[ { "id": 204359, "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-1961", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n123\n\nto clear the graves privately in more than half the cases. The balance is left to Government to clear. The deduction might be drawn that, although there may well be relatives still at hand in Hong Kong, they accept the Government service in clearance as perfectly adequate for the purpose and as a useful means of saving themselves expense.\n\nEvery year, in addition to Chinese dead mentioned above, the bodies of nearly 10,000 paupers are left to Government to dispose of. The term \"pauper\" does not imply that the deceased were homeless and abandoned. Most of the deaths occur in charitable institutes and hospitals. In most cases, there were relatives available but for one reason or another, usually economic, they preferred not to claim the body, being satisfied that the free burial (at the Sandy Ridge Cemetery, Lo Wu) and subsequent exhumation provided by Government would be sufficient to meet changed conditions.\n\nWhere possible, attempts are made at public Chinese cemeteries to meet burial customs. Facilities are provided at the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals, in the form of special trains with reduced fares for relatives; crowd control; temporary latrines, etc. Trees and plants with flowers in the traditional mourning colours are planted, e.g. yellow allamanda, white spider lilies, purple thunbergia, white and yellow frangipanni.\n\nIt must be emphasized that this brief description of current Chinese burial customs in Hong Kong represents no more than the observed practice at a particular point of time. Custom is a living body that changes gradually from generation to generation. It would therefore be unwise to assume that all these customs will survive. The impact of congestion, lack of burial space and improving social conditions in Hong Kong may well cause further changes. In particular, the proposed official encouragement of cremation as a means of disposal of the dead may do much to upset the current burial pattern, although it will follow the Buddhist practice more closely. The basic factor seems to be that Hong Kong Chinese are not so much concerned with the means of disposal of the dead as with being able to pinpoint the eventual resting place of the remains of the deceased, whether in the form of bones or ashes. Exhumation, as such, seems to play no significant part in the process except as a practical means of reducing the physical bulk of the deceased to proportions that will either fit into a funerary urn or below a horseshoe grave. Cremation, therefore, which serves the same practical purpose as exhumation in reducing bulk, should equally prove unobjectionable to Hong Kong Chinese, backed as it is by Buddhist belief. In short, one may expect that within a generation cremation may largely replace burial and exhumation as a means of customary disposal of Chinese dead in Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204477, "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-1962", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "98\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\napproval. This authority, with powers of discretion, was given to the D.O. to help preserve the traditional way of managing land within the clan, and to provide a cheap and impartial arbiter in case of dispute.\n\n13 In Shek Pik village the TSUI, CHEUNG, HO and CHI clans owned 1.1, 0.39, 0.55, and 0.04 acres of agricultural land in 1898. With the exception of the HO clan, they were intact in 1959. The TSUI tso probably dates from the fifteenth generation, and is therefore three hundred years old. The FUNG clan in Fan Pui owned 9.2 acres in 1898 but this was sold in 1953.\n\n14 At Fan Pui I dealt with a disputed case of ownership in which the defendant stated that eight lots totalling 9,581 square feet of agricultural land had been specially set aside as joss and oil fields (shen you tian). Fields are also set aside for the worship of earth spirits. At Cheung Kwan O village in 1898 the two clans of CHAN and NG administered 1.41 acres of agricultural land under the name of a to tei wui. The rentals were originally devoted to the maintenance of the to tei or earth spirit who looked after the village, but for many years the revenue has simply gone to the clans. Many other cases are known at Mui Wo and Tung Chung.\n\n15 See Chapter III (iii) and (iv) of H. B. Morse The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, 1908) which is based on an article by Byron Brenan \"The Office of District Magistrate in China” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society XXII, (1897-98), 36-65, and incorporates his own wide experience of China and her officials in the course of over thirty years' service in the Imperial Maritime Customs. Brenan himself (1847-1927) had served in China from 1866 and was H.B.M.'s Consul-General in Shanghai 1898-1901. Of the district magistrate Brenan wrote, \"The magistrate is the unit of government; he is the backbone of the whole official system; and to ninety per cent of the population he is the Government\"; op. cit. p. 37.\n\n16 Papers 1899 p. 583.\n\nThe text of the stone tablet outside the Tin Hau temple at Kat O, referred to elsewhere in the article, uses this picturesque phraseology. Contrasting their sorry lot beside the power of the yamen officials they had written in their petition to the Viceroy \"We, civilians, whose lives are cheap as ants... who are we to start a lawsuit against the district yamen's worms?\" An interesting feature of this inscription is that it follows the customary form of Ch'ing document in which reference is made in the text to other papers, by summary or quotation, instead of the western method of adding enclosures. See John K. Fairbank, Ch'ing Documents, an introductory syllabus, (Harvard University Press 1952) p. 21.\n\n18 When I asked an old gentleman who graduated sau choi in 1896 about extortion and venality among magistrates, he replied in distinctly extenuating tones \"Some did; but then they had so many people to look after\". He observed that there were some rich districts in Kwangtung in which a magistrate had to do nothing to obtain money as it came rolling into the Office in the way of presents, inducements, additions to land and other taxes etc., whilst there were others which were so poor that the magistrate could squeeze very little from them even if he tried very hard. This is curiously echoed in Morse, Trade and Administration p. 92 “In Kwangtung we (the Imperial Maritime Customs) have regularly applied to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204479, "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-1962", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "100\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nexerts itself with unprecedented vigour and hardihood in local affairs. No dispute arises but one or more of these social pests thrusts himself forward between the contending parties, and no fraud on the revenue or wholesale extortion is free from their similar influence\". Lockhart (through Governor Blake) says that the New Territory's literati \"have hitherto lived by irregular \"squeezes\" from the people\" and he blamed the opposition to British rule to them and to \"gamblers and bad characters banished from Hong Kong\" and not to the people who were incited by the gentry and elders. See Papers 1899 pp. 520 and 554.\n\n26 Papers 1899 p. 194.\n\n27 Papers 1899 p. 554.\n\n28 Arthur H. Smith Village Life in China (Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, about 1900) p. 121.\n\n29 These affected the coastal and riverine regions of Kwangtung. See C. F. Neumann's Translations from the Chinese and Armenian with notes. 1. History of the pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807 to 1810, (London, John Murray 1831). This includes, pp. 97-125, a very interesting account of an enforced stay of eleven weeks and three days with the pirate fleet in 1809 by Richard Glasbrooke, the mate of an East Indiaman. The pirates spent a considerable time on and near Lantau, which must have suffered from their depredations. The clan record of the HO family of San Tsuen, Pui O, on the south side of the island mentions pirate raids and a decision to fortify the village with walls which can still be seen, with several embrasures for cannon.\n\nPiracy continued until a much later date. The Cheung Chau police station was attacked and burnt in 1912, necessitating its removal and enlargement, one of the Cheung Chau ferries was pirated in 1923, and in 1925 a band of sixty robbers from the Delta entered Tai O by way of Po Chue Tam creek, killed a woman and made off with young men and a fair amount of booty without any difficulty. The Police Station is situated at the other end of the town and knew nothing of the attack until it was over. See Administrative Reports, District Officer, New Territories 1912, 1923 and 1925.\n\n30 Papers 1899 p. 528.\n\n31 Foreign Office Report 1606 on Trade of Canton 1894.\n\n32 Salt was smuggled into China from Tai O as the government monopoly and price ring made it profitable to do so. See also Enclosure D to Sir Matthew Nathan's despatch No. 59 of 11 January 1905 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway which mentions rice smuggling from Shum Chun and Deep Bay into Hong Kong. The export of rice from China was forbidden, and checked by the Imperial Maritime Customs.\n\n**F O Trade Report No. 1778 for 1895.\n\n34 F O Trade Report No. 1983 for 1896.\n\n33 Papers 1899, p. 540.\n\nBrenan, with his thirty-two years' service wrote feelingly \"The Chinaman is happiest who never sees an official, who does not even know the name of one\". J N CBRAS XXXII (1897-98) 37.\n\n31 Foreign Office Trade Report for Canton No. 1606 for 1894.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204613, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n81\n\nthe death of Sir Robert Hart during the siege, and on July 21st it carried a long letter from the President of Queen's College, Belfast, which served as a somewhat premature obituary notice for Hart, who, in fact, lived until 1911.**\n\nThe relieving troops finally entered the British Legation on August 14th, when a Company of mounted Sikhs rode in at about 3 p.m. accompanying General Gaselee and his staff. So ended the siege which had lasted from June 20th until August 14th, a total of 55 days. Fortunately no overwhelming damage had been done to the British Legation, though many of the roofs were badly smashed about and bullets and shells had gone through most of the buildings. One last ironic touch; immediately after the raising of the siege the commissariat functioned so inefficiently that the besieged had to forage for themselves and for some days got less to eat than during the fighting. Meanwhile those who had 'enjoyed' the hospitality of the British Legation during the siege departed and the work of clearing up and repairing the damage began.\n\nThe actual damage suffered by the British Legation buildings was slight in comparison with the damage done to the other foreign Legations. The outer walls were badly damaged and had to be rebuilt, but one small section on the north-east corner facing the Imperial Canal was sufficiently unharmed to be left intact, and on its surface someone painted in black nine-inch letters the words \"LEST WE FORGET”. Most of the buildings in the compound were soon repaired and the Legation again looked substantially the same as before the siege. However, as part of the settlement after the Boxer troubles and the siege of the Legation Quarter Britain acquired considerable ground on the northern and western sides of the old Legation. This consisted of land formerly occupied by the Mongol market, by the Imperial Carriage Park and by the Hanlin Academy, which was burnt out during the fighting. This newly acquired land was later used for\n\n28 Born in 1835 Hart came out to China in the Consular Service in 1854 and spent his first three months as an interpreter at Hong Kong. After various consular appointments he was permitted by the British Government to resign from the consular service in 1859 and to join the newly formed Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs service as Deputy-Commissioner of Customs at Canton. In 1863, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed Inspector-General of the Maritime Customs, a post which he held until his resignation in 1908.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204650, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\nUPPER & MIDDLE YANGTSE\n\nChengtuy SZECHUAN Chungking TID\"E 100 MILES 200 HUPLE H sichang Shesi 117 Hankow Yoshow FUNGTING GLAKE HUNAN Changsha 1104/2\n\nIt was not until 1878, two years after the Chefoo Convention was signed, that the first steamers went up beyond Hankow. In that year the China Navigation Company and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company commenced a joint service between Hankow and Ichang. For technical reasons they were unable to maintain this service during the winter months of low water, and it was not until 1884 that a regular all-year-round service was commenced by Archibald Little with his small steamer Y-Ling, the other companies following suit a short time later. By 1901 there were twenty-two steamers running regularly between Hankow and Ichang, during daylight hours only, and it was not until 1920, after intensive surveys by the Chinese Maritime Customs, that night-time sailing was possible.\n\nA further section of the Yangtse was opened to foreign trade after China's defeat by Japan in the war of 1895, namely the 400 miles from Ichang to Chungking. At the same time Chungking and Shasi, the latter between Hankow and Ichang, became treaty ports. With the addition of Chungking to the list of treaty ports,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204656, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\n123\n\nThe Peking government claims that even greater floods took place during the summer of 1954, but because of the reconstruction work carried out on the dyke system by the Communists, the damage was much less. The dyke system, they say, has been still further strengthened since 1954.\n\nIn spite of its great depth along much of its length, navigation on the Yangtse always posed special problems. The main channel changes course from time to time, while the strength of the current varies from season to season. Foreign steamers usually carried two pilots, but in spite of all precautions many steamers have been lost on the river. Towards the end of the era of foreign shipping, losses had been greatly reduced by means of more efficient pilotage, greater knowledge and better charts, improved lighting, and other aids to navigation.\n\nLife on the Yangtse was very different from that on the coast, and had a strong fascination for most of those who experienced it. The river steamers penetrated right into the heart of China, where conditions were widely different. Even in the 1920's and 1930's the countryside and towns bordering on the Middle and Upper River remained much as they had been in the previous five or six hundred years. Foreign trade and influence had barely touched the fringes of social life and customs evolved many centuries earlier.