[ { "id": 204679, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "144\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nthese removals, again from long established locations and substantial houses, is also said to have been mainly on fung shui grounds following a long period of decline, reduced births, infant deaths, and other difficulties.\n\nThese removals all took place within the last fifty years, that is, within the period of British rule in the New Territories, and it would be interesting to know if there were similar cases in other districts during this period. It is, of course, extremely likely that these periodic removals were a feature of village life in the past.\n\nJ. W. HAYES.\n\nAN OLD FORT AT TUNG CHUNG ON LANTAO ISLAND\n\nIf you take a ferry-boat from Hong Kong to Lantao and land at the bay of Tung Chung it is worth while looking at the old fort which still exists near the hamlet of Lung Ching Tau. The walls are still in good preservation and inside there is a broad gun-platform with six cannon in position, one of which has an inscription on it showing that it dates from the middle of Chia-Ch'ing's reign.\n\nIt is known that a fort and garrison was maintained at Tung Chung during most of Chia-Ch'ing's reign (1796-1821) when a large and successful fleet of junks manned by Chinese pirates terrorized the coasts of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. There is documentary evidence that a fort was constructed at Tung Chung in the twenty-second year of Chia-Ch'ing's reign (1817).1\n\nIn 1834, during the few months when Lord Napier was Superintendent of British Trade at Canton and relations between the two countries were very strained, the fort at Tung Chung was again mentioned in Chinese documents. The Governor-General of the two Kwangs at that time, Lu K'un, in a 'memorandum' to the throne submitted at the beginning of\n\n1 See Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842, Chinese text (Institute of Chinese Culture, Hong Kong, 1959) footnote on p. 236. An English translation of this book published under this title in May 1963 omits the footnotes.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204792, "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-1964", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "FENG CHAU \n\n83 \n\ncontributed a joss-stand table to the temple in the first year of the Tao Kwang period (1821) and a ferry from Shek Lung was one of the donors in 1878. Three local ferries are also listed on the tablet. According to local information36 two of them, each capable of taking a load of 40-50,000 catties (approximately 24-30 tons), sailed between Peng Chau and Chan Tsuen #in \n\nLANTAU \n\nYee Pak. \n\nTai \n\nTei Wan \n\nNim Shue Wan \n\nCheung Sha Lan \n\nPENG CHÂU \n\nHung Shui \n\nKau Shat Wan \n\nSILVER MINE \n\nBAY \n\n(Man Kok \n\nMILAL \n\n'NEI KWU CHAU \n\nPeng Chau and Surrounding Area \n\nthe Delta, whilst the third, which was smaller with a load capacity of 10,000 catties (about 6 tons), plied at need between Peng Chau and the local ports of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Cheung Chau and Tsuen Wan. The goods carried from the Delta towns were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204840, "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-1964", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "118\n\nCRANMER-BYNG AND SHEPHERD\n\n14 They had every reason to be alarmed on account of the continual attacks from pirates on coastal villages in Kwangtung and other places during the period from about 1787 until 1810. See A. W. Hummel: Eminent Chinese of the Ching Period, 446-8. Also C. F. Neuman, History of the Pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810.\n\n15 Macartney took with him on the embassy a \"gardener and botanist”, David Stronach. For the botanical side of the embassy see J. L. Cranmer-Byng, op. cit., 317-19.\n\n16 These nets are known locally as \"stake nets\" or tsang pang are lowered and raised by means of a tackle. They are frequently used along the coasts of Kwangtung today. The fishing season is from February to mid-September,\n\n17 The island is now reasonably well covered with pine trees and there are a few small feng-shui woods of deciduous trees. A large number of kites have been observed using pine trees on a ridge in the centre of the island as a roost during the winter months.\n\n18 Parish knew the island, which he had been sent to reconnoitre, under the name of Cowhee. Now he learned that the inhabitants called it Toong Shing-ow-a. However, this name does not appear to have survived and the island is now always known as Ma Wan4 and was so called as far back as 1859. See Rev. Krone, op. cit. (note 8) p. 73. The word Cowhee was probably a phonetic rendering of the name of an island between Ping Chau island and Hong Kong island known as Kau I Chau 交椅洲.\n\n19 By the small island to the south-east Parish presumably meant Tang Lung Chau## which now has a small light-house on it. There is now a small harbour with a jetty at Ma Wan village, and this is the normal place for landing on the island today.\n\n20 This is a doubtful statement.\n\n21 The word as written in the manuscript report is clearly \"profil\". I can only suggest that Parish meant \"profile\", and was using it in a technical, military engineering sense, meaning \"outline\". A reading of Tristram Shandy and other eighteenth century books about sieges and defence works might give a clue to its technical meaning at that time,\n\n22 From the anchorage position marked on the chart this must refer to the bay of Tsing Lung Tau. Today Ma Wan is connected to the mainland by a regular ferry service running from the bay of Sham Tseng, where the Hong Kong Brewery is situated.\n\n23 By the word \"bay\" in this context Parish appears to refer to the wide bay formed by the northern coast of Lantao from its headland opposite Tsing Lung Tau to Chek Lap Kok opposite Tung Chung bay, but the wording is somewhat ambiguous at this point.\n\n24 Probably the western arm of Luk Kang\n\n-\n\n· + +\n\non Lantao.\n\n25 Tung Ku #island opposite Tap Siak Kok on the Castle Peak peninsula. It forms part of the Urmston Road.\n\n26 See Charles Tulse, Local Master's Handbook. Seamanship Illustrated (Hong Kong University Press, 1960).\n\n27 See photograph of the \"race\" between Ma Wan and Lantao on page\n\nIt is interesting to know that Professor Deryck Chesterman of the Department of Physics in the University of Hong Kong is carrying out research into the currents off Ma Wan and their effects on the sea bed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205218, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "168\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nmeasure were then recorded and the tau chung for these districts was calculated at ten to the acre. With tenant farmers in these villages paying about the same tenant rentals as the rest of the New Territories the enhanced value of agricultural land to the owners in this section was considerable.\n\nA curious method of land measurement called tam shui, which can be related to the tau chung in the manner described below, is conducted at Cheung Chau, an island about four miles by ferry from Hong Kong. Tam shui means \"carry water\". Here, the farmer measures his land by the amount of water needed to water his crops morning and evening. The island is dry and wells are dug which yield a good supply of water for cultivation purposes. This prevents padi being grown but allows general vegetable crops. The method used by the farmer is to have two wooden buckets suspended on a yoke across his shoulders. Each bucket holds about five gallons of water and has a rose at the end of the spout similar to the English watering can. He trots to his pool, presses the buckets into the water until full, trots out to his vegetable patch and waters his vegetables as he walks along. By the time he has completed thirty trips backwards and forwards, using sixty buckets of water he has then completed watering one tau chung of land. Tenant rentals are fixed on this basis.3\n\nKuk (穀)\n\nKuk is the Cantonese word for unhusked rice. It is also the medium through which tenant rentals are fixed.\n\nLandowners and tenants usually agree to conclude a contract at Chinese New Year when most of the fields are lying fallow. Land leases or short contracts are then entered into which are operative after Chinese New Year. The rent is tied to kuk (unhusked rice) and the price it fetches in the open market after harvesting. The rate usually quoted is about half the annual production of the field, so that the tenant gets half the value. For example, if a field of one tau chung can produce four piculs of rice per crop twice a year then the rent payable is the value of two piculs of rice of the first crop and the value of two piculs of rice of the second crop, as calculated at the open market price after harvesting.\n\nBotanically, rice is considered to be a tropical or subtropical", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205341, "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-1967", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "96\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nthe Pui O group in South Lantau. Unlike Chan, who had been a newcomer, Cheung's family had been settled in the area for upwards of two centuries before his birth and his father possessed a small number of fields which had descended from his ancestors. The Cheung clan, too, was the most powerful in the sub-district. Its members were settled in five of the nine small villages of the group and included one or two degree holders by purchase among its immediate forebears.\n\nHowever, like Chan, Cheung went into business, but not in the market town and not as an errand-boy, but locally and on his own account. He opened a shop in a small house situated outside the main village of the group and stocked it with goods which he brought over by sampan from the nearby island of Cheung Chau, the local market centre and a fishing port. Again like Chan, Cheung had a good head for business and used whatever money he obtained from his shop to loan sums to other villagers. As usual the loans were made for interest at high rates or in return for mortgages of land. The deeds relating to about a dozen of his mortgages have survived in an old account book. One of them, relating to the year 1898, shows that he was capable of lending what was then, to a farmer, the considerable sum of 120 dollars, the equivalent of 90 ounces of silver in one single transaction. As happened more often than not in deals of this sort, this land, consisting of an acre and a quarter of good paddy fields, was sold to him seven years later.\n\nCheung's career developed along much the same lines as that of Chan Fu-shing. He settled disputes over a considerable area, including villages outside his own group, and helped to arrange various public services, including a regular ferry to the nearby market town of Cheung Chau. Again, he also took the lead in managing the affairs of the local temples and in repairing them when this became necessary.10 It is not certain whether he purchased a degree, but he may well have done so because, as has been said, this was the normal thing for a prospering villager to do at this period.\n\nKUNG FONG-CHAI (***)\n\nThe third member of the trio, Kung Fong-chai (c. 1850-1922) was a Hakka from a village a few miles from the market town of Tai O. Like the Cheungs, the Kung family had been settled on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205720, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "20 \n\nT. C. CHENG \n\nauthorities should look into the teaching of Chinese boys in English so as to increase the efficiency of the teaching of English. As a result, a Committee was appointed in 1917 \"to enquire into the teaching of the English language to Chinese boys in Government schools, and to examine the question whether by a reduction in the number of other subjects more time can be devoted to such teaching\". The Committee reported the same year, but did not recommend any changes in the school curriculum. However, they recommended (a) small classes, better buildings and better-paid teachers which would bring better results, and (b) the appointment of one English teacher to a maximum of 120 pupils. The Committee also advocated medical inspection of pupils in Government schools, as a result of which a system of medical examination was instituted the following year. \n\nIn recognition of Lau's services towards his fellow-men in Hong Kong, the Chinese Government conferred upon him “The Order of the Excellent Crop, Third Class\" in 1916. He died in 1922. \n\nThere is a Chinese belief that “good deeds will be rewarded by bearing good offspring\". This seems only too true in his case, for his eldest son, Lau Tak-po, founded the Hong Kong & Yaumati Ferry Company and his eldest grandson, Lau Chan-kwok, J.P. is now the Managing Director of the Company. \n\nWhen Sir Boshan Wei Yuk retired from the Legislative Council in 1917, he was succeeded by Ho Fook, younger half-brother of the late Sir Robert Hotung. He was another outstanding student of the Central School. In 1878 when the Governor, Sir John Pope Hennessy, attended his first Prize Giving at the Central School, Ho Fook, then in Class 2, received from him a prize in the form of a gold pencil case.23 He served in the Compradore's Department of Jardine, Matheson & Company and in 1900 was a founder of the Chinese Merchants Bureau. He remained in the Legislative Council for only four years and retired in 1921. \n\nHo Fook was a generous benefactor of education. In 1917 he donated HK$50,000 to the University of Hong Kong for the erection and equipment of the School of Physiology. He also endowed prizes in all the faculties of the University. Like the Honourable Lau Chu-pak he produced some very fine offspring.24", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205724, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "24 \n\nT. C. CHENG \n\nfounded a company named after himself. He was also General Manager of Chinese Estate, Ltd., and adviser to the Hong Kong and Yaumati Ferry Company. He was Honorary Adviser to the Chinese Government as well as the Kwangtung Provincial Government. In 1924, he turned down a Chinese offer to be ambassador to England. He was a member of the Legislative Council for 13 years, from 1923 to 1936, and a member of the Executive Council for 5 years from 1936 to 1941. He was created a knight bachelor in 1938.\n\nThe big strike of 1925 was followed by a boycott of British goods and shipping in China until 10 October 1926, resulting in a serious economic depression in Hong Kong. Mainly through the persuasiveness of Robert Kotewall a special loan of £1,600,000 with an interest rate of 5½%, was arranged from the British Government to assist the merchants of the Colony until normal trading was resumed. Because of this, the Chinese gave him the nickname of \"Silver Tongue\". Sir Robert Kotewall died after the war in 1949,27\n\nIn 1929, the Legislative Council was enlarged through the initiative of the Governor, Sir Cecil Clementi, who was a noted Chinese scholar. The number of officials was increased from eight to ten, including the Governor, and the number of unofficials was increased from six to eight. Of the two additional unofficial members, one was to be a Chinese and the other a Portuguese. Thus the number of Chinese unofficials was increased from two to three and the Portuguese community was represented for the first time on the Council by Mr. Jose Pedro Braga.\n\nIn addition to Sir Shouson Chow and Robert Kotewall, Dr. Tso Seen-wan became the third Chinese member of the Legislative Council in 1929. Dr. Tso, born in 1868, studied law in England. In 1896 he started his practice as a solicitor in Hong Kong together with a partner named Hodgson. In 1902, he, Dr. Ho Kai and some other Chinese leaders were responsible for the founding of St. Stephen's Boys College. He served on the Sanitary Board in 1918 and was appointed a J.P. the same year. As early as 1916, he was awarded the honorary degree of LL.D. by the University of Hong Kong, and in 1928 and 1935 was awarded the O.B.E. and C.B.E. respectively. He served on the Legislative Council from 1929 to 1937 when he resigned.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205830, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "130\n\nARMANDO DA SILVA\n\n5I saw bits of red paper tagged to certain bushes attributed with medicinal properties at Ma Nam Wat, Saikung peninsula on Chinese New Year, January or February 1963. The man who placed the red paper tags explained to me the significance of the tags. I do not know how widespread this custom is. It could be an isolated incident but I personally don't think so and I believe this custom to be widespread, at least in the past.\n\nIt was seeing this act of consecration to plants that aroused my curiosity about useful and medicinal plants around and about coastal villages.\n\n6 The Chinese botanical reference book I used for plant identification is Chik Mar Hok Tai Tsz Tin published in Shanghai, 1918. Unfortunately Chinese plant names in that book are of North Chinese reference only, and are not applicable to South China or the Hongkong area. The modern Chinese reference work on \"koon yeuk\" medicine I consulted is Chung Wa San Yeuk Mat Hok Tai Tsz Tin published in Tientsin, 1934. Again, plant names and treatments described in that book are not applicable to South China and the Hongkong area.\n\nAll of the Cantonese terms and characters were supplied to me by shang choi yeuk collectors at Mui Wo, Lantau. These collectors were seen (in 1963) at Mui Wo ferry pier returning to Hongkong with their loads of shang choi yeuk plants. I am sure that even now (1969), you can also with patience encounter shang choi yeuk collectors at Tai O, Taipo or Shatin. At Cheung Chau, in 1963, there were even a few professional seaweed collectors still left! A common seaweed collected there is a Gelidium called shek fa choi (stone flower vegetable). It is the chief jelly ingredient in the preparation of the Cantonese jelly dessert called \"pak leung fun\", and it is the demand from restaurants in Hongkong and Kowloon that makes seaweed collection profitable for the handful of seaweed collectors left.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207052, "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-1974", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "The Hong Kong Region\n\n117\n\noverlooked in 1898 when only the inshore islands were included in the territory that Britain requested be leased to her at that time.