[ { "id": 207148, "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": 219, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n213\n\nDealings in land and property were a major enterprise in early Hong Kong. An insight into the hazards of real estate speculation is given by George Duddell's testimony before the Land Committee in 1849. He speaks about his purchase of a lot at the south-west corner of Queen's Road West and Possession Street. As we walk along Fat Hing Street we shall be passing the south side of the lot. Duddell states regarding the purchase of the lots in 1844:\n\nThe lot was bought after unprecedented bidding for two hundred per cent on the original upset rental. The circumstances in palliation of my buying it at such a price are, the lot was airy and perfectly level with one rock only to clear it off before building could be commenced, combined with a great demand for houses, and the facility the lot offered to speedily erect them, with the fact I was outbid on all other lots the same day. The buildings were built and tenanted, but within a year they had left for other houses. These houses were void, vagrants plundering even from doors and glass from windows, every grate was stolen. I must hire a private watchman to protect useless property\n\nThe buildings were much damaged by the typhoon of 1848. In November of 1848, I surrendered them to Government. In consequence of requiring a Sailor's Home, I have by petition obtained back the lot, repaired the buildings and put my seamen into it.\n\nThe premises were known as the Circular Buildings. Duddell again surrendered them to the Government in 1850. Not long after, the land was resold to Quoke Acheong, the Compradore of the P. & O. Steam Navigation Company. He was a large land owner in this area. On this property and a section he had purchased across Queen's Road, he developed his own business enterprises under the firm name of Fat Hing. The firm gave its name to the lane south of Queen's Road off Possession Street.\n\nUpon the elevated promontory called West Point, Joseph Frost Edgar built a bungalow. In March, 1843, he was admitted as the resident partner of the firm Jamieson, How and Company. He was one of the first two unofficial members of the Legislative Council, serving from 1850 to 1857. An advertisement for the rent or sale of the West Point Bungalow, dated July 19, 1845 (Friend of China), provides a description of one of the early residences in Hong Kong:\n\nA substantial house consisting of two sitting rooms each 30 by 20 feet and in height 17 feet, separated by folding doors, five", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209898, "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": 157, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "135\n\n14.8.1897, all three Ap Lei Chau residents belonging to the old Luk Hing, Sau Hing, and Fuk Hing Tongs respectively. Their evidence enlarges and confirms the information obtained from the record of the Squatter Board's proceedings.\n\n\"Hayes 1977, pp. 99-101. The Tai O information is more explicit on this point, but the Cheung Chau practice was the same.\n\n** See E.G. Pryor, Housing in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1983) pp. 15-17. These new urban districts were very susceptible to contagious disease. It is well to recall Governor Des Voeux's report of 1889 in which, describing the City of Victoria, he wrote: \"Going ashore our visitor would see in the Chinese quarters houses, constructed after a pattern peculiar to China, of almost equally solid materials, but packed so closely together and thronged so densely as to be in this respect probably without parallel in the world.. It is believed that over 100,000 people live within a certain district of the City of Victoria not exceeding 1⁄2 square mile in area. It is known that 1,600 people live in the space of a single acre.\" (Sessional Papers 1889, pp. 303-304).\n\n15\n\n** Victoria had seven officially-approved sub-districts in 1857, as listed and described in the Hong Kong Government Gazette for 9 May 1857, GN No. 69. They included \"No. 1, or SEI-YING-POON — From the small village westward, called Cowee-wan, to the end of Circular Buildings, including all the houses on Bonham Strand, west of No. 1 Police Boat Station. The historical development of this area is given by Revd. Carl T. Smith's note at pp. 211-218 of JHKBRAS 14(1974) in \"Programme Notes for Visits to Older Parts of Hong Kong Island (Urban Areas....)\n\nSee also Chapter 3, Sheung Wan, of Frank Leeming's Street Studies in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1977) pp. 45-66.\n\n24\n\nSheung Fung Lane itself is situated between Second and Third Streets in that section bounded by Centre Street to the East and Western Street to the West.\n\n** An account of pao wui at the Tam Kung festival in Shau Kei Wan from a Secretariat for Chinese Affairs' file of 1958 is typical: \"There were about 15 Kaifong elders in the Tam Kung temple who were enrolling pao wui (K), there were about 18 pao wu's from the sea and about 10 from the land. The wul's who brought their own roast-pigs with them had to pay \"oil money\" and \"worshipping fees\" from $10 to $30 to the elders before entering the temple. It is learned that the worshippers have no objection to pay these fees. In addition the temple keeper also charged $5 or $10 for each roast-pig brought into the temple plus $5 to $10 \"oil money\".\n\n20 A recent account of the proceedings at Sheung Fung Lane is given in the article \"Everyone's festival\" in The Asia Magazine issued weekly by Asia Magazines Ltd., Hong Kong, Vol. 21, Number V7, 4th January 1981, pp. 3-6.\n\n3-6. For a very well illustrated account of a similar old neighbourhood in Singapore, and its community festivals, see \"Singapore's Vanishing Chinatown\" by Joan Ogden in The Asia Magazine 25th July 1976.\n\n* \"No. 3, or TAI-PING-SHAN From the end of Hollywood Road near Circular Buildings, to Gough Street steps, including all the houses on the south side of the Queen's Road between these two points.\" See the plan opposite p. 124 of Marjorie Topley (ed) Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today (Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch 1967). This was drawn in 1882 (ibid, pp. 123-124).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214709, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "88\n\naltered work for the railway had not been held up, as so often happens with New Territories' projects similar to this. This was in spite of the protracted discussions that had taken place regarding the removal of the graves at Pat Heung. By comparison a dispute between the Government and Ping Shan villagers, in the northeast of the New Territories, about the moving of an agnate's grave, has been going on for several years. This has resulted in the closure of some buildings along the Ping Shan Heritage Trail by the Tang Clan (Cheung; 1999, 570). At the time of writing they are still closed.