600 miles, is torrential almost from its source in Eastern Tibet far to the west, down to Yibin. It has several major tributaries.\n\nWe, however, are interested in the Gorges. They have long been regarded by Chinese junkmen and especially foreigners who had travelled through them as passengers on river junks, as one of the most difficult stretches of river navigation on earth, with a current in places running at 13 knots.\n\nOur story concerns two British expatriates in China who, as far as we know, never met as they were of different social circles. One is Archibald Little, a British Shanghai merchant, married to a British lady and William Mesny, a struggling entrepreneur also in Shanghai but married to a Chinese. Paul King wrote that 'One of the foreign tea-tasters who each year visited Kiukiang [Jiujiang] was Archibald Little, who was never very successful in business but found himself in Yichang in the uphill work of establishing as a fact that the rapids in the upper reaches of the Yangtze could be negotiated by steam craft. In my [King] time the Navy was represented in Yichang by H.M.S. Kinsha - the famous pioneer merchant steamer on the Upper Yangtze owned and operated by the late Archibald Little.'\n\nThe first steamer to ascend the upper waters of the Great River, the Yangzi, through the Gorges above Yichang and as far as Chongqing during the low water season in the month of March 1898 was the 9-ton steam launch, Leechuen [Li Chuan], the property of Mr. Archibald Little who travelled aboard the steamer with his wife.\n\nArchibald John Little was born in London in 1838, and arrived in China in 1859 where he remained, apart from short visits back to Britain, until 1907 when he returned there and died the following year. He was a merchant, traveller and writer and is as well known to some as the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215679, "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": 456, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "408\n\nsee the immense possibilities of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He became convinced that the only way to develop this was to find a way to bring steamers through the Three Gorges between Ichang and Chunking.\n\nLittle, still of the opinion that the Upper Yangtze could be navigated by steamships, made the passage in a junk from Ichang to Chunking in 1887. En route he carefully surveyed the main areas of risk and, on completion of this 400 mile journey, was even more sure that he was right.\n\nHe raised the money to build \"Kuling,\" a stern-wheeler, built on the Clyde and designed specifically for service on the Upper Yangtze. She was shipped out to Shanghai in pieces and reassembled there. However, when she arrived in Ichang, the Chinese authorities would not let her proceed. Apparently the Chefoo Convention stipulated that Chinese steamers had to be the first to ply this section of the river. (This restriction was abolished after the Sino-Japanese War by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.)\n\nIn any event, Little had to abandon this attempt to realise his dream. \"Kuling\" was sold to Chinese owners at a vast profit and traded on the Yangtze up to Ichang for many years, but never beyond.\n\nNot in the least deterred, in 1898, Little built a wooden-hulled, twin screw, steam launch named \"Leechuan.\" Once again he made the passage from Ichang to Chunking. Apart from having to be pulled up the stronger rapids by trackers the trip was a brilliant success. (Trackers were Chinese coolies who lived in villages near the rapids on both banks. Several hundred would be employed to haul vessels up the rapids.) Unfortunately, being only 55 feet long and full of engine, \"Leechuan\" carried no cargo.\n\nHeartened by his achievement with \"Leechuan,\" Little returned to London in 1899 to raise money to build a vessel that could navigate the Three Gorges and carry sufficient cargo to make its service financially viable.\n\nHow Samuel Plant came to China\n\nLittle was successful in raising money to build “Pioneer.\" By the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216412, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "121\n\n176,243 grt. Built in 1907 in Dumbarton, Scotland as CULNA for British India S.N. Co. Ltd. In 1923 bought by Ryuoh Kisen K.K. of Dairen, Manchuria and re-named RYUJIN MARU. Japanese flag. She was to be salvaged from the Tan Rocks however on 13th April 1942, when to the south of the Bungo Strait between Kyushu and Shikoku, to be torpedoed and sunk by U.S.S. GRAYLING SS-209 (Lieut. Commander E. Olsen).\n\n1*2,549 grt. In 1915 built at Taikoo Dockyard in Hong Kong for China Navigation Co. Ltd. (Butterfield & Swire). From 2nd August to 5th December 1922 ashore at Swatow, there blown by a typhoon. Eventually in May 1948 to be sold for breaking up.\n\n19PRO ADM 116/2843. Report 158/197 dated 6 November 1931.\n\n20770 tons. Built shortly after the Great War. Three 4.7\" guns.\n\n214,400 tons. Launched in October 1911. Eight 6\" guns.\n\n223,802 grt. Built in 1919 for Osaka Shosen K.K. On 31 May 1944 to be torpedoed and sunk to the west of the Kuril Islands by U.S.S. BARB SS-220 (Lieut. Commander E.B. Fluckey).\n\n233,001 grt. A new ship, built in 1931 by Scotts at Greenock for China Navigation Co. Ltd. (Butterfield & Swire). Between the World Wars there was a great demand for a passenger service between Shanghai and destinations to the north such as Tsingtao, Wei-Hai-Wei, Chefoo and Tientsin. The ship had been especially built for this trade with twin screw steam turbines to give 16 knots, and her cabin accommodation was luxurious. For winter service her bow was ice strengthened.\n\n241,765 grt. Also built by Scotts but rather earlier, in 1905. She too served on the Shanghai/Tientsin route but was reaching the end of her useful life. In November 1933 to be sold for breaking up in Shanghai.\n\nPRO ADM 116/2844. 158/1559 dated 24 June 1932.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216436, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 195, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "145\n\ncigarette, or a drink of water to the thirsting horses the men rode. The Chinese looked on with as much indifference as the foreigners showed.\n\nThis would appear to have been a rare display of bias against the Japanese.