\n\nWhat were the islands like? I have spoken with several old men who now live on Lantau but were born on two of the eight or more islands in the Lo Man Shan group in 1891 and 1893, and with several younger men. Their accounts show that there were long-settled villages there, with padi and sweet potato fields. There were also flourishing inshore fisheries using the largest types of stake net.1 These were owned by village families, and the catches were salted and taken to Macau by a public ferry operated by local people. Salt, which was needed in large quantities for the stake net fisheries, was bought mostly in Cheung Chau, where it was said to be cheaper than in Macau. This was the position in my informants' youth, early in this century. Some of the islands belonged to Hsin-an Hsien, others to Hsiang-shan, but this allocation for administrative purposes was less important than the economic and other ties which dictated the connections favoured by its inhabitants. Wind and sea also affected links in the different seasons of the year.\n\nHsin-an and the outlying islands were thus part of the historical, strategical, social and economic life of the Canton Delta in the late Ch'ing period. The safety of their seaways was likely always to have been an important consideration with the provincial government. This contrasts with the relative unimportance of Hsin-an's history and record of scholarship when compared with the older hsien of the Kuang-chou prefecture.\n\n2. The principal events in the local history of the Hong Kong region since the establishment of Hsin-an hsien in 1573\n\nAs already mentioned in the Introduction, the Hsin-an district, to which the Hong Kong region belongs, was established as a separate administrative division of the Kuang-chou prefecture in 1573. The area was then separated from the old Tung-kuan district in response to problems of defence. It followed upon a petition from local persons which complained that because it was 100 li from Tung-kuan City, ‘barbarians and dwarves’2, had been able\n\n1 The village representative of Shek Pik on Lantau island (b. 1899) and friends of the same age had found regular work there in their youth.\n\n2 HNHC 14/2. I have followed Peter Y. L. Ng's rendering of the character, pp. 143-144.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207619, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 7, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "167\n\nit was unsafe to keep so much money on his own boat, he deposited the remainder at the shop. All went well until the owner of San Ue T'aai, one Wong Tai Ying, a San On county military sau-ts'oi, learnt of the robbery, and that the Naval Commander-in-Chief of Kwangtung Province had despatched Second Captain Chau Kwok Ying to investigate into the case. The shop owner knew the captain personally, and he reported the money that was paid to him, emphasizing the point that it was paid in clean silver dollars. The captain offered a bounty of a hundred dollars, and Tanka boatmen in the area had no difficulty tracking down Lai, his brother, and two boatmen employed by him, all of whom were involved in the robbery. The bare facts of this case suggest that Leung Shuen Wan, too, in the nineteenth century, was a moorage inlet.17 For all we know, Leung Shuen Wan could have been the more important moorage inlet in those days.\n\nNonetheless, Sai Kung and Hang Hau were moorage inlets where eventually more shops opened. In the early 1900's, there were fifty shops and four boat-building sheds in Sai Kung, eighteen shops and four boat-building sheds in Hang Hau.18 Ferries connected Sai Kung to Nam Tau Sha, a short walk from Hang Hau, and then from Hang Hau there were ferries to Shaukiwan. To the east, there were daily ferries from Sai Kung to Pak Tam Chung and Lan Nei Wan. From Pak Tam Chung, villagers walked to To Kwa Ping and other villages to the north, and from Lan Nei Wan, to Long Ke, Sai Wan, and Tai Long. As late as the 1920's, nonetheless, there was only one daily ferry on each route (Sai Kung-Pak Tam Chung, Sai Kung-Lan Nei Wan), and this left the village in the morning at approximately 10 o'clock, and Sai Kung Market in the afternoon, at 2. There were also ferries between Sai Kung and Tai Mong Tsai.19\n\nOccasionally, the ferry boat might be delayed in Sai Kung, and it would be dark when it arrived at Pak Tam Chung. Villagers from the villages to the north would then come down to the pier with lanterns to meet their own family members on their return.20\n\nVillagers from the Tai Mong Tsai area also walked to Sai Kung. Other footpaths ran from Sha Kok Mei, past Sai Kung, Pak Kong, Ho Chung, and Tseng Lan Shue, into Kowloon,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208030, "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-1977", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n53\n\nit helped prevent disappearance of vital parts of the trucks (and also the precious cargo) and one did not have to contend with the intelligent West China bed bugs which were liable to infest the inns.\n\nReturn to Chungking\n\nComing through the passes and down into Szechuan the first signs of spring appeared, the delicate pale green of the young willow leaves and the rich red earth contrasting with the dry, dusty, harshness of the Shensi countryside. Most of our passengers had not, one gathered, been to Szechuan before and were seeing all this fabled richness of the province for the first time. Crossing the Fu River ferry at Mienyang brought us into the plains and we came next to Ching Mo Kuan (Green Pines Pass) where the main customs and control station for Chungking was situated. This was another place where we had anticipated difficulty, especially if the negotiations had taken a turn for the worse since we left Yenan two weeks before. We pulled up near the barrier and everyone stayed in the trucks. We kept the engines running while Yu Chin-lung and I took our documents for checking to the duty officer. When asked what passengers we had we truthfully replied \"Forty members of the 8th Route Army\" which he solemnly wrote down and then chopped our pass. We were in the trucks and handing this to the sentry before the officer could report to higher authority. So, much relieved, we drove on to Chungking, off-loaded our passengers outside the city and then returned, via the upper ferry, to our South Bank base. Distance covered about 3200 kilometres in a travelling time of 32 days and, apart from our initial crash, no accidents, and few roadside repairs.\n\nThree days after our return we were again entertained by the 18th Group Army and General Chou En-lai personally thanked us for what we had done. Later we were invited to send medical teams up into the Border Region working directly with the medical authorities there. The FAU/FSU continued after Liberation and the last member left China in 1952.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208108, "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-1977", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW -LONG ISLAND \n\n131\n\nJunks are the reason for Cheung Chow which only exists to take over their cargoes of fish, salt, or hides, and to supply them in return with all that junks need, ship chandlery and stores, gear of all sorts, and certain amusements for the fisherman, some of them innocent and some not. It stands between Hongkong with its population of some 600,000 persons clamorous for food, and the fishing fleet which cannot afford to lose time beating about in narrow and often becalmed waters under high hills. At Cheung Chow the wind is almost always blowing, but the deeply indented bay and the sheltering spit between the hills give shelter. The junks can run in, unload their catch, revictual or refit, and stand out to sea in any wind, with no delay. The steam ferry carries their fish to the waiting markets for them.\n\nBut the islanders have a second string to their bow for the presence of the ferry has made it worth while to grow vegetables for the same market, and the little glens of the island are terraced to the limit to provide vegetables to the inhabitants and a surplus for that export.\n\nSubsidiary trades have grown up from the same root, if fish can be called a root; fish must be salted and dried, so there is a great trade in salt, though most of the salt which comes into Cheung Chow is not rubbed into the fish there but is re-exported to China.\n\nWhen we have pictured the little land to ourselves, described its climate, the races and tribes of its inhabitants, we will wander along the busy main street, and so take ship and depart from this little place so like some ancient Greek kingdom set in the wine-dark sea smelling of fish, overrun with pigs. Later we will return to see the Moon-cake festival, and after that let someone more capable take up the tale.\n\nThe Little Land and City\n\nCheung Chow is shaped as the photograph shows.*\n\nIt would seem that one of the very numerous saddle-shaped ridges in which Hongkong abounds has sunk here so that the ridge between the two peaks makes a long double beach, only one hundred yards wide at its narrowest. On the Western Side the bay is large and partly sheltered by other islands, but on the Eastern it is open to the sea, and the N. E. Monsoon pours aslant into that bay, and rages against its headlands. So the town turns its back to the\n\n* Not reprinted.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208118, "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-1977", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW LONG ISLAND\n\n141\n\nslowly in the widening bay, pushing a dark ripple before her. A sampan with three powdered and giggling girls drifts by, and as it passes, one sings in high quavering falsetto the first verse of a love song; then the second is sung by her companions. A young man sitting in his boat in the deep shadow of a junk's high stern answers the call, singing the third verse of the song, and the two boats glide together, and disappear towards the shore. \"Another silly fish caught and ready to be landed!\" But here is our little yacht with the cabin lit up and the wrinkled mahogany face of our boat boy gravely smiling a welcome. We tumble aboard and form our own animated group about the rice bowl while he withdraws to the bow, and sits there silent, still, waiting for the night wind and the tide.\n\nThe Mooncake Festival\n\nThe historian of Long Island has not yet appeared. He must be a Chinese, for no European can be sure of understanding the real meaning of the institutions and customs of a Chinese community. But until that historian appears, and perhaps to induce him to come forth and correct the presumptuous foreigner, here is an eye witness's account of a spring feast at Cheung Chow written from memory and the notes of a careful observer, Mr. A. C. Franklin.* It must be understood that the latter is not to blame for any inaccuracies in the following account.\n\n+\n\nOn a day in May, looking from Hongkong towards the Island, through a good pair of glasses we see a new building towering above the houses and temples, and we decide to visit the island and investigate. The ferry starts from the immediate and unsavoury neighbourhood of a loading shoot for the town garbage. The ferries are crowded and frequent to-day, gaily flagged and decorated. Everyone on board is in holiday mood, laughing, eating, talking, and behaving rather like a good-tempered Bank Holiday crowd at home. There seem to be parties of visitors, teams of some kind, and there is an image in a chair on the lower deck. It is not being treated with any particular awe and reverence, indeed it seems more like a mascot than a holy thing.\n\nOnce out of the harbour we encounter nothing of special interest until we turn into Cheung Chow Bay. Here is a cheerful sight. The whole fleet is in and the bay is full. The heavy brown mat\n\nMr. Franklin followed the author as Registrar, University of Hong Kong, 1913-18. — Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208123, "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-1977", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "146\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nsupplementary votes. Some D.O.s seemed to pride themselves on saving as much as possible of this vote, but I always thought it a D.O.'s duty not only to see as much of his district as he could, but to let its inhabitants see him.\n\nOne of the first questions I had to deal with was a request from the Sheung Tong villagers to make a grant from the small public works fund of $400 at my disposal to enable a footbridge to be built over the deep ravine dividing one side of their valley from the other. This was to be of granite beams, quarried in the Shap Pat Heung, and carried up over 1000 feet to Sheung Tong. I was anxious to get the village to contribute to the cost, as my vote for small public works was only $400 a year, and the cost of the three granite beams, and their transport by coolie up the mountain, would have come to about $160; and a good slice of the vote was usually granted to the Cheung Chau Residents' Association for upkeep and extension of paths there. The villagers could raise no money; they could not furnish coolies for transport; and they would not consider laying anything so ill-omened as an even number of stone beams: so to my regret I felt I could do nothing for people who could or would do nothing to help themselves.\n\nIn those days the Cheung Chau ferry was a large one-deck launch and passengers paid 3 cents each for a passage, but for 5 cents the Kaifong committee who ran it, largely in the interests of the fish industry, would give you a bamboo chair on the foredeck to sit on and this ferry was what drew missionaries to settle on the island from about 1907 onwards and build themselves bungalows for summer holidays, so saving the high cost of a Hong Kong apartment. Its timetable rarely suited my official arrangements, as by it I could never spend more than an hour ashore unless I got a night's lodging on the island; so I generally used my hired launch. In the thirties a guest house was opened for visitors in a large bungalow not far up the hill from the police station, and after 1934 I went there two or three times with friends while working on archaeological sites on Cheung Chau and the nearby coast of Lantau. This police station was not built till 1913 or 1914: before then the police had used a large house near the Kaifong pier, about 150 yards south of the later concrete pier, as their station. In 1912 a junk came to the pier by night, the crew and passengers landed, and carried the station by a sudden rush, as they were an armed pirate gang. The sergeant in charge and some police escaped and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208126, "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-1977", "page_number": 165, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH \n\n149 \n\nin demand, part of the foreshore was reclaimed, and houses of reinforced concrete began to appear in the village, modelled on Hong Kong tenement houses. A great difficulty with this development was the problem of ensuring proper inspection of buildings of this type, as the Buildings Ordinance of 1903 did not apply, and there were one or two rogue architects about who would run up such houses cheap, and make their profit by deviating from plans: swindles that can, as I saw in Hong Kong later, cost lives. The best way of controlling knavery of this sort is to refuse permits to erect any more houses to the architect responsible: that, I was told, is London practice.\n\nThe Cheung Chau Kaifongs, who in my time were led by a Mr. Lo Yip, a prosperous shopkeeper, were certainly enterprising, and had not only started a ferry to Hong Kong on the funds obtained from the Pak Tai Temple at the north end of the town, but had renovated the Temple and set up an electric light installation for the village on the raised ground in the middle of the isthmus. The Ferries Ordinance was passed about 1917 and replaced the ancient launches plying to Yaumati and Kowloon City by much more suitable craft — some of them second-hand Star Ferry boats — far less likely to turn turtle than the overloaded, overcrowded craft which daily imperilled their passengers in the old days, the disasters to which brought about the new legislation. About 1925 the Ordinance was applied to the New Territory, which meant that the existing ferries had to be thrown open to public tender and their boats brought up to a higher standard. The Cheung Chau Kaifongs were encouraged to bid, and as theirs was the only one, and not unreasonable, they got the concession. The old pier by the former police station had sometime before been supplemented by a new wooden pier some 150 yards further north, and this was the Cheung Chau Terminal of the ferry. The concession expired in 1928, and under my successor, Mr. Wynne-Jones, new ferry concessions were made, which according to Mr. Lo Yip had caused great trouble to the Kaifongs. The timetable was certainly improved from the Hong Kong point of view, and day trips to the island became possible. I once discussed with the Kaifongs the question of making the ferry call at Nei Kwu Chau or Ping Chau, but they never agreed to letting the boat go there or to any other island, though a call at Nei Kwu Chau would have solved the education question there by enabling its children to attend school on Cheung Chau. I once spent a\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208130, "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-1977", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH \n\n153 \n\nOccasionally the D.O. was called on to do special jobs outside his district. One such job I did at the Land Officer's request in 1930 or 1931 was to enquire into the holdings in Stanley village, to discover who the various lot owners were; this meant a good deal of domiciliary visitation in searching for lot boundaries, and looking for owners who might turn out to be in Macao, Australia, or Panama, and were not infrequently in their graves. This was necessary because the Land Office had no demarcators, and the Land Officer knew law but not Chinese: and the village was to be replanned and modernised. I hope the right people got the compensation, whether in land or cash: I never heard anything over the arrangements.\n\nThe collection of revenue from the District, excluding lots held directly from the Government as Inland Lots granted through the Land Office, was always a most important duty of the District Officer. The Crown rent was collected both at the District Office and at various outstations, chiefly Tai O, Cheung Chau, Tsun Wan, and the small police quarters at Yung Shue Wan on Lamma. The outstation collections were done by a shroff accompanied by an Indian constable, and in the remotest places the Water Police gave their assistance. As a rule I believe the Water Police brought back the shroff and the money, though I think the ordinary ferry conveyed him to the scene of action. The collecting was done at the local police stations. It always began about the end of July, after the first rice crop, and went on at full blast till about October: defaulters were dealt with early the next year. Licence fees for forestry, squatters' fees, and pineapple plantation licence fees were usually paid before midsummer at the District Office.