[ { "id": 204931, "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": 39, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "32 \n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING \n\nrace is thus augmenting, the causes which lead to the destruction of food, — such as the overflow of rivers, fires, ravages of locusts, bad seasons, and other calamities, — are to a great extent beyond the control of human prudence or human exertion. It would be difficult to show what new element could be introduced which would raise up the native supply of food beyond its present productiveness, considering that hand husbandry has given to cultivation more of a horticultural than an agricultural character.\n\nThe constant flow of emigration from China, contrasted with the complete absence of emigration into China, is striking evidence of the redundancy of the population; for though that emigration is almost wholly confined to two provinces, namely, Kwangtung and Fookien, representing together a population of probably from 34,000,000 to 35,000,000, I am disposed to think that a number nearer 3,000,000 than 2,000,000 from these provinces alone are located in foreign countries. In the kingdom of Siam, it is estimated that there are at least a Million and a Half of Chinese, of which 200,000 are in the capital (Bangkok). They crowd all the islands of the Indian Archipelago. In Java, we know by a correct census there are 136,000. Cochin China teems with Chinese. In this colony we are seldom without one, two, or three vessels taking Chinese emigrants to California and other places. Multitudes go to Australia, to the Philippines, to the Sandwich Islands, to the western coast of Central and Southern America: some have made their way to British India. The emigration to the British West Indies has been considerable; to the Havana greater still. The annual arrivals in Singapore are estimated at an average of 10,000, and 2,000 is the number that are said annually to return to China.* \n\nThere is not only this enormous maritime emigration, but a considerable inland efflux of Chinese towards Manchuria and Tibet; and it may be added, that the large and fertile islands of Formosa and Hainan have been to a great extent won from the aborigines by successive inroads of Chinese settlers. Now these are all males — there is not a woman to 10,000 men: hence perhaps the small social value of the female infant. Yet this perpetual out-flowing of people seems in no respect to diminish the number of those who are left behind. Few Chinamen leave \n\n* Journal of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii, p. 286,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205752, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "52\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\nthe configuration of the country favoured cover and our casualties were few.\" But, \"had this advance not been conducted with great care the loss to our troops must have been heavy.\"69 After fierce fighting the militia withdrew from the valley, leaving it by way of the saddle which gives access to the Pat Heung district. The soldiers followed and, having lost touch with the Chinese, bivouacked for the night at Sheung Tsuen, on the foothills overlooking the Pat Heung valley.\n\nThe next afternoon a large force (subsequently estimated at 2,600 men), was seen approaching from a distance. It consisted of men from Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Castle Peak and from four villages in adjacent Chinese territory, including Pan Tin. The British force took up positions and stood watching the militia, deployed in three lines, \"advance across the open in excellent skirmishing order.70 The British Officer Commanding later conceded that it was \"distinctly a determined advance for Chinamen.”71 The militia began firing at long range and their rifle and jingal fire shortly became almost continuous. When the distance had been reduced to 500 yards the British tried a few ranging shots, moved forward under cover of a dry water course, and advanced into the open toward the on-coming militia. In the face of such a determined response, which now became a general advance accompanied by heavy fire, the militia broke and ran.\n\nThis battle marked the end of organized resistance within the New Territory. The next weeks were spent in establishing the civil administration and in persuading villagers to return to their normal occupations. The Governor, in attempting to explain what had happened to a remote Colonial Office, drew upon another Celtic parallel. The resistance, he said, revealed \"a state of clan feeling and power of combination not unlike that of the Scottish Highlands two centuries ago . . .\"72\n\nThe Occupation of Sham Chun and its Aftermath-- May to September, 1899.\n\nThus far, operations had been confined to the newly leased territory. Early in May, however, reports reached the Hong Kong Government of an impending attack from across the Sham Chun river. Police informers said that 140 ‘bare-sticks' from Tung-kuan Hsien had assembled in secrecy at Sha Tau, on Deep Bay. They were to form the nucleus of a force which was to be augmented by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205956, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS\n\n31\n\nChinese interior of the treatment they had experienced. He admitted that \"almost invariably\" the answer was \"that at points remote from those to which foreigners have access, there was no diminution, but on the contrary, rather an enhancement of the courtesy exhibited towards them by the natives.\"32 While these visitors all need not have been referring to Taiping areas, it is a fact that the only exception to this apparent rule during Elgin's own trip on the Yangtze was at Hankow, which was under Ch'ing control. Elgin noted that in this city \"we thought we detected symptoms of the old disease of antipathy to foreigners, though of a very mitigated type.\"33 The English encountered objections to their entering the walled city of Wu-ch'ang,34 and when they walked about Hankow, were treated to the spectacle of having their Chinese official companions \"severely bamboo\" anyone who came near the foreigners, even if only to gratify understandable curiosity.35 Effort was made to prevent the mission from making purchases of local products of any kind.36\n\nElgin's general conclusions as the result of this trip were that there was \"little or nothing of popular sympathy\" for the Taipings, and that the majority of the population was desirous of peace and commerce. The first conclusion is obviously based upon the flimsiest and most suspect evidence, while the latter is merely a gratuitous observation. Our evaluation is harsh, but is based squarely upon a consideration of the motives and circumstances of the expedition, and on reflection upon the composition of the mission itself, with its heavy anti-Taiping bias (there was even a Ch'ing official accompanying the mission). With this background understood, it is a wonder indeed that Elgin himself would not have been more critical of the testimony garnered along the way, for Elgin had pondered the problem of the credibility of such information. His reflection on one aspect of the subject, some present-day interviewers on the China scene might agree, has a certain timeless applicability:\n\nChinamen of the humbler class are not much addicted to reflection, and when subjected to cross-examination by persons greedy of information, they are apt to consider the proceeding a strange one, and to suspect that it must be prompted by some exceedingly bad motive. Moreover, having been civilized for many generations, they carry politeness so far, that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206244, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "LETTERS FROM CHINA 1835-36 \n\n55 \n\naverage of one in a fortnight! Moreover, I can't swim a stroke. Thus, the house-top is my esplanade and Champ-de-Mars every morning and evening; and seriously, the view from it is very interesting at least to an eye not palled by long repetition of it. All Canton, the City, and the Suburbs (far more extensive than it) stretches away below you on the north, with its strange curved roofs and gables, such as you always see painted in China tea-cups; and now and then the pinnacles of a joss-house, or temple, with tall flag-staffs; until the eye takes in a most beautiful hill some 2 to 3,000 feet high, and perhaps three miles away from you in a straight line. There stands an enormous