\n\nThe heyday of Yangtse travel was in the 1920's and 1930's, when it was possible to travel in comfort, and even luxury, although not always in complete safety, from Shanghai to Chung-king, and beyond to Chengtu and Sui Fu. At that period there were four large companies operating regular services along the whole navigable length of the river, with something like a hundred steamers between them. There were also several small companies operating a few steamers each. The China Merchants Steam Navigation Company with 31 ships had the largest river fleet, followed by the China Navigation Company and the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company with 21 ships each, and then the Japanese Nisshin Kisen Kaisha with 15 ships. A German company had started a service in 1900, at the same time as the Japanese, but had been compelled to withdraw during the 1914-18 war, and had never resumed the service. At least four steamers left Shanghai for Hankow every day, where connection was made", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204658, "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": 139, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE \n\n125 \n\nand enthusiasm of Captain Cornell Plant who occupies the place of honour next to Archibald Little in the history of Upper Yangtse navigation. Little met Plant in London when the Pioneer was nearing completion, and infected Plant (whose previous experience of river work had been command of a paddle steamer on the Euphrates) with his enthusiasm for the Upper Yangtse. Plant took over the Pioneer and commanded her on her early voyages, and the Upper River fascinated him as it had Little. After the Pioneer was taken over by the Royal Navy, Plant built himself a large houseboat and traded successfully between Ichang and Chungking for several years, studying the Upper River in its varying moods and seasons. In 1907 he persuaded a group of Chinese merchants and officials in Chungking to make a further attempt to establish a regular steamer service, and the Szechuen Steam Navigation was formed, 40% of the capital coming from official sources. Their first ship, the Shuting, was built by Thorneycroft at Southampton under Plant's supervision, and he commanded her on her first voyage in 1908, and for the first five years of her successful operations.16 The Szechuen Steam Navigation Company's Shuting was soon followed by the China Navigation Company's Shutung, and both ships maintained a regular service between Ichang and Chungking, except for the three winter months — January to March — of low water. Both the Shutung and the Shuting were about 115 feet long with a draft of 3 feet, and both towed a float alongside for both passengers and cargo. If the current was too strong at any of the gorges or rapids the steamer went ahead on her own, tied up at the head, and then pulled the float up after her. Sometimes the steamer half steamed and half pulled herself up by her windlass. For this reason the Upper River steamers had very powerful windlasses and capstans, but even with this help there were some rapids it was impossible to overcome without further help. Then gangs of coolies called trackers, were employed, and there were villages at certain places whose sole raison d'être was to supply these trackers. The first steamer to go up the whole distance from Ichang to Chungking solely under her own power was the Szechuen Steam Navigation \n\n10 Plant joined the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1913 as River Inspector for the Upper River, which post he held at his death in Hong Kong in 1921. He is buried in Happy Valley alongside his wife. See his Glimpses of the Yangtse Gorges, 2nd edn., (Kelly and Walsh, 1936) which contains some interesting photographs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204660, "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE \n\n127 \n\nthan a hundred feet above the river. The cliffs in Windbox Gorge rise to over 700 feet above the river, and it was here that in the record year the river level rose 275 feet in a short time. \n\nIn 1917, after there had been regular services operating on the river for some years, the Chinese Maritime Customs issued a series of recommendations for steamers intending to ply on the Upper River, based on the experience gained over these years. The maximum size for steamers intending to run all year round was 210 feet long by 31 feet beam and 94 feet draft, with a minimum speed of 12 knots. If they were intended to negotiate the main rapids under their own power, a speed considerably in excess of 12 knots was recommended. It was also recommended that the hull be divided into watertight compartments, and that ships should have a flat bottom. Ships over 130 feet long were recommended to have twin screws and two boilers, and if their beam was over 22 feet three rudders; all others having two rudders. Other recommendations and regulations related to steering gears, windlasses, and capstans, and illustrate the peculiar problems posed by navigation on the Upper Yangtse. By 1931 there were over a dozen special-type ships on the Upper Yangtse, half of them British, running regularly between Ichang and Chungking. Three of the others were Chinese, two American, and one French. There were also several small oil tankers. Above Chungking there were about two dozen smaller motor launches running, but in this part of the river a great part of the traffic was still handled by native craft of various types. In 1931 the American West China Shipping Company's last ship was wrecked in the Upper River, and the Dollar Company sold their last ship, the Alice Dollar, to the China Navigation Company, who renamed her the Wantung. This left British steamers predominant on the Upper River for the short time after that it remained open to foreign trade. \n\nAll ships operating on the Yangtse required pilots. On the Lower River these were mostly foreigners of the various countries which formed the Woosung-Hankow Pilots' Association. This was not a branch of the Chinese Maritime Customs, although these pilots were licensed and recognised by the Customs. On the coast and on other rivers, the Chinese Pilotage Service, which was a branch of the Customs, was the recognised authority. There was no official body of pilots on the Middle River, but there was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204661, "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": 142, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "128\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nan unofficial association of Chinese pilots stationed at Hankow, whose members were employed by the companies on this section of the river. For the Upper River there was a branch of the Chinese Pilotage Service, whose members were licensed by the Customs, and an apprenticeship of five years was required to qualify as a pilot on the Upper River.\n\nThe Yangtse was opened to foreign trade through British diplomatic and naval action, and the Yangtse Valley was always a particular preserve of British commerce and industry. This was tacitly recognised by the other Powers, even during periods of intense international rivalry. By the early 1920's it was estimated that British investment in the Yangtse Valley, including Shanghai, was over £200,000,000. This was almost as much as was invested in the whole of British India at that time, and much more than was invested in British Africa. More than half of the shipping regularly employed on the Yangtse was owned by two British companies—the China Navigation Company of John Swire of London, and the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company of Jardine Matheson and Company of Hong Kong. Both Companies also had substantial investments in other industries in the Yangtse Valley, as well as in docks, wharves, and warehouses.\n\nThe operations of the British Yangtse steamers were severely curtailed shortly after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Within a few months of the outbreak of the war the Japanese had captured Shanghai, and soon after that Nanking, the capital. The capital had previously been moved up river to Hankow, and when Hankow in turn was threatened it was moved further up to Chungking, which remained the capital for the remainder of the war. The capture of Hankow resulted in the closure of the Lower River to British shipping, but the services above Hankow were still maintained. After Ichang was captured in June 1940, a still more restricted service was maintained in the Upper River until the end of the war. No British ships operate on the Yangtse nowadays, and the Red Ensign is seen only on the rare occasions when a British ship under charter to the Chinese government visits Nanking or Hankow.\n\n17 By Shanghai is meant here the Chinese city surrounding the International Settlement and the French Concession.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205328, "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": 90, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "THE CHINA COASTERS\n\n83\n\nessential; although there was a point beyond which these could be detrimental to the owner.\n\nThe rent which the compradore paid to the owners for the deck passenger space depended on the number of passengers usually carried in that particular trade. It was adjusted periodically according to fluctuations in trade and other factors, and was the subject of keen bargaining between owners and compradore — the latter naturally putting a much lower evaluation on the ship's passenger potentiality than the owners. At irregular intervals the owners sent someone to travel on the ship, and check the number of passengers and the amount of cargo carried. These men were known as 'pidgin snatchers' and were very unpopular with the floating staff. If the captain and compradore were good friends and either knew in advance of the 'pidgin snatcher's' movements, the other was warned, and co-operative counter measures instituted in good time.\n\nMost China coasters called at their home port of Hong Kong or Shanghai at least once a month, so that their officers were in much closer touch with life ashore than their contemporaries on overseas ships. During the inter-war period, normal tours of service on the coast were five years, in the course of which officers would serve in several of their company's ships. Many senior officers were married, and had wives and families in Hong Kong or Shanghai, or in a few cases Hankow. Long home leave was granted after a five years tour, but the attractions of life on the coast made many officers and their wives reluctant to go on leave. Captains and mates on ships where 'pidgin' were plentiful, were afraid they might be posted to less profitable ships on their return; while wives were loath to exchange their smoothly-run homes for the doubtful comforts of furnished rooms or boarding houses in Britain. European homes in Hong Kong, Shanghai, or the treaty ports, were sparsely staffed by African or Indian standards, but run much more efficiently. A cook and house boy, sometimes only a cook boy, sufficed for a small house or flat, supplemented by a baby amah or gardener if circumstance warranted this. A similar establishment in India would have been indifferently served by a staff twice as large. Although the taipans of the big foreign companies and senior customs commissioners lived in considerable style, life on the coast was in general much less ostentatious than in India, and much more pleasant.\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205410, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n165 \n\ntimes) as the sole export agent for producers of a special kind of incense which, then as now, was widely used for ritual worship in temples and in the home. Incense is said to have been shipped to Aberdeen by sea from Kowloon Point, to which it had been brought from various parts of the San On and Tung Kwun districts. It was then re-shipped in large trading vessels to Canton, from which it was carried overland to the north to such cities as Soochow. (It is not entirely clear to me why such a round-about route was taken to bring incense to Canton.) The cultivation and trade in this specially-favoured type of incense is said to have received a fatal blow in the early Ching period when the government evacuated the coastal areas to deny the aid and collaboration of their inhabitants to the anti-Manchu ruler of Formosa and his sympathisers.14\n\nSir Show-son CHOW (1861 - 1959). Sir Show-son CHOW who died only a few years ago, at a great age, was one of the most famous members of the Hong Kong community. He was truly a local man as his ancestors had lived in Little Hong Kong for several hundred years. His successful career, though the result of his own merits, was made possible through his father, whose abilities removed him from a farming village to the business centre of Canton and the position of compradore to the Hong Kong and Canton Steamship Company. He was in business in Canton and it was there that his son, the future Sir Show-son, was educated. By reason of this opportunity, and his own undoubted capacity, the son was selected as a free scholar by the Chinese Government as one of the first batch of Chinese youths to be sent to America for a Western education. This was in 1874, when the boy was only 13 years old. He returned to China in 1881 and for the next 16 years held important posts in Korea in the Korean Customs Service and the Chinese consular service in that country. He was President of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company at Tientsin, 1897-1903 and was managing director, Imperial Chinese Railways of North China, Peking-Mukden line, 1903 - 1907. From then until 1910, he was Customs Superintendent of Trade and Counsellor for Foreign Affairs at Newchwang, North China. On his return to Hong Kong after the 1911 Revolution his wide experience, undoubted ability and excellent reputation led to his being appointed to directorships in many firms and public utility concerns. He was appointed a member of the Legislative and Executive Councils and was knighted in 1926. He also", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206106, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n181\n\nexecutors, clearly thought that his papers were likely to be of interest to others. These papers have recently been donated to the University of Toronto by Mrs. Coombs. The following brief summary will give readers of this note some idea of their scope, though it does not show the range of Bland's correspondence with prominent politicians, diplomats, civil servants, artists, actors, scholars, social scientists and public figures in general on subjects not specifically connected with Chinese affairs.\n\nBrief Summary of Contents\n\n1. Diaries. Those for October 1883 - March 1885 and 1906 - 1910 were kept while he was in China. Bland left China in 1910.\n\n2. Typescript of chapters incorporated into his various books. These include material later discarded, as well as translations from Chinese, handwritten by Backhouse, of material used in their two books. Unfortunately, these translations do not appear to contain any references to the Chinese sources from which they were made. Also included in this section is the original version of Backhouse's translation of Ching-shan's so-called 'Diary', together with correspondence from 1920 until 1945 with various authorities concerning its authenticity. Victor Purcell, in The Boxer Uprising, 1963, devoted an interesting appendix to Ching-shan's 'Diary', stating that Backhouse's papers were burned in Peking during the Japanese occupation, and adding: “I have not, so far, been able to trace the whereabouts of any private papers of J.O.P. Bland”.\n\n3. Manuscript notebooks, essays, etc. E.g., \"In a Peking compound and around it”.\n\n4. Thirteen scrapbooks of clippings and articles by and about Bland.\n\n5. Photographs of Peking, Shanghai, etc.\n\n6. Correspondence. This comprises the most important part of the collection.\n\nOne large group of letters concerns Bland's relations with the British and Chinese Corporation Ltd., and his case against it. Also in this section are letters concerning the Mackay Treaty, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and the British Legation in Peking.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206389, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "180 \n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nChinese Customs' service, and a greater energy which has of late years been manifested by the Chinese Government itself. I have been told that the Customs' cruisers confine themselves to the inner waters, and act against smuggling and not piracy. It may be so; but smuggling and piracy may be considered as frequently only different branches of the same profession, the members of which will take to either as they think it safer, and likely to be more profitable for the occasion. That law and order are the rule increasingly in Hongkong and along the coast is a growing impression, and that impression is a surer preserver of the peace than the gallows, the axe, and the sword. Bad men are kept habitually obedient to the law by the form of justice armed with power in their mind's eye more than by outbursts of indignation occasionally aroused against them, and from which they always hope to escape.