[ { "id": 206202, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE LIBRARY OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\nREPORT FOR THE YEAR 1970-1971\n\nGrowth of the Library slowed down again in the year under report, after the impressive figures of the previous year. Nevertheless, donations continued to be the main source of accessions, totalling 20 out of 24 volumes. This brings the total stock to 420 volumes, excluding bound periodicals, to which further reference is made later in this report. Donors included the following, to whom we express our warm appreciation:\n\nThe Hon. H. J. C. Browne - Taikoo, by C. Drage, 1970\n\nKorea Branch, Royal Asiatic Society - three of their own publications\n\nFour other books were donated anonymously, seven were received through the Hon. Editor, having been sent to the Journal for review, and a further five were in the series Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies, which are received in exchange for our Journal. These are all listed at the end of this report.\n\nThe Hon. Librarian was absent on long leave during the latter half of 1970, and in his absence Professor Ma Meng kindly undertook to act in this capacity. Four books were purchased for the Library by the Hon. Librarian whilst he was in England.\n\nA further batch of 24 volumes of periodicals has been bound and added to the Library. In the report for 1968-69, a list of bound periodicals located in the British Council Library, Gloucester Building, was given. In order to make room for the growing collection of more interesting books, the majority of the periodicals which were rarely consulted have been moved back to the University of Hong Kong Library, where other less used materials are kept. The total number of bound volumes is now 125 (bound in 99).\n\nMost of the periodicals are received in exchange for our own Journal. No new exchanges have been started during the year, though possibilities for this are investigated from time to time. As a result of the appeal made to members in February 1970 for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206326, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "The District Watch Committee\n\n137\n\nto be the richest man in Hong Kong. When Ho Tung retired as chief compradore to Jardine, Matheson's in 1900, Ho Fook succeeded him. Ho Fook's assistant was Ho Kom Tong, another of Ho Tung's brothers. The members of the District Watch Committee were members of a small circle of businessmen, often related through ties of blood or marriage. When the Tai Yau Bank was established in 1914 with a paid-up capital of $6,000,000, the proprietors were named as Lau Chu Pak, Ho Fook, Ho Kom Tong, Lo Chung Shiu and Chan Kai Ming. Lau Chu Pak was compradore to A. S. Watson and Co., chairman of the Po On Commercial Association and chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce; Chan Kai Ming was manager of the Opium Farm; and Lo Chung Shiu, assistant compradore to Jardine, Matheson and Co., was Ho Fook's brother-in-law. All were or became members of the District Watch Committee.\n\n22 T. C. Cheng writes that Wei Yuk 'was very much concerned about law and order among the Chinese masses because in those early days riff-raff and political refugees from South China continued to come into Hong Kong. Thus it was at his suggestion that the District Watch Force was founded in 1888. Mr. Cheng appears to be mistaken about the date and is no doubt referring to the ordinance of that year, no. 13 of 1888 rather than to its proper date of origin. Wright and Cartright, Feldwick, and Professor Woo all state that the Committee was formed on Wei Yuk's suggestion. See: T. C. Cheng, 'Chinese Unofficial Members of the Legislative and Executive Councils of Hong Kong up to 1941', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 9, 1969, pp. 17-18; Arnold Wright and H. A. Cartright, Twentieth Century Impressions of Hong Kong, Shanghai and other Treaty Ports, London, Lloyd's Greater Britain Publishing Co., 1908, p. 109; W. Feldwick, ed., Present Day Impressions of the Far East and Prominent Chinese at Home and Abroad, London Globe Encyclopedia Co., 1917, p. 576; Professor Woo Sing Lim, The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Five Continents Book Company, 1939, p. 4.\n\n23 Unfortunately all the records in the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs were destroyed or lost during the Japanese occupation and hence anyone trying to reconstruct the history of the District Watch must work mostly from scraps of information found in government publications, newspapers, books.