Pagoda at the foot of this hill, towering prodigiously many stories above all the trees and houses around it, and with a tree (which looks a merest shrub) growing on its summit. That hill is the finest thing here; I wander over it—I mean in spirit—every morning that day breaks on it drawing out all the tints of the scene; there are half a dozen fissures in one part, which I look on as thunder-rifts; and a delicate whitish line creeps up one shoulder, which I take to be a path-way for those happy, happy, thrice-enviable and most-favored Chinamen who can walk thereon without being bamboo'd to death for the offence! The river opposite the Factories joins another great branch only a few yards higher up, and the remote shores of the united stream above, show yellow with harvest, and painfully rural to the poor bird in the cage. The country there stretches away into hills too, but perhaps 15 or 20 miles away, a long and very high range—several indeed—which break the horizon nearly half its circuit. Down the River, i.e., to the S.E., the stream curves like an S, and thereby, from your point of view, a forest of masts, of all heights and sizes ever used in boats, is visible in one coup-d'oeil, such as I never saw before. I should not say boats, though; for most of them are the masts (single sticks!) of junks from 2 to 600 Tons Burden. Their number is perfectly prodigious. You see the horizon beyond and near this, striped with one or two delicate lines of alternate land and water from the windings of the noble river, the last line of all being perhaps ten miles off. It is over there the sun rises to you, else you could not see that tiny thread of water inlaying the meadows. Not a single European ship is in sight here, and only a few sailing boats and wherries. All the European ships are down at Whampoa reach, some 12 or 13 miles away.\n\n—\n\n—\n\n—", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206276, "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": 93, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n87\n\nOnly a few were able to survive the perils of the business. They were not accustomed to building in the Western style and therefore often underestimated on contracts, resulting in their bankruptcy. In 1844 the Land Officer comments that \"almost all contracts hitherto entered into with Chinamen have been obliged to be finished by Government, for the works were taken at far too low an estimate, and the consequence was, when the parties found they would become losers, both contractor and security decamped, and in some instances they were imprisoned.\"16\n\nOne of the few contractors who did survive in this early period of Hong Kong's history was Tam Achoy †, alias Tam Sam Tshoy, alias Tam Shek Tsun, although he too almost went into prison for debt, escaping only through the generosity of his creditor. Achoy was generally recognized as the most prominent leader of the Chinese community when an élite was first beginning to emerge out of the hodgepodge of shopkeepers, craftsmen and traders. We have noted that he and Loo Aqui built the Man-Mo Temple where they performed in part the traditional role of village elder. He was also Trustee for the I Ts'z Temple in Taipingshan (1851) and the Temple in Queen's Road East at Wanchai (1869). In 1847 the Colonial Treasury had on deposit £185.16.8 from Tam Achoy for erecting a Chinese School in the Sheung Wan (Lower Bazaar).\n\nAchoy had come to Hong Kong at its foundation in 1841, having been formerly a foreman in the Government Dockyard at Singapore. He was granted a certificate for the easternmost of the lots in the Lower Bazaar, and soon began to buy up the interests of the adjacent property owners until he had acquired an extensive sea frontage. He built some of Hong Kong's most prestigious early buildings such as the P. and O. Building and the Exchange Building, which was bought by Government and used for many years as the Supreme Court Building. With the accumulation of increasing capital he began to broaden his interests and secured permission from Government to build and operate a market. This was a most profitable venture and when the Lower Bazaar was destroyed in the Christmas fire of 1852, he soon rebuilt it, operating it under his firm's name, Kwong Yuen. During the period after 1848, when Hong Kong became a port of embarkation for thousands of emigrants, Achoy was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206291, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "102\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nto Hong Kong, practiced law, was a member of the Legislative Council from 1929 to 1937.\n\nAnother Government employee—although his family was not as distinguished as that of Tso Aon, but who does appear on a number of our elite lists was the Overseer of Coolies in the Surveyor General's Department. Cheong Assow\n\nwas appointed to this office in September, 1844. He also invested in real estate, which upon his death in 1897 was divided among his seven sons. In 1848 the Surveyor General suggested that Assow was underpaid, as he found him an invaluable man in his department:\n\n+\n\nThe headman Assow I cannot speak too highly of, he is intelligent, honest, and careful, and displays great zeal for the Department. He understands English perfectly, and I can trust him to make measurements for me upon lines that are clearly defined, which he performs with great accuracy. His wages are very small for a man of his usefulness, and I should wish much that they were raised as he is one of the most deserving Chinamen I ever met. His education under me (for he has now been in the Department nearly five years) has progressed so satisfactorily that he is of more service than many of the English overseers I have employed, whose wages are never less than $30 per mensem.36\n\nTHE GROUP EMPLOYED BY MISSIONS\n\nAnother group which identified itself with Hong Kong was a small number of Christians who came here from Malacca, Singapore and Macao under the patronage of missionaries. As Christian converts they had renounced the traditional practices connected with the veneration of ancestors and thus had cut themselves off from participation in the ritual observances which bound the Chinese family together. There seemed little chance that they could expect to be welcomed back to their home villages. In a sense they were as marginal to the social structure of China as were those who had had to flee China because of criminal activities. Unlike the tradesmen and small merchants they did not view Hong Kong as an opportunity to make a quick fortune which they could take back to their home village", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206541, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n54 Index to the Tso Chuan, p. iii of Lockhart's preface.\n\n55 Ibid., p. iii.\n\n56 T'oung Pao, vol. xxix, 1932, p. 180.\n\n83\n\n57 On the study of folklore see Alan Dundes (ed.), The Study of Folklore, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1965.\n\n58 N. B. Dennys (1840?-1900), a student interpreter in the Consular Service, published in Hong Kong in 1867: The Folklore of China, and its affinities with that of the Aryan and Semitic Races. It was a reprint of a series of articles first published in the China Review. Dennys' study is influenced particularly by the work of Max Müller. A typical example of Dennys' conjecturing would be the following: 'But what are we to make of the monotheistic spirit pervading the numerous sayings in which the \"Heaven\" of the Chinese answers to the \"God\" of Christian Europe or the \"Jehovah\" of the chosen race? Is this the spontaneous invention of an isolated people, or is it the surviving trace of a long-forgotten worship, when the ancestors of the Chinamen and the Semite worshipped at the same tomb?' (p. 155). See also Thomas Watters, 'Chinese Fox-Myths', JNCBRAS, vol. viii, 1873. The article by E. T. C. Werner, 'China's Place in Sociology', China Review, vol. xx, 1891/92, pp. 303-310, provides another example of the speculative thinking current among the educated in the 1880s.\n\n59 Lockhart's circular was also printed in the JNCBRAS, vol. xxi, 1886, p. 120.\n\n60 China Review, vol. xiv, 1885/86, p. 352.\n\n61 In 1860 the Hong Kong Daily Press published a separate newspaper in Chinese. This was the Chung Ngoi San Po and its first editor was Wong Shing (Huang Shêng).\n\n62 The collection contains over 600 letters from R. F. Johnston to Lockhart.\n\n63 JNCBRAS, vol. xlvii, 1916, p. 152.