\n\nEre I leave the subject of crime, I may be permitted to say a few words on the police force of the colony. All along its history, the good organization of this has been perhaps the most difficult part of the duties of the Government. Experiment after experiment has been tried as to the constituents of the force; and as long as I can remember, that is, since the very first attempts at its formation, charges have been advanced against it of inefficiency, drunkenness, and openness to bribery. My own conviction has been for many years that the strength of the police force ought to consist of Chinese. I pressed my views on this point on Sir Richard MacDonnell soon after he arrived in the Colony, and he put them on one side. I stated them to the Commission which held its sittings on the subject during the present year, and I was glad to find that about one half of its members were disposed to coincide with me. I believe that the Chinese people are in the mass law-abiding and fond of order. I believe that there is a large body of Chinese merchants who have as great a stake in the Colony as the British and merchants of other nationalities have. I believe that by a cordial communication with them a body of native policemen might be obtained who would be sufficiently reliable, and who, with a smaller number obtained from home as the Government has lately done, a considerable proportion of its present force would keep the Colony almost free from crime. Give me a superintendent well skilled in the business of his department, and able to communicate", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206512, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "54\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nCouncillors at Jehol at this time: Mu-yin; K'uang-yüan; Tu Han; Chiao Yu-ying. Information on all these officials can be found in Hummel, Eminent Chinese, especially in the biography of Su-shun. Their power relationships are discussed in Banno, China and the West, passim, but especially 55-56. The term \"minister of the imperial presence\" (yü-ch'ien ta-ch'en) is rendered by Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization, p. 28, no. 101, as adjutant-general.\n\nII Tengchow is on the northern side of the Shantung promontory. In fact it was not opened to foreign trade which was carried on at Yen-tai near Chefoo. S. Wells Williams, The Chinese Commercial Guide, 211-212. Ch'aochow was the old name for Swatow; Ch'iungchow is in Hainan. Taiwan City and Tamsui were ports on the island of Taiwan which came under the administration of Fukien province.\n\n12 Ch'ung-hou was appointed to this post by an edict of 20 January with the designation superintendent of trade for the Three Ports, with his headquarters at Tientsin. Hsueh Huan, governor of Kiangsu and acting imperial commissioner at Shanghai, was made responsible for the newly opened ports along the Yangtze and the coast to the south of it, by the same edict. As far back as 1844 the imperial commissioner at Canton was currently designated imperial commissioner for the Five Ports. With the addition of new ports it was made a concurrent post of the governor of Kiangsu in 1861, until 1868 when it was made a concurrent post of the governor-general of Liang Kiang residing at Nanking. In 1870 the post of superintendent of trade for the Three Ports was raised to an imperial commissionership and held concurrently by the governor-general of Chihli. It is not clear when the commonly used designations for these two posts viz: superintendent of trade for the southern ports and superintendent of trade for the northern ports were first used. Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 40-41; Banno, China and the West, 233-5.\n\n13 Article 3 of the Convention of Peking between Britain and China refers. See W. F. Mayers, Treaties Between the Empire of China and Foreign Powers, 8. The phrase to avoid complications arising is a euphemism for 'to avoid peculation'.\n\n14 Tentatively we have translated the Chinese phrase hui-tan as counter-foil. Note 19 also refers.\n\n15 The term is fuyin. See Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, 793.\n\n16 See Frank H. H. King, A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911.\n\n17 Translated in collaboration with Mr. Vei-Tsen Yang. Chinese text in Ch'ow-pan wu shih-mo, Hsien-feng, 72: 2-3. A second edict was issued on the same day, and on the same subject, to the Grand Secretariat. This edict was translated by T. F. Wade along with the six-point memorandum. Note 2 above refers.\n\n18 Not to be confused with the Russian Hostel nor with the language school for the Russians in Peking, both of which were often referred to in Chinese documents as O-lo ssu-kuan, thus making confusion likely with the Russian language school referred to here. See Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 111, note 48.\n\n19 Lit. 'draw up a joint document'. Glossed by T. F. Wade as a paper signed by both parties showing that the amount deducted is in due proportion to the collection'. Translation of Peking Gazette in F.O. 17/352 p. 42.\n\n20 Presumably referring to Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and the westerners serving under him. On the general subject of foreigners taking part in the administration of China after the middle of the nineteenth century see Fairbank, The Chinese World Order, 273-5; also Fairbank \"Synarchy under the Treaties\" in Fairbank (ed.) Chinese Thought and Institutions, 204-231.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206518, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "60\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nproperty in Victoria, a smaller rate being levied in out-stations. This tax yields annually about $470,000, of which over $350,000 are contributed by the Chinese and the balance by all the other nationalities combined. The petitioners, who are not in some instances British, and who do not in many cases contribute directly to the taxes, claim \"the common right of Englishmen to manage the local affairs and control the expenditure of the Colony.\" They have, however, carefully omitted to point out that the local affairs include Chinese affairs of which, as has been stated, they are generally ignorant and which the Chinese have shown no desire that the British merchants and other residents should manage, and to indicate that to the expenditure of the Colony of which they desire the control they contribute a very small portion. Petitioners do not surely wish to maintain that Britishers have an inherent right to control all expenditure be their contributions to the revenue however small! It would be interesting to know in what period of our constitutional history such a right has been asserted to be allowed.\"4 Lockhart went on to state that there was one male adult Englishman to every 160 adult Chinese and that the British population in Hong Kong was by no means a permanent one: 'the number of persons to quote the petition \"who have passed large portions of their lives in the Colony\" is very small. Their object in coming to the Colony is to acquire wealth and to return to Great Britain as soon as they possibly can. The most telling point made by Lockhart was that it is not surprising that knowledge of Chinese, their customs and their peculiar requirements should be a sealed book to the British resident, whose intercourse with the Chinese is of the most limited nature, being almost exclusively confined to a discussion of markets, goods, and prices carried on a jargon called “pidgin” English.'16\n\nLockhart's main argument, which was endorsed by the Governor in a despatch to the Secretary of State, was that a small group of European businessmen could not be allowed to exercise control over a mainly Chinese population; that this would be both unjust and unacceptable to the Chinese themselves; and that the Hong Kong government had a moral obligation to safeguard the legitimate interests of a predominantly Chinese population. The petition was rejected.\n\nLockhart's rise in the colonial service, as I have stated, was rapid. In 1889 he was gazetted an official member of the Legislative", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206528, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "70\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\ndepressed and the Grant-in-Aid was increased, but not to its original figure. Lockhart had received the administration of a territory that could never be a great financial success.\n\nExcept for two periods of leave, in 1909 and 1918, and short absences from the Territory, such as ceremonial visits to the Chinese Governor of Shangtung at Tsinan, Lockhart was continuously in charge for nearly nineteen years. Weihaiwei was an extremely healthy place, free of malaria, with a climate like that of a northern European country and Lockhart was able to indulge in the recreations he loved most. He rode nearly every day or played a round of golf on the mainland on Yuan Shih-k'ai's parade ground. The dedication to Lockhart of Johnston's book, Lion and Dragon in Northern China, reads: 'In memory of two moonlit nights at Lutao-k'uo, five frosty mornings at Pei-K'uo Temple and a hundred breezy gallops over the hills and sands of Weihaiwei.'\n\nIn 1904, Johnston, then Acting Assistant Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong, had been appointed to Weihaiwei and the two men, who had worked together previously in Hong Kong, soon became close friends. In 1919 Johnston accepted an appointment as tutor to the ex-Emperor of China, P'ü-i,37 and Lockhart in his report for that year spoke of the 'great loss to the service. He had served uninterruptedly in Weihaiwei since 1904 and had proved himself an officer of exceptional administrative capacity, his intimate knowledge of the Chinese, their customs, and their language having won for him a high place in the esteem of the native population with which his duties brought him into such intimate contact.'38 They were both Scots but their friendship, it would seem, was based not on tribalism but on a mutual admiration for Chinese civilisation.\n\nLockhart left Weihaiwei on 23 April, 1921, on H.M. Ship Cairo, a passage having been placed at his disposal by the Commander-in-Chief, China Station. His popularity with all classes of the Chinese population 'was evidenced by the erection of two \"Pei\" (commemorative tablets) in his honour and the presentation of numerous addresses and scrolls, two \"myriad name\" umbrellas, one dress of \"myriad name robes\" and a bowl of pure water (the symbol of purity of administration).'39\n\nLockhart had been popular mainly because he understood the Chinese and left them alone. As he wrote: \"There is in China a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207020, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "FATHER ERNESTO GHERZI, S.J., 1886 - 1973 AN APPRECIATION\n\nG. J. BELL*\n\nIn the Bulletin de Geophysique No. 34 from the College Jean-de-Brebeuf, Montreal there was enclosed a notice of the death of Father Ernesto Gherzi, S.J. at Saint-Jerome, Quebec. He died on 6 December 1973 at the age of 87 years and 4 months. Fr Gherzi was a very well known and popular figure on the China coast between the years 1910 and 1954. He made notable contributions to the science and practice of seismology and meteorology while at Zikawei Observatory, Shanghai from where he operated an efficient typhoon warning service. He was a colourful character who made a great impression on all those who met him and he is remembered with affection by very many mariners and aviators—both military and civil—who served in the Far East in the thirty years prior to 1954.\n\nEARLY YEARS\n\nFr Gherzi was born in San Remo, Italy on 8 August 1886. In October 1903 he joined the Society of Jesus, an order whose members had made great contributions to geophysics and meteorology at their Observatories at Zikawei and Manila. He was posted to Zikawei for the period 1910-13 after which he went to England to work with Appleton on ionospheric studies for the Admiralty, London. He was ordained in England in June 1916 and returned to China in October 1920 to start his long scientific career in the famous meteorological, seismological and magnetic observatory at Zikawei.\n\nThe Zikawei Observatory was supported by grants from the Chinese Customs, the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, the Shanghai municipality and the telegraph companies; in return it provided time signals, weather forecasts and magnetic data for shipping. Fr Gherzi produced annual summaries of typhoon tracks for 1926 and for the years 1928 to 1940; they were addressed to the\n\n* Mr. Bell has been Director of the Royal Observatory, Hong Kong, since 1965. This article first appeared in Weather, Volume 29, No. 5 (May 1974).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207291, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "INCIDENT: H.K. MERCHANTS & B.E.I. CO.\n\n51\n\nI might have been able to have furnished you and my country with some lasting memorial of services rendered in that naval field where so much fame has so honourably been acquired; but you are aware that my career in that service was cut short by the entire stop to promotion which took place at the close of the American war in the year 1782; and the sea service of the East India Company, which I then adopted, gave but little scope for anything worth relating; however, on one occasion, in China, I was placed in a situation the account of which you may perhaps think worthy of a place in your collection.\n\nIn 1811 I was commodore of a large and valuable fleet belonging to the East India Company, then lying in the port of Canton.\n\nIn Canton all mercantile business is carried on by Chinese appointed by the Government and styled Hong or security merchants; they are selected from the richest and most respectable persons in Canton, and through them only can the supercargoes, our residents in China, have intercourse with the Hoppo, or Viceroy.1\n\nThese merchants have therefore the power of withholding all representations to the Government which may be against their private interest, or otherwise disagreeable to them by exposing the extortions and impositions they frequently attempt on the English.\n\nOn the occasion I am now going to relate the Hong merchants had some pecuniary demands which the supercargoes thought it their duty to resist.— the consequence of which was that misrepresentations were made by them to the Viceroy, and, when the fleet was ready to sail, the port-clearance was refused.\n\nAfter various ineffectual efforts to obtain our despatch, Mr. Brown, the chief supercargo, sent for me and expressed his anxiety at the unlooked-for detention of the very valuable fleet which was ready for sea. He informed me he had sent several petitions by the security merchants to the Hoppo, but he had reason to believe that\n\n1 Hoppo, or Viceroy. This mistake shows how dangerous it is to read the account of an eye witness of that time without making sure that his/her facts are correct. The Viceroy was the Westerners' name for the Governor-general of two provinces. Working in association with him was the Governor (Fu-yuan) of Kwangtung with his headquarters at Canton. Independent of these two great mandarins stood the Superintendent of Maritime Customs for Kwangtung who was the Emperor's direct financial representative at Canton, and was known to the English merchants as the Hoppo, this being a corruption of the Chinese name of the department of government at the capital under which he served, the hu-pu (Board of Revenue).