\n\n24 My guess is that a large number were traditional Chinese merchants from the Five Districts operating on a relatively small scale. The Committee after 1891 represented the views of a more westernised and modernised elite with a knowledge of modern business techniques and modern financial manipulations. Dr. Ho Kai, for example, played the stock exchange with great success and speculated in many fields, particularly land development. He was, properly speaking, a financier although his occupation is often given tout court as lawyer. He had also qualified in medicine at Edinburgh but gave up the practice of medicine soon after his return to Hong Kong in 1882 because of Chinese resistance to western medicine.\n\n25 In 1903, for example, the Committee opposed the re-introduction of the night-pass system but suggested other remedial measures (see Index to Correspondence (General Register) 1894-1904, Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., 1909, p. 100). In 1909 'at the request of the District Watchmen Committee, children who are hawking without a licence are on their first offence sent to the Registrar General who cautions their guardians. This procedure seems to have proved effective in each case' wrote the Registrar General in 1909. It is worth noting that both Registrar General and Committee wanted to end the night-pass system and were opposed by the Captain Superintendent of Police, who was unsuccessful. As for hawkers, very few Chinese regarded them as a serious menace although colonial administrators", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206467, "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": 15, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "# THE LIBRARY OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\n# REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1971-1972\n\nAlthough no books were purchased for the Library during the year, growth continued through gifts and by means of exchanging our Journal for the publications of other institutions, etc. The additions recorded totalled 19 books (two in Chinese) and 4 pamphlets, which brought the library stock, confirmed by actual count, to 287 books and 46 pamphlets. There are also 11 volumes in Chinese, one scroll, one reel of recorded tape, one microfilm, and five albums of photographs of the Nixon collection of Nestorian crosses. A list of donations is appended to this report, and we take this opportunity of again thanking our various benefactors for their welcome gifts.\n\nDue to the increase in book stock, it became necessary to remove all the bound volumes of periodicals from the bookcase of the Branch at the British Council back to the University Library. There are now only the books judged to be of greatest interest at the British Council, the remainder of the collection being at the University. Members may borrow the volumes from the British Council, whilst those at the University are intended for reference. There is a card catalogue of all books at both locations in the British Council Library, and it is hoped to produce for the benefit of members a handlist of the books and pamphlets in the Library of the Branch.\n\nNew exchange arrangements have been made with the Colonial Secretariat Library, as a result of which we shall receive the Hong Kong Government's annual report on Hong Kong, and have already received back issues since 1965. Negotiations over other exchanges are in progress. As a result of existing exchanges, 30 volumes of periodicals were completed and have been bound during the year. This brings the total holdings of periodicals to 185 volumes (bound in 142), which includes 5 volumes received as a gift from the University of Hong Kong Library.\n\n18th March, 1972.\n\nH. A. RYDINGS\n\nHon. Librarian,\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206740, "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-1973", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "# THE LIBRARY OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY\n\n# REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1972-73\n\nA catalogue of the library, printed by the offset method from the existing card catalogue, was issued in August. It was hoped that by making the contents of the collection better known to members, greater use would be made of the books. This has not, however, been noticeably so, and it seems that the main deterrent is accessibility. This problem will only be overcome, as has been frequently stated, when the Branch has its own premises.\n\nCopies of the catalogue were distributed free of charge to members of the Branch resident in Hong Kong, and to a few institutions overseas with which we have exchange arrangements, including the parent body in London and other branches of the Royal Asiatic Society. The small number of copies remaining in stock will be distributed to newly joining members. It is proposed to issue annual supplements, of which the first will appear shortly, until it becomes necessary to produce a complete new catalogue.