\n\n64 Arthur Bradden Cole, An Encyclopedia of Chinese Coins, New Collegiate Press, Kansas, 1967, vol. 1, p. 335.\n\n65 South China Morning Post, 5 January, 1972.\n\n66 Jean Gittins, Eastern Windows, Western Skies, Hong Kong, 1969, p. 47.\n\n67 The Times, 4 March, 1937. See also the obituary in the North-China Herald of 10 March, 1937. The South China Morning Post on 1 March, 1937, declared that Sir James' name is immortalised in Hong Kong by Lockhart Road on the Praya Reclamation.' Lockhart received the C.M.G. in 1898 and became a K.C.M.G. in 1908.\n\n68 R. F. Johnston's obituary notice of Lockhart: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1937, p. 393. Johnston states he was one of the first to receive the honorary degree of LL.D from the newly founded University of Hong Kong. He received this honour in 1919 and was in fact the twelfth person to be so honoured.\n\n69 See, for example, Lockhart's letter to Dr. G. E. Morrison after Morrison's speech to the China Association in 1907: 'I admired your pluck', Lockhart wrote, 'in telling your hosts what could not have been entirely pleasing to their self-satisfied ears, and in giving expression to what you well know will not make you popular with the white men in the Far West. You boldly advised removal of the troops. See Cyril Pearl,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207339, "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-1975", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n99\n\nadjacent to the European business centre, the so-called Central District (Chung Wan), or, eastwards along Queen's Road, in the district of Wan Chai.\" Once Kowloon was acquired, pong-paân were attracted to this new area of settlement because of low rents and the propinquity of the docks, wharves and godowns soon established there, which in time gave employment to numerous European overseers. At the end of the century, Kowloon had become the principal habitat of lower class Europeans. There were terraces of houses occupied solely by them. A witness wrote:\n\nThese are generally employees in the dockyards, or clerks, or the families of engineers and mates of the small steamers that have their headquarters in Hong Kong... Hong Kong looks down on Kowloon with all the well-bred contempt of Belgravia for Brixton. And even in the despised suburb on the mainland these social differences are not wanting. The wives of the superior dock employees are the leaders of Kowloon society; and the better half of a ship captain or marine engineer is only admitted on sufferance to their exclusive circle.18\n\nBut the part of Victoria most frequented, especially at night, by the European lower orders—soldiers, sailors, merchant seamen, beach-combers and others—was Tai Ping Shan, a densely populated Chinese residential area west of the Central District. In 1875 a visitor to Hong Kong wrote:\n\nPassing westward along Queen's Road, we come upon a quarter of the town much frequented by seamen of all nations. Here spirits are sold in nearly every second shop, and bands of common sailors may be seen spending their time and money on questionable drink in more questionable company, roaring out some rough sea-song in drunken chorus, or dancing to the time of a drum and flute, accordion or cornopean. The piles of Chinese houses which rise above this locality embrace Tai-Ping-Shan, or the hill of great peace. The name is a fine one, but a fine name will not hide the sins of the place. Tai-Ping-Shan is inhabited, for the most part, by Chinamen; but men are found there belonging to all the nations of the East. As for women, these are principally Chinese; they are numerous enough, but of the lowest type. There are strange hotels in this quarter,\n\n* There are a number of 19th century street maps available for early Hong Kong, held in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209860, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 119, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "97\n\nin the N. E. corner. My pilot not being acquainted with the channel, I got a fisherman's boat to go up with one of the Chinamen I had on board, to see if he could recognise his property. He shortly returned on board, saying his boat was there, and that the other boats were pirates. I immediately stood in under easy steam, when the pirates seeing my intention, made sail, and ran through the channel towards Wanchowchow (Stonecutters). I fired a few shots at them, but they soon got under the cover of the land. Then sending my boats after them, and running round outside the Island. I had the satisfaction of driving them on shore, and destroying five, as well as liberating two market-boats with several passengers who had been in confinement for several days.\n\nThree captured men are sworn to by one of the owners of the boats, and I have sent them in irons to Hong Kong.\n\nThese piratical boats had all the rebel flag flying and fired upon our boats, without however doing any damage.\n\nMa Wan (\"Horse Bay\"). This island is low-lying, although the geological structure is the same as Tsingyi and Lantau. The east coast has a fine bay, almost unapproachable for rocks. The inhabitants are mostly Hakka. One of the Customs stations built for the so-called \"Blockade of Hong Kong\" during the 1870s and 1880s still stands on this island; it is now used as a school.\n\nThe waters around Ma Wan are known as Kapshuimun (\"Rushing Water Channel\"). The name is apt since Kapshuimun has about the swiftest tiderip of any channel in Hong Kong. It is 25 fathoms deep. It is the track of all steamers from Hong Kong going to and from the Delta. Opposite Ma Wan, on the south shore of Kapshuimun, that is, on the northernmost tip of Lantau, are the only wolframite mines in the islands.\n\nLantau. This is our biggest island, two and a half times the size of Hong Kong Island. Lantau Peak is the highest peak in the Ladrones 3061 feet.\n\nThe northern end is almost deserted except for a few tiny hamlets round Yam O (“Hidden Haven\"), a perfect smugglers'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210858, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "192\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nnor Bigler.\n\nThe Chinese account says: \"We charged him to see the Governor face to face and to tell him again the truth about us, and to endeavour, by supplicating words, to induce him to use his powerful influence in persuading the American miners to abide by the law which the legislature had passed, allowing foreigners, Chinamen as well as others, to work in the mines on the payment of a tax.\"\n\nTo create a favourable climate Tong A-chick took with him on his visit to the Governor \"shawls of rarest pattern, rolls of silk of costliest texture, and some 70 handkerchiefs of the choicest description.\"\n\nTong A-chick reported back to his compatriots that he had been hospitably received and entertained. Indeed the Governor had requested that the Chinese present another letter stating their case. He promised to answer it by a speech or proclamation on their behalf. \"When we heard this, we were much rejoiced, and believed our sorrows were nearly at an end.\" The rejoicing was premature.\n\nThey drafted another letter and sent it by A-chick to the Governor. His Excellency found it unacceptable and drafted a version of his own. The Chinese, however, found that \"the words were not our words, and that we cannot say them with the truth of honest men, and they contradict what we have already said.\" Despairing of the Governor's support, they published the original letter they had sent for his approval.\n\nIn this letter they stated that the miners had been provoked to drive out Chinese from their claims by the Governor's original message against them, the unfavourable report of the Committee on Mines and Mining Interests, and the resolution passed at a public meeting at Sacramento, the state capital. All these had been circulated extensively among the miners, feeding their animosity against the Chinese.\n\nThe letter protested that the Governor had not followed the advice of the legislature, which had passed a bill levying a tax of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210859, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "193\n\nUS$3 a month on all non-American miners. The Chinese believed the legislature \"had spoken wisely. The Chinamen love to labour, but hate to fight. We will pay the tax willingly.