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207336, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "96\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nand China Gas Company, the Hong Kong Electric Company, the Hong Kong Distillery Company, all needed skilled European labour.\n\nThe Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company employed European foremen, clerks, book-keepers, shipwrights, engineers, boiler-makers, storekeepers, and superintendents. 'Where the eastern seas', J.S. Thomson enthuses, 'bubble up hot to the flame of an equatorial sun, Chinese workmen, with Scotch overseers, turn out six thousand ton steel ships and do battleship repairing worthy of Woolwich or Devonport.' The skilled British mechanic experienced a degree of upward social mobility in Hong Kong: the skilled worker became an overseer, with all the compensations of improved status and salary.\n\n13\n\nApart from any non-qualified engineers, mechanics and artisans, there were a number of Europeans employed in other low status occupations. We should mention lighthouse keepers, employed by the Harbour Master's Department (later Marine Department), tide-waiters in the Chinese Maritime Customs, whose duty it was to board ships and junks at the various treaty ports, some of whom were domiciled in Hong Kong. They were, like the skippers and engineers of the vessels owned by the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macau Steamboat Company, mostly retired A.B.s from the Royal Navy and non-commissioned officers who had served their time. Lastly, there was a sprinkling of European tailors, hairdressers, milliners, confectioners, bakers, booksellers, printers, photographers, owners of sporting-goods shops, livery stable keepers, and gunsmiths. Most bars and tap-rooms employed Europeans as managers and barmen, though many were not of British nationality. As Macmillan concludes:\n\nThe bulk of the foreign population is employed in commerce, but the police, revenue, and sanitary staffs, schools, public works, docks, etc., give employment to a large number of overseers and supervisors, mostly engaged direct from home or from military and naval men whose service with the garrison is completed.1 Macmillan, however, forgot to mention the important beachcomber element in the overseer force.\n\n14\n\nEuropean outcastes were mainly prostitutes, nearly all of whom were of working class origin. Many of these women were professionals from the red light districts of San Francisco, Honolulu, Sydney, and Melbourne, who, for one reason or another (usually", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207355, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n115\n\nBarbarians in the Chinese service were usually expected to exhibit signs of cultural transformation. This might involve adopting a Chinese lifestyle (language, clothing, food, transportation, and residence), assuming a Chinese name, marrying a Chinese, enrolling on the Chinese tax registers, and so forth. Such behavior was evidence that the foreigner truly admired Chinese customs (Hua-feng) and had accepted Chinese ways.12 As important, however, and more difficult to discern, were indications that the barbarian had embraced Chinese values. In the words of the Tang scholar Ch'en Yen: \"Some people are born in barbarian lands but their actions are in harmony with rites [li] and right behavior [i]. In that case, they are barbarian in appearance, but Chinese at heart.\" According to Ch'en, the employment of such individuals was extremely beneficial to China, for it inspired other barbarians to \"turn toward Chinese civilization [hsiang-hua].\"\n\nThroughout the imperial era, Chinese policy toward barbarian employees in the interior, like Chinese foreign policy, varied according to China's strategic and administrative needs, the perception of an alien threat, the attitudes and activities of the barbarians themselves, and, of course, the whim of the emperor. The Chinese were not overly concerned with the gap between theory and practice, and some, such as the Ch'ing scholar Chao I, argued in fact that the practice of \"true principle\" (i-li) in foreign affairs necessarily involved adjustments. \"The teachings of true principle,\" he wrote, \"cannot always be reconciled with the circumstances of the times. If one cannot entirely maintain the demands of true principle, then true principle must be adjusted to the circumstance of the time, and only then do we have the practice of true principle.\"14 Ou-yang Hsiu is reported to have suggested that even when Chinese government was \"good,\" barbarians would not necessarily submit, while on the other hand, bad government might not prevent them from surrendering.\n\nAs might be expected, the Chinese historical record abounds with praise for barbarians who \"admired right behavior and turned toward Chinese civilization\" (mu-i hsiang-hua).16 Such conduct accorded with China's self-image of cultural and moral superiority. But all of China's barbarian employees did not serve the Middle Kingdom solely out of admiration. Some individuals were drawn by the prospect of financial or other material rewards. Others submitted with large bodies of troops after defeat in battle or the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207362, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "122\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nDuring the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty, a great many Indians, Sogdians, Uighurs, Persians and even Europeans occupied key positions within the Chinese civil and military bureaucracy. Marco Polo is perhaps the most famous of these individuals, but he is by no means the most important.46 Foreigners enjoyed a distinct advantage in obtaining official posts during the Yuan period owing to the Mongol policy of discrimination against Han Chinese. As a result, the percentage of non-Chinese in the Yuan bureaucracy was much higher than it would later be in the other great “barbarian” dynasty, the Ch'ing. According to the Institutes of the Yuan Dynasty (Yuan tien-chang), in the early fourteenth century foreigners held more than one quarter of all provincial posts and almost one half of those at court. It may be assumed that the majority of foreign employees within the Yuan bureaucracy were military men.47\n\nThe multi-national armed forces of the Mongols included not only troops and officers from the \"Western Regions” (hsi-yu), but also guards regiments stationed at Peking comprised of Alans (i.e., Ossetes), Tanguts, Jurchen, Koreans, Qipchaq and even Russians. According to the Yuan History (Yuan-shih), the total number of Russians in the Peking guard in 1330 was about ten thousand men. These troops were given land north of Peking and settled there as military colonists. Among the various other foreign forces in the Mongol service was a Mohammedan (Hui-hui) artillery corps.48\n\nBy the time of the first Ming emperor, resentment over Yuan (i.e., barbarian) rule had produced a particularly strong anti-foreign reaction. Chu Yuan-chang, founder of the dynasty, was openly hostile toward barbarians and did his best to limit their influence.49 Yet even during Chu's reign (the Hung-wu period), foreigners served the Ming as military and naval commanders, imperial advisers, diplomatic officers and civil bureaucrats. Surprisingly, despite a strong bias against them, Mongols were employed extensively in China during the Ming—mostly in the army, but also in other areas of Chinese administration. Although Mongol soldiers were generally separated from Chinese soldiers, high military posts were not in fact closed to men of Mongol origin.50\n\nNor were Europeans excluded from positions of military responsibility. Indeed, the Jesuits, who gained influence at the Chinese capital in the seventeenth century by virtue of their scientific skills and, significantly, their willingness to conform to Chinese customs,51", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207369, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n129\n\nloyal service to the dynasty, he had shown himself to be ungrateful, greedy, power-hungry and difficult to control. Given the privileged position such Westerners enjoyed in China, transgressions by them could not easily be punished--even if they were to become Chinese subjects.77\n\nWhat could not be expected of Ward could hardly be expected of other foreigners in the Chinese military service. Emphasizing that Westerners did not delight in Chinese clothes and customs, Hsüeh and Li argued that China “need not force them to do what they find difficult.\" In their view, nothing was to be gained by foreign military employees going through the motions of either changing to Chinese clothing or registering as Chinese subjects. The throne voiced substantial agreement.78 Allowing foreigners to follow their own customs was, after all, consistent with the traditional policy of \"keeping [barbarians] under loose rein [chi-mi],” which did not exclude the idea of cultural submission, but neither did it demand it. Meanwhile, local officials were expected to devise effective means for establishing control over barbarian employees until such time as their services could be dispensed with.\n\nWhen Charles G. Gordon received command of the Ever-Victorious Army after Burgevine's dismissal, the throne did not require that he register as a Chinese subject or change to Chinese ways.79 It did, however, demand that he be effectively controlled. Unmoved by the prospect of material gain, and comparatively aloof, Gordon was a difficult barbarian to ensnare. Yet through a combination of flattery, honors, shrewd diplomacy, and administrative pressures (including the presence of Li Hung-chang's growing Anhwei Army) the Chinese succeeded in winning and maintaining Gordon's devotion.80 Throughout his career in China Gordon carried the stigma of being an \"unsubmissive\" foreign commander,81 but he received unprecedented honors from the throne. Eventually, with Li Hung-chang as his sponsor, Gordon achieved the exalted rank of provincial commander-in-chief (ti-tu) and the coveted yellow riding-jacket (huang ma-kua). By the end of his tumultuous career as head of the Ever-Victorious Army in 1864, he and Li Hung-chang had become fast friends, and they remained so for many years to come.\n\n82\n\nDuring the T'ung-chih period, a considerable number of other foreigners entered the Chinese military service. Some, such as A. E. LeBrethon de Caligny, Prosper Giquel, and Paul d'Aiguebelle, led foreign-officered contingents patterned after the Ever-Victorious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207649, "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": 37, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "22 \n\nRICHARD J. SMITH \n\n11 Comparative studies on selected aspects of modernizing change in these two time periods would be illuminating. One might compare, for example, the aims and accomplishments of the Peking Tung-wen kuan (established in 1862) and the Bansho Shirabesho (established in 1858). On the former, see Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-chih Restoration, 1862-1874 (New York, 1967), 241-248; on the latter, consult Marius Jansen, \"New Materials for the Intellectual History of Nineteenth-Century Japan,\" Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 20 (1957), 569-582. On the use of Westerners in military affairs in Japan from 1853-1868, see Presseisen, 1-23; H. J. Jones, \"Bakumatsu Foreign Employees,\" Monumenta Serica, 29.3 (Autumn, 1974).\n\n12 Presseisen, chapter 1; Smith, , chapter 4.\n\n13 Albert Craig, Chôshu in the Meiji Restoration (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), 131-136, 201-203, etc.; Richard J. Smith, \"Foreign-Training and China's Self-Strengthening: The Case of Fenghuang-shan, 1864-1873,” Modern Asian Studies, 10.2 (1976).\n\n14 Presseisen, 22-23.\n\n15 See notes 7 and 8; also Hyman Kublin, \"The 'Modern' Army of Early Meiji Japan,\" Far Eastern Quarterly, 9.1 (November, 1949), 24-26; Meron Medzini, French Policy in Japan during the Closing Years of the Tokugawa Regime (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 125-133.\n\n16 For a discussion of Li's modernizing efforts, his extensive use of foreign assistance, and the obstacles he encountered, see S. Y. Teng and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West (New York, 1966), 111-112; K. C. Liu, “The Confucian as Patriot and Pragmatist: Li Hung-chang's Formative Years, 1823-1866,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30 (1970); Kenneth Folsom, Friends, Guests and Colleagues (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968), 152-157; and K. C. Liu, “Li Hung-chang in Chihli,” in Albert Feuerwerker, et al., eds. Approaches to Modern Chinese History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967).\n\n17 See, for example, Lord Charles Beresford, The Break-up of China (New York and London, 1899), 267-289, esp. 270-280; Major A. E. J. Cavendish, \"The Armed Strength (?) of China,\" Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 42 (June, 1898), 709-710, 713-714, 717; Richard J. Smith, \"Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850-1860,\" Journal of Asian History, 8.2 (1974), 127.\n\n18 See Smith, \"Foreign-Training,\" 212; Cavendish, 709-710, 713-714.\n\n19 See, for example, Cavendish, esp. 720-723; Captain W. R. E. Gill, \"The Chinese Army,\" Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 24 (1881), 371-377; Chester Holcombe, China's Past and Future (London, 1904), 81-88; \"The Chinese and Japanese Armies,\" reprinted from the Army and Navy Gazette in the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, 15 (1894), 1258; James Scott, \"The Chinese Brave,\" Asiatic Quarterly Review, 1 (1886), esp. 240; etc.\n\n20 See Smith, , Chapters 8 and 9.\n\n21 See Yang-wu yün-tung cited in Smith, \"Foreign-Training,\" 218. On Chinese resistance to foreign instructors and officers, see ibid.; also Cavendish, 720-721.\n\n22 See, for example, L. C. Arlington, Through the Dragon's Eyes (London, 1931), 18; Stanley Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs (Belfast, 1950), 478-481; John Rawlinson, China's Struggle for Naval Development, 1839-1895 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 65-78, 93-94, 163; Holcombe, 80-85, esp. 83.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207742, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "CHAN LAI-SUN AND HIS FAMILY\n\n115\n\nHe served as chief secretary at the Chefoo Convention in 1876, and until the time of his death assisted at the many transactions Viceroy Li had with foreign powers. He was to have joined Li in his mission to Japan after the Sino-Japanese War, but Li excused him saying, “You are old and so am I; but I have to go because there is no help for it.\"\n\nAt the time of his death Chan Lai-sun was survived by his widow, two sons and two daughters. He was predeceased by his son William and a daughter. The death notice of his widow, who died at the age of 92 on 17 Jan. 1917, was published in the Chinese Recorder (v. 58, p. 258). Her son Spencer T. Lai-sun had died only thirteen days before.\n\nSpencer had been educated at Queen's College, Hong Kong, before being taken to the United States by his father at the inauguration of the Chinese Educational Mission in 1872. He and his elder brother, Elijah, attended Yale. According to his obituary (South China Morning Post, 23 Jan. 1917), Spencer had an “extraordinary command of English” and was remarkably well informed on Chinese affairs, being one of the first to forecast the gravity of the Boxer Uprising. He was simultaneously on the staff of a Chinese language newspaper, the Hu Pao, and of an English language paper, the North China Daily News, both published at Shanghai. In 1911 he abandoned his newspaper career and as an expectant Taotai joined the staff of Viceroy Tuan Fang at Nanking. Early in his career in 1885 he undertook a special mission to India. When a reporter of the Times of India interviewed him, he was impressed with Spencer's European style clothing and the absence of a queue, for the latter he was said to have been given special permission by the Chinese authorities.