\n\nAfter bussing the large group back to Sheung Tsuen a further ten-minute ceremony was held by the Taoist priests in the Kwan Yin Ancient Temple, opposite the matshed (see Plate 6). Again there was a repeat of chanting, bowing and the sprinkling of rice wine. This was to pay respects to the gods in the temple and was not really a formal part of the tun fu ceremony.\n\nWhether it is a wedding, a funeral or celebrating the completion of the refurbishment of an ancestral hall, in Chinese culture food usually plays an important part. Now, after the tun fu ceremony was over, it was time to feast and what and how people eat can reflect complex social messages. The banquet consisted of a basin meal. For some this was in the open and for others under cover, close to the temple. Before the meal there were speeches in Cantonese from both government officials and village representatives. These were followed by Cantonese opera. Only about 20 women (some of whom sit on village committees) were present among the over 1,000 people who sat down for the basin meal which included the crisp, golden-brown roast pigs which had been offered up to, and was food fit for, the gods. After this latter ritual the pork had taken on magical qualities. Later, by eating it, we the living were able to fortify our chi (prank or life-force) (Waters; 1996, 125) (Leung; 1992, 27). As is the custom in the New Territories on such occasions, all ‘ate from the common pot'. This was placed in the centre of each circular, Chinese table (Watson; 1987, 389). Eating together like this is intended to imply that all diners co-operate and depend on and trust one another. A basin meal is a great leveller. But it is not just how you eat. It is also what you eat. Consequently, many of the layers (frequently totalling nine which is a propitious number) of food in the 'common pot', in addition to the pork previously mentioned, were auspicious. For example faat choi, ‘sea moss' (or, as it is commonly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215650, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 427, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "379\n\nTAIPA FORT AND A NINETEENTH CENTURY\n\nTaipa Fort\n\nCANNON\n\nRICHARD J. GARRETT\n\nThroughout Macau's long history, many forts and batteries were built to protect it from aggressors. The fort on Taipa, an island forming part of Macau, is one of the territory's lesser fortifications although, unlike most of the others, it survives largely intact.\n\nTaipa Fort was built in 1847 after the island's population petitioned the governor, Ferreria do Amaral, to station military forces there to provide better protection from pirates. The islanders' main livelihood was fishing and a large fleet anchored there. The governor agreed to the proposal and Pedro Jose da Silva Lourerio was put in charge of constructing a fort. The islanders themselves funded the cost of the building.\n\nThe fort was built to guard the strait between the islands of Taipa and D. João and to protect the fishing fleet that used the inlet between two islands which formed Taipa. (These two islands and another very small one are now joined by reclamation.) Located on the western shore, the fort is built on the side of a slope, and before reclamation, the front walls were washed by the sea. Figure 1 shows a plan of the fort dating from the early twentieth century.\n\nThe main building of the fort is a single-storey brick-built structure, with the arms of Portugal and the date, 1847, on the side. (Figure 2) Sometime before 1900 the fort was adapted to provide a summer residence for the Governors of Macau. A veranda, supported on six columns that sit directly on the front wall of the fort, was added some time after the governor had adopted the fort as a residence. (Figure 3) This extension shows that by then the fort had no military pretensions.\n\nThe plan in Figure 1 shows the other internal buildings and indicates the location of the principal cannon. Apart from some small conventional buildings around the fort, there is a small circular building,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216166, "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": 465, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "A NOTE ON THE JAPANESE GUN EMPLACEMENT AT TATHONG POINT, TUNG LUNG CHAU\n\nROBERT HORSNELL\n\n399\n\nAt Tathong Point, also known as Nam Tong Mei, a small rocky peninsular at the extreme southern tip of Tung Lung Island, there still exists the remains of a little known war-time Japanese gun emplacement. Its purpose was probably to protect the south-eastern approaches to Victoria Harbour. This gun emplacement is not mentioned in the book Ruins of War by Tim Ko and Jason Wordie and is not listed in the Gazetteer of the Batteries of the Fixed Defences of Hong Kong in Denis Rollo's book The Guns and Gunners of Hong Kong, although Rollo does mention an observation post for the Devil's Peak Battery at the southern end of Tung Lung Island built in 1935/36. From information in an old Public Works Department file it appears that the gun emplacement was built by the Japanese during the Occupation (1941-1945).\n\nIn 1965, the gun emplacement was converted by the Public Works Department's Architectural Office into an engine room for the Marine Department's Tathong Point Lighthouse Station to house the electric marine light, foghorn engines, light standby engine and switchboard. The staff quarters adjacent to the engine room were built later in 1973/74 to replace the old lighthouse keeper's quarters built in 1949 lower down near the jetty and landing stage. The old vacated quarters were used as stores for some time then later demolished. The remains of the concrete platforms on which these old buildings were built can still be seen amongst the rocks.\n\nFrom the original P.W.D. drawings for the conversion works, it is possible to learn something about the construction of the gun emplacement. It was built of concrete with a floor area of about 40 square metres. The walls are about one metre thick but the roof is much thicker especially over the rear part which contained the expense magazines. The chamber which housed the gun consists of a rectangular room with a semi-circular bow front in which the wide angle embrasure for the gun was formed. The armament is not known but from the size of the gun embrasure it was probably a large coastal defence gun.\n\nPage 465\n\nPage 466", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]