\"\n\nAmerican xenophobia produced the charge that the Chinese were exporting vast amounts of gold. They replied: \"Why then is it that the Chinaman is so prosperous in this country? Because as we have told your Excellency before, he (the Chinaman) does not drink, gamble, or idle, or spend his money foolishly. Because he is thinking of his parents and his children, and the future, and works hard and saves what he makes.\" Perhaps a somewhat idealised version of Chinese life in California, but certainly it contained a degree of truth.\n\nThe letter also pointed out that mutual interchange would be beneficial to both Americans and Chinese. \"Our intercourse may benefit us both very much, and that will be better than quarrelling about our respective merits. Why should East quarrel with the West? God made them both, and placed the day between them, that the nations should use it in doing good works to one another.\"\n\nThe letter was signed by Tong K. A-chick of the Tun Wo company and Chun A-ching of the Sam Wo Company. Though the writer is not named it was probably composed by A-chick. Some of the sentiments, particularly those last quoted, reflected his missionary education.\n\nSeveral bills were introduced in the legislature in 1853 proposing that “no Asiatic or person of Asiatic descent or Chinese should be permitted to work in any mine in this state.\" The heads of the four Chinese associations testified at the hearings for the bills. Tong A-chick acted as their interpreter and presented the Chinese position.\n\nThe Rev. Mr. Speer remarks on the good work done by A-chick as the representative of the Chinese. \"This is the individual whose efforts on behalf of his countrymen were the chief means in turning the tide of public opinion in their favour, when those unfriendly to them made the attempt to expel them from the country. And if he remains here, there is no man whose influence will be more\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210878, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "212\n\n► - + CARL SMITH A notice of a different stamp from the August 14, 1855 issue of The Age is quoted in Geoffrey Serle's history of the colony of Victoria. It states that some 3,000 Chinese converts were present. \"The Chairman expressed his deep regret at the prevailing wickedness of the Colony. Popery ... was rampant (loud cheers). Puseyism was worse (hear, hear) and he should like to thrust the chopsticks of faith into the heart of tractarianism at once (applause). (The Government has done nothing for) the Anglo-Australio-Asiatico evangelical movement . . . A hymn, expressive of pity for all unconverted Chinamen, and the extremist doubt as to their ultimate destiny (was sung).” Serle pointedly remarks: \"Someone's leg was being pulled.\"\n\nIn spite of ridicule in the papers, opposition from the white miners and indifference among the Chinese, the Rev. Mr. Young and his assistants began their work. After three months, Mr. Young reported they had been round to the different camps of Chinese. \"We have visited them in their tents, at their diggings and have on Sabbath days convened them in places of worship.\"\n\nThe results were not as spectacular and inspiring as the initial enthusiasm which launched the mission. However, missionaries sometimes have a dogged persistence even though results are meagre.\n\nAfter a year, Ho A-low wrote to Dr. Legge asking him to send a former student, Leung A-to, to join the work at Castlemaine. Armed with a letter of introduction to the ecumenically constituted committee in Melbourne, A-to set off for Australia. Here he worked at Castlemaine until 1862. During that time there were some 20 converts.\n\nIn 1859, Chu A-luk, who had accompanied Ho A-low in 1855, returned to Hongkong. A-low had already severed his connection with the Castlemaine mission in 1856, but continued to live in Australia. I have no information regarding his future career, but he seems not to have returned to Hongkong. His brother Ho A-mei, who joined him in 1858, although not so", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211424, "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-1988", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "116\n\nhad to postpone its Christmas celebrations by a week, and that several Kauluwela boys were unsuccessful in their attempt to enter high school. After a quarantine of a week, the disease was considered stamped out. Ping Lim and Ting On, both of whom were attending Oahu College, were on a three-week vacation then.\n\nIn a letter dated 20 February 1900, Ping Lim wrote:\n\n\"My dear brother Ping Yip Chan:- On account of the great distance between town and our residing place in Moanalua and the inconvenience of getting your letter at once which came to me on Tuesday afternoon, the 14th of Feb., when the steamer was about to leave, I did not answer you immediately. You are, no doubt, wondering why I am in Moanalua. The cause was that S. M. Damon was afraid that his brother F. W. Damon's residence and the school might burn down in case one of our members should have attached the plague, and also the school's neighbourhood is in a very bad condition. So we moved to a small island owned by S. M. Damon, which is near to the 3 mi. water pumping tank, and borrowed six tents from the Kamehameha School to make our chambers. Four of them used for us, sixty in number, and one for the three teachers, and one for a food storeroom. You may think it is crowded but there the ocean wind is pretty strong. At first we expected to live there one week or two, but after having been there a week the news reached us, stating that several Chinamen working in the Pantheon stables, which are adjacent to our school, have died of plague and so these buildings were soon turned to ashes. Afterwards the whole block in which we live was said to be infected and a rough fence has been built around the block. The people of this spot have been put under quarantine. Had we not made the move we are surely in quarantine.\n\nNow I must turn to another important subject. Well, you have told me that the burning of Chinatown is the most cruel act that was done to our Chinese by the whites. No, the properties destroying itself was not so half bad as to see our ignorant helpless bind-footed Chinese women and babies crying and running forcibly for their lives on the streets, when the unexpected fire came. More than this, some few women who were about to let their babies out to earth were pushed to the drays which took them to quarantine. While during these hours it has been said that some births have occurred. Of course the Chinamen were driven like cattle by the inspectors who carried stakes or some other beating instruments in their hands. After that the men and women, numbering several thousand, were taken to the Kawaiahau Church and grounds. The women lived inside the church while the men outside on the grounds with tents. I am sorry to say that father, brother and in-law's whole family were among these people. During their residing in the church, I went to see father every day, asking if there was anything wanting. Many articles and foods have been taken there by our store partners. But after having been in there for a week they were driven to Kalihi just a little below the Kamehameha School where a great number of new rough rooms have been set up. In Kalihi's I can't see any of our known people to talk with there. All I can do is to send letters to them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211526, "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-1988", "page_number": 243, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "219\n\npremier and treasurer of Manitoba in 1885, and while there was quite prominent in the political affairs of the province, being sent to England to negotiate a large loan. On his return from England, he was ordered to Hongkong, to take a position in the diplomatic service. Before leaving this country, he came to Portland with a letter of introduction from Sir William Van Horne of the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Theodore B. Wilcox of the Portland Flouring Mills Co.\n\nRennie at that time knew nothing about the flour business, but he made such a good impression on Mr. Wilcox that he was engaged by the Portland miller to put in the time he could spare from his diplomatic duties, in selling flour. He was successful from the beginning, and in 1895 his business had grown to such proportions that he resigned from the government service and devoted all of his attention to the flour trade. He was a tireless worker, and as he had very liberal contracts with Mr. Wilcox, he was soon enjoying a very large business. On this business he always endeavored to stamp his own personality.