\n\nIn 1925, the year of the big Communist-inspired Nationalist general strike, the office shroff was transferred on promotion. His substitute was a young fellow fresh from the Treasury, who took advantage of the disturbance and the preoccupations of his superiors to embezzle part of the receipts, and finally absconded three months after the strike began. A former District Officer South remarked to me later that he had always been worried by the possibility of this kind of thing happening to him, and the almost total impossibility of keeping a tight check on shroffs when frequent absence from the office, sometimes all day, is part of the D.O's duty. Luckily his security just covered his defalcations: and another shroff in the same racket was caught out by me and part of his loot recovered.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208133, "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-1977", "page_number": 172, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "156 \n\nW. SCHOFIELD \n\non the ridge.* Further afield, on the Hang Hau peninsula, is the paved road referred to above, which runs as far as Ha Yeung: and on Nam Tong, commanding the strait, is the robbers' stronghold with its gun platform. Porcelain near its gate looked fairly modern, from what I remember. Remains of a similar kind can be found on the other islands of the Southern District. Just above the village of Shek Sun at the west end of Lantau stands a Dutch fort built about 1610, rectangular in plan. A few cannon balls and other relics have been found in it, but it is very overgrown and needs clearing if any research is to be done there, or sightseers enabled to visit it. The old fort and cannon protecting the small yamen were repaired when E. W. Hamilton was D.O., I think between 1927 and 1929: I remember that one room in the yamen was inscribed shu shat (library). Another relic of old coast defences, close to Tai O, is the old Chinese guard station already referred to, outside Po Chu Tam creek, and quite ruined. On the south coast, near Shek Pik, a very ancient rock carving on a cliff was found quite recently. In the outlying islands are three interesting structures: one is on the North Soko island, where in a small valley on its south coast are two converging lines of megaliths. The other two are on Sha Chau, one a stone burial chamber on the south isthmus in the form of a 'kistvaen,' the other a ruined guard station on the flat area northwards of the chamber, with an earthwork protecting the landing place to eastward.\n\nNo doubt there are many other places of interest, especially temples and their contents: one of the finest is the Pak Tai temple in Cheung Chau, with its coloured relief showing the local ferry boat nearing the pier in Hong Kong harbour. Lastly, there is one place of much interest with which I had to deal in 1917 or 1918. The Tang grave at Hau Tei, beside Tsun Wan, made in the Sung dynasty, was naturally affected by the new Castle Peak motor road and a projected reclamation of the shallow sea area beyond it. The Tang elders come to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, where I was 2nd A.S.C.A.,† and partly I think on my suggestion the hill of the grave was made into a public park, so as to preserve its surroundings and outlook. The grateful elders presented me with a 'fung shui' map of the grave site for my efforts on their behalf; and the good influence of their virtuous ancestor continues to augment the prosperity of their descendants, and of Hong Kong generally, if there is anything in 'fung shui'!\n\n* See Mr. Schofield's note in JHKBRAS 9 (1969): 154-156.\n\n† Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208163, "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-1977", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "186 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nrelating to it. The tour will include a visit to the Tin Hau Temple at Miu Kong, Tsuen Wan, where there is a memorial to the war and a tablet to the Tsuen Wan villagers who were killed. Also to the Kwan Tei Temple at Kam Tin, where part of the Shing Mun villagers were resettled in 1928, which contains a tablet to the Shing Mun villagers killed in the struggle. \n\nFrom the Tsuen Wan ferry pier, the party went first by coach to the Shing Mun reservoir, sometimes called the Jubilee Reservoir because of its completion at the time of King George V's jubilee year (1935). A picnic lunch on one of the vantage points with barbecue and sitting out facilities was followed by a talk by Dr. James Hayes, Tour Leader, on the history and livelihood of the former villagers who lived in the valley for nearly 300 years before their removal in 1928 for the reservoir project. \n\nAfter lunch, the party moved to Kam Tin where the main body of the Shing Mun people moved in 1928. Here our intrepid and helpful bus driver got into difficulties in a confined space between a USD refuse trailer and the gate to the school compound. He was rescued by the action of a group of Members who dismantled a tied up, projecting hawker cart whilst, with characteristic energy and flair, Professor Tony Reynolds directed the driver, conjuring up visions of problems expertly handled many years ago in far Yenan!* \n\nAfter this episode, we were welcomed by the village representative Mr. Cheng Siu-fong (*) and the Headmaster of the Shing Mun New Village School, Mr. Cheung Sze-man (X). We were entertained to tea in the school which has an interesting history. It bears the same name as the old school at Shing Mun Tai Wai built for the villagers by their leaders very many years before their removal in 1928. After the move to Kam Tin it was reprovisioned in the ancestral halls and in 1958, under a subsidized village school building programme supported by the Education Department and New Territories Administration, it transferred to the present six classroomed school building. \n\nOver tea our hosts told us something of the village history after the move to Kam Tin. The main difference was in livelihood, because their agricultural holdings by purchase and rent were only a fraction of those held at Shing Mun, inevitably since Kam Tin had been long densely settled by the Tang clan and later inhabitants. \n\n* See his article at pp 43-54 of this Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208767, "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-1979", "page_number": 224, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n197 \n\nSix old muzzle-loading cannons, each fixed to a cemented base, can be seen on the main wall; two on the west and four on the east. They were selected from elsewhere, and mounted there as a memorial.26 \n\nOutside the Walled City, there are several brick houses which had been used as a hospital for the garrison and as dwellings of the garrison families. There had been a cemetery. However, its site cannot be found, and the old brick houses are now used as stores and pig-sties. \n\nSeveral old brick houses can be found at the mouth of the Tung Chung stream. They are supposed to be the guard-houses and the ammunition store of the Shek She Fort.2 The position of the Fort has long been forgotten. Recently, rubble walls are found on a knoll near the Tung Chung Ferry Pier. The walls are now in ruins.28 This is likely to be one of the fortresses of the Shek She Fort.29 \n\nHong Kong. March 1980. \n\nANTHONY SIU Kwok-kin \n\nNOTES \n\n1 It is called Fan Lau (separate the flow) because the promontory lies on a place which separates the waters of the Pearl River and the Pacific Ocean. \n\n* The promontory has the shape of a chicken-wing, thus gaining the name Kai Yik Kok. Kai Yik in Chinese means 'chicken-wing'. \n\n* The promontory is also called Yuen To Shan, because ships which came from the west to the Pearl River used it as a landmark. 'Yuen To' in Chinese means 'sailing from afar'. \n\n* There is a village called the Fan Lau Village situated by the Fan Lau Sai Wan, or West Bay. \n\n* The Fan Lau Tung Wan is also called the Miu Wan or Temple Bay because there is a Tin Hau Temple, rebuilt in the Hsien Fung reign (1851-1861). \n\n• It was called the Kai Yik Fort, as recorded in the San On Yuen Chi 1819 edition and the Kwong Tung Tung Chi 1822 edition. \n\n1968. \n\nsee Armando M. De Silva's \"Fan Lau and its Fort\", JHKBRAS 8;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209849, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "86\n\nLoan Word\n\nChinese Characters\n\nMeaning\n\nGung ho\n\nI A\n\n*Gweilo\n\n鬼\n\nLiterally 'ghost' or 'devil man', used to refer to Westerners. Widely current in Hong Kong.\n\nHan\n\n漢\n\nOf, relating to, or having the characteristic of, the period of the Han dynasty; of, relating to, or being a nationality group of Chinese descended from the original Chinese constituting an overwhelming majority of the population and the dominant cultural group: belonging to the Chinese proper as distinguished from other nationality groups.\n\nHakka\n\n客家\n\nOne of a tribe or race of Chinese dwelling in parts of southern China, particularly in the province of Canton, descendants of immigrants from northern China in the middle ages; also their dialect,\n\nHoey (wui)\n\n會\n\nA society of Chinese; especially a secret society. In Hong Kong a savings club.\n\nHong\n\n行\n\nA foreign trading establishment in China or Japan.\n\nHyson\n\n熙春\n\nA species of green tea from China.\n\nI-ching\n\n易經\n\nAn ancient Chinese book of divination and a source of Confucian and Taoist philosophy.\n\n*Kaito\n\n街渡\n\nLiterally 'street ferry', used to refer to boats plying between various points in Hong Kong.\n\n*Kaifong\n\n街力(坊)\n\nLiterally 'street square', used to refer to a neighbourhood, especially to community organizations.\n\nKaolin\n\n高嶺\n\nA fine white clay produced by the decomposition of feldspar, used in the manufacture of porcelain; first employed by the Chinese, but subsequently found in many places.\n\nKetchup\n\n茄汁\n\nA sauce made from the juice of mushrooms, walnuts, tomatoes, etc.\n\nKowtow\n\n叩頭\n\nThe Chinese custom of touching the ground with the forehead, as an expression of respect, submission, or worship.\n\n*Kuk\n\n局\n\nLiterally 'association', 'society', 'committee'.\n\n*Kung hei fat choy\n\n恭喜發財\n\nLiterally 'wish you grow prosperous'. A Chinese New Year greeting.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209858, "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": 117, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "95\n\nuncommon, always indicates a kiln. Lime-burning boomed after 1918 but slumped badly in 1925 in the great strike in Hong Kong, and never revived seriously. Distilleries for making spirits, generally from molasses, sometimes from rice, are found in the towns, also soy and preserved vegetable factories. Mining of wolframite is done only in North Lantau. There are two or three small granite quarries on Cheung Chau and Lamma.\n\nA good deal of these various products are sold outside the islands and bring in cash and foreign goods of all kinds. Some remote valleys are still, however, living what is essentially a \"subsistence economy\" life, in which the village grows nearly all it needs, and has very little left over to sell. Much rice is exported, and rice imported from Annam to replace it; rice from Annam is cheaper and a profit is made on the difference.\n\nCheung Chau is the biggest business centre of the islands, thanks to its excellent harbour, the ferry service, its big fishing business, and its flat land suitable for building. It does all the business of South and East Lantau and the smaller islands nearby; it supplies a small European settlement; has several factories, numerous shops, and does a very big fish and shrimp paste business; it has distilleries, and boat and junk builders' yards. Its chief drawback is water shortage; water boats bring supplies from Lantau, but the problem is a very serious one for the growing population.\n\nTai O is a port which has grown up to supply the needs of the fishermen in the shallow waters of the Delta, the best fishing ground on this part of the coast. Its harbour is poor and rather silted up, and the deeper part is very exposed. It has not much industry beyond its saltpans.\n\nPingchau is a business centre for North Lantau, many of whose inhabitants cut grass to feed its limekilns; the lime is got entirely from coral and shell, and as the sea near it is almost worked out, coral fishermen have to go far afield.\n\nMa Wan is a village which seems to have grown up round the old Customs yamen, now the school. It has little business and few shops.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209868, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "105\n\nwith rocks and reefs in addition; the name may mean \"Dragnet Isles\". The northernmost island is a dumb-bell with quite a good harbour, and a fishing village of huts very different from ordinary Chinese dwellings. This island was another settlement of early man. The southern larger isle has two or three villages on its dumb-bell isthmus. There is a shrimp paste factory here which exports to Europe and America. The names Tai and Sai A Chau mean \"Big and Little Forked Island\". A small island to the west of the group is also a dumb-bell; the isthmus here is covered at high tide.\n\nPatung or Shek Kwu Chau (“Stone Drum Island\") is rocky and barren, but with one small valley where cultivation is possible. It was once proposed to lease the island as a rabbit farm, but the proposers never went on with it.20\n\nits English name\n\nTo the south-east of Lantau are a number of more important islands. Of these the most prosperous is Cheung Chau (“Long Island\"). Cheung Chau is the best example of a dumb-bell island in these waters. The northern end contains a small hamlet and cultivation, the southern end contains the \"Peak\", or European reservation. It started there through missionaries building holiday bungalows on the hills: they began doing so in 1906, attracted by the beaches, the easy marketing and the village ferry to Hong Kong. This was run in the interest of the fish trade, but was taken over some 10 years ago by the Western Ferries Co., a Hong Kong concern,\n\nBetween the fish trade and the market gardens, Cheung Chau breeds more flies per square yard than any other place in the Colony. It has a street cleaning squad, but of course this cannot touch the masses of filth on private property. There is a fire engine, a Government school, a hospital, and a big temple to Pak Tai, god of the Pole Star, the finances of which were inextricably mixed with those of the market, the ferry, and the electric light station. There are plays annually performed in May for the pleasure of Pak Tai, and incidentally for his worshippers, in a huge decorated matshed put up in front of the temple. It draws big crowds, and stimulates business quite a lot. There are other temples too, and little shrines to local spirits. There is also", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209894, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "131\n\nobservances on the days usually associated with earth gods in the first and second lunar months. Even in the pre-war period, and as far back as memory and local tradition serve, the group celebrated the Yue Lan festival in the seventh moon. At this time each year, a committee of residents arranged for a religious service and a performance of puppets to be performed on some open ground near the former pier that served the Shau Kei Wan-Hung Hom-Hong Kong Central District ferry.\n\nThe traditional practice for providing the leadership for these occasions differed from that described for the Nam On Fong shrine. From at least 1920 and, it is understood locally, for longer still, each year's leaders have been decided mainly by financial considerations and mutual agreement. Whichever among the group of interested parties was willing to pay the highest amount became the Chung Lei for that year. Lots could be drawn in the event of a tie, or a disputed choice, but this very seldom happened; probably because the group was fairly constant in its composition, all were known to each other, and the chance came round every year.\n\nThe Chung Lei had assistants, as elsewhere. He usually selected his own, from among his friends in the body of subscribers. This was varied for practical considerations in the early post-war stage. There were then four assistants, besides the body of chik lei. It was the practice that if the leader came from the Sai Wan Ho shops, the first and third assistant had to come from among the body of chik lei associated with the Tai Koo docks and sugar refinery, the largest single employer of labour in Shau Kei Wan. Established in 1908 and 1884 respectively, their works and dockyard were located at the Sai Wan Ho end of the Shau Kei Wan area.40 In the late 1960s, if not earlier, the ceremonies were held in matsheds erected inside the dockyard.\n\nThe chik lei could be men or women, and come from any dialect group. However, they had to come from the Sai Wan Ho end of the Shau Kei Wan. The same geographical restriction was applied to canvassing for subscriptions. The managers sent out to raise funds among the shopkeepers and residents were not permitted to go beyond the traditional boundaries of the sub-district. In addition to those chik lei who used their personal", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211740, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "130\n\n―T\n\ntowards the end of the century. The original market for the Sha Tau Kok area was Sham Tsun; it was only from about 1825 that the population of the Sha Tau Kok area rose to the point where it could sustain a market of its own, at Sha Tau Kok.\n\nThe main impetus to the foundation of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, apart from the purely religious one, and the political one to be discussed below, was to provide a resting-place for travellers on the road to Sham Tsun. This road was long, and the two-mile-long deserted section through the mountains was without shelter, either from the elements or from wild animals (tigers were a serious problem in the area, as village tales and placenames demonstrate). The nunnery was founded, in part, to provide services to wayfarers; in particular, according to elderly villagers, free tea was given to anyone stopping to rest there.