\n\nThe vexed question of neutrality\n\nBoth the Japanese and Russians accused each other of breaching the neutrality of China. China's neutrality was hard to sustain. Problems were mainly caused by trade being maintained as usual by neutral powers at and through Treaty Ports with both belligerents.\n\nIt was claimed that contraband included arms, coal, rice, flour and eggs. Traders in China furnished supplies with impartiality to both sides, but China feared that any breaches of neutrality could lead to retaliation against them. The brunt of maintaining a sort of neutrality fell upon the Chinese Maritime Customs.\n\nRussia was the first to bring categorical charges of breaches of neutrality against China. In late 1904 they raised the following seven points in their note to the Western Powers:\n\n(1) The use by Japan of the (Chinese) Miao Islands as a naval base\n\n(2) The transport of Japanese military material, stores, etc., by the Shanhai Kuan - Newchwang (Niuzhuang) Railway\n\n(3) The supply of material to the Japanese from the Hongkew Ironworks,\n\n(4) The enrolment of Chinese soldiers in the Japanese Army.\n\n(5) The engagement of Japanese officers for the purpose of drilling Chinese on the frontier.\n\n(6) The organising of Hunhutses to fight against Russia.\n\n(7) The seizure by the Japanese of the destroyer Rechitelni at Chefoo.\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216439, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "148\n\nChinese on the Bund at Shanghai. The Russian Consul-General refused to try the men on the ground that theirs was a military offence. The Chinese community, especially in Ningbo where the murdered man came from, was incensed. The Shanghai Daotai (Qing dynasty mandarin - a Circuit Intendent), acting on orders from the Chinese Foreign Affairs Department, insisted that the accused be turned over to him. Finally, they were tried by court-martial at the Russian Consulate-General, and 1st Class Fireman Terente Ageef was sentenced to transportation for four years with hard labour and the other to five days for resisting the police. The Chinese authorities were not represented.\n\nThe Russian despatch boat the Ryeshitelni\n\nAnother somewhat similar incident occurred at the end of August at Chefoo (Zhifu, though nowadays Yantai) in Shandong province where the Russian despatch boat, Ryeshitelni (Retchielni), carrying important dispatches, had taken refuge in Chinese territorial waters having been cornered by Japanese destroyers. When the Russian vessel failed to emerge within 24 hours the Japanese sent a boarding party under Lieutenant Terashima.\n\nWhile the Russian Consul in Chefoo was discussing the temporary stay of the Russian destroyer to repair her engines with the Chinese Daotai, the commander of the Retchitelni, acting on instructions from the Russian Rear-Admiral, entered into negotiations with the Chinese admiral on the subject of disarming the destroyer and the handing over of the breech-blocks of guns and rifles, to the Chinese. The Japanese naval Lieutenant, who understood the Russians were about to blow up their vessel, boarded the Russian vessel and was attacked by the Russian commander who threw him overboard. The Japanese immediately took over the Russian destroyer and towed it out of the Chinese port. The Russian note demanded that the Chinese recover the Russian destroyer and downgrade the senior Chinese naval officer in Chefoo. It added that unless the vessel was recovered by the Chinese, into whose protection it had been given, China would stand convicted of acting in complicity with Japan. The Chinese as usual adopted their masterly habit of doing nothing. They gave out that they hoped Japan would restore the destroyer to Chinese custody of their own volition, observing at the same time that though Russia had constantly violated Chinese neutrality in the territory between the Great Wall and the Liao River, at", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216440, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "149\n\nNewchwang (Niuzhuang) and elsewhere - that might extenuate, but could not justify, Japan's action at Chefoo. The Japanese issued a statement, which ran as follows:\n\nThe status of China in the present struggle is unique. Nearly all the military operations are carried on within her borders, but she is not a party to the conflict. Nevertheless, her territories are in part belligerent and in part neutral. That condition of things is, as regards International Law, an anomaly and a contradiction, and in this case it was made the object of a special understanding ... and it seemed that any such occupation or use of neutral Chinese territory or ports by the Russian force would give effect to the proviso in the Japanese engagement which would justify her in considering ports so occupied or used as belligerent. From Port Arthur Russia sought in Chefoo an asylum from attack, which her home port had ceased to afford her. In taking that step, Russia was guilty of a breach of the neutrality of China... and with the termination of the incident the neutrality of the port was revived.\n\nChina augmented its force in the Shanghai river with a modern cruiser, with orders to arrest Russian vessels which had sought sanctuary at Wusong. They registered all the names, ages and official titles of the Russian naval personnel on the vessels at Wusong, and the list checked from time to time to ensure that none were missing. Russian warships which escaped from Port Arthur before its capture also took refuge in Chefoo where they were disarmed. These and other Chinese acts revealed their new-found courage and were, almost certainly, due to Japanese successes in the field.\n\nChinese reports of Russian violations and intrusions on neutral (Chinese) territory were frequent, notably in Kashgaria and other parts of Chinese Eastern Turkestan (present-day Xinjiang). They also frequently violated various parts of Mongolia and Manchuria west of the Liao River in direct contravention of the international agreement made at the commencement of the war by both belligerent powers.\n\nAt the end of January 1905 Russian forces suddenly appeared before Kashgar (Kashi), expelled the Chinese garrison, consisting of a Chinese major and some 200 locally-born Chinese soldiers in the old town, and the Tidu or Provincial Commander-in-Chief and five", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]