\n\nWhile the Wilcox brands were soon famous from Vladivostok to the Malabar coast, and far into the interior of China, it was Rennie alone, of whom the Chinamen knew, and with whom they dealt. This great success and the attendant profits it brought, was probably responsible for Rennie's belief that he could make a grand success out of the milling business.\n\nHis studied effort to keep his own name and personality in the foreground, had given him great prestige in Hongkong and other trade centres across the Pacific, and to him it seemed easy to transfer this prestige from the Americans to a mill of his own.\n\nApparently confusing flour making with flour selling, Mr. Rennie plunged into the business on a big scale. Had he been content to feel his way with a small mill, where the capacity could be increased as the demand for the product developed, he might have made a success, or at least the failure would not have been serious. But Rennie, the greatest flour salesman in all the Orient, had aspirations to be a great miller, and with the money he had saved during his successful career as a salesman, and several hundred thousand dollars subscribed by English capitalists at Hongkong, he built a two thousand barrel mill. The capital", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211650, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "40\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh contained the character revealing where he had originated from. An altar in a converted shophouse temple in the suburbs of Taichung bore the title 'Chinmen Su Fu San Wang Yeh'. The temple keeper's family, also named Su, had brought the image over from Quemoy (Chinmen island) off Amoy.\n\nAn example of the many idiosyncrasies involving the worship of the surnamed Wang Yeh can be observed in the Ma Temple in Ssu Hu village in Yunlin county where the Ch'en family has worshipped Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui+ for many generations. The temple was built there with Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui as the major deity but following an epidemic Ma Fu Ch'ien SuiT, the ancestral deity of the local Ts'ao# family became the major deity on the altar. He is regarded as the senior of the two Wang Yeh. According to local legend, during a virulent epidemic Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui gathered together Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, Ta Sheng Yeh (Monkey god), the Third Prince (T’aitzu Yeh), Kuan Yu (the red-faced god of loyalty), and T'ien Shang Shengmu (The Holy Mother of Heaven better known as T'ien Hou) and together they stopped the epidemic. In their gratitude the locals extended the temple to honour them and, according to the temple keeper, the whole area has been peaceful and harmonious ever since. Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, the senior Pestilence deity in the group, is portrayed as a multi-armed deity, with a multi-coloured striped face sitting on a throne. It is very Hindu in its appearance.\n\nIn Hsin Ying near Tainan a main deity known as Han Lao Yeh##Zm but better known colloquially as Han Ch’ien Sui### was discussed by a number of villagers. In consensus they decided he was not a Wang Yeh despite being a protective deity who was particularly revered for the maintenance of good health. They were unable to identify Han but recalled that he had been a civil official in Fukien whose image had been brought over to Taiwan long after he had been deified.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh generally occupy the main altar of the temple in which they reside. The main deity will occupy the centre spot with the junior Wang Yeh in lesser positions beside him. However, in a number of temples they can also be seen in a row on the altar table before the main altar which can be dedicated to another, entirely unconnected deity. This would seem to be the temple staff taking advantage of the custom of borrowing a Wang Yeh image to take home for private reverence by the sick, who leave a donation in the temple for the service. Pestilence Wang Yeh images are frequently carried home from temples", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211667, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "57\n\nThe third non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Sui Chia Wang Yeh (隨駕王爺). This Wang Yeh whose title means 'Following the Imperial Carriage' was the general-in-charge of the royal guards during a legendary visit to Taiwan by the Chinese crown prince, later to be the Ch'ing emperor Chia Ch'ing in about 1690. Images of the general Li Yung, and his deputy Wang Fa, stand on the altar of a temple in Nantou in Central Taiwan. The crown prince received reports of a plot by the Hsiao family, so legend claims, who in conjunction with a hill tribe planned to assassinate him, Li Yung attacked the Hsiaos and although he was killed during the battle the Hsiaos were forced to retreat and the crown prince was saved.\n\nSo much for legend. According to historical records, in 1721 Chu Yi-kui rose against the Ch'ing dynasty in Taiwan to restore the Ming, and Li Yung was appointed Duke by Chu. Both Li and Chu were defeated and captured by the Ch'ing forces and executed in Amoy. The probability is that the temple, which was erected in 1899, just after the occupation of Taiwan by the Japanese, was erected to commemorate Li Yung's, and by extension the people's opposition to foreign (in Li's case, Manchu and in the people's, Japanese) occupation of Taiwan.\n\nA fourth example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh, but from central Taiwan this time rather than the south, is Su Fu Wang Yeh (蘇府王爺), a Tang dynasty official now better known as General Su.\n\nIn the early days of its development Quemoy (Chinmen) was repeatedly attacked by pirates. Due to the superhuman bravery of General Su they were defeated and Quemoy was pacified. He, Su Yung-sheng (蘇永盛) to give him his full name, and Ch'en Yuan, the Horse Breeding Duke, another official serving T'ang T'ai Tsung, worked together to develop the area.\n\nThe pirates called Su Yung-sheng 'Su Ta Wang' (The Great Lord Su 蘇大王). In his twilight years Su was transferred on promotion to the mainland where he was appointed a Wang Yeh.\n\nAfter he died a temple was built in his honour in which he was revered together with four of his subordinates, Chiu (邱), Liang (梁), Ch'in (秦), and Ts'ai (蔡), who were honoured with the honorific of Ch'ien Sui (Excellencies). \n\nA major temple, the Chinmen Kuan, in Lukang on the west coast of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211668, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "58\n\nTaiwan is dedicated to General Su. He is worshipped by Lukang traders of Quemoy (Chinmen) stock for protection. Two images of him stand on the main altar, one being the main image (Su Fu Ta Wang Yeh *) and the other a secondary image (Erh Wang Yeh Em). According to the temple keeper the latter was carved to satisfy the demand of worshippers for a portable image to take home for private reverence. A third image known as the San Wang Yeh (=E) was placed on the altar of a nearby branch temple (Fen miao). A number of branch temples dedicated to Su as a Wang Yeh, a Ch'ien Sui and as a General or Marshal (Chiangchun and Yuanshuai é) are to be found in many places in central and northern Taiwan.\n\nHis image on the main altar of his temple in Lukang portrays him as black faced and black bearded, a standard carving of a seated dignitary wearing a scholar's gilded cap. Before him are seated five other images, one is the portable image of him in the centre, flanked by the four minor Ch'ien Sui, Chiu, Liang, Chin and Ts'ai,\n\nIt is interesting to note that the deities in the temple at Lukang are colloquially referred to as Su Fu San Wang Yeh, The Three Su Wang Yeh. This despite them being but one person, and there being only two images in the main temple whilst the third is in a temple nearby.\n\nFinally, some dozen or so small images of standing soldiers in a V formation together with their commander crowd a secondary altar in the temple. They represent the army of General Su.