\n\nTraffic on this road was heavy. At its peak, between 1900 and 1915, about 20,000 people a month passed by, carrying up to 400 tons of goods, according to surveys conducted in 1904 and 1910 by the Hong Kong Government to assess likely traffic on railway lines in the area.\n\n10\n\nThe road from Sham Tsun to Sha Tau Kok was important not only because of its local significance to the two market towns, but to a wider area as well. It was part of the main road from the county city of Nam Tau (Nantou) to the Deputy Magistrate's city of Tai Pang (Dapeng), which was the most important east-west route in the county.\n\nThe main north-south routes in the county were those which linked Kowloon with Sham Tsun, and then on from Sham Tsun with the towns further north, and, eventually, with Canton. There were three main crossings of the Sham Tsun river between the New Territories area and Sham Tsun: the Liu Pok ferry to the southwest of Sham Tsun, which carried the traffic on the Yuen Long-Sham Tsun road, and the Lo Wu ferry and the Law Fong bridge, which between them carried the Kowloon-Sham Tsun traffic. The most direct route from Kowloon to the north was the road from Tai Po to Sheung Shui, and thence over the Lo Wu ferry. This ferry, however, was expensive, and could only be bypassed by using a waist-deep ford, which was difficult and dangerous, and impossible after rain. Many travellers, therefore, preferred the slightly longer, but cheap and safe Law Fong bridge crossing. There were two routes from Kowloon to the Law Fong bridge. One crossed the mountains north of Tai Po by the Kat Tsai Au pass,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211748, "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": 163, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "138\n\nthe \"major lineages\". If, as seems likely, the foundation of the nunnery represented, at least in part, a political move to strengthen the villages near the pass against the \"major lineages\", then it was the first step in what was to become open inter-village warfare two or three generations later.\n\nThe Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz and the Ta Kwu Ling Luk Yeuk\n\nIn the nineteenth century, local politics in the New Territories area were marked by the struggle for local political dominance between the rich and ancient “major lineages\", and the mutual defence inter-village alliances, or Yeuk, which set out to combat the \"major alliances\" by uniting the strength of villages too weak to oppose them on their own. The struggle for dominance was centred on control of the markets, and of the vital roads which linked them.\n\n24\n\nWithin the eastern New Territories the villagers of the area around Sha Tau Kok formed a network of Yeuk alliances which was responsible for the foundation of the market at Sha Tau Kok about 1825, and which controlled all the roads in the area immediately around the market. The villagers formed ten inter-village Yeuk alliances, and this Yeuk network was called the Shap Yeuk (+*, \"Alliance of Ten'') in consequence. The Shap Yeuk owned the market at Sha Tau Kok communally, and their interest in keeping open all the roads which served the market, but especially their vital road to Sham Tsun, is obvious. The Shap Yeuk was united enough, and strong enough, that it was able to ensure that the \"major lineages” had no significant influence within the Sha Tau Kok area, but it was never strong enough to control the whole of the road to Sham Tsun.\n\nTo the south, the area around the ancient market town of Tai Po had been dominated by the Tang lineage of Tai Po Tau since the Ming dynasty. The Tangs not only controlled the market, but also owned the extremely important ferry over the Kwun Yam river in the town, over which all traffic from Kowloon to the north had to pass. This control by a \"major lineage” was very irksome to the other villages of the area, who had been trying to seize control of the area since early in the nineteenth century.\n\nThe foundation of the New Market (Tai Wo Shi, ) at Tai Po, which was to have no Tang involvement, and the building of a new bridge", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211749, "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": 164, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "139 \n\n26 \n\n+ \n\nto replace the Tang's ferry (1892-1896), by a new grouping of inter-village Yeuk mutual defence alliances, the Tsat Yeuk (±§, “Alliance of Seven''), must be seen in this context.\" After the foundation of the New Market at Tai Po, the influence of the \"major lineages\" in this area was sharply curtailed. \n\nThus, of the major nodal points of the area, two, Sha Tau Kok and Tai Po, became politically dominated by alliances of minor lineages during the nineteenth century. The importance of the roads through Ta Kwu Ling has been discussed above, and the political significance of the inter-village grouping centred on the Miu Keng pass has been noted. The foundation of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz represents a successful attempt to ensure that external “major lineages\" could not control the road through the mountains. But, for the Ta Kwu Ling villagers, this route, while important, was not as vital as the crossing of the Sham Tsun river and the route to Sham Tsun, \n\nSham Tsun was too big for any “major lineage” ever to dominate it entirely for long; it was usually an “open market” at least in practice. However, the roads to the town could be controlled. The two main routes through Ta Kwu Ling met at Kan Tau Wai. North-west of Kan Tau Wai is an area of marshland, criss-crossed with drainage channels. To the north of that runs the Law Fong river, which drains the entire Ta Kwu Ling area, and cuts through the mountains which ring the area by a gorge about half a mile north-west of Kan Tau Wai. The Law Fong river joins the other main branch of the Sham Tsun river immediately after passing through the gorge. The crossings of the river were by ferries owned by the Cheung clan of Wong Pui Ling. The ownership of the ferries allowed the Cheungs to control all the roads out of Sham Tsun to the east. \n\nIt is probable that the market at Sham Tsun was founded quite late. The 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer (Ch. 3) records a number of markets in the Sham Tsun basin, including Sham Tsun, although only Sham Tsun survived to be recorded in the 1822 Gazetteer. One of the markets which died was at Kim Ho (金河), between the two river crossings. This market must have been owned by the Cheungs. As the Cheung market declined, and the importance of Sham Tsun and its approach roads increased, so the value of the ferries to the Cheungs grew, \n\nPassage over the ferries cost one cash per person, plus one additional cash for any goods carried. It is unlikely that the clan earned", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211751, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "141\n\nless than $400 a year clear from the ferry.\" The power of the Cheungs can be seen from the map. For several miles around their village, no other settlement was ever established. The whole area from the outskirts of Sham Tsun (the village of Heung Tung, ô, Xiangdong) to the Sham Tsun river, and back to the mountains, was Cheung territory. Outsiders entering this territory along the road were required to recognize this.\n\nThis, however, the Ta Kwu Ling villagers refused to do. In the mid-nineteenth century, they initiated a programme to improve the road from Kan Tau Wai to Sham Tsun. Bridges were built across all the marshland ditches, and a causeway was provided across the marsh. They then proceeded to start bridging the main river, across the line of the Cheungs' ferry. This the Cheungs could not accept. They would not only stand to lose $400 a year clan income, but the successful building would demonstrate publicly that their control of their territory was not as absolute as they had always maintained. The result of the Ta Kwu Ling people's insistence on proceeding with the bridge was outright war between them and the Cheungs.28\n\nThe need to respond to very bitter fighting demanded a complete rearrangement of the local structure of inter-village alliances. Previously, as noted above, the strongest and best-organised area was the Ping Yuen Hap Heung, and its wider alliance centred on the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz. This area, however, was furthest away from the likely fighting area near the bridge, which was precisely the area where inter-village alliances had previously been weakest. The villages decided to establish a network of Yeuk, centred on Kan Tau Wai. Any invading force had to negotiate the bridge over the Law Fong river and the causeway over the marshes before it could arrive at the road intersection at Kan Tau Wai and the paths that ran from there along the higher ground to the other villages.\n\nJust north of Kan Tau Wai, a small hillock rises out of the marshes (just opposite the present Ta Kwu Ling Police Station). Here the villagers stationed a watch with an alarm drum to alert the area if the Cheungs attacked. This hill was called Ta Kwu Ling (‡T, “Drum Beat Hill”), and gave its name to the whole area. When the alarm was given, Kan Tau Wai had to send out runners along all the roads and paths out of the village to alert the other villages further away. The individual Yeuk were arranged as long, thin strips along each of these paths so that the villagers would respond, village by village, as the runner reached them, and thus their defenders reach the critical Kan Tau Wai area in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211757, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "147\n\nThe Magistrate's influence seems to have deferred the success of the Tsat Yeuk in by-passing the Tai Po ferry from about 1840 to 1892, but otherwise it does not seem to have played any significant part. The Magistrate seems to have played absolutely no role at all in the dispute between the Luk Yeuk and Wong Pui Ling.\n\nThe main gentry organisations in the area were the Po Tak Temple Old Alliance and the Community School (1) in Sham Tsun, which was managed by the Tung Ping Kuk (T5, \"Council for Peace in the East\"), consisting of all the Punti degree holders in the Sham Tsun area, who sat in the school in rotation to adjudicate disputes. The political effectiveness (as opposed to their effectiveness in settling inter-personal disputes) of these gentry bodies in ordinary times was slight. The predominant membership of the Community School rota was from Sheung Shui, Lung Yeuk Tau, Wong Pui Ling and Sham Tsun itself, and their mutual enmities rendered it helpless in most major local political crises. The Po Tak Temple was similarly divided. The Sham Tsun Community School was, furthermore, ignored by the Hakka degree-holders, who had a similar, but weaker, body connected with the school in Sha Tau Kok, and known as the Tung Wo Kuk (†1⁄2, “Council for Peace in the East”).\n\n41\n\nThe Nuns and Their Background\n\nThe nuns of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz were local Punti girls. This was a common feature of the pre-British Buddhist institutions in the area. The Ta Kwu Ling villagers believe that all the nuns, at all dates, were Punti. They were \"women who refused to marry\".\n\nThis was the same at all the indigenous nunneries in the New Territories. The Tang lineage owned three nunneries: the Ling To nunnery being owned by the Ha Tsuen branch of the lineage, the Ling Wan nunnery by the Kam Tin branch, and the Lung Kai nunnery by the Lung Yeuk Tau branch. Village elders of all three villages say that, before they were taken over by immigrant monks (or, in the case of the Lung Kai nunnery, became ruined), they were all houses of nuns,\n\nand that, while girls from other places were not debarred from becoming nuns there, effectively all the nuns were Tang girls from the branch of the lineage owning the monastery in question, girls, that is, who “refused to marry\". Similarly, the nuns of the Kim Ho monastery at the Law Fong bridge were, according to Law Fong village elders, girls from Punti", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211765, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "155\n\n27\n\nAs noted above, 20,000 people a month used the Miu Keng pass. Probably as many again used the road from Ping Che to Kan Tau Wai, or started their journey within Ta Kwu Leng. 40,000 users of the ferry a month is a likely figure. Probably 25% of them carried goods. This represents more than $50 a month income, or about $600 a year. Even depreciating heavily for the salary of boatmen and costs of maintenance, $400 a year clear profit seems likely.\n\nThe date of this war was probably in the 1860s, as Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., p. 104, shows.\n\n29 For the arrangement of the Yeuk, see map. The information in this section comes from Mr. Chan Yau-tsoi and Mr. Chan Wa-chun of Ping Yeung, Mr. Man Kam-muk of Ping Che, Mr. Yeung Choi of Fụng Wong Wu, Mr. Man Lei-wa of Tong Fong, and Mr. Hau Foh-tai of Law Fong, all very knowledgeable elders. I met them as a group, and include here only what they were unanimous in agreeing was the case. I would like to express my particular thanks to them for the several hours of discussion they had with me. As to Sai Ling Ha, this village, although it lay within the Ta Kwu Ling hills, supported Wong Pui Ling in the fighting, I was told. It had no part in the Luk Yeuk. However, when the Communists took over, most of the inhabitants of Sai Ling Ha crossed into Hong Kong, and set up homes in Ping Che. They were then allowed to become part of the Luk Yeuk, as part of Ping Che Yeuk. The account of the Luk Yeuk given here differs in detail from that given in Faure, op. cit., pp. 103-104.\n\n+1\n\n-\n\n30 The deaths are recorded in the \"Heroes Shrine\" () in the Tin Hau Temple at Ping Che, which was the community temple of the Ta Kwu Ling area. 23 names of the **Heroes who died in protecting the villages, who knew how to perform the duties of filial piety\", or the \"Heroes who defended the Yeuk\" as they are named in two inscriptions *澳四總鎮源樂友例段英雄履考之神位 and \"MX\") are recorded. Of these, 3 (all surnamed Chan) came from the Ping Yeung Yeuk, 4 (3 surnamed Tang and 1 surnamed Chau) from the Lin Tong Yeuk, 4 (1 surnamed Chau and 3 surnamed Lei) from the Lei Uk Yeuk, 4(2 surnamed Yiu and 2 surnamed Hau) from the Law Fong Yeuk, 2 (both surnamed Yip) from the Lo Shue Ling Yeuk and 4 (2 surnamed Wong and 2 surnamed Man) from the Ping Che Yeuk. One Law died he came either from Law Fong (Law Fong Yeuk) or Kan Tau Wai (Ping Che Yeuk). A Lau Ah-ngau (劉亞牛) also died -- he could have been from Wo Keng Shan (Ping Yeung Yeuk), where there was a tiny clan of Laus, or could possibly have been a servant, as his name suggests his name is entered last on the tablet. 23 deaths suggests very bloody fighting. It is unlikely that the population of the whole of Ta Kwu Ling in 1860 was higher than 1750 (representing an average village population of about 80, or perhaps 12 households), and the adult males could not have been more than a quarter of that (440). The young men of fighting age were probably no more than about 200. 23 out of 200 is about 11.5% deaths of those involved, which is a very high percentage. The population of the Ta Kwu Ling villages within the New Territories totalled 1441 in the 1911 Census (Sessional Papers, 1911, no. 17, Noronha & Lo, Hong Kong, 1911, \"Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911”, Table XIX p. 103 (32)).\n\n+\n\n-\n\nLoi Tung, with its lineage brethren of Lung Yeuk Tau, and the small villages between them, formed the Sze Yeuk (四約, “Alliance of Four''), which was, to a large degree, designed to ensure that the ancient enmity of the Tangs of Lung Yeuk Tau and Loi Tung with the Pangs of Fan Ling was tilted in favour of the Tangs. The Pangs supported the Luk Yeuk in its fight with the Cheungs this almost certainly means that the Sze Yeuk supported the Cheungs, as did Sheung Shui, the other ancient enemy of the Pangs. Man Uk Pin was a Yeuk of the Sha Tau Kok Shap Yeuk, as well as forming a part of the Sze Yeuk. The Shap Yeuk were dubious about the activities of the Luk Yeuk. Free travel between Sha Tau Kok and Sham Tsun was vital to the Shap Yeuk. With the Cheung Shan Kwụ\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212192, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "transferred their activities elsewhere: the evil reputation of Bias Bay nearby is well known. But British influence made itself felt in other ways, too. The \"foreign devils\" not only brought security; they built houses, roads and dockyards, so that a very large number of Chinese found Hongkong preferable to their native districts and came there to live. By 1938 the population was over two millions, including twenty-four thousand foreigners. It is true, of the Chinese no less than one million were only transient inhabitants, refugees from the Japanese wrath which was spreading over China. To these wretched thousands, Hongkong, for a time, was a sanctuary: as later in another part of the world, was England to the French, Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian refugees, who were to escape from German occupied territory.\n\nBehind Victoria, the cramped commercial hub of the island, a funicular Peak Tramway rises steeply to serve the numerous mansions, erected at varying levels, for taipans, who hope vainly to avoid the moist clinging heat of the long Hongkong summer. Some of the mansions look out over Victoria at the twin city of Kowloon on the mainland across the harbour: others, on the reverse slope, look out to sea, to Lantao island, still barren, to Lamma, in the foreground, and to Cheung Chau in the middle distance.\n\nHongkong was crowded. The hotels were full and so when we arrived, some weeks after leaving Nanking, my wife and I took rooms at the small hotel which an enterprising English couple had opened on Cheung Chau island. A special ferry from Victoria did the trip several times a day in about half an hour. There was quite a large fishing village, the rendezvous for many of the junks that frequent these waters. We lived on fish and strolled amongst the stunted pines and the empty bungalows of the summer visitors waiting until we could find more convenient accommodation. It was a pleasant change from the vicissitudes of Nanking.\n\nEventually we were able to get rooms in the Repulse Bay Hotel, famous as a honeymoon resort. It is on the side of Hongkong facing the open sea, near what is perhaps the best known bathing beach. A winding road over the hill through the Wong Nei Chong gap leads to Victoria, and in Deepwater Bay round the point there is a small nine-hole golf course.