\n\nBy far the most important accession during the year was a collection of nineteenth-century bills of lading formed by Rear-Admiral M. A. McMullen, C.B., O.B.E., R.N. (Rtd.), obtained as a gift through the offices of Dr. J. R. Jones, Past President of the Branch. The bills are for various consignments to and from China ports, and there is a brief description of the collection on p. 37 of the printed catalogue. Xerox copies of the bills of lading have been made for ready consultation, and a calendar with index will be appended to the first supplement to the catalogue.*\n\nThere were again no purchases for the Library, since the small use made of the collection does not merit such expenditure. However, we are grateful to the numerous donors who have kindly added to our stock, which now totals 325 books (including 17 in Chinese) and 46 pamphlets.\n\n*In view of the interest of the subject, the calendar with index has been included in the Notes and Queries section of this issue of the Journal on p. 175 seq.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209120, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "# 9\n\n# HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT FOR 1981 - 82\n\nFor the period 7th November to 18th January the Library was inaccessible to members, owing to renovations to the 15th floor of the Arts Centre. Nevertheless it is good to record an increase in borrowing of books during the year. In order to encourage even more use, a revised edition of the published catalogue of the Library is in active preparation, and will be put on sale in the near future.\n\nBecause of the great deal of time required to prepare this catalogue (upwards of 100 man-hours), and because I am also engaged in the indexing of vols. 11-20 of our Journal, the usual routines have fallen behind, and no books have been added to stock since the last report. This is particularly regrettable as we have in fact received rather more gifts than usual, including the following: 12 volumes on Korea (as part of our exchange arrangement with the University of Hong Kong), one from Dr. James Hayes, one from Professor Ho Peng-Yoke, and one from Dr. S. C. Young, founder of Kyung Hee University, Seoul. Several volumes have also been purchased, while our collection of bound volumes of periodicals continues to grow as the result of exchanges for our Journal. Some gaps in the back sets have been filled, mainly by the University Library from its duplicates. The holdings list of periodicals for the new catalogue will contain nine new titles compared with that in the 1978 catalogue supplement; on the other hand, two exchanges have been discontinued.\n\nExcluding those recent additions which have yet to be catalogued, the present stock is\n\n \n Books*\n Pamphlets\n Bound periodicals\n \n \n 670\n 56\n 635 in 477 volumes\n \n\n1,203\n\n* including 48 in Chinese\n\nIt is hoped that the present shortage of shelf space for our books in the Kotewall Library of the Arts Centre will soon be overcome by additions to the furniture there.\n\n15th March, 1982\n\nH.A. Rydings\nHon. Librarian", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209215, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "104\n\nCARL T SMITH\n\nto prevent mui tsai from seeing the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.\n\nThe fourteen member committee composed equally of members from the Protection Society and the Anti Mui Tsai Society met with the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, Mr. Hallifax, to formulate suggestions for drafting a Bill for the abolition of the mui tsai system. In June 1922 their report was sent to London with a comment by the Governor that he did not think the suggestions were an altogether satisfactory solution.\n\nThe members of the Committee representing the Anti Mui Tsai Society were:\n\nMr. Joseph Mau-lam Wong (1897 - 1869), compradore of Messrs. A. S. Watson and Co.\n\nMr. Charles Graham Anderson (1889 – 1949), a Eurasian, manager of the International Savings Society of Hong Kong, also newspaper reporter.\n\nNgan Kwan-yu, Government vernacular teacher of the Gap Road School later Head-master, Congregational Church Primary School, Ladder Street.\n\nHung To-fei\n\n―\n\nRev. Wong Oi Tong (1888 – 1941), for forty years pastor of the Rhenish Church, Bonham Road.\n\nDr. T.P. Woo (1878-1941), medical practitioner.\n\nDr. Yeung Shiu-chuen (1878 – 1950), dentist.\n\nAll were members of Protestant Churches.\n\nThe members of the committee representing the Society for the Protection of the Mui Tsai were:\n\nMr. M. K. Lo (later Sir Man-kam Lo) (1893 - 1959), son of a compradore of Jardine, Matheson and Co. and son-in-law of Sir Robert Ho Tung. He was a solicitor.\n\nMr. Tsun-nin Chau (1893 – 1971), son of a shipping and insurance magnate, Chau Shiu-ki. A cousin of Sir Sik-nin Chau. By profession a barrister.