\n\nThese four are examples of non-pestilence protective deities referred to as Wang Yeh; there are a few other deities, not protective deities as such, who are also referred to as Wang Yeh in Taiwan. A good example is the T'ang emperor Ming Huang, patron of actors and actresses, known also as the Prince of the Western Ch'in (Hsi Ch'in Wang Yeh Еƒ). He fled to Szechuan province in the far west of China after he abdicated which led to him being given this title. T'ang Ming Huang is probably best known to foreigners for his infatuation with the concubine Yang Kuei-fei which nearly lost him his throne.\n\nTo conclude, the large cult of Pestilence Wang Yeh, almost exclusively worshipped nowadays by the Fukienese and referred to simply as Wang Yeh has been confused over the years with other cults whose individual deities have borne the same honorific which, despite being protective", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212308, "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-1990", "page_number": 250, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "227\n\n19th century. In 1891 the Hong Kong Telegraph spoke of the firm in less than complimentary terms;\n\nthe everlasting Bugbears of Eastern commerce, the nigger-drivers, the sweaters, the Jews worse than Jews,\n\n-\n\nfor no Jew was ever so full of hatred and persecution and intolerance of all others...\n\nYet Swire's was sometimes also accused of having more liberal racial views, and comments were rife when B&S invited Chinese brokers to a dinner. A recorded comment was:\n\n+++\n\nthe Swire lot blustering away among the Chinamen (hobnobbing) with every unwashed devil in the place\n\nJohn Swire died in 1898, wealthy and prestigious.\n\nDuring World War I Governor Sir Henry May accused Swire's of reluctance to help the war effort for failing to provide volunteers for the defence of the Colony. Today, with people in their employ like Lady Lydia Dunn, Howard Young and others, Swire's can certainly no longer be accused of lacking in community spirit.\n\nFrom 1878, Jardine's acted as agents for the China Sugar Refining Company at East Point. But after going East, Swire soon started to diversify. John Samuel's first marriage was to the owner of a sugar refinery, and not only did he consider he knew something about the business but a study conducted in Hong Kong satisfied him there was potential for two refineries. Consequently, Taikoo Sugar Refining Company was first registered in 1881, although it did not commence production until 1884, at Quarry Bay, in a refinery based on a design of a factory in Scotland.\n\nBy the early 1900s Taikoo was the largest sugar refinery east of Suez, with a turnover of approximately 2,000 tons a week. At one stage it was said to be the largest in the world under one roof. The company was the first in Hong Kong to provide living accommodation on site for its staff. A new factory was completed in 1925. This had to be refitted after World War II, but in the early 1950s there were about 650 workers and it was still the largest sugar refiner in the Far East.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212736, "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "30\n\nin 1886, a year after he had ended his service 'being retained by Viceroy Chang Chih-tung in Canton.' It would appear that he mistakenly claimed the seal bore the more senior rank.\n\nMesny - Neither Chinese nor Western: But Perhaps Both\n\nMesny lived within the two cultures to the extent that we are left in no doubt that he was able to see both the good and the bad in both. He criticised national traits of Chinese and westerners on numerous occasions, though despite the almost universal criticisms by western travellers in China of the dirt, personal filthiness, disregard for decency, boorishness and inquisitiveness, to say nothing of the incessant and noisy talk, Mesny never comments. Foreign travellers almost without exception comment on one or more of the following Chinese characteristics, their remarkable mechanical aptitude, with a delicacy of touch; a patience probably unrivalled in the world; adding however that their inability to draw the necessary inferences, and improving and inventing as they proceeded always surprises. The Chinese, they continue, are an intensely practical people who dislike doing anything for which there is no necessity; and finally, despite there being hardly a product which Chinese would not use, and with a hatred of waste that makes them utilise everything, westerners are always amazed that they should be so averse to milk and milk products. Mesny hardly touches any of these matters, possibly as they had either not crossed his mind or more likely because he saw no reason to add to the chorus.\n\nHe was not impervious to Chinese arrogance and occasionally added a barbed aside such as his reference to a non-Chinese tribe in southern China when he added, ... [the Chinese] are ever ready to apply the very opprobrious term of barbarian to every other people, but not their darling selves...' A more telling paragraph amidst the hundreds of snippets or topics, and pen pictures of things Chinese which were the primary fillers of his weekly Miscellanies, one written in February 1905, after forty-five years in China, and therefore presumably a distillation of his views, was a description of:\n\n'Chinamen [sic]. hua-jen #A, a Brilliant man, a Glorious or Elegant Person, a Chinaman.\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213809, "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-1996", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "133\n\nACCOUNT OF THREE DAYS EXCURSION ON THE\n\nMAINLAND OF CHINA.*\n\n*I\n\nHaving for some time desired to take a trip on the mainland, and having been invited to the German Mission stations at Li-long, and Ho-how, I had waited several months for an opportunity. Mr Lechler, a German missionary had arranged an excursion, and kindly came and invited me to be one of the party. So I went to headquarters, and got leave. Unfortunately, the time was immediately before the New Year's Examination, and at the utmost I could not be back till the day before: and as the Governor's prizes of two watches and two telescopes were to be distributed at the Examination, and it was to be a very grand affair, it was rather an awkward time to go away. However, I knew that I might not get another chance, so I determined to go at any sacrifice. The party was to consist of five, viz. the Colonial Chaplain, the Rev T Stringer, the missionary; the Rev R Lechler; Capt Drummond of the 99th, and myself.\n\nI made little or no preparation for the journey till the morning we were going to start. Then I hired a man to act as servant, cook, and coolie and [to] carry my luggage: and got a Chinese travelling basket, which held all my bedding, clothes, and all that was necessary for the journey. Then at half past ten on Wednesday morning, January 28th, I began the journey, equipped in my oldest clothes, and a white umbrella. Our place of Rendezvous was on the Bonham Strand. After waiting at the place appointed, for several minutes, the party slowly arrived one by one, and when we had mustered all hands, we proceeded to the Chinese passage boats. I had some fun among the Chinamen on the wharf by buying about twenty oranges. A whole crowd gathered round, and as I spoke Chinese to them, it was fine fun. The fellow tried to cheat me right and left: so I said to him and those round: \"he sees I am a foreigner, and so he wants to get the advantage over me,\" then I took up his ticket from the basket, and read \"All these oranges 6 cash each (without the peel).\" So I said \"now you all see his ticketed price\" and yet he wants me to pay more than double, because he thinks I cannot read Chinese. \"Now what shall I do to him?\" The poor fellow looked very sheepish, and the crowd began to jeer him, so he said I might have as many as I liked for 5 cash each. So I bought a stock for the\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213810, "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-1996", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "134\n\njourney, and paid him 10 cash each for them, and then we came to the boat.