\n\nI remember one day we took the bus up to the Gap and got out", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212340, "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": 282, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "In the matter of the forcible stoppage of work, and the repeated closure of a worksite, a joint presentation of further evidence.\n\nWe cordially request Your Benevolence to send an official to investigate and clarify the position to avoid the situation of a public bridge being destroyed.\n\nThere is a river at Kim Hau (1) which lies between Sham Chun, and Sha Tau Kok and Tai Pang () and so on, and which is on a most important road for anyone travelling from east or west. Everyday thousands of people pass there. The Cheung () clan, living over three li away at Wong Pui Ling (Bai) came in violence and took it for their own, establishing a ferry across the river there for their profit. All this happened years ago.\n\nEveryone coming there, at any time of day, must use the ferry. Bridal parties and funerals have to pay particularly heavy sums. Every Winter the river dries up, and the flow of water reduces, and then people have to wade across with obvious difficulty. Sometimes wooden hand-rails are put up beside the crossing, but these are frequently destroyed, and people are reviled and struck there. Every kind of perverse and unprincipled behaviour can be seen, too frequently to record.\n\nThese many years we the gentry and others have donated cash, and rice to sell at low rates. This is because, when they cannot run the ferry profitably they force the coolies to go into the water to cross; several dozen sacks of rice have been lost here as a result, and we the gentry and others cannot bear to see their suffering. We have been thinking of building a bridge for many years.\n\nLast year Cheung Tsan-tai and Lei Chung-chong (*44) both wealthy men, and others, twice gathered material for construction, but it was deliberately entirely destroyed on both occasions. The people really feared we would have to go back to the original position.\n\n---\n\nPage 259", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212342, "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": 284, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "and at Lower Wong Pui Ling, support us, and want to see the construction begin. It is only a minority of the Cheung clan at Lower Wong Pui Ling, local bullies like Cheung Yi-choh (GM) and so forth, who ignore the public good and care merely for their private profit. They take as an excuse damage to their Fung Shui, saying that the bridge would obstruct the Fung Shui, and so incite their clan.\n\nAll these matters were put clearly before the Head of the County, the County Magistrate Yau (FB). He, blunted by greed, did not care about public opinion, and issued an order banning and prohibiting the work. It was a case of corrupt influence. He absolutely failed to go to the site to investigate matters, and thus did not make a fair judgement.\n\nWe the gentry and others quietly waited several days, but, since we had no alternative, we proceeded in accordance with public opinion, and restarted construction. The Cheung clan realised that this would destroy their profit, and they came and threatened to destroy the bridge-works by force.\n\nWe the gentry and others consider the order of the County to be stupid and muddled. At the same time, the desire of the people for the bridge is so strong that we feared fighting, with guns, might break out. We therefore invited Lam (4), the Garrison Commander, to issue orders and send soldiers to keep the peace. It would be a false accusation to say that this was using soldiers to overawe the officials.\n\nIf they say that this place is unsuitable, then may we ask why do the Cheung clan have a right to run a ferry here for profit? The actual position is that the two banks are public land, and the river is a public river.\n\nMagistrate Yau, if he had even a little conscience, could settle this matter with just one word. But he feels it essential to protect and help the Cheung clan to suppress\n\n261", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212343, "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": 285, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "262\n\npublic feeling. By his order he has misappropriated public land, and allowed one clan to take it by force and occupy it. A narrow place through which tens of thousands of the people must pass, and one clan has been allowed to grab it and keep hold of it! This is a case of officials and bullies in collusion. Who can trust them?\n\nMoreover, this is an enlightened age. Fung Shui cannot be allowed to impede communications. There are innumerable precedents. Anyway, if the Fung Shui is examined, that village is a good three li away, and the bridge is low down while the village is high up. Where is the problem? Why do we hear of fields and rice being flooded? This is clearly a case of a hidden plot to preserve private income. They are merely hatching a hundred schemes to destroy this bridge. Today the Cheung clan is trying in every way to destroy the bridge-work at Kim Hau. They consider that the ferry should remain as it now is.\n\nWhat they lose today in bribing the officials they can skin the ferry passengers for tomorrow.\n\nMagistrate Yau is a scandalous official uninterested in the public. How can we expect him to investigate this properly? It is useless to accuse an official he can rely on the other officials. It is like sending a lamb into a tiger's mouth.\n\nWe the gentry and others have collected money to build a bridge. We cannot make any profit by this. Why should what we are doing offend those prominent officials and that powerful clan? Why should it cause a lawsuit?\n\nWe have merely planned the construction of this bridge, and the work on it has already been overthrown three times. If the bridge-work were to be overthrown yet again, then not only would there never be a future renaissance for the communications of the people of all the surrounding districts, but also, the people having been oppressed and ground down for ages, so, what the bad consequences\n\nPage 285\n\nPage 286", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212345, "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": 287, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "264\n\nat Law Fong (this bridge is shown on the 1905 War Department map of the area). The villagers of Ta Kwu Ling built their temple at Kim Hau between the two branches of the river. But they were clearly unable to cross the second river. Control of the crossing of this second river, the Sha Wan River, remained with the Cheungs. This was land close to Wong Pui Ling, in the heartland of the Cheungs' territory. It would seem that the Cheungs' ultimate line of defence was the Sha Wan River, and that the Ta Kwu Ling people, despite the heavy loss of life on their side, were unable to breach this. The outcome of the 1860 war was, therefore, a compromise, with one branch of the river bridged, but one left with a ferry, and with the Cheung political power destroyed in the one area, but not the other.\n\nIt is, however, clear from the petition that the Ta Kwu Ling people had not accepted this compromise outcome, but were eager to reopen the question, to complete the freeing of their road to market from Cheung control. For how many years the Ta Kwu Ling elders collected cash for their project is unclear, but it is likely that a decade or more was spent. Probably, the cost of the 1860 war made it imperative for the Ta Kwu Ling villagers to recoup their finances for at least a generation before they were able to contemplate a **second round**.\n\nIt is interesting to see just how uncompromising the two sides were in this 1921-1922 dispute, and how determined the Ta Kwu Ling people were to eradicate this last Cheung stronghold on their road to market. It is equally interesting to see with what contempt the Ta Kwu Ling villagers treated the County Magistrate and his order: as soon as it was issued they treated it as \"stupid and muddled\", ignored it, and continued as though it had not been issued. What is more, they were willing, with their talk of a \"fighting with guns\" and consequences \"that cannot bear being thought about\" at least to hint that, if the Provincial Governor failed to give them what they wanted, they would go to war.\n\nThe Sha Tau Kok villagers had not supported the Ta Kwu Ling villagers in 1860, but the road from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Chun was vital to the Sha Tau Kok people, and, clearly, by 1921 they had come round to accepting that nothing but the removal of all Cheung controls would do. The first petition makes it clear that the Sha Tau Kok", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212347, "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": 289, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "266\n\nabout a mile below the Sha Wan River, and finally the Ching Shui River which drains the northern part of the valley from Po Kat (Buji) down, and which enters about half-a-mile below the Sheung Yue River. The main river is navigable for small skiffs as far as Kim Hau, but for junks only as far as the confluence of the main river and the Ching Shui River. However, the river at the mouth of the Ching Shui River is not navigable for junks at low tide. Furthermore, the navigable part of the river is not wide enough for a junk to turn around in easily when under sail. The Ching Shui River, at the junction with the main river, splits into two branches, with a low, marshy island between them and the main river.* Junks could come up the main river, enter the Ching Shui River, pass behind the marshy island, and back into the main river via the second branch of the stream, thus turning round without cutting across the channel, using a \"one-way\" system. The landing place used by the cargo junks and ferry boats, therefore, was the channel of the Ching Shui River behind the island. Junks would come up the river with the tide, and would load and unload while at rest on the mud at low tide, and would cast off and go down the river with the next high tide. Three significant roads pass through the valley, crossing at Sham Chun: the Yuen Long to Wai Chow (Huichou), Nam Tau (Nantou) to Sha Tau Kok, and Po Kat to Kowloon roads.\n\nIn the Ming, this valley had a number of markets, of which Sham Chun was only one. There was another at Kim Hau, and others to the west, including one at Lung Tsun Hui (Longjinxu), which was part of the Fuk Tin (Futian) village cluster. By the nineteenth century, however, all these other markets had either become extinct, or else survived only in a very small way as satellites of Sham Chun. Sham Chun had developed until it had become a very large market, with probably 500 and more shops. The market was ringed by large villages of rich clans—the Cheungs at Wong Pui Ling (Huangbeiling) about a mile to the east, the Tsois at Tsoi Uk Wai (Caiwuwei) about half a mile to the south-west, the Wongs at Fuk Tin about a mile to the south-west, the Yuens at Lo Wu (Lohu) about half a mile to the south and the Hos at Sun Kong (Sungang) about half a mile to the north. These rich and ancient clans were almost perennially in dispute, as they jostled for power and position in the district.\n\n* See Map.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212364, "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": 306, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "the second half of the journey, through Mirs Bay, where The station is to be found on the western coast. With a favourable wind and a good boat the trip can be completed in a day. Should the conditions be unfavourable, however, it is very difficult to estimate the time. In addition, you have to consider that Chinese waters are very often unsafe because of pirates, and travelling this route you are continuously exposed to danger. Use of small boats is perhaps safer.\n\nIf using the other route, you first of all cross to Kaulung, which lies immediately opposite the island of Hong Kong. From there you cross the mountains until you cross the first range running west from Mirs Bay. At the village of Saten [Sha Tin] you can get a passenger ferry, or hire a boat, in order to reach Wo-Ang-Tschung (Wo Ang Chung, Wan, today called Chung Mei) to the north. Now you have a strenuous hike over the mountains before you reach that arm of Mirs Bay (Sha Tau Kok Hoi) which stretches to the west. Having reached the village of Kiuk-pu [Kuk Po] you have to take another boat. In about 20 or 25 minutes the sea has been crossed and you have arrived at Tunglo. This journey can be completed, if all goes well, in a day. It is a difficult journey, but avoids the perils of the sea. But where in China is there a route free of difficulties and dangers?\n\nIf you look down on Tungfo from a high place, you can see, in the first place, the sea to the south and east, whereas to the north and west you see a narrow strip of cultivable land, while, further away, the horizon is limited in all directions by mountains. The range to the north stretches from the east to the west and bends round in a bow shape to the south. This mountain range forms the border of the strip of cultivable land to the north and west, with the other sides being open to the sea. This range has no collective name, whereas the individual mountains that appear within it carry names, which it can be of very little interest to mention here. The highest of them, which is also the highest point in the Sinon District, is called Ng Thung San [Ng Tung Shan, #1]. Its height is, according to the measurements of English technicians, 3095 feet. It is\n\nPage 283", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213108, "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-1993", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "158\n\nKong waters. This petition was probably written because of fears as to the practical problems they would face if they lived in British territory, and their market was in Chinese territory. \"In the early years after the lease, grievances over the Customs remained at high heat. In the winter of 1906, the villagers from the New Territories went on strike, and refused to go to market. In 1907 there was a full-scale riot, triggered by a Customs official beating a villager for not paying duty. Later that same year, the elders of the Shap Yeuk petitioned to the authorities at Canton, begging that the Customs officials at Sha Tau Kok be restrained.4 Later, relations with the Customs improved a little, but the duty demanded from villagers remained a major irritant and grievance throughout the period from 1899 to 1951.\n\nAnother irritant, and brake on economic development, was the political chaos in the border area of China. As can be seen from the Calendar of Border Disturbances at Appendix 1, political trouble in this area began even before the Revolution of 1911. An abortive rebellion in the Wai Chau (Huizhou,H) area in 1900 saw the Ch'ing Government lose control of the wild lands east of Yim Tin. A second abortive rebellion was centred in these hills, at Sam Chau Tin (Sanzhoutian,E), in 1904-1905.\n\nA second period of disturbance came after the Revolution, during the years 1911-1928, when the area immediately north of the frontier was the plaything of various competing political groups and would-be warlords, passing from one to the other week by week - 'In those days, when we went to market, the soldiers would be wearing yellow, but the next week, they would be wearing brown'. This period was marked by large-scale banditry, piracy, and general turmoil. With the large garrison of Customs and military personnel at Sha Tau Kok, bandits never threatened the town itself, but the Yim Tin Customs post was sacked by bandits in 1913 and (three times) in 1916, Nam O (Nanao,) Customs post at the entrance to Mirs Bay, was sacked in 1913 and 1914, Chan Hang in 1915, and, a little east of Chan Hang, Kai Chung (Xichong,) Customs post was sacked in 1916 and 1917. The Customs post at Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong,) was sacked in 1919 and 1920, while the Sha Yue Chung Ferry (the lifeline of the market to the east) was captured by pirates in both 1921 and twice in 1922. For nearly one and a half years in 1918-1919, indeed, all the Customs Stations in Mirs Bay east of Yim Tin were forced to close, so lawless had the area become. The irregular soldiers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213110, "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-1993", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "160\n\nChung Ferry. Finally, the Japanese attacked Sha Tau Kok in 1938, 1939, and 1940, before taking it over late in 1940,\n\n41\n\nThese periods of disturbance caused serious problems to the Sha Tau Kok villagers. Their sole desire was to sell their vegetables and firewood, and buy their salt and household goods, but this was, year after year, interfered with by political problems. Sha Tau Kok was rarely - except during the Boycott - the centre of the disturbances, but it was almost always \"in the front line\", full of intrigue, nervous military, and difficulties. A market shop-owner in Sha Tau Kok was executed by the military in about 1935, in an event still a talking point in the villages, probably for being involved with the rebels to the east. An underground Communist cell was established in the 1930s in the market, centred on one of the teachers in the Tung Wo School, with the job of encouraging smuggling of strategic goods to Sha Yue Chung and the guerrillas, and of indoctrinating suitable youngsters, to prepare for an extension of rebel activity to the immediate Sha Tau Kok area.\n\n41\n\nThe elders of the Shap Yeuk continued to function throughout this troubled period as the managers of the market at Sha Tau Kok, but less effectively than before. The strong military presence in the town, the close Government interest in it, and the elders' inability to control the Customs, greatly weakened the Shap Yeuk as the effective local administration. The guns which had been placed by the Shap Yeuk in the gun-towers they had built to guard the bridge were confiscated very soon after the 1911 revolution, and the eastern gun-tower, at the front of the Tung Wo School, was taken over as the military barracks at about the same time. The warlord and Kuomintang administrations were usually unwilling to discuss problems with the local elders - noticeably so compared with the District Officer in the New Territories - and so the elders and their Council declined to having responsibility, effectively, only for those things the officials could not be bothered to interfere with, especially the running of the market night-watch and cleaning services.