\n\nMr. Wong Kwong-tin (1879 - 1936), son of a wealthy Chinese merchant. He was a Supreme Court Interpreter when young, later Manager and Director of Kai Tack Land Investment Co., Manager of China Specie Bank, Manager of Chinese Stock Exchange, etc. A Roman Catholic.\n\nIp Lan-chuen (1865 ...), one of founders of Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209364, "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": 21, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT\n\nPerhaps the most important occurrence in a relatively eventful year was the donation of over 20 books and several parts of periodicals, nearly all relating to Asia, from the Editor of the well-known Hong Kong monthly ‘Orientations'. This was briefly noted in the President's report at the last annual general meeting, but occurred after the Librarian's report had been prepared. We are extremely grateful for this most useful addition to our collection. Apart from a few volumes which need binding, these gifts have already been added to the shelves.\n\nDuring the year other gifts were received from Dr. James Hayes, who also purchased several volumes on behalf of the Society, including a useful and fairly complete run of the Peking Natural History Bulletin, the complete volumes of which have been bound. Other acquisitions were received on exchange from the University of Hong Kong Libraries, while the regular exchanges with other institutions for our Journal continued.\n\nAn arrangement was made with the Hong Kong Anthropological Society, whereby their small library of material in Chinese and vernaculars, some 20 volumes, has been placed on indefinite loan with our collection, and is included in our catalogue.\n\nIt is fortunate that the space shortage at the Kotewall Library of the Arts Centre, mentioned in the last report, has been overcome. Additional bookcases have been provided, allowing us to spread the books over a greatly increased length of shelving. Even with the increasing accessions noted over the past two years, we will be able to keep our collection in better order for a few years to come.\n\nAs of this date the stock of our collection is as follows:\n\n \n Books*\n Pamphlets\n Bound periodicals\n \n \n 757\n 57\n 686 in 507\n1,321 volumes\n \n \n * including 50 in Chinese\n \n\nxxi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210836, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "170\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nstrengthened by his baptism and resolve to study theology.\n\nAs a theological student, A-sow was soon preaching and in 1849 Dr. Legge noted that he began to show considerable ability in public speaking. The following year the missionary committee agreed that he should continue his studies for two or three more years. He was urged to improve his Chinese. At the same time he was to assist at the school in teaching English.\n\nIn December 1850, Dr. Legge received a shock, A-sow appeared in a hearing before the Police Magistrate. The case concerned the loss and reappearance of bills of exchange worth about $50,000,\n\nIn the summer of 1849, the agent of the P and O Shipping Company reported the loss of a valuable parcel from one of its ships. It had been addressed to the firm of Gibb, Livingston and Co, a firm that is still doing business in Hongkong today. About this time a cook's assistant picked up a bill for some £300 near Union Chapel in Hollywood Road not far from the London Mission House and School. Being written in English he could not read it. So he showed it to his employer. It was from the lost parcel.\n\nNow more than a year later A-sow turned up at the police station with two bills worth about £2,000, asking if the owner was known. He told the police he had received these bills and others from a former coolie in Dr. Legge's employ. The coolie in turn said he had received them from two other people, one who had left for California and the other was the same man who claimed to have picked up the £300 bill the year before.\n\nOn the basis of this testimony, the latter was charged with robbery. Under oath A-sow deposed that the London Mission Society coolie had brought the bills to him some ten months earlier asking if they were of importance.\n\nA-sow said he took them to the Rev Ho Fuk-tong for his opinion. The reply was they were worthless, whereupon A-sow put them in a drawer in his desk and forgot about them. Ho Fuk-tong at the hearing denied ever having seen the bills, thus putting into question A-sow's credibility.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210922, "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": 273, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "256\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nA festival demands she appear in her most precious ornaments and her most attractive gowns. Then there is nothing to do but to confess to her gambling addiction, or, as many did, seek escape from her predicament by suicide through use of “the opium pot or hempen rope.”