\n\nDuring his school days in Hong Kong, Spencer had become acquainted with the family of the Reverend Ho Fuk-tong, being most likely a regular attendant of the Chinese congregation which met in the afternoons at Union Church. He married Ho Man-kwai, the daughter of the pastor. She died in Shanghai in 1894 at the young age of twenty-eight, leaving a young daughter, Daisy.\n\nThe other two daughters of Chan Lai-sun married Europeans. The husband of the eldest daughter was a Danish ship captain, N. P. Andersen. He had seen service in the Taiping Revolution and had a long career in the Coast Staff of the Chinese Customs. He was somewhat older than his wife and married in middle age.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207802, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA\n\n175\n\nthe Upper Yangtze-eight British, seven American, three Chinese, six French, five Italian, and three Japanese.\n\nPolitical troubles, however, had forced the pioneering Szechwan Steamship Company out of business in 1920. During the previous few years its Shutung and Shuhun had so often been forced to carry troops for the different war lords as to make their operations uneconomic. After 1920 the Chinese flag was flown by the China Merchants Steam Navigation and the Ming Steamship Company, both of whom seemed more able to accommodate themselves to the political changes. Captain Plant, however, was still active on the Upper Yangtze, but in a different capacity. He had left the Szechwan Steam Navigation Company in 1913 to become River Inspector in the Chinese Maritime Customs, and his work was one of the factors contributing to the development of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze in the early 1920s.\n\nThere was a period during the brief heyday of the Kuomintang government between 1927 and the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, when shipping on the Upper Yangtze almost settled into a regular pattern. Probably 1928 was the peak year, when there were seventy small steamers in regular service between Ichang and Chungking; the smallest about thirty tons and the largest just over 1,000 tons. The average time between Ichang and Chungking was three days, as against an average of a month by junk. Britain had fifteen ships of 5,357 tons; China twenty-six of 3,672 tons; and America eleven of 2,934 tons.\n\nLosses, however, were heavy. Several of the smaller companies were forced out of business, some selling their ships to the China Navigation Company. In this manner, the latter acquired the famous Loong Mow in 1923, which was renamed Wanliu I, and the Alice Dollar in 1926, which was renamed Wantung. This company also built six ships at Yarrows on the Clyde between 1922 and 1926. These included the Wanhsien, 210 feet long with a loaded draft of eight feet and reciprocating engines of 3,000 indicated horsepower, the most powerful ship on the Upper Yangtze; two turbine steamers of less than half this tonnage, the Kiating and the Kintang, for the low water season; and two small motor ships, the Siushan and Suiting, of 296 gross tons for the Top River above Chungking. British shipping was supreme on the Upper Yangtze for the last few years of the treaty port era, since political troubles hampered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208045, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "68\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nsystem of land distribution had its origins several centuries ago. At the time when the land was distributed, the tenant paid the landlord a certain sum; this sum represented the rent which the tenant thereafter handed over each year. The landlord could not increase the rent, nor could the tenant refuse to pay it. Furthermore, the landlord could not investigate his tenants in order to take back the land.” (G236).\n\n28 Data from the land memorials, which register sales of subsurface values, indicate that a one-mow plot of land seldom exceeded 6 taels during the late 18th century. As we shall see later in the text, these prices necessarily remained constant into the 19th century. In the Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for 1846, we learn that the tenants valued each mow of rice paddy at $40.00 (1 tael = 1.11 Mexican dollars in 1846). Granted that tenants made good profits from the sale of land, still this example tends to illustrate the great potential disparity between the two values. (Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for 1846, Note on the Island of Hong Kong by A. R. Johnston; written in 1843).\n\n29 Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, ibid., p 7.\n\n30 CSO306/1899 Extension; \"With reference to the petition of Tang Yung Ping and others they naturally, at present, prefer the old feudal system of payment of rent in kind.\"\n\n31 HKTCSMTC: Hong Kong Almanack, “Note on the Island of HK”.\n\n32 CSO150/1901 gives a detailed account of these negotiations.\n\n33 In general, the maintenance of perpetual tenancy systems presupposes the existence of communal landownership. The British found over 25% of all lots held in clan names in 1898; later Chinese sources place the estimate at 30%. These figures are probably not reliable for the earlier part of the century. The Tangs, as we have seen, held landlord rights over all of Hong Kong Island. They similarly held over 60% of the territory in Kowloon ceded to Britain in 1860, Land in North Kowloon was lost by \"fraudulent sale” in 1898 (CSO2982/1898). Other clans, besides the Tangs, apparently lost sizable tracts as “individual initiative” replaced clan solidarity throughout the period,\n\n34 CSO150/1901.\n\n35 CSO109/1902.\n\n36 Nan Yang Tang Shih Tsu P'u, \"Notes on Land Tax.\"\n\n37 Correspondence Respecting Affairs in China, ibid., p 18.\n\nESSAY II: TAXLORDISM\n\nThe peasants and gentry of Hsin-An witnessed two concrete manifestations of the growing power of foreign countries in China during the waning years of the nineteenth century. In April 1887, the Kowloon Customs House of the Imperial Maritime Customs was established under provisions of the Anglo-Chinese Opium Agreement of September 1886. As was the case with all customs houses established during the era, supervision of the revenue stations was entrusted to a European career officer in Sir Robert Hart's service, J. McLeavy Brown. A great expansion in customs activity", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208591, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS REMEMBERED: AN APPEAL FOR ORAL HISTORY IN HONG KONG\n\nLuke S. K. Kwong*\n\nThe Chinese Maritime Customs has been called \"one of the great administrative achievements of the nineteenth century.\" This favourable appraisal in comparative history could hardly impress nationalistic-minded Chinese, who have since the late-Ch'ing period tended to condemn the same administration as a mainstay of Western imperialist aggressions in China. Chief among their complaints is that for ninety years since its inception in the late 1850s, the Chinese Maritime Customs had been controlled by a foreign Inspectorate, an arrangement which further violated China's sovereign rights in its own revenue matters. While the imperialist character of the Inspectorate is more often assumed than carefully defined, Chinese indignation does point to a real problem in the Service's past history. Not only had the Inspector-general of Customs always been a foreigner, but also, up until the late 1920s, when reform was introduced to improve Chinese personnel representation, nearly all senior posts in the Service had been staffed by foreign employees. It was only after foreign predominance in this respect had ended that more Chinese began to fill such key positions as commissioners and deputy commissioners. By mid-1948, they had come to occupy a great majority of these posts. The experience of these highly placed Chinese who now enjoyed career opportunities previously denied their compatriots, ought to make interesting data for the historical record.\n\nIn summer, 1979, this writer had the opportunity to interview three such former officials living in Hong Kong. All are at an advanced age: one is 90 and the others in their early eighties. They had been with the Service for 35 years or more before retiring in 1945 and in the early 1950s, respectively. One of them got to be Port Preventive Secretary at the Canton Customs, whereas the others rose to become full commissioners. Their long careers were\n\n* Dr. Kwong is Lecturer in History, Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208592, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "223\n\nLUKE KWONG\n\npunctuated by periodic transfers from port to port, station to station, and they still recalled memorable events and personalities they encountered on their various postings. What follows is a summary of the more notable points that emerged during the interviews. It might be noted that the dialect used on these occasions was Cantonese, the interviewees being all from the Canton area in Kwangtung. Yet, these elderly gentlemen's flair for English expressions was given ample opportunity to manifest itself.\n\nIndeed, knowledge of the English language was, in those days, an essential requirement for any Chinese who wanted to join the Customs' clerical staff. In view of the Service's cosmopolitan character, illustrated by its multi-national personnel composition, this emphasis on an international language seemed only fitting. Facilities for learning English in early twentieth-century China, though limited, were nevertheless available. Despite their somewhat disparate educational background, somewhere in their early training the interviewees had all studied the language. One learned it for two and a half years at a school in Tientsin. Another attended St. Francis Xavier's College in Shanghai, where English was an instruction language. The third actually graduated from the Customs College in Peking, where students were required to attain a certain proficiency in a second foreign language, English being counted as their first (consequently, he knows French, as well). Invariably, they had had to demonstrate a sufficient mastery of English before entering the Service in 1910, 1917 and 1919, respectively.\n\nCompetition for Customs positions was always keen. For a post with the Customs was not just any job. It had a number of superior features. One was security. Once inside the Service and beyond probation, and as long as he did not commit any serious legal offence, a Customs employee could consider his job as secure, in colloquial parlance, as an “iron” or even \"gold rice-bowl.\" Another was its liberal pay. It was recalled that even a janitor working in a Customs office made three times as much as he would working for a private firm. There were fringe benefits, as well. At the end of every seven years of service, an employee received a gratuity as \"retiring allowance\" and on retirement would be provided with \"pension benefits” in a lump sum. Moreover, high-ranking officials on transfer to duties elsewhere were to travel first-class with their families. One of the former commissioners", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208593, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS REMEMBERED\n\n23\n\nrecalled that while in charge of the Pakhoi Customs (Kwangsi), he was assigned an official residence that spread comfortably over 32 mou of land. Finally, on a light-hearted note, the interviewees readily agreed that those in the Service usually had pretty wives, simply because they could afford to be choosy!\n\nJob security, good pay and other benefits of a Customs career, however, had their demands. Customs officials were expected to meet the high standard of efficiency that had distinguished the Service since its early days. All three had been conscientious workers, we were assured, and one of them stressed that their sense of duty was also strong. He related an incident in which his life was threatened by some local rowdies demanding the release of some confiscated goods. Even at gun-point, he did not give in. In another, during the second Sino-Japanese war, he refused to hand over the Customs buildings in his charge to enemy troops, despite the pleadings of some han-chien (i.e., traitorous Chinese working for the Japanese). His argument then was that unless proper orders were issued and received from his superiors, he would not allow any interference with Customs property.\n\nWhen asked about the integrity of the Service, the interviewees were of the opinion that Customs officials could in general pride themselves on their honesty. A distinction, however, might be drawn between the Indoor and Outdoor staff. The latter were logically susceptible to outside influences as their duties involved actual inspection and appraisal of cargoes, whereas the former as office workers were not exposed to the same degree of corrupt practice.\n\nThe efficiency and integrity of the Chinese Maritime Customs were attributed by the former officials to its foreign style of administration. Of the Inspectors-General under whom they had served, F. Aglen (1911-28) and F. Maze (1929-43) commanded their greatest admiration. Instead of disparaging the foreign Inspectorate as a tool of Western imperialism, as their nationalistic compatriots have, they saw it in a more favorable light. It would in fact be ludicrous to expect that they would have seen it in any other way, having given the prime years of their lives to serving it. This aside, their appraisal was derived also from a close familiarity with its functions and achievements. As one of them put it, the foreign inspectorate “did do good work for China,” and did so, it might be added, during those tumultuous decades to which they themselves still bear personal witness.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208594, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "24 \n\nLUKE KWONG \n\nThe success of the Customs' operations hinged on various factors, one of these being the high degree of immunity that it enjoyed from the political afflictions that had plagued other Chinese government administrations. Indeed, a comparison of the working conditions of the Customs and these administrations will probably show what the problems in China's administrative modernization had been. It was a policy of the Inspectorate of Customs that its employees should refrain from all unauthorized deeds which might compromise the Service's relatively independent political status. Consequently, Chinese Customs officials were not allowed to join political parties, local or national. This does not mean that the interviewees had abstained from politics all their lives. The nonagenarian, for instance, had been a member of the T'ung-meng hui (Wang Ching-wei being his reference upon entry), and did avail himself of an opportunity afforded by his Customs post to smuggle explosives for the revolutionaries. But early attempts like this were now looked back upon more as youthful exploits than as adult commitments. Whether because of aversion to politics that came with bad initial experience, or because of the above-mentioned prohibition against political involvement, the former officials seemed satisfied with their largely a-political pasts. In this, they seem to have represented a little studied, silent counter-type of educated Chinese to their political-activist contemporaries whose thoughts and actions have attracted far greater scholarly attention.