\n\nIt was no easy thing to get on board, and as it was my first attempt at a Chinese craft, I was quite disgusted with the affair. After being on deck for a while, I found the two cabins which 5 men were to occupy. Each cabin was about the size of a chest of drawers, and cockroaches and smaller vermin revelled among the dirt. However, there was no help for it. Lechler, who has lived as a Chinaman and previously worn a tail for 10 years, took it all as a matter of course, and seemed quite at his ease. These boats are about 50 feet long, with the stern very high out of the water, and the bow very low. There is one principal mast and sail, which does all the work. In a minute the sail can be hoisted, and in 10 seconds can be lowered. Clumsy as it all is, it is surprising what good sailors Chinamen are. There is no danger if they are left to themselves. They can tack in less than no time. The \"shut kung\" calls out \"chun shun\" and the great sail sweeps round across the deck in a trice. All who are on deck must instantly stoop very low, or they will find themselves lying sprawling on the lee side.\n\nThe arrangements being made we started off in company with 8 other boats belonging to the same firm. Our ship was the chief one, and was named the \"Shoon-lay\" or \"good profit\"; all of them had names meaning gain and profit (all the Chinamen ever think about). We got out of the harbour by the use of the two immense oars or sweeps at the stern, which move the ship along tolerably fast. Then when we were clear of the harbour, we made for \"pirates bay\". The weather was delightful; the sea was very clear; and we went on charmingly with a brisk breeze. Hong Kong at a distance is certainly a fine place. The immense Peak behind the town is a grand spectacle, and the fast increasing colony, with its fine houses on the hillside are beautiful to look at, especially on a clear day, in the sunshine. We had no end of fun among ourselves, and kept a continual fire of jokes at Stringer's dog, which was condemned to be eaten on the voyage. I gave it to a Chinaman and told him to kill it and eat it; much to Stringer's dislike and our amusement.\n\nWe were each armed with a revolver, and each had a stick or something else in case of need; we had, moreover, two double-barrelled guns, with which we now and then let fly at the wild ducks. At three", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213812, "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-1996", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "136\n\nWe coasted along, and could only move by using the sweeps behind, and the six oars in front. Capt Drummond and I took each an oar, and had a long pull. Just before we entered \"Deep water Bay\" we found the tide had turned and the current was dead against us. So we came to anchor, and the other accompanying ships did the same, all near each other, for fear of pirates. When the anchor is cast the boy who attends to the Religious ceremonies, ascends the poop with a roll of paper which he lights and waves to and fro and then throws overboard. Then the gongs began to ring at a fine rate, to frighten away the evil spirits, and at last the shouts of the men gradually died away in the stillness of the night; and only an occasional shout was heard from the distant shore from the huts of the fishermen, who were boiling their nets in very large coppers.\n\nWe had previously taken tea, and Mr Lechler had addressed the passengers in the hold: and then, it being late we prepared to turn in for the night. We had our evening devotion, and as we knelt on the deck in the moonlight, and listened to the voice of prayer, breaking the stillness of the waters, in the sight and hearing of the heathen around us, I felt a sensation which words cannot describe. Then as we rose and sang \"From all that dwell below the skies,\" there was something so soothing, so comforting in the music, that as the last notes died away in the distance, and all was calm and still, I felt transfixed to the spot. \"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast,\" and never did I feel its power more than on this occasion.\n\nMessrs Irwin and Drummond slept on the deck, while I tried to sleep down below in the small box, with Lechler. But sleep I could not. A tooth began to ache, and gradually increased to such an extent that at 1 o'clock I got up, and went round to the man on the watch and all the Chinamen I could find, to beg a morsel of tobacco to put into it. At last one fellow gave me a piece, which though it did not prevent the pain, yet gave me so much relief that I got nearly an hour's sleep. At 3 o'clock the tide turned and we again got under weigh, after which there was no more sleep for me. The night before, I was up till after two o'clock writing for the Bishop: so that I was quite worn out.\n\nThe wind was against us, what little there was, and so we had to scull and row all the way. At daylight we were entering the river, and after a good wash, and breakfast, we were ready for action. The men", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213813, "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-1996", "page_number": 165, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "137\n\nwere all tired so for exercise we took an oar to help them. We had several shots at the birds, principally teal. One great bird sat on a bush, and as we rounded a point, we got close to it. Two of them shot at it, and the thing did not move; after a minute or two it got up and flew away, much to the chagrin of the marksmen. We were gradually getting into closer quarters, and at every turn the river grew narrower. We were also getting nearer the abodes of man. At last we swept round and came to a village, where, through the shallowness of the water, we were forced to disembark, since the tide was very low. All round was nothing but immense oyster shells, in immense heaps. Some apparently very old. One would think that from the time of Mathuselah the inhabitants had fed upon nothing else but oysters. We got ashore, and off we started since we had a long walk before us. We met a man with about 1000 ducks, and I levelled a two-barrelled gun at the lot, and asked the fellow how much he would let me have a shot at them for. He was fearfully frightened, and I was obliged to tell him I was only doing so for fun.\n\nWe went through this village, and as we went through the principal street it was like a grand circus procession in England. Five of the Western barbarian foreign devils, fully armed, and followed by about 10 servants, was a sight many had never seen before. They certainly seemed to know how to make good use of their eyes, and I warrant they will never forget us in a hurry.\n\nAt last we got clear of the town and were hurrying along across the country to walk to Sam-chun. On all sides were large covered jars, or what in Kent would be called \"covered crocks,\" glazed on the outside, and standing in rows of from four to ten, at every few hundred yards. These contain the remains of Chinamen, who have been buried, and according to custom, have been exhumed, as soon as the flesh was decomposed. These jars no one ever dares to touch, much more to violate or desecrate. The mischievous urchins anywhere in England would have had a \"Cock shy\" at them, and not a jar would stand many days like that, on the road side, with plenty of nice smooth stones, made apparently on purpose to \"shy\" at them, and no one near to see or know. But Chinese boys never are up to such things. From infancy they are taught to venerate and respect, yes, and to worship the dead, and this superstition prevails over what perhaps would otherwise be as great a propensity in them as in England.\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213818, "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-1996", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "142\n\nround, and is about a yard in diameter. At last we entered into a better looking sort of a house, and found only two women in it. One ran away, but the other stopped and asked me politely to take some tea. So we asked for some water and when I told her our Saviour's religion said that whoever gave a cup of cold water to one of Christ's disciples would not lose their reward. She said \"yes I know that, I know your holy book I am a Christian and have received the holy washing ceremony.\" I am a disciple, and scholar of Mr Winness: every Sunday he teaches me, and tells me all the holy doctrines.\" She gave us some pretty flowers out of her garden, and we went on very much gratified with this little event. Between one and two we returned home, and found the others had returned long before.