\n\nThere was, however, a third way out, for according to Dr. Ho Kai \"some tread the path of infamy and dishonour.” adding that \"this may have been done with the connivance of their worst enemies, the gambling agents.\"\n\nAfter paraphrasing the ten suggestions for the suppression of gambling contained in the Chinese petition, he proceeds to remark on the next evil, sly brothels. These were brothels which operated without licence. In those days the Government licensed and inspected houses of prostitution.\n\nWith proper Victorian prudery, he said: \"I feel conscious that this is a subject that requires very delicate handling, and it is on that account and my sense of pain and disgust whenever the subject is approached that I desire to be excused from dwelling upon it at any length.”\n\nDr. Ho Kai advocated severe measures for the suppression of these evils. He proposed as penalties flogging and imprisonment with hard labour. An editorial suggested that Dr. Ho Kai was thus unintentionally advocating class legislation a topic we shall return to in a later article.\n\nWith some irony the editor suggests: “We do not suppose that this Chinese delegate wishes there to be one law in Hongkong for foreigners and another for Chinese; and yet, on the other hand, it seems as if he must have had some such idea, as it is scarcely credible he meant to suggest that foreigners who engaged in gambling should be flogged.\"\n\nThe editor asks Dr. Ho Kai some rhetorical questions: \"Are the gamblers on the Stock Exchange to be flogged and imprisoned with hard labour? Are the whist players in the various clubs and at numerous private houses, and the men who bet a few dollars at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212826, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "120\n\nI was also most fortunate in my Chinese friends, many of whom strongly disapproved of the discreditable state into which Chinese administration had fallen. Unchecked hoarding and profiteering were the order of the day and on these the black market flourished exceedingly. Providing you had the money you could buy almost anything in the Kun-ming shops. Inflation mounted steadily and so far as one could see no serious efforts were made to control it. Many officials kept several wives and lived in great luxury; they had profited from the colossal fortunes made over the transportation of supplies on the Burma road. The sight of all this was sufficient to shake one's faith in the future progress of China.\n\nThere was also an extensive black market in money. The official rate of exchange for the Indian rupee was six Chinese dollars to one rupee; but in the black market you could get forty, then fifty, sixty, and so on upwards. British officers drew as much of their pay as they required in Chinese dollars at the fixed rate later by special arrangement with the Ministry of Finance increased by 50%, that is nine dollars to the rupee - but at these rates Kun-ming prices in terms of dollars were beyond their reach. They could not afford to go out, and had difficulty in returning hospitality. The Americans were better off because they received their pay in U.S. dollars, which they disposed of in the black market.\n\nThere was no difficulty about the provision of food; local supplies, so far as we were concerned, were adequate. The drink problem was more difficult; supplies had to come over the 'Hump' and a bottle of whisky was a very rare thing. The French Catholic fathers made a beverage, called Anis, not unlike Absinth in taste, and like Absinth it turned a cloudy white colour when mixed with water; it had a kick like a mule. Anis was rather expensive though, and the more enterprising members of the community took to distilling their own ‘gin'. The machine consisted of a two-gallon petrol tin, placed over a charcoal fire: from the top of the tin a copper tube - probably salvaged from a dismantled lorry - led through a five-gallon kerosene tin filled with cold water, where the vapours from the still passed through coils in the pipe, condensed, and dripped into the gin bottle. The stock from which the liquor was distilled would be either one of the fiercer forms of Chinese wine or the commercial alcohol manufactured for use in driving vehicles: either product tasted horrible and left the most distressing hangover, but it did make a party go.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212857, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "151\n\na handful, because efforts had to be made in order to make sure that there would be enough male Jews to constitute a daily Minyan.