\n\nThe interviews were not meant to be exhaustive or comprehensive. Rather, they were intended as forays into a potential area of research. It was encouraging therefore to find that the interviewees were willing to share their memories of the past, and to supplement these with old photographs and private papers. One of them even made available an unpublished manuscript of his memoir on his Customs years, which he composed on his retirement. Their recollections point up the gap in previous researches into the history of the Chinese Maritime Customs. While attention has been given to its formal status, structure and functions, the human dimension of the Service has for the most part been neglected. There is even less interest shown in those aspects which affected the life and career patterns of Chinese employees. As to the inside Chinese views of the Service, these are basically lacking. Thus, their reminiscences seem to provide the kind of information that might be used to bridge the gap in our understanding of this", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208595, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS REMEMBERED\n\n25\n\nextraordinary, mixed administration. If this understanding is someday to be improved upon, a systematic effort now to collect and preserve the oral testimonies of these and other surviving former Chinese officials is essential.\n\nThe interviews were also intended as a small experiment in oral history. Oral history as a data-gathering device for studying the past is, of course, nothing new. But it was only in the last several decades that a more sophisticated methodology, with the help of the tape-recorder, began to emerge and attract more serious practitioners. At many universities abroad, especially those in the United States, oral history is gradually evolving into an important branch of research. At important centers, such as Columbia University, oral history collections have become rather substantial. In Hong Kong, however, oral history has not been given the attention that it deserves. How our records of local history would be enriched if only the oral testimonies of those residents who have witnessed the great changes that occurred in the past 30 or 40 years could be used to supplement the written sources! Some, like the former Customs officials, may also have been informed by personal experiences about specific aspects of twentieth-century Chinese society. But one can never be sure of what is available in Hong Kong, a cultural and political crossroad in its own right, until one starts searching. Conceivably, every aspect of life in Hong Kong has a history capable of reconstruction, and every one living here has something to contribute to the remembrance of a collective past. In this, with its special techniques for collecting and preserving information, oral history renders good service. As for the reminiscing individual, he may find in oral history an efficacious means of relating self to society, past to present, and may learn in the process a broader significance of his own existence than that previously known.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 See John K. Fairbank, \"Foreword,\" The I. G. in Peking, ed. John K. Fairbank, Katherine F. Bruner and Elizabeth M. Matheson, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975, I, xi.\n\n2 For a discussion of the \"authorized” inauguration of the Inspectorate system, see Jack J. Gerson, Horatio Nelson Lay and Sino-British Relations, 1854-1864, Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University Press, 1972, pp. 98-101.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208596, "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": 53, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "26 \n\nLUKE KWONG \n\n* Robert Hart, the second Inspector-general, projected in 1906, \"I doubt if the year 1930 will see any foreigners at all in the Chinese Customs.\" (The I. G. in Peking, II, p. 1511.) Also, see his other comments, Ibid, p. 1423 and p. 1528. Yet, this tradition of foreign predominance proved more tenacious than he had expected.\n\n• See Chinese Maritime Customs, Service List, 1948.\n\n\"For a discussion of this feature of the Service, see Hosea B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1910-18, II, pp.140-41; also, Stanley F. Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs, Belfast: Wm. Mullan & Son Ltd., 1950, pp.7-8 and pp.269-70.\n\n• Arrangements are being made for this memoir to be published by Lung Men Press, Ltd., Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208940, "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-1980", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "70 \n\nJOHN VILLIERS \n\n\"pect our virtue\". Through this gate the Chinese passed the food and other supplies needed by the inhabitants, but at other times they sealed the gate with strips of paper, allowing into China only those few Portuguese officials with authorisation and sending to Macau only customs officers. \n\nThe Portuguese in Macau were first given some official recognition by the Chinese government in 1582 when the new Viceroy of Canton and Kwangsi summoned Macau's chief officials to his court. They came with 4,000 cruzados worth of presents—velvets, crystals, mirrors and so on—and were informed that foreigners could continue to inhabit Macau provided they remained subject to the laws of the Empire.10 \n\nBy 1585 the settlement had acquired full city status with its own municipal council (Senado da Câmara). The Senado was dominated by the casados, Portuguese who had retired from the service of the crown, married and settled permanently in Macau. These acted not only as agents for the Chinese traders but traded on their own account in pepper, cloves, sandalwood and other goods from the Indonesian islands and financed voyages to Manila and to Japan in the so-called Great Ship from Amacon. Macau was not under royal control and was not ruled by fidalgos sent out from Portugal or Goa, so that the interests of the Portuguese government were seldom, if ever, allowed to prevail. The Crown had to be content with a share in the profits from the annual voyages that it financed and the revenues from customs, duties and license fees levied on the merchants.11 \n\nThe overall command of the government of Macau was in the hands of the Captain-major of the Japan voyage, who would spend some months in Macau each year en route to Japan from Goa via Malacca—from one end of the Estado da India to the other. As the Portuguese Crown seldom got more than the commissions and port duties paid in Goa and Malacca, the Captain-major was able to amass a large fortune for himself. He was, however, only permitted to operate a single ship during his term of office so he would ensure that it was the largest ship available. This ship he would load at Goa with Gujerati cottons, chintzes and other Indian textiles, woollen and scarlet cloths, wine, glassware, crystal and Flemish clocks. He would sail with the monsoon in April or May to Malacca, where much of his cargo would be traded for Indonesian spices, camphor and sandalwood and hides from Siam. Thence he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208970, "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-1980", "page_number": 132, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "100 \n\nJULIAN F. PAS \n\nin the understanding of faith and ritual, its essential characteristics transcend time and remain unchanged: the re-enactment of the divine salvation work performed by its Founder, Jesus Christ, in order to let people of all times and places participate in the fruits of redemption. This central concept has been liturgically expressed in rituals that are often symbolic, and more often, sacramental. Whereas the essence of theological content is believed to be eternal, its manifestations in time can be numerous and changeable.\n\nThe liturgical year develops round the major themes of the life of Jesus: his nativity and manifestation to the world, his passion, crucifixion and resurrection and finally, his effusion of the Holy Spirit who continues the work of sanctifying grace in the Church. Although this theme is one of uniqueness when compared to the other world religions, the celebration of the resurrection, which is central in Christianity, can easily be seen as a parallel found in many other traditions. The occurrence of Easter in early spring is phenomenologically related to the spring equinox, celebrated in various ways throughout antiquity. Without denying the uniqueness of meaning inherent in the Christian liturgy, it is striking to find that a pre-existing pattern, almost like an archetype, has been adapted to the new faith of Christianity.\n\nThe consecration of new fire on Easter Eve, from which the Easter candle is lit, is a concrete example of the Church's adaptation of old rituals and customs to a new belief system. Although this particular ritual act seems to be rather simple in its structure, there are various levels of meaning that have been superimposed on it. In its primitive significance, the ritual may be a borrowing from the old Roman custom of keeping a sacred fire burning in the temple of Vesta.19 In the early times of the Christian Church, everyday before the Vesper service, a light was struck from a flint: this new light was used to light candles and lamps during the vesper service, and was kept burning until vespers of the following day:\n\nThe Church of Rome observed this custom with great solemnity on Maundy Thursday morning, and the new fire received a special blessing. We learn, from a letter written in the eighth century by Pope St. Zachary to St. Boniface, archbishop of Mainz, that three lamps were lighted from this fire, which were then removed to some safe place, and care taken that their fire was kept burning. It was from these lamps that the light for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209028, "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-1980", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "158\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nYET ANOTHER LIBRARY\n\nIn his Korea, published by William Heinemann of London in 1904, Angus Hamilton has a good deal to say about John McLeavy Brown, C.M.G., LL.D., formerly Treasurer-General of that Kingdom and, when he wrote, Chief Commissioner of Customs, that is, of the Korean Customs.\n\nHamilton writes (pp. 85-86):\n\nIn his official life he represents a type of Englishman that is rapidly disappearing from our public services. His private life reflects the culture and the grace of an attractive personality. They say, in Seoul, that Mr. McLeavy Brown is more skilful as a diplomatist than as an administrator; and his brilliant conversational powers give some colour to the assertion. Upon arrival in Seoul, newcomers are apt to hear that \"Brown is a walking encyclopædia.\" He speaks, reads and writes with equal facility French, German, Italian and Chinese. It will be remembered that he is in the service of the Korean Government, a sphere of utility and activity which demands fluency in yet another language. His library attests the breadth of his culture; it numbers some 7000 volumes, and fills the walls of the rooms and corridors of his house at Seoul from floor to ceiling. Boxes of new books arrive by every mail. When he reads them it is difficult to conjecture. At night, as one strolls from the British Legation to the Station Hotel, the lights in his study window may be seen burning brightly. He is believed to sit up with his books very often until dawn. It would be typical of this silent self-contained man if he found in the pleasures of his library the antidote to much which takes place in Seoul.\n\nMcLeavy Brown appears in the contemporary Who's Who in the Far East 1906-7 published by the China Mail, Hong Kong, in June 1906, where he appears as 'ex-Head of Customs and Controller of Finance, Corea', having resigned in 1905 and gone on tour abroad in April following. He had been appointed a Student Interpreter in China in 1861 and was Acting Chinese Secretary in the British Legation at Peking 1871-72, resigning in 1872. He was later appointed a Commissioner in the Chinese Customs and appointed Commissioner-General of Customs, Corea.\n\nI am here less concerned with the man himself, despite his stature and later career which can be followed in the Dictionary of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209207, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 110, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "96\n\nThere is no slavery carried on.\"\n\nCARL T SMITH\n\nIn commenting on the questions raised in Parliament the editor of the South China Morning Post said there could not be much harm in the traditional Chinese custom when throughout the eighty years of the Colony's history no steps had been taken to abolish it. The children in domestic service had the full protection of the law and there was no evidence that they were frequently ill-treated. What few cases are brought before the courts are sharply dealt with. He did admit that some reform might be needed, \"to guarantee the child's rights and those of its parents\", but any changes should only be introduced gradually and with the co-operation of the leading Chinese, \"whose services have never been withheld in any case having for its aim the uplifting and enlightenment of the people\".3\n\nReaction in Hong Kong -- Mass Meeting at Tai Ping Theatre – July 1921\n\nThe Chinese elite \"establishment\" in Hong Kong was disturbed by the discussion in Britain of one of their long established customs. They and the Hong Kong Government were also annoyed by a letter published in the correspondence column of all four English newspapers written by Mrs. Haselwood, the wife of a Commander in the Naval Dockyard. Her husband was officially warned that unless he stopped his wife from airing the question, he would be superseded and sent home. He refused to submit and was shortly sent home where he retired on half-pay. The Haselwoods, however, continued their campaign in Britain. When the Hong Kong Government was asked to explain Commander Haselwood's early termination of service in Hong Kong, it replied that the activities of his wife were \"causing annoyance to the Chinese community\".\n\nThe leadership of the Chinese community was sufficiently aroused by the statements being made in the English press concerning the practice that it called a mass meeting to be held at the Tai Ping Theatre in July, 1921. The meeting was convened by the two Chinese representatives on the Legislative Council, the Hon. Ho Fook, brother of Sir Robert Ho Tung and one-time compradore of Jardine, Matheson and Co., and the Hon. Mr. Lau Chu-pak, compradore of Messrs. A. S. Watson and Co. Also particularly mentioned were S. W. Tso, a solicitor, Chow Shou-son, a Hong Kong-born former official of the Chinese Government who had extensive business interests in Hong Kong, and Chau Siu-ki, shipping and insurance magnate.\n\nThe theatre was crowded with about three hundred including a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209444, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "79\n\n58\n\nofficials and gentry-merchants (shen-shang) are [agents]. There is no need for [professional] agents.\n\nWe have no means to prove or disprove Chang's somewhat extravagant claim, but we can be certain that there was at least some truth in it.\n\nIn Ho Amei, we have an example of Chang's \"Man in Hong Kong\". Ho is one of the most colourful personalities in 19th Century Hong Kong, and, as such, was one of those whom the Rev. Carl Smith has chosen to write about in several of his works on the Chinese in Hong Kong. Ho Amei had worked in Australia and New Zealand, in mining and emigration; for a while he worked at the Registrar-General's office in Hong Kong. He also worked in the Chinese Customs Service for a time. In 1882, he started the Telegraph Company in Hong Kong which the Chinese Government took over 2 years later. Then and after, he had many business connections with the Chinese Government, in emigration, mining, railways and telegraphy. In 1884, he was secretary of the On Tai Insurance Company, a position which entitled him to sit at the meetings of the predominantly European Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce.\n\nThroughout the Sino-French War, he regularly sent telegrams to the Canton authorities reporting on French movements around Hong Kong. As we have seen, at the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, he condemned the French for searching junks. At the same meeting, he spoke out for China's right to block the river entrance in Shanghai in case of a French attack, an opinion which found no sympathy in the Chamber. Indeed, he was voted down as \"an interested party\".01\n\nInterested party he certainly was, but what we must not overlook amid the complexity of his material interests was his courage in speaking up for China, knowing full well his lone opinion would not reverse the resolutions reached by the predominantly European members of the Chamber. There was no need for him to please the Canton Government with a declaration of allegiance at a Chamber of Commerce meeting; it demanded loyalty of him in other ways. The public stand he made, and it was well publicised in the papers, was made out of his own convictions on the question of China's sovereign rights. He protested against the French not as a Chinese agent, but as a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209792, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "29\n\nare bent on material enjoyment. 3. The sangha system is seen as out-moded. It seems to belong to strange old men who cling on to superstitious beliefs and customs. 4. Military service in certain countries has robbed young men of opportunities to join the sangha. 5. Parents may have discouraged their children from joining the monks.\n\nThe monks made it clear that, while objective causes outside their control do play a part in the decline of young recruits, they put the major share of the responsibility on themselves. They were dissatisfied with the image they projected. This is an important indicator of their changing perception of themselves.\n\nThe remedies they proposed also indicated their perception of the need to change roles. They were aware that their life-style should be seen as attractive and relevant to the present age. Secondly, they felt responsible for communicating this attractive new monkhood to eligible young men through as many channels as possible. They encouraged more contact with young men through education, youth work, study groups, and choirs. Parents were to be exhorted to nurture some of their sons towards the possibilities of entering monkhood. Short-term going-forth-from-home ceremonies were undertaken so that young people could get a taste of monkhood. The last was an innovation borrowed from the Theravada tradition in Thailand and was quite new to the Mahayana tradition. Lastly, someone suggested that, as a last measure, each monk should adopt an orphan so as to train him to become a monk when he grew up.\n\nUnfortunately, such good intentions remain largely on paper and one seldom hears more about them nowadays. The reason for this is that the problem of recruitment has been linked to the issue of re-organization of the sangha, and, as the latter ran into trouble, the former was also dropped from discussion. Nevertheless, the problem of recruitment remains as real as ever.\n\nB. Sangha Re-organization\n\nThe Buddhist community is organized according to rules laid down in the vinaya which claim Buddha himself as the authority.", "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": 209981, "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": 240, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "218\n\n• There are four in the year, but the principal one falls on the nineteenth day of the second moon.\n\n* See my \"Secular Non-Gentry Leadership of Temple and Shrine Organisations in Urban Hong Kong\" pp 113 to 136 of this Journal.\n\n* See my article \"The Japanese Occupation and the New Territories\", South China Morning Post, 15 December 1967.\n\nA COMMUNITY SHOOTING BUNGALOW NEAR CHINKIANG, KIANGSU, AND ITS LIBRARY ABOUT 1905\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nThe following extracts are taken from A. H. Rasmussen's China Trader, published by Constable of London in 1954. Mr. Rasmussen was barely twenty when he joined the Chinese Customs Service at Chinkiang, where there was a small, lonely British concession. During his first four years, two of the original thirty-five Europeans died, two went mad, two cut their throats, and he himself was twice nearly murdered by smugglers. At this time, as he relates, he was lucky enough to find relaxation and renewal of spirits brought low by the conditions of life and work in shooting wild pig, and in finding a library and visitors' books in a small shooting bungalow in the countryside near the Chinkiang concession. Let him speak for himself.\n\n\"When the Concession really got me down I 'lifted up mine eyes unto the hills' and got new strength from them. A ride of about eight miles took me to a hill called Wu Chow where for many years there had been a community shooting bungalow for those who were keen on wild boar-shooting.\n\nIt was rather an expensive sport as it required about fifteen beaters at fifty cents (or one shilling) each a day. Moreover, a rifle had to be bought and fortunately I came across an ancient Lee-Metford single-shot carbine used in the Boer War. I bought it for fifteen dollars.\n\nIn view of the daily cost it was important to get shooting companions to share in the beating expenses. No serious shooting had been done out there for several years, and no one in the port seemed to know the ropes. I went out one week-end to investigate and to get away from everybody, most of all from my old bored self.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210187, "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-1984", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "137\n\nRevd Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1865), Vol. II, p. 55; Robert K. Douglas, China (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2nd Edition, 1887) pp. 280-1; Juliet Bredon and Igor Metrophanow, The Moon Year, A Record of Chinese Customs and Festivals (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh Ltd, 1927) pp. 314-5.\n\n26\n\nJ. W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region op. cit., p. 210 note 87. A full account of the stakenet fishing is given in my forthcoming article on the coastal and inshore fisheries of Hong Kong Island and adjacent places in the 19th century and earlier, to appear in Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Asian Studies, 1986, Vol. I, China, Asian Research Service, GPO Box 2232 Hong Kong.\n\n27\n\nChina Mail No. 212, 8 March 1849, Witness No. 23 at the recorded Coroner's Inquest. Possibly also nos. 19 and 22.\n\n20\n\nA large scale map of Little Hong Kong at 80' to 1, in five sheets, showing the Old and New Villages and their fields (1892) is in the PRO of Hong Kong. In 1844 it was stated that the Wong Nai Chung fields measured 75.1 acres (CSO129/9807, p. 277).\n\n1\n\nIllustrated London News, 16 January 1858.\n\n10\n\nHong Kong Government Gazette, Government Notification 41 of 1860, dated 24 March 1860.\n\nRobert Fortune, Three Years Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China (London, John Murray, 2nd edition 1847) p.17. He qualifies his remarks slightly, but the substance is as stated. See also his general very favourable verdict on the Chinese people at p. xv.\n\n32\n\nK.S. McKenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China (London, R. Bentley, 1842) p. 160.\n\n33\n\nCaptain G.G. Loch, Closing Events of the Campaign in China (London, John Murray, 1843) p. 21.\n\n14\n\n35\n\nMcKenzie, op. cit., p. 163.\n\nDalrymple's Observations on the Southern Coasts of China and the Island of Hainan (London, 1806). After p. 20 in the text. This willingness to trade with strangers continued into the period of hostilities between Britain and China when the local people appear to have been very ready to supply the British forces and the civilian population with food and other necessities. Indeed this extended to such a degree that led Captain Elliott to state in one of his despatches to Lord Ellenborough, Governor-General of India, that the retention of Hong Kong would be \"an act of justice and protection to the Native population upon which we have been so long dependent for assistance and supply. Indescribably dreadful instances of the hostility between these people and the Government are within our certain knowledge; and they cannot be abandoned without the most fatal consequences.” Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, 3 vols, reprinted by Book World Company, Taipei, Appendix I to Vol. 1, pp. 650-1. See also pp. 241-2 for local provisioning.\n\n34\n\nJohn Francis Davis. Sketches of China, Partly during an Inland Journey of Four Months between Peking, Nanking and Canton, bound in with Volume III of his A General Description of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, New Edition, 1845), p. 12. See also Wright and Allom, op. cit., \"The Harbour of Hong Kong\" which speaks of the \"innate gentleness, and disinterested hospitality, of the farmers and the fishermen of Hong Kong\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210840, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "174\n\nchurch.\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nWith the loss of the patronage of the mission, A-sow had to find other employment. This was not difficult as a Chinese with a good knowledge of English was in demand.\n\nIn August 1855, he was employed as the third interpreter in the Chief Magistrate's office at a salary of $50. The first interpreter was a former classmate, Tong A-ku, better known as Tong King-sing (Tang Ching-hsing) later associated with the development of the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company.\n\nA-ku had been educated with his two brothers at the Morrison Education Society School, but when it was disbanded in 1849, he and his younger brother were received into Dr. Legge's school. The elder brother, A-chick, or as he was known in later life Tong Mow-chee, transferred to St. Paul's College.\n\nIn January 1856, A-sow was advanced to second interpreter with a salary increase of $25. The next year Tong A-ku left and A-sow had another substantial increase when he moved up to first interpreter. At the same time his former position was filled by his brother-in-law, Ho A-lloy.\n\nA-sow was dismissed from the Magistrate's office in 1858 because of his association with members of Hongkong's criminal element. This was revealed in the course of a Civil Service Abuses Inquiry. There were those, however, who felt an injustice had been done in his dismissal.\n\nHe then moved to the newly organised Chinese Maritime Customs Service. The honesty of its employees were at times in question.\n\nYung Wing (Jung Hung), one of the former students of the Morrison Education Society School and initiator of the Chinese Educational Mission to the United States, in his biography states that after his return to China following his graduation from Yale College, he was employed for a time in the Customs at Shanghai, but soon left as he could not countenance the corruption involved.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210841, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "175\n\nJust because Ng Mun-sow was implicated in dubious activities in Hongkong it does not warrant our accusing him of profiting by corruption that might have been operative in the Customs Service, but it does suggest the possibility. At any rate he remained with the service until his death in 1881.\n\nIn 1850 he had married Oi-lin, the eldest daughter of Ho A-sun, also known as Ho Ye-tong. He had been a printer at the Malacca press and accompanied the mission to Hongkong in 1843. He was a devout and earnest Christian, an original member of the London Missionary Society's Chinese congregation in Hongkong.\n\nThe waywardness of his son-in-law grieved him. Just as Dr. Legge had hoped A-sow had turned over a new leaf after the episode of the bills of exchange, so in 1859 his father-in-law had expressed a similar hope. At a prayer meeting, he arose and with tears in his eyes spoke in a voice trembling with emotion. “You know my son-in-law, A-sow. Formerly he was one of us, but we had to expel him from the church. Of the life which he has been living for several years I need not now speak. He has been very bad, and he was as hardened as he was dissipated, and repulsed me when I tried to advise him. Lately he was taken ill, and thinking his heart might be softened, I ventured to speak to him about his soul. He heard me quietly, and today he rose and came to this place of worship.\n\n\"It is the first time he has been in God's house for years. Far as he was gone astray, and deeply as he was sinned, perhaps God will have mercy upon him yet. I feel it is in my heart to ask you all to pray with me that he may be brought back to the fold.”\n\nDr. Legge remarked: “May it be done for the backslider as we asked.”\n\nUnfortunately, for all the interest and concern of those who had known A-sow as a boy and young man and had such high expectations for him, there is little evidence that his resolve to change his ways was permanent.\n\nOne wonders what A-sow's life may have been like had...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210868, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 219, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "202\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nHOW A-CHICK CLIMBED TO THE TOP IN SHANGHAI\n\nAfter his return to China, Tong A-chick, or Tong Mow-chee as he began to call himself, in some sense rode on the coat-tails of his younger and more prominent brother, King-sing.\n\nIn 1862, Mow-chee was employing his language skills as head linguist at the Shanghai Imperial Customs Office. King-sing had preceded him there but had left to seek better prospects.\n\nAt this time their father died and Mow-chee retired for the usual mourning period. Assessing his future prospect in Chinese Government service as not good, he did not return to his job after the mourning period ended.\n\nThe position he had held was a good one, but did not offer many opportunities for advancement, as higher offices in the Chinese Government were generally open only to those who held an official degree. Though he took steps to remedy this by purchasing a degree, he felt prospects in the customs were not bright. Later, when he had more wealth, he purchased the degree that entitled him to wear the peacock feather, and finally the button of the second rank on his hat.\n\nTong King-sing had become compradore at Shanghai to Jardine, Matheson and Company in 1863. In 1870, after leaving Hongkong, Tong Mow-chee through his brother's influence took charge of the Chinese business of Jardine's shipping office at Tientsin.\n\nIn 1872, King-sing was recruited by Viceroy Li Hung-chang to manage the newly created China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company. Though backed by private capital, it was under the control of the Chinese Government. The compradoreship of Jardines at Shanghai thus became vacant. It was natural that Tong Mow-chee should come down from Tientsin to take his brother's place.\n\nIn 1877 Tong King-sing was commissioned to develop the Kaiping coalfields for the Chinese Government. Mow-chee assisted...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210883, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 234, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "217\n\nWHEN A-MEI STRUCK SILVER IN LANTAO\n\nHo A-mei also maintained an interest in mining.\n\nAfter his return from Australia in 1868, his first position was at Canton with the Chinese Imperial Customs Service. It was not to his liking, for after six months, as he says, he \"threw it up in disgust.\" He then intended to return to New Zealand to see if he could not recoup the money he had paid out on the labourers he had introduced. While he was in Hongkong waiting for a ship, he was offered the position of clerk and interpreter in the office of the Registrar-General.\n\nHe philosophised about his acceptance of the offer. \"It is a little more remunerative than the one at Canton, but it may be designated the same ‘a mere living.' No doubt it is not exactly to my liking. Still, taking into consideration the untoward circumstances and hard trials which I had already experienced through the many stages of my life, I surmised a halt here would not be amiss, as it is a mere step of self-denial and of biding my time” for new opportunities.