\n\nThe people of the village had assembled, and made a fierce noise outside, and presently the elders came up into the parlour to settle the dispute. They made a long palaver, five of them, about the new part added to the Mission house. On the opposite hill was a tomb, and the corner of the new part of the house had been built about a foot and a half too high, so that it was higher than the tomb, and that when people stood on the tomb, they could just see the top of the house, above them. Now this was a serious matter they said: for the descendants of the man in the tomb, had one of them very sick, entirely through that corner of the house being so high; and while the peace of the ancestors was disturbed, the whole family would all suffer sickness and death. Fancy five old grey bearded Chinamen talking such superstitious nonsense.\n\nI have since heard that soon afterwards they came again, and demanded 100 dollars as the compensation for the injury done to the family. And at last agreed to take 10 dollars, and let the house remain, (and of course cause the death and sickness of the family)!! This is about all their religion is worth. Religion with them is merely a custom, and a dead letter. About 3 o'clock we started and bade goodbye to our hospitable German friends, and pushed on for the river. No incidents worthy of note occurred, except shooting two birds as they flew over head and which my man secured, and I had them for dinner next day at home.\n\nWe got on board our ship, which had been able to come up the river and discharge its cargo, about sun-down, and after a while got", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213819, "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-1996", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "143\n\nunder weigh, and went down the river like a dart. The wind and tide were in our favour. We took our tea, and the night came on very bitter cold. I wrapped up in my deci skin, which was very serviceable, and I was laughed at by the Chinamen who called me \"The red flower spotted butterfly\". As we tacked out of the river the ship rolled, and I felt rather funny. Towards midnight we were rolling very considerably and I had to get up on the sly and pay that tribute to Neptune which she always exacts from landsmen, who are not used to the sea. About 3 o'clock we came to anchor in the Kap shui moon, and there we were till about nine, when we managed to steer out as the tide turned, and got soon into a fresh breeze which took us off to Green island, then we tacked again and came round into the harbour. I felt glad to get ashore again after so much of knocking about and want of sleep. Fortunately Stringer's dog neither got shot nor eaten, although it was threatened over and over again. I was glad enough to get into a sort of tub and get on shore the best way I could, with Irwin and Lechler, and reached home after 75 hours absence, in safety.\n\nAlthough I did not immediately feel the benefits of the voyage, I did so afterwards and hope to make another similar trip some day or other. My whole expenses were just over 5 dollars, and I saw what would cost any of you “Western barbarians” at least a couple of Hundred Pounds sterling.\n\nThe next night I went to bed early, and slept on till quite late next day, to make up for lost time. The officious man I took with me had put Mr Eitel's large feather pillow and two of his shirts and other items belonging to the others in my box, so that when we got to Hong Kong, I was puzzled to know what had been done. The beauty of the thing was this, that the fellow seemed to think he had done a capital thing for me, and said \"you have gained by me\". Poor Eitel sent word to know if I wanted to be like the magpie that borrowed the feathers of other birds to improve its own plumage - since I had gone off with his feather pillows and shirts. They all tease me finely about it and it will be a joke for a while to come.\n\nI ought to have mentioned sooner how the house was attacked at Li-long by about 50 robbers.* They threw in \"stink-pots\" as they are called, and tried to enter, to rob them, about 2½ months ago. But the Chinese cook gave the alarm, and shot a man who had got up the balcony.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214842, "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-1999", "page_number": 257, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "224\n\nseemingly well prepared for paying imperial honours. Surgeon Cree relates in his diary that upon the signature of the Treaty of 1842 on board the British flagship on 29 August, a plain yellow flag was hoisted at the main and saluted with twenty-one guns. On September 14 following he noted that \"all ships of the Expedition hoisted the yellow flag at the main - the royal standard of China - and at noon fired a royal salute of twenty-one guns.\"\n\n50\n\nThere was a distinct awareness of the fineness of the country itself. Of Central China, Sir John Davis declared that “it yields to none in the whole world, and is equalled by very few.\"5 Lieutenant Wyndham Baker of the Madras Artillery also waxed lyrical on the subject.52 Even Sir Henry Pottinger, the Plenipotentiary responsible for forcing the Treaty of Nanking upon the Chinese, had called China \"this superb country,” in his despatch to the British Foreign Secretary announcing the event. Several decades earlier, Sir Henry Ellis, member of the Amherst Embassy in 1816, had written that \"it was impossible to travel through the Emperor of China's dominions without feeling that he has the finest country within an imperial ring-fence in the world.\"54\n\n53\n\nNone of the books and letters consulted contains the derogatory or offensive terms for Chinese in use later in the century. British sailors jocularly used the term “Fokies\" for their opponents,55 and referred to the mandarins as “mad-marines,\"56 but the Chinese themselves are not here dismissed as “Chinks,” “Chows,\" \"Heathen Chinee” or “Mongolians\" (as they so often were at a later time, in those English-speaking countries to which they had gone in search of gold or employment) but invariably as \"the Chinese\" or \"Chinamen.\" Indeed, many of the authors pay tribute to the honesty and good manners of the ordinary people.\n\nIn short, our naval, military and civilian writers of the period were still generally respectful of China, its Court and its inhabitants.57\n\nThese facts are worth keeping in mind when considering the Opium War. We should be careful to view the conflict in the context of its own time, and not of that later period when Western attitudes towards China had changed for the worse.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214995, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "47\n\ntherefore separated into their own camps, for their own protection and also so that they could not mix with the British troops in general. They were supervised by their own British officers and NCOs. In death Chinese members of the CLC were buried in separate cemeteries or, if buried in cemeteries with Commonwealth dead, in separate areas apart from them. However, deceased British officers and NCOs serving with or transferred to the CLC were buried amongst other Commonwealth fallen. In life and in death the Chinese were isolated [reflecting the attitude of Europeans towards Asians in general and non-Christians in particular]\n\nIn mid-September 1917, Alec Paton, stationed at Zillebeke, Ypres, and serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery, obtained permission to visit Reninghelst to meet Claude Betts, a friend who had been promoted to company commander in the CLC. Before leaving Paton was in conversation with one of his officers who commented that he thought 'it would be a good idea to use Chinese as infantry, there being so many of them.' Adding that he wondered what the Germans would do if they saw ten thousand Chinamen coming over the top? In reply a wag said 'Run and bring their washing, I should think.'\n\nClaud Betts had learnt a few Chinese phrases as his labourers could speak no English and they were cunning enough to pretend they could not understand sign language if such meant work. As Alec Paton was passing through Reninghelst he noticed a sign, erected by HQ for the troops, which read ‘DO NOT SPEAK TO THE CHINESE.' Underneath, also in large letters, a wit had written, 'WHO THE HELL CAN?’.\n\nOnce again, to quote from the Directorate of Labour's Notes:\n\nComplaints. The Chinese, in China, are accustomed to seek redress of grievances by means of written petitions: locked petition boxes should be provided.\n\nThe Notes also included the following facts regarding the Chinese:\n\na] The Chinese coolie has an inherent contempt for foreigners\n\nb] He comes here purely and simply for money, with no interest in the war.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]