\n\nBy 1910, the elders were already talking of moving the market over the frontier into the New Territories, with its better security, better villager-administration relationships, and absence of Customs problems. Nothing, however, was done until 1925, when the chaos of the Boycott started to push the market across the frontier. Shops began to be built on the New Territories side of the border street in 1925, and this process", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213111, "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-1993", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "161\n\ncontinued without break until 1932, when the street was completely lined with shops on the New Territories side. The border street, however, could not provide sufficient space for all the shops of the market. In 1931, a reclamation project began just west of the town, along the frontier, to allow a second border street to be built. This was completed, and the shops on San Lau Street built, in 1933-1934. This project included a new pier and fish market, and allowed the fish wholesalers in the market to cross over into the New Territories as well. By 1935 only a few shops were left operating in the old market in Chinese territory, mostly those (like the pawnshop, the boatyard, and the opium divan) which could not move because of physical or legal restraints. A terrible typhoon and storm-surge on 2nd September 1937 destroyed most of what was left of the old market: it never recovered.\n\nThe effect on the market of the new frontier was not, however, entirely negative. In 1899 it is unlikely that the town housed more than about 500 people; the 100 Customs staff, 30 or so soldiers, and 25 or so Hong Kong Police who became stationed there represented a significant increase in the town's population. The local market for fuel, vegetables, and daily necessities grew sharply, bringing benefits to both the market shopkeepers and to the villagers. Uniforms required repair, bringing work to tailors and cobblers. Even blacksmiths and carpenters found increased work opportunities. The Customs steam-launch brought new engineering skills to the town, and provided a new market in coal. Shortly after the Customs steam-launch was domiciled in the town, the Sha Yue Chung Ferry took advantage of the presence of these new skills and converted to a steam vessel - one of the earliest regular steam ferries in the New Territories area.\n\nOther modern developments reached Sha Tau Kok early because of the needs of the frontier. Thus, the telegraph line reached the town in 1899, and the telephone in 1900. Electric light was provided to the town in 1933. While the construction of the railway was predominantly due to economic factors, again the needs of the frontier were among the reasons for this early extension of modern facilities to the town. 47\n\nAs in most garrison towns, however, it was the entertainment industry which most benefited from the new frontier. Very soon after the new frontier was established, prostitutes from Hong Kong saw the opportunities, and set up house in the market. From the present-day elders' recollections", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213112, "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-1993", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "162\n\nof what they were told by their fathers, there had been no prostitutes here before 1898. The prostitutes' clients were mostly soldiers and Customs staff - the prostitutes spoke Cantonese, not the Hakka spoken by all the locals. A gambling house (opened in 1904), and an opium divan came at about the same time as the prostitutes - these served people from Hong Kong as well as the garrison. Most New Territories towns had at most one or two winemakers; Sha Tau Kok in the 1920s had four at least, of which one was solely in the wine trade, unlike most local distillers, who combined this business with a general grocery. Similarly, Sha Tau Kok's three restaurants (including a cold drink and coffee shop), two tobacco dealers, and two cakeshops, is more than is found in most of the local towns at this period. The three or four guesthouses in Sha Tau Kok were also more than usually found - when military officers of rank came to Sha Tau Kok on inspection, they did not share the barracks with their men, but stayed in the private rooms in the guesthouses, so here, too, the presence of the garrison probably led to an economic expansion. Some of these service industries had been in Sha Tau Kok before 1898. There had certainly been a guesthouse here in the 1850s, and a noodle shop in the 1880s. **It is unlikely that there were prostitutes, or a full-time gambling house or opium divan there then, although gambling and opium smoking certainly took place in the town at that date. The early presence of some service industries in the town before 1898 was a consequence of traffic on the Sha Yue Chung Ferry, but it is reasonable to see the establishment of the new frontier as having led to an economic growth in the town in the years following 1898. The smuggling industry also produced considerable profit, especially during the 1930s.\n\nThe new frontier, therefore, caused many problems. To the villagers, the need to pay duty on day-to-day purchases far outweighed any advantages gained from having a larger population to sell things to. For the shopkeepers, the economic advantages were similarly more than offset by the prevailing political chaos and uncertainty. It is not surprising that the main effect of the exclusion of Sha Tau Kok Market from the New Territories in 1898 was to force a re-location of the market over the frontier into the New Territories a generation later,\n\nRoads and Ferries: Sha Tau Kok and its Hinterland\n\nSha Tau Kok stood at a nodal point in the local road system, and it was this factor which brought about the town's prosperity in the century after\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213114, "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-1993", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "164\n\nits foundation. There important roads used to meet near here. The most important was the main east-west road in the county, which connected the county city, Nam Tau (Nantou, ), with the Deputy Magistrate's city of Tai Pang (Dapeng, ), via the important market of Sham Chun. * Because of the greater desirability and comfort of water-borne traffic, the section of this road along the north shore of Mirs Bay was not much used. Instead, much of the traffic went by a ferry that ran parallel with the shore, from Sha Tau Kok to Sha Yue Chung.\n\nAt Wo Hang Au, a few miles west of Sha Tau Kok, the road was joined by another important east-west route. This was the road from Yuen Long to Sha Tau Kok via Tai Po.\n\nThe third route was the main road from Kowloon to the north-east. This road carried the traffic from Kowloon to Wai Chau. This road crossed Sha Tin Pass to reach the coast of Tolo Harbour at Yuen Chau Tsai. A ferry carried the traffic from Yuen Chau Tsai across Tolo Harbour to Ang Chung (Chung Mei, near Bride's Pool). From Ang Chung, the road climbed steeply past Bride's Pool and Ah Ma Wat, and then down to the shores of Starling Inlet at Kuk Po. Another ferry then took the traffic across Starling Inlet to Sha Tau Kok. There was also a road which ran from Ang Chung through Luk Keng and Nam Chung, to join the Nam Tau and Yuen Long roads at Shek Chung Au, thus avoiding the second ferry. From Sha Tau Kok the Wai Chau road crossed the shoulders of Ng Tung Shan, and so down to Wang Kong (Henggang, ), and thence to Wai Chau. A branch of this road ran from Sha Tau Kok to Po Kat (Buji, ). This Kowloon to Wai Chau road was more important than might be expected - the long ferry sectors made it more comfortable than the land-based alternatives. The Basel missionaries regularly used it when travelling between Hong Kong and Po Kat, for instance. 50\n\nThis system of roads and ferries was in existence from the Ming at the latest. It will be noticed that the roads do not cross at Sha Tau Kok. Sha Tau Kok stands, however, in the centre of the few miles of road where all the roads run together for a short distance. The site of the market, therefore, was a good one commercially.\n\n* See Map 3.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213115, "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-1993", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "The road and terry junction in this area attracted attention from the military authorities from an early date. While the Salt Commission and the Pearl Monopoly were active in Mars Bay, law and order were probably maintained by the special salt and pearl troops. After these were withdrawn, a military post was established at Shek Chung Au, with a watchtower nearby. This was close to the Wu Shek Kok ferry pier, and near to the road junction at Wo Hang Au. Other troops were established at Yim Tin. In various formulations and strengths, this military position remained at Shek Chung Au for several hundred years, until the mid-nineteenth century - eloquent testimony to the continuing importance of this traffic node.\n\nSha Tau Kok's position in the road system of the area gave it two economic advantages. The first was the Sha Yue Chung Ferry. There was only one a day in the early twentieth century, and this can safely be assumed to have been the case earlier as well. Many travellers, therefore, would be obliged to spend the night in Sha Tau Kok, or at least several hours, waiting for the ferry, and, if the weather was bad, these enforced waits could stretch out to several days. There was, as a result, plenty of opportunity for merchants in the town to profit from servicing travellers held up there. As noted already, in the 1920s Sha Tau Kok had more guesthouses, restaurants, and entertainment facilities than most towns in the area, and although most of those facilities were new, servicing the new frontier garrison and Customs staff, some at least were certainly a feature of the town from an earlier period.\n\nThe other great economic advantage was the geographical location of Sha Tau Kok in relation to Sham Chun. Sham Chun was at the head of navigation on the Sham Chun River, and was a busy port for the small junks that came up the river from Deep Bay. Sham Chun was, therefore, well located as far as water-borne traffic from the west went. But Sham Chun had no water route to the east, to Mirs Bay. By sea from Sham Chun to Sha Tau Kok is a good hundred miles: by land, barely seven. There were three important commodities not available in the Deep Bay area which could be had from the Mirs Bay area - rice, some sorts of quality fresh fish, and salt. Sha Tau Kok was, in effect, the port of Sham Chun to the east, where these commodities in particular were landed, and then carried by coolies over the Miu Keng pass to Sham Chun.\n\nMirs Bay was usually - despite occasional famines - a rice surplus area. The Sham Chun and Deep Bay area was a rice shortage area, even", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213118, "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-1993", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "168\n\nChina through the centre of the area caused some of the routes to reduce in importance, and made others more important, reflecting the new political realities. From the late 1920s, and especially from the 1930s, the new motor roads and other new routes, which ran on very different lines from the old roads, also caused major changes to traffic flow in the area. After about 1925, the old carrying trade to Sham Chun rapidly declined away to almost nothing, and the market at Sha Tau Kok began to decline in importance as a result. In 1926, a new ferry to Sha Yue Chung, direct from the mainline railway station at Tai Po Kau, was introduced, which immediately took a great deal of the traffic away from the Sha Tau Kok to Sha Yue Chung ferry. After 1949, when the border was effectively closed to local traffic, Sha Tau Kok became far less important as a traffic nodal point. Nonetheless, from the establishment of the market at Sha Tau Kok down to about 1925, the prosperity of the town rose from its location at the junction of the district's land and sea traffic routes.\n\nSha Tau Kok Market in 1925\n\nTopography\n\nThe aim of this section is to outline what the market was like in 1925, about a hundred years after it was first founded, on the eve of the move of the market across the frontier. It is drawn principally from the oral testimony of village elders who can remember the old market. This oral testimony is supplemented, in particular, by the 1924 aerial photograph, which forms the basis of Map 4.\n\nIn 1925, the market consisted essentially of four streets. These were the three streets of the original market - Upper Street (E), Lower, or Main Street (下街, 正大街), and Old Street (老街) - together with Wang Tau Street (王頭街).* In 1853, this last had been an open track leading past the western edge of the market, and running down to the Ferry Pier. By 1925 it had become lined with shops on both sides, all the way to the seafront. At some stage, the three or four shops at the western ends of Upper and Lower Streets had been demolished and rebuilt facing into Wang Tau Street. This gave them a far shorter depth of building lot - only about 45 feet instead of the 65 or more of most shops in 1853. On these shorter lots, two or three storey shop-houses had been built, with a\n\n* See Map 4", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213123, "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-1993", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "173\n\nwas destroyed in the 1937 typhoon, it was rebuilt as an imposing two-storey building. Even in the 1920s, however, it dominated the seafront of the town, facing the sea between the two piers (the public pier to the west, and the Customs pier to the east), separated from the Tin Hau Temple by an irregular strand with two huge banyan trees.\n\nAt the foot of the public pier, between the Customs station and the Tin Hau Temple, was a small kiosk where tickets for the Sha Yue Chung ferry were sold. The Shap Yeuk let the operation of the ferry, and the right to collect the fares, every so often. In the 1930s the fare to Sha Yue Chung was high - 480 per person, plus extra for goods carried. This was because of the difficulties involved in the ferry travelling from Kuomintang to rebel-held territory, and later because the ferry had to travel very close to, or even across, Japanese lines. Much of the freight carried at this date was smuggled kerosene. The other ferries - to Kat O and Kuk Po - collected fares on board the boat.\n\nThe fish laans were just a paved floor, with a tiled roof supported on brick pillars. There were no walls. Each of the fish laans occupied a part of the floor. When the fishing boats arrived in the early morning, the fishermen would carry their catch inland, past the Customs Station, into the laans, to sell to the laan or laans with which they were accustomed to deal. Some of the laans only dealt in the wholesale trade, and only had offices and stores apart from their share of the trading floor. Others also had retail shops in the town.\n\nAs well as the fish faans, there was another wholesale market in the town in the 1920s. This was the grain market. This was, like the fish faans, just a paved floor with a tiled roof supported on brick pillars. It stood beside the sea, just behind the Man Mo Temple. Villagers with grain to sell would carry it here on market days (the 1st, 4th, and 7th days). The grain dealers from the market would come here and buy, and carry it to their stores in the town, either to sell there by retail, or else to arrange to have it carried to Sham Chun. The town weigh-beam was kept here, in a shed next to the market – it was normally only used by people buying or selling grain, who paid a few cents for the use of it.\n\nOpposite the grain market was a row of blacksmiths' shops. These were built here, separated by an alley from the other buildings of the town, for fear of fire.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213137, "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-1993", "page_number": 205, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "Year \n\nEvent \n\nSource \n\n1919 \n\n8 serious cross-border armed robberies. The Customs Stations closed in 1918 re-opened (August). \n\nAR JLHG \n\n1920 \n\nRefugees flee to New Territories from communal fighting in border area. Assisted cross-border crimes increase. Sha Yue Chung Customs Station sacked by bandits. \n\nAR \n\n1921 \n\nIncrease in smuggling native tobacco from China. 4 piracies (including of the Sha Yue Chung Ferry). Further armed cross-border banditry. \n\nAR \n\n1922 \n\n2 piracies on the Sha Yue Chung Ferry. Fighting between pirate bands in Mirs Bay. \n\nAR \n\n1923 \n\nLarge increase in smuggling, due to disturbances in the border area. Serious cross-border armed raids, an execution in China as a result. \n\nAR \n\n1924 \n\nUnsettled conditions, due to continuous fighting between Sun and Chen Faction armies for control of district. Upsurge in cross-border crime, including 8 armed raids, some mounted by Chinese irregular soldiers. \n\nAR \n\n1925 \n\nBoycott causes considerable trouble in Sha Tau Kok. Huge crime wave of cross-border crime. \"Quite 90% of crimes committed in the New Territories could be traced to persons coming from over the border\". Sinkers enter and terrorise New Territories villages. British troops sent to Sha Tau Kok to restore order. Hoi Luk Fung Soviet rebellion affects Mirs Bay area. \n\nJLHG \n\n1926 \n\nConditions better, but disturbed conditions across the border lead to boom in New Territories because of the number of refugees seeking houses. Many matsheds erected for refugees. Heavier border policing needed. Mirs Bay fishermen unable to fish except close inshore because of \"disturbed conditions\". \n\nAR \n\n1927 \n\nConditions better, but still troubled near border. Attempted piracy of Tolo Harbour ferry junk. Heavier policing of Sha Tau Kok border area reduces cross-border crime. Border patrol constructed in New Territories. \n\nAR \n\n1928 \n\nIncrease in smuggling. Violence against recent refugee arrivals in New Territories. Chinese irregulars replaced by regulars and disciplined at Sha Tau Kok – Major piracy in Mirs Bay (\"Fean\" case). Hoi Luk Fung Soviet rebellion affects Mirs Bay area. \n\nASR \n\n1929 \n\nCustoms seek major increase in staff because of increased smuggling (every year until late 1910s). Much better conditions on border because of better policing on Chinese side of border. \n\nAR \n\n1930 \n\nIncrease in smuggling. Kai Miu Customs Station sacked by bandits. \n\nAR, JLHG \n\n1931 \n\nIncrease in smuggling, especially sugar. Sha Tau Customs Station sacked by bandits. 