\n\nHe regarded Hongkong as a good listening post for “anything fresh that may be turned up at any time in the colonies in which I am more or less interested.”\n\n**\n\nThe only thing that turned up was the opportunity in 1870 and 1871 to despatch groups of emigrants to New Zealand. He did hear, however, that the Fiji islands might be an area seeking Chinese labour, and in a letter to Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1871, he suggested that “should any of your well-to-do companies desire to embark their surplus capital in speculating upon Chinese labour for that quarter, perhaps you will not fail in recommending me to the post of agency for the procuring of the labour.\"\n\nIn 1872, he resigned his post in the Hongkong Registrar-General's office. His activities as an emigrant agent placed him in a position open to a conflict of interests. There was also a rumour that he had been having some shady dealings with the Chinese Customs authorities.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211129, "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-1987", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "165\n\nencountered was resisted and resented.\n\nIt was an accepted maxim that the prosperity of Hongkong was dependent on its status as a free port. Any interference with the trade of Hongkong was a threat.\n\nThe fact that China was within its legal rights to levy duties on goods carried in Chinese junks and to collect these duties within its own waters carried little weight with Hongkong merchants who felt that China was slowly stifling the business life of the port.\n\nThe frustrations created fed upon a deeper insecurity. The foreigner in China has been slow in cultivating a spirit of sympathy and understanding towards the Chinese.\n\nMany came to China with a feeling of superiority which imposed a wall between them and the mass of the people among whom they resided.\n\nOne expression of this insecurity was the desire to maintain a certain image of the foreigner. The image was of a person whose standard of living was above the common lot, who did not engage in manual labour, and who embodied the best features of a superior civilisation. Aspects of this image still linger in Hongkong.\n\nThe presence of fellow-foreigners who did not live up to these standards was an embarrassment.\n\nChina employed foreigners in its customs service and on its revenue cruisers. Those in high position generally conformed to the image the foreigner wished to uphold among the Chinese, but a different type of person filled more lowly positions.\n\nSome Westerners in the employ of the Chinese were from a group of ne'er-do-wells that drifted through the tropics. They were the nineteenth century prototype of the modern roaming hippie.\n\nThe Chinese had first begun employing such people at the time of the Tai Ping rebellion in the 1850s.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211135, "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-1987", "page_number": 196, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "171\n\nIn his memorandum to the Foreign Office, the British Minister at Peking, Sir Thomas Francis Wade, reviewed the whole problem of customs collections as it related to Hongkong from the time of the treaty revision in 1868.\n\nHe remarked: \"The sum of my propositions from first to last was that we should either retrocede Hongkong to the Chinese Government or that we should allow the Chinese Government to establish a branch of the Customs Inspectorate in Hongkong; either concession, of course, to be purchased of us by a counter-concession to the general advantage of British trade with China, the particular advantage to Colonial Trade being the reduction to a minimum of the interference of the Chinese Revenue Service with native craft.”\n\nHongkong residents naturally would have considered the British Minister's suggestion of giving Hongkong back to China as a betrayal and sell-out. In their view it would totally discredit British prestige. One wonders if Wade was really serious in his suggestion.\n\nHe interpreted the conclusions of the Hongkong Commission as a denial of the right of the Chinese Government to search vessels of its own people on the high seas, or in its own waters if such vessels were within 10 miles of Hongkong.\n\nAs a diplomat, Wade believed some concessions were needed. Britain should do what it could to ensure that China received whatever duties it might levy on goods leaving or arriving on its shores, even though they passed through Hongkong.\n\nRobertson at Canton also advocated conciliation. He charged Hongkong with viewing the problem too narrowly: \"There are other interests of more importance than the interests of local trade which seem to be forgotten in the battle for local interests, and I fear if the report of the committee be published the Chinese authorities, knowing it was appointed by the Colonial Government, may consider that the strong expressions of opinion it contains are sanctioned by the Executive, and this may tend to interrupt the entente cordiale which is so important to maintain.\" He was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211255, "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-1987", "page_number": 316, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "291\n\nFinally, as I have mentioned above, the Peel Street shrine was developed by Hoklo speakers living in and around this older part of Central District. This prompts me to add a few more words about them. Hoklo speakers in Hong Kong were, and still are, a distinctive group. I have been friends with a number of them since the mid 1960s, when the caretaker of the block of flats in which we were then living at Mount Austin, who was one of them, introduced me to a growing circle of his fellow countrymen. Others introduced themselves! I was always glad to meet more members of this interesting group of people, whose attachment to their home area and its customs has been of special and abiding interest to me. Many belong to groups centered on new shrines and temples, developed in the manner described above. In fact, my caretaker friend has long been a leader at the Peel Street shrine and has a connection with another Hoklo temple in Sau Mau Ping, in East Kowloon. Others are connected with them in other places, and have spent years in their service.\n\nThese two accounts are based on notes taken in 1974.\n\nHong Kong, November 1988\n\nJAMES HAYES", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211257, "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-1987", "page_number": 318, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "293\n\nPamela Atwell had taken it for granted that her readers had not needed any such historical background information. The story of Weihaiwei under British administration during this highly turbulent era as well as its return to Chinese rule was the focus of her research, embracing hundreds of documents in the Public Records Office in London, a number of unpublished private papers in England and Scotland, as well as sources in Japanese and Chinese but not Chinese archival documents.\n\nA meticulous researcher and skilful writer who also provided the readers with clear and interesting photographs, Dr. Atwell has produced a book that is a joy to behold indeed, both for the specialist reader and the non-specialist. She has shown admirable understanding of Chinese institutions and British thinking, and thus has recreated an area that had needed a thorough examination by historians looking at imperialism in China. Dr. Atwell has found, for instance, that the leasing of Weihaiwei was not a simple and straightforward matter. The Chinese had first proposed the leasing through Robert Hart of the Imperial Customs Service and Ambassador MacDonald at Peking to a reluctant British cabinet. Then, even as the British cabinet were being convinced of the value of leasing Weihaiwei, the Chinese had second thoughts. Together with other diplomatic and political complications, it was not until 24 May 1898, after the Japanese forces withdrew, that the British ensign was finally hoisted over the port.\n\nResearching as a political scientist, Dr. Atwell's major interests resided in the juxtaposition of government authorities. She had observed that the British administration at Weihaiwei was noteworthy in several ways. The British never claimed sovereignty over the port. They had maintained that Weihaiwei \"remained part of a foreign country within which Britain exercised legal jurisdiction, but it was not a colony and the Chinese living there were not British citizens.\" (p. 12). British administrators were simply superimposed over traditional Chinese rural community elders and magistrates who represented the central government in these localities.\n\nEarly conflicts over such issues as taxes and militia were resolved when Britain began to send civilian commissioners experienced...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211327, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "19\n\nAgreement reached, Po-Kuei was formally installed on the ninth of January 1858. Unfortunately, he arrived a bit late for the ceremony having been somewhat tardily released from the allied stockade. For the allied commanders, the real goal now was to ensure that the new allied commission they had planned would be able to supervise Po-Kuei's administration of the city.\n\n \n\n12\n\nHaving decided, despite reservations, to rely on the local mandarins to administer Canton, the military commanders, Sir Charles van Straubenzee and M. D'Abouville, the French commander, decided to appoint a mixed commission of military and consular officials to supervise the city's Chinese administration. The proposed commission was to have three members, two of whom would be military. They were to be assisted by an English language secretary and another proficient in Chinese. Additionally, the French commissioner was expected to be aided as well by at least one, perhaps two, French language secretaries. Provisions were made to hire a treasurer as well as various coolies, cooks, and jailers. They also hoped to hire three Chinese translators, though it would actually be some months before competent linguists, men like Robert Hart, later known for his leadership of the Chinese Customs, arrived to help. Salaries were set by the occupation council made up of the military commanders as well as the expedition's political leadership, Lord Elgin and Baron Gros. Moving to implement their plans, they went on to name three individuals to serve as commissioners. For the British, Harry Parkes, of the consular service, and Colonel Holloway were selected, while Captain Martineau de Chesnez was selected by the French. Parkes, although ostensibly equal in official duties, was the only one of the commissioners who actually spoke Chinese and thus had a clear advantage over his colleagues. The French, concerned as well that Captain de Chesnez's relatively low rank vis-à-vis his colleagues could be a problem, soon moved to have him promoted. The commission, as the next months would reveal, was to serve primarily as an intermediary between the local Chinese leadership and the allied military commanders who held the real power over the occupied city.\n\n \n\n15\n\nIt should not be assumed, however, as some writers have, that the Chinese served as mere puppets under the foreigners. It is obvious from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211338, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "30\n\nhad already departed. Of the original allied commissioners, only Harry Parkes was still there for the final ceremony which included a tri-national group of Chinese, French, and British dignitaries.\n\nIf the allied occupation of Canton was not as uneventful as some historical accounts record, it nevertheless had very successful elements to it and may have had an influential impact on future Sino-European relations. At least two employees of the Allied Commission, Robert Hart and Prosper Giquel, both young men at the time, went on to play major roles in future Sino-European co-operative ventures later in the century, Robert Hart as the famous director of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service and Prosper Giquel as the future European Director of the Foochow Dockyard and eventually head of several Sino-European Educational Missions of the 1870s and 1880s. That their earlier experiences had been in the somewhat more co-operative world of the Sino-European police forces and the Sino-European coolie emigration inspection teams is certainly likely to have proved significant in the careers of these two men who were later so much more able than most of their countrymen to work with the Chinese on an equal basis.\n\nNOTES\n\nAbbreviations\n\nAE Archives de la Ministère des Affaires Etrangères\n\nCCC Correspondence consulaire et commerciale\n\nCP Correspondence politique, Chine\n\nArmee Les Archives de l'Armee de Terre, Vincennes\n\nFO British Foreign Office\n\nPRO British Public Record Office\n\nSHM Service Historique de la Marine, Vincennes\n\nAN Archives Nationales\n\nRanbir Vohra, China's Path To Modernization: A Historical Review from 1800 to the Present (New Jersey, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1987) citing Christopher Hibbert, The Dragon Awakes. China and the West 1793-1911 (N.Y., Harper and Row, 1970), p. 229.\n\n2 Douglas Hurd, The Arrow War, Anglo-Chinese Confusion 1856-1860 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1967), pp. 121-125 and Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 121-125.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211419, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 135, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "111\n\nTwo other physicians, one Japanese trained in Japan and one American trained in the United States, were also denied entry. Butterfield and Swire contested this decision in court; the court not only ruled against the company, but also made it pay a fine. Uncle felt he had to return to private practice because he had a family to support, even though he would have liked to study for two more years, and decided to go back to Shanghai where Western medicine was becoming more accepted among the Chinese residents.\n\nAlthough Uncle was proficient in Chinese, in preparation for an imperial examination (I believe this was one of the last imperial examinations held) for students who had studied abroad, he sought tutoring in the language and in the use of interjections. He passed the examinations and, according to Toby, he was awarded the degree of chü-jen. However, as I recall it, Father told me that Uncle received the degree of chin-shih; but would have been awarded a higher honour if his Chinese had been a little better. We have a copy of a photograph of him and the other recipients in their ceremonial caps and gowns taken in Peking. For Uncle, his family and his clansmen, it was an honour indeed and there was much rejoicing when he returned to Shanghai. His one regret was that he could not see clearly the Kuang-hsu Emperor (1875-1908) during the ceremonial awards, for although near-sighted, he was not allowed to wear his glasses in the imperial presence.\n\nOut of a sense of civic duty, Uncle served as medical officer for both the Customs Service and the Post Office in Shanghai, from 1916 until 1925 when he retired. When we visited him in 1919, his home was on Hankow Road. He later invested in real estate in the Chapei district and moved to Darrock Road, but all of his real property was taken over by the Japanese, and then by the Communists. When the Japanese invaded Shanghai, Uncle and Aunt moved south to live in Macau where he had become a Portuguese citizen earlier, and also in Hong Kong where he owned another home. When the war ended, they returned to Shanghai to live with their second son, Ting Hing R (Charles), and in 1948 visited with Toby in Taiwan for