\n\nThis community was by far the most prominent of the three groups of Jewish residents in Shanghai. They were among the first foreign traders in the metropolis, bearing names that included Sassoon, Kadoorie, Ezra, Abraham, Solomon, Rahmin, Moses, and Gubby, families still active in Hong Kong today, and were a part of the international mercantile community in the Far East at that time, enjoying business and personal links with the close-knit Jewish communities in Hong Kong and Bombay. At first they traded in raw cotton and general goods, then took over the opium trade. In time, in Shanghai as well as in Hong Kong and Bombay, they branched out into real estate, banking, shipping, warehousing, insurance, hotels, utilities, and other industries, gaining power and influence locally as well as in international commerce. The names of 38 prominent Sephardic Jews were found among the 1932 list of 99 members of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.\n\nAshkenazi Jews\n\n6\n\nImmediately following the completion of the trans-Siberian Railroad and the pogrom in Russia in 1905, a number of Russian Jews moved to Manchuria through Siberia, with about 300 filtering down to Shanghai. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, more than 10,000 Jews emigrated to Harbin. Apparently at that time the Chinese government had been contemplating expelling the Jews from Manchuria. In the mid 1920s when White Russians and Japanese interests began to spread in Manchuria, many of the earlier immigrants moved southward to Tianjin and Shanghai, swelling the total Jewish population in Shanghai to just under 2,000.\n\nThe Ashkenazi community of Jews in Shanghai, mostly Russian but by then joined by stragglers from Lithuania as well, increased to more than 1,000 after 1924. They were not exactly embraced by the Sephardic community of Shanghai. The Ashkenazi were not princes of commerce, but small businessmen who engaged in the import and export of such items as wool, bristles, and fur. The Chinese in Shanghai remembered Jewish salesmen going from house to house, carrying rugs for sale. The Ashkenazi Jews were also professionals; physicians and lawyers, for instance; and, above all, musicians.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214953, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "4\n\nand serve tea. Credit for initiating the custom of afternoon tea is generally given to Anna, Duchess of Bedford (1788-1861). The correct protocol states that tea should begin between 4 and 4.30 in the afternoon and should last just one hour.”\n\nTea had become so much the national drink that the East India Company was required by an Act of Parliament to keep a year's supply always in stock. For the British Exchequer, tax on tea brought revenue amounting, in the 1830s, to over three million pounds - an astonishing amount. Tea could be obtained only from China. Indian tea (or Ceylon tea) was still many years away. It had to be paid for, preferably not in silver coin, but by equitable trade exchange. China, however, while keen to export tea, wanted nothing in return except silver bullion. Faced with an alarming trade disadvantage, British merchants discovered that opium was one item by which they could balance the trade in tea. As addiction to tea, for that is what it was, could not be stopped, moral scruples did not prevent British traders from fostering opium, far more pernicious than tea, on China. It may be safely assumed therefore that had it not been for Britain's demand for increasing quantities of tea, China might never have been subjected to opium, which was grown in India under British supervision.\n\nOpium and the Chinese\n\nMany scholars and historians believe that mankind has known opium since prehistoric times. It was certainly known to ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, used extensively for medicinal purposes mainly as a remedy for pain and to induce sleep. Opium has been known in China at least since the Tang Dynasty (618-906AD) and possibly much earlier, originally only for its medicinal value. It was derived from Papeverum somniferum, a species of poppy cultivated in India and Turkey. Although not indigenous to China, the opium-bearing poppy plant was cultivated in the western province of Yunnan to supplement opium imported overland from India. Trade with the Middle East and India flourished in the Tang Dynasty, but import of opium into China was comparatively small as homegrown opium supplied most of local needs. It would be surprising, however, if some non-medical use of the drug had not developed. M. Booth believes that such use was not widespread and was restricted to 'an upper-class elite'; the drug was probably eaten. This seems to be confirmed by the absence", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]