[ { "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": 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": 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 } ]