2 Battles with smugglers off entrance to Pearl River (\"Loser Maru\" case). Inadequate customs staff members leads to problems. \n\nAR JLHG \n\n1932 \n\nIncrease in smuggling, especially sugar and cloth. Smuggling on Railway a growing problem. Smuggling through Lok Ma Chau and Sheung Shui a growing problem. Smuggling on Shan Chun River a growing problem. Kai Chung Customs Station sacked by bandits. Gun battles with smugglers at Law Fong (twice), Chek Mei, Man Kam To. \n\nAR, JLHG \n\n187", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213143, "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-1993", "page_number": 211, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "193\n\nH\n\nDetails of the early Hakka examination successes are known from a recently recovered genealogy, of the Chan (陳) lineage of Nam Chung. It is understood that a copy of this genealogy will be deposited with the Hong Kong Museum of History. I am indebted to Mr Chan Wing-hot for drawing my attention to the information in this genealogy.\n\nQ Seen 8\n\nAt the time of the Block Crown Lease (1905), 12.68 acres of saltpans were recorded. However, the serious inadequacies of the first survey here led to another being conducted in 1912, when 17.11 acres were recorded. However, in 1912 two areas were left unclaimed, probably because storms had breached their bunds and ruined them. These two areas totalled about 3.3 acres. In addition, there were about 0.6 acres of houses, huts, and waste within the saltpan reclamation, which, therefore, totalled about 21.2 acres. The saltpans were very valuable property in the nineteenth century - the Basel missionaries (see below, n. 17) record the sale of a share by a Tam Shui Hang villager in 1882 for \"several hundreds of dollars\" (Basel Mission archive, doc. AT-16, Nr. 45). In the 1920s, however, and still more in the 1930s, cheap imported salt caused ever-growing problems, which led to the closure of the saltworks before the War. A bridge was built to the saltpans in 1934 (Administrative Reports for the Year 1934, App. J, \"Report on the New Territories for 1934\", p. J17). After the War, the abandoned saltworks became the site of a major squatter settlement, recently cleared. Today, the saltpan area has disappeared under new reclamation, and all that remains is a new Tin Hau Temple, replacing the old one previously on the saltpans, built on a new site on the new waterfront.\n\nFor details of the history of the temples in the area, on the settlement of the Hakka in the area, the reclamation projects they undertook, the founding and management of the market at Sha Tau Kok, and the functioning of the Shap Yeuk as the district management body, see P.H. Hase, \"The Alliance of Ten Settlements and Polities in the Sha Tau Kok Area\", in D. Faure and H.S. Siu, eds., Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China, Stanford University Press, 1995.\n\n12. No details on the earlier history of the temple survived the very full restoration of 1894, but Shan Tsun elders believe it to be very old.\n\n13. In the 1688 Gazetteer (Ch. 3) a ferry “along the coast” is mentioned called the \"Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry\". There can be no doubt that this is the ferry to Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong, etc.), 12 miles down the coast. Ma Tseuk Ling, at the head of Starling Inlet, is the nearest old village to the Wu Shek Kok Temple (Wu Shek Kok village - probably a foundation of the early nineteenth century). The coasts of Starling Inlet within two or three miles of Ma Tseuk Ling were blocked with mudflats and mangrove everywhere except at Wu Shek Kok, where alone a hill falls steeply into the sea. Wu Shek Kok is, therefore, the only possible site for a \"Ma Tseuk Ling Ferry\" landing place. The Ma Tseuk Ling villagers owned the Wu Shek Kok Temple, and the Ma Tseuk Ling military post (1688 Gazetteer, ch. 7), was at Shek Chung Au, just a few hundred yards from Wu Shek Kok. These Ma Tseuk Ling connections with the Wu Shek Kok area strongly suggest that the Wu Shek Kok hill was regarded as forming part of the Ma Tseuk Ling area. Later, Wu Shek Kok formed part of the Ma Tseuk Ling Yeuk of the Shap Yeuk.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213150, "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-1993", "page_number": 218, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "200\n\nnot have been written at all\n\n58 See the plan and cross-section of a typical 1853 Sha Tau Kok shop unit, taken from the drawings and descriptions of the Basel missionaries, in P.H. Hase, \"The Alliance of Ten\", in D. Faure and H. Siu, eds, Down to Earth, op. cit., and see also P.H. Hase, \"Sha Tau Kok in 1853\", op. cit.\n\n59 D. Faure, A. Ng, B. Luk, eds, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 262-280\n\n60 The Hong Kong Museum of History has a set of Po Tau equipment\n\n61 Julonghaiguan Barman Dashiji, op. cit., sub anno.\n\n62 P.H. Hase, \"Sha Tau Kok in 1853\", op. cit.\n\n63 The Tai Po to Sha Yue Chung Ferry was also deeply involved in this trade. In 1939, the Customs came to an agreement with Tsang Sang, the leader of the guerrillas controlling the eastern side of Mirs Bay, that the Customs would treat as duty-free goods anything imported through Sha Yue Chung for the guerrilla fight against the Japanese, but, while this trade was, therefore, not smuggling, it still faced major problems from Japanese attack.\n\n64 Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hongkong, 1899, printed by Noronha & Co, Government Printers, (Sessional Papers), \"Extracts from Papers relating to the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong. Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor: Extracts from a Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart on the Extension of the Colony of Hongkong\" (No. 9 of 1899), p. 190, notes this boatyard as a significant business in 1898.\n\n65 \"Report by Mr. Stewart Lockhart\" (Sessional Papers, 1899), op. cit., p. 189\n\n66 For the Sha Tau Kok Branch Railway, see R.J. Phillips, Kowloon-Canton Railway (British Section). A History, Urban Council, Hong Kong, 1990, pp. 84-93\n\n67 A. Macmillan, Seaports of the Far East, London, 1925. I am indebted to Mr. J. Lanham for drawing my attention to this description.\n\n68 For the first two of these tablets see Faure, Ng, and Luk, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 262-280, and Vol. 2, pp. 376-379. The third is unpublished, and is now at the Hong Kong Museum of History.\n\n69 A further, small, boatyard was at Kat Om in 1912: see Oime Report, op. cit., para. 76, p. 55\n\n70 See, for instance, details on shops in Sai Kung in D. Faure, \"Saikung, the Making of the District and its Experience during World War II\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 22, 1982, pp. 161-216, on Tsuen Wan in D. Faure, \"Notes on the History of Tsuen Wan\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 24, 1984, pp. 46-104, and on Cheung Chau in J.W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213384, "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-1994", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "194\n\nBaddeley, John Frederick (1854-1940) ed, Russia, Mongolia, China, London Macmillan, 1919 (NY B Franklin 1967 mostly memoirs of Russian envoys from beginning of 17th century to end of reign of Alexander I).\n\nBaikov, Feodor Isakovich, An Account of Two Voyages. First of Feodor Isakovitz Backhoff to China, Second Zachary Wagener, a Native of Dresden also in China, in Churchill, Awnsham, compilers, A Collection of Voyages and Travels. London, 1744, v 2, 474-478\n\nBall, Benjamin Lincoln, Rambles in Eastern Asia, Including China During Several Years' Residence (1848-1850), Boston J French, 1856.\n\nBarnett, Eugene Epperson. As I Look Back, Recollections of Growing Up and Twenty-six Years in Pre-Communist China 1888-1936, typescript\n\nBarr, Patricia Miriam, To China with Love, the Lives and Times of Protestant Missionaries in China 1860-1900, London Secker and Warburg, 1972\n\nBarrow, Sir John, Travels in China, London T Cadell and W Davis, 1806 (Listed in Yale University Library catalog as Some Account of the Public Life, and Selection from the Unpublished Writings, of the Earl of Macartney and the date of publication is given as 1807)\n\nBarzini, Luigi, Pekin to Paris, An Account of Prince Borghese's Journey Across Two Continents in a Motor-Car, translated from the Italian, London, 1907,\n\nBates, Lincoln Wallace Jr, The Russian Road to China, Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1910.\n\nBeattie, Hilary J, Protestant Missions and Opium in China, 1858-1895, Papers on China, 22A 115-156 (1969)\n\nBecker, C H, et al, The Reorganization of Education in China, Paris. League of Nations, 1932\n\nBell, John, A Journey From St Petersburg to Pekin 1719-22, edited with an Introduction by J L Stevenson, Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press. (NY Barnes and Noble reprint 1966)\n\nBennett, Adrian A, John Fryer the Introduction of Western Science and Technology into Nineteenth-Century China, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 1967\n\nBergeron, Marie Ina, Letters a Yeou-wen, Souvenirs de Chine, Tours Mame, 1973\n\nBerry-Hart, Alice, Ching-a-Ring-a-Ring-Ching or Three Victorian Sisters in Shanghai, London. Rex Collins, 1977)\n\nBillingsley, Phil, Bandits in Republican China, Stanford Stanford University Press, 1988", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213679, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "3\n\nThe attempts by the government to improve and modernise teaching in the village schools, therefore, although they began in 1904, only started to make a real impact after about 1920\n\nHowever, even if there was an inchoate openness to new ideas in the area, nonetheless oral testimony from all over the eastern New Territories suggests that the traditional society of the area remained basically untouched until after the opening of the railway and the new roads brought the area into a closer physical relationship with the city.\n\nThe Kowloon-Canton Railway started operation only in October, 1910, and the light railway branch to Sha Tau Kok only in December, 1911.7 The railway was an important factor in the modernisation of the central and north-eastern New Territories, but the effects of the railway were, clearly, only substantial after 1910-11\n\nIn 1914, it was decided to build a surfaced circular motor road around the New Territories This was done in phases, between 1914 and 1921. Since the crucial Tsuen Wan to Castle Peak and Kowloon to Tai Po sections were only ready for motor traffic in 1921, the road system thus only became a significant factor in the modernisation of New Territories life after that date.\n\nIn the islands, there had been an intermittent steam ferry service to Cheung Chau from before 1899, but a regular daily service seems only to have begun in 1910. It is unclear when the regular steam ferry service to Tai O began, but it was probably shortly before 1915. It seems that it was only in 1919 that there was more than a single ferry service a day to Cheung Chau, and only from 1922 that there were more than two Easy contact with the city, and the modernisation and change that implies, began before 1899, but became a marked feature of islands life only after 1910, although the effects were clearly significant by 1921\n\nAll in all, it is clear that New Territories physical communications with more developed communities were poor before 1911, and only became a widespread factor of importance after 1921\n\nThe district officer noted in 1912 the changes that the railway in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213742, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "65\n\nburners, who oral evidence suggests were common, are noted in the 1921 Census16 in Northern and 183 in Southern District, as also are the brick and tile makers, with 83 male and five female workers noted in Northern District in that year. The other traditional trades noted by the 1921 Census as present in numbers (vegetable oil pressers, shipbuilders, blacksmiths, carpenters) were mostly working within the market towns.\n\nIn some places the “industrial” villages can be traced in the 1911 Census, even though the residents in them do not appear specifically in the \"Occupations\" Table. Thus, there was an area where incense wood was pounded into dust for manufacture into joss-sticks at Pak Kiu Tsuen outside Tai Po Market, and another at Tso Kung Tam outside Tsuen Wan. At the first, the census records the village of Wong Ka Uk, with 10 males but no females, and, at the second, the villages of Tso Kung Tam and Pak Shek Kiu, with 36 males and only nine females between them. These imbalanced populations strongly suggest that the villages in question were essentially industrial. Shek Tsai Po, outside Tai O - a centre for the drying of fish and the manufacture of shrimp paste - had a similarly imbalanced population of 71 males to 47 females. Villages next to important ferries - Liu Pok, Lo Wu, Yuen Chau Kok, Sha Kong, Ha Mei, Mui Wo - also tend to have recorded populations with more males than females, reflecting the boatmen and similar traders living at the ferry pier. Suburban industrial trades are probably the reason also why many of the villages on Hong Kong Island and the rural parts of Kowloon (especially Ma Kong, Chung Hom Kok, Lan Nai Wan, To Tei Wan, Tai Tam Tuk, Tong Po, Deep Water Bay, and the Quarry Bay villages on Hong Kong Island, and Ma Tau Kok, San Shan, Shek Shan, Lo Lung Hang, Wong Nai Yue, Fo Pang, Tai Shek Kwu, and Ho Man Tin in Kowloon)* show a significant excess of males over females. Suburban villages with significant excesses of males are also to be seen immediately outside most of the New Territories market towns in 1911. These villages had commercial market-gardens, industrial premises which required large areas (dyers, joss-stick makers, sawyers, etc.), and offensive trades (tanners, lime-burners, brick and tile works, etc.), and should be considered as part of the market town complex. The ring of villages with high male-female ratios around the city in 1911 should be seen in the same way, as subordinate to the commercial life of the City.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213891, "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": 243, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "217\n\nWeekly Review recorded that:\n\nSun has been importing, to support his ambition to become the President of China, several hundred thousand politicians and mercenaries. To support them, exorbitant taxes had been created, public lands and buildings sold, private property confiscated; and many men and women pressed into involuntary servitude.\n\nThese auctions and speculations gave rise to a land boom in Canton. The record of the British War Office stated that “in the last few months there has been a considerable rise in the prices fetched by land sold by auction in the open market and an outburst of speculation in real estate. Demand exceeds the available supply…” The China Weekly Review also recorded that the \"boom in lands and shares\" was the most outstanding feature of the year of 1923. “Both markets helped to swell government's income, the former with premia and the latter by stamp duties. Money too plentiful, speculation rife. Work seems to have been plentiful.” It was recorded that the tax return for deed registration by the end of October 1924 amounted to $5,310,000. Between 1919 and 1927, a large quantity of land and property in Canton, amounting to $55,197,514, was also purchased by overseas Chinese merchants. These figures suggest that the real estate market in Canton drastically expanded over these few years.\n\nAmidst this boom of real estate, understandably, not every piece of \"public\" or \"government\" land was openly put up for auction. These properties could always be purchased through personal networks. In some cases, one could purchase the land with just 10% of the estimated price for auction. A large number of land investment and mortgage companies were then found in Canton, the majority of them were under the control of the Siyi men. Among other examples, the Canton Sanshui R.R. Wharf on the Bund, together with the control over the ferry services, was sold to a Wu Dongkai (吳東楷), one of Sun's Siyi financiers in Hong Kong and an old member of the \"Thirty men subscription team”.\n\nThe most notorious case was the purchase of the Guangdong Nonglin Shiyan Chang (廣東農林實驗場), literally the Canton Agricultural Experiment Laboratory. The Bank of Canton, under the directorship of Li Yutang, purchased the site and buildings of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214056, "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-1997", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "91\n\nKong village in 1936, thus providing access to the proposed second airfield site at Pat Heung. In the following year the first roadworks on the outlying islands were undertaken at Muk Wo (Mui Wo) on Lantau, primarily to provide access to the ferry pier.\n\nDrainage\n\nIn 1843, a particularly bad year for disease, some essential drainage was begun and, by 1847, 740 metres of city drains had been laid in Victoria. At Happy Valley the muddy waters discharging from the surrounding hills via Wong Nei Chong (literally yellow mud stream) created swamp and healthwise lethal conditions, in particular following heavy rain. By 1846 the rice and sweet potato farmers at Happy Valley were bought out and the flat land drained, thus making the area less unhealthy than before. In spite of drainage improvements in and around the city, the mortality rate amongst European troops remained exceptionally high, for instance in 1851 it reached 24% compared with 10% for the civilian population, this latter percentage being swollen by the deaths of seamen. In the early days, to avoid flooding in low-lying areas, main drainage nullahs (large open channels) were constructed, the earliest in the central district probably being the Murray Barracks Nullah, which ran through the naval dockyard area, and the winding Victoria Barracks Nullah. At East Point, an impressive 6m-wide and 3.6m-deep nullah, the Bowrington Canal (now decked and located under Canal Road) which carried the run-off from the Happy Valley catchment area was planned as early as 1842. In Wan Chai, Stone Nullah Lane was located above a stream which ran below Hospital Hill (to the east of Morrison Hill).\n\nThe quality of design/workmanship in the original drainage system clearly left a lot to be desired as, in 1860, a very heavy rain storm is reported to have burst most of the drains and also caused the collapse of some houses in Canton Bazaar (off Queen's Road opposite to the naval dockyard). During the violent typhoon in 1874, mounds of soil were again thrown up by bursting drains. The sewers also had other uses, for instance in 1863 twenty-two prisoners were known to have escaped from the old gaol in Hollywood Road by way of the monsoon drains whilst, in the next two years, the ingenuity and engineering skill displayed by “drain gangs\" was such that a godown, jewellery store and even the vaults of a bank were entered by using storm-water drains.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214515, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 373, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "342\n\noccupation, from 1889 to 1930. I found the exhibits and many photographs more appealing than some of the captions (memories of the \"years of pain\" etc).\n\nMost of the rest of the interesting parts of the island are to the left of the ferry pier. The first attraction is the Ching naval barracks, beautifully restored and now looking as splendid as it must have done when it was first built. It is reputed to be the best (or only) example of its kind in China. Looking rather familiar in its design - it is built around three consecutive courtyards stretching back from the main entrance - one would be forgiven for thinking it was in fact a large temple, with its colonnades and red painted columns. But the naval barracks it certainly was, even though it was relegated to be the naval canteen during the period of British occupation. The whole complex is now open to the public as a museum; exhibits include a number of guns and a large model of a battle between the Chinese and Japanese navies. This latter is rather a generous gesture, given that the entire western-built Chinese navy was destroyed by the Japanese in 1894/95. Resurgence is evident, however, as plastic construction kits of today's Chinese navy can be purchased throughout the museum.\n\nLeaving the waterfront after the Chinese barracks one finds a dusty road on which stand a number of houses, again in good repair and apparently used. Standing proudly by itself is the Masonic Hall, now emblazoned with a red star in place of the masons' square and compasses. In the museum there was for sale a fat (324 pages!) little book in Chinese all about the British occupation. I bought a copy for RMB 10, not so that I could read it, unfortunately, but because it contained three contemporary maps of the island in English. These showed that the other houses around might have included the Surgeon Commander's Residence, the Coal Contractor's Residence and the Accountant Clerk's Residence. Exact identification proved difficult as some of the roads and paths had moved from their original positions.\n\nMoving towards the west we found what must have been the cemetery, but it was clear that nobody was welcome to enter - the gates were well locked and the walls were high. Peering through the cracks did not reveal any remains of gravestones. Perhaps these had fallen victim to the enthusiasm of the Cultural Revolution, along with the two churches, of which there was no trace either.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214872, "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": 287, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "256\n\nGetting to Tong Fuk at that time was a slow business. After taking a scheduled ferry from Hong Kong, and travelling along the new South Lantau Road to the road-end at Cheung Sha, half the distance to Shek Pik, we had still to walk along old country paths and ford large and small streams. One of these stream courses was wide and boulder-strewn, and crossing it in full flood after heavy rain, as well as several smaller ones, was guaranteed to give one a thorough soaking. However, being young and active, and in high spirits, we thought nothing of it. In fact, I positively enjoyed it! Nonetheless, when visits were so time-consuming and there was plenty of work to do in the office and elsewhere in the District, the need to go out so frequently in that short space of time was not appreciated.\n\nOn this occasion, local opposition was centred on one especially sensitive spot, where the villagers insisted that rock and boulders be broken up by hand instead of being removed by blasting with explosives. My reluctant acquiescence made the District Office unpopular with the government engineers from the Roads Office, who thought we were pandering to the villagers. So it might have seemed, but there was otherwise certain to be a conflict with people who were quite numerous, united in their opposition, and always capable of taking the law into their own hands, not omitting sabotage of contractors' equipment and installations. In this respect, I may add, they were no different from the majority of New Territories' villagers of the day.\n\nTo run such a risk was not advisable in circumstances where both the senior police and civil authorities were based in Kowloon, several hours' journey from the site. Violent confrontations would not have been acceptable to my seniors; and in any case, it was part of my personal responsibility as District Officer to avoid that kind of thing. Moreover, further, and more prolonged delays would be certain to ensue. This was unthinkable.\n\nNonetheless, our experiences on this particular occasion were certainly rather trying. The full story, on two and a half closely typed pages, was contained in a minute to the District Commissioner dated 27th May 1958. I do not know whether it has survived in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, but fortunately I kept the copy on which this account is based.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216046, "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-2002", "page_number": 345, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "279\n\nfrom\n\nsince. Legends claim it to be either a Buddhist pagoda dredged up the bed of the Yangzi Song dynasty from about 1000 AD or a memorial shrine to a Song dynasty prefect of about 1090.\n\nA stone Stupa or dagoba [containing Buddhist relics] is situated on a stone platform supported by four pillars over a busy street in front of the Guan Yin Cave to the north of Yuntai Hill to the west of Zhenjiang. In years gone by people heading for the small ferry across the Yangzi had to pass under it and gained confidence for their chancy ferry crossing from the protective power emanating from the relics. It is said to have been built during the Yuan dynasty during the 13th century.\n\nDaily life of foreigners in this insignificant Treaty port\n\nDuring the heady days of westerners within the Yangzi basin the steady stream of river steamers sailing the river under the protection of foreign flags and the twin fleets of protective river gun boats of the RN and USN, trade flourished and even an early form of tourism existed. Zhenjiang was famous for silk piece-goods, silk cord tassels for official hats, medicated wine called White Flower Wine, Baihua Jiu, aromatic plants, and fine sturgeon. However, for the foreign residents the greatest bane was the boredom. Although there was the Club where cards, drink and perhaps a few books and newspapers helped while away the long evenings, the ennui of the same faces, the same voices and the same topics of conversation was sufficient to bring some to the verge of suicide and some over it.\n\nLife was fairly constrained. There were only two provision stores to serve the foreign community during the first decades of the 20th century, Foo Chong and Chong Hsin. And according to L.C. Arlington Zhenjiang Concession, despite its very limited numbers, boasted its own aristocracy, with the Consul and the Commissioner of Customs as joint Sovereign Lords. The port, he added, was full of individuality, and social life; and the clubs - that for the Upper Circles [Zhenjiang Club] and that for the Lower Strata [Customs Club] - combined to produce constant gossip and occasional friction.20 There were a number of peculiar characters but none more peculiar than an American missionary who had been divorced by his wife owing, it was said, to his peculiar ways. He professed to carry out the teaching of St. Paul by consorting with the coolies in the native city, and providing them with\n\nPage 345\n\nPage 346", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216107, "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-2002", "page_number": 406, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "340\n\nand the 1967 Riots. The former were sparked by a five-cent increase on the lower deck of the Star Ferry. Nevertheless, the root cause was largely the community's displeasure with social conditions, shortage of schools, housing, and the like. It was reported that in 1966 in the district of Tsz Wan Shan, in Kowloon, with a population then of 70,000, there was not a single telephone. The Kai Fong Association requested that at least a few public phones be installed. Soldiers marched down Nathan Road with fixed bayonets during the 1966 Riots. The protracted 1967 riots were a spill-over from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. Firecrackers were banned from then on. The military kept in the background during the 1967 Riots because of fear that China might react. The riots badly affected community stability and, in 1968, office space in Chung King Mansions, in Tsim Sha Tsui, was advertised at 60 cents a square foot.\n\nThe 1966 and 1967 riots were really a watershed. From then on, the government started to listen to the populace more. Social conditions improved, and Hong Kong started a process of de-colonisation. In 1972, government servants were instructed to use the word 'territory' rather than 'colony', other than in a historical context. The Colonial Cemetery became the Hong Kong Cemetery, and so on. A Hong Kong identity and a larger middle class began to form.\n\nIt is interesting to recall that the sparks which ignited the 1956, the 1966, and the 1967 riots all occurred in Kowloon. Hong Kong Island has generally been a more peaceful place. That was why, when I came to the colony in the mid-1950s and there was talk of building a cross-harbour tunnel or a bridge, some Hong Kong Island residents expressed fear, if this happened, of being 'swamped' by 'hordes' from Kowloon.\n\nCorruption\n\nCorruption had long been a serious concern in Hong Kong, and, as the Territory became richer, the problem became more serious. When a colleague of mine said there was a price for everything, our old boss soon shut him up. That was part of the trouble. Most Europeans did not appreciate the magnitude of the problem. I recall a Chinese girl telling me, in 1955, that her grandfather had been caught by a policeman smoking opium. The old man gave the copper $20, and the whole matter was conveniently forgotten about. Squeeze affected the Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216203, "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-2002", "page_number": 502, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "436\n\nAfter a good Chinese lunch at the Lai Yue Mun Restaurant in Xin Hui we took a taxi (RMB250) through the County city of Tai Shan and past some interesting old Chinese villages, including Yeung Do. We arrived at the Guang Hai Bay port of Shen Ju in good time to catch the 4:00 pm public ferry to Shang Chuan Island. The timetable shows ferries leave daily at 9:30 am, 11 am, 2 pm, and at 4 pm, for the crossing that took us just over an hour. They are scheduled for the Shang Chuan to Shen Ju crossing at 7:30 am, 9:30 am, 12:00 and 2:00 pm. A group could otherwise hire a speedboat.\n\nWe were told that the island had been closed to visitors until 1983 and that there was still a sizeable PLA naval base there. As we entered the fishing harbour at the NW side of the island we passed some naval vessels and fishing boats. We also had our first view of the St Francis Xavier Church on the hillside. There were several modern large tourist hotels in the Fei Sha Tan Tourist Resort at the eastern side of the island. We took a public minibus from the port to the Resort. Probably the best of the hotels was the Biyun Tian Hotel (Eastern Harbour View Hotel), though we chose a smaller one. Both faced the beach, with a pleasant esplanade packed with plenty of hawkers in the evening. The choice of restaurants was uninspiring. In the morning we hired a minibus with driver for a half day (RMB150) to show us around the island. He took us to the fishing village, purpose-built in 1992, and over the Cheung Po Chai pirate pass with the Twin Treasure Rocks. He also took us to a grotesque Laughing Buddha cave with little figurines representing the Journey to the West.\n\nSuch were the delights the driver thought we should enjoy, but for us the highlight was the visit to the Church of St Francis Xavier at the NW side of the Island. The church was a simple white tiled building with a plaque above the porch dating the church at 1869. There was reported to have been a church at the spot since 1700 with various restorations from 1813 to 1932. The caretaker unlocked the church for us. There are several rows of pews facing a large wooden cross. On the altar stands a statue of a bearded priest in front of which is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Religious paintings were hanging on the walls. In the centre of the church lay a stone sarcophagus with some Chinese inscriptions.\n\nOutside, a modernist sculpture had been erected by the Yamaguchi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216204, "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-2002", "page_number": 503, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "437\n\nAssociation on 3 December 1999. Behind the church over 100 steps led up to a tall statue of St Francis Xavier. Beside the steps were 14 stone posts bearing Chinese numbering and inscription. The pedestal of the statue bears worn inscriptions in Chinese and Portuguese - ‘Aqui foi sepultado S. Fran.co Xavier da Comp.a de Jesus, Alpo do Oriente. Este Padrao se levantou no anno de 1639.'\n\nThe current caretaker, Mr Lam, took over in 1996 from a Christian caretaker aged 86, who had cared for the church since 1984. We had the pleasure of meeting this delightful old man in the village beside the church. The current caretaker suggested that for further information we could contact the Religious Affairs Dept. of Tai Shan Municipal Government on Tel 075 552 5980.\n\nWe returned to the port for a good seafood lunch. The ferry arrived a little late but took us safely back to Shen Ju in good time for us to hire a taxi to Zhuhai. There we crossed the border to Macau and enjoyed our dinner accompanied by a bottle of good Portuguese wine, and a toast to the memory of St Francis.\n\nA visit assisted by China Travel Service\n\nBy chance, in June 2001, I (Chris Bailey) had read an article in HK Magazine about the Jesuit-run Xavier Retreat House on Cheung Chau - dedicated to the missionary Saint Francis-Xavier. The article quoted the resident priest, Father Kane, as follows: \"Xavier was one of the founding members of the Jesuits, and came to Asia in 1542. He was a tough guy, a trailblazer and died very near to Hong Kong, on an island about 60 miles west of Macau. His letters describe travelling from Japan and trying to get to Guangzhou, and stopping somewhere nearby to get fresh vegetables and water. There is one historian who theorizes that he stopped at the Old Port in Hong Kong. In any case, he must have passed through Hong Kong waters and seen the islands here. So I stand here (in the Xavier Retreat House) and see what he saw over 400 years ago It's very private, on top of a hill and overlooking the sea. It's a very beautiful sight.”\n\nThis information inspired me to speak to Father Kane who said he knew the island well, had been there several times via Macau and that there was a non-active church dedicated to Francis Xavier, built close", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216508, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 267, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "219\n\nLuoyang at Binglingsi (where a ferry took Silk Road travellers across the Yellow River) also shows influence from further west, this time from Gandhara (see below). These caves date from around 420. Indian influence was significant too in the magnificent complex of four hundred and ninety-two caves at Dunhuang, 'the art gallery in the desert', nearly fifteen hundred kilometres (as the crow flies) northwest of Chang'an. The practice arose at Dunhuang of travellers making offerings for a safe trip as they set off into the Taklamakan desert, or for a safe return, in the form of commissioning Buddhist devotional cave paintings. Dunhuang also became a monastic centre, particularly flourishing after the great fair at Zhangye (nine hundred kilometres northwest of Chang'an) in 609, which was sponsored and attended by the Chinese Emperor Yangdi. Among those who travelled to attend this fair were people from twenty-seven different nations, according to Tucker. This indicates the greater freedom of travel established by this period, and it is not surprising that Gandharan influence is to be seen in Dunhuang's paintings, although Tucker argues that their style is distinctively Chinese.\n\nClearly, by the time of the Zhangye fair, the Silk Road was thriving. By then, Xinjiang Province (meaning 'New Dominion') had been firmly in Chinese hands for four centuries. The roaming hordes of nomads that had formerly menaced travellers on the routes through the Province had been brought to heel by Chinese military control and lines of forts extended west into the desert beyond Dunhuang. One of the most important power groups beyond the Taklamakan desert with which the Chinese had established good relations beginning with Wudi's efforts in 105 BCE was the Kushan Empire (c. 2nd century BCE to 3rd century AD), the territory of which straddled the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush, and is now occupied by Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It had been established by a formerly nomadic tribe, the Yuezhi, which had settled after fleeing west from the nomadic Xiongnu. The Kushan Empire, with its provinces of Bactria and Gandhara, was the primary nexus of cross-cultural interaction along the Silk Road, straddling as it did the mountains and passes between the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Persia, and the plains and great river valleys draining northwest into Europe. It was in the Kushan cities of Peshawar (now in Pakistan) and Mathura (India), where magnificent schools of art emerged that blended western and eastern influences and that, in turn, spread further east into China. For example, in what is now the north of Pakistan, then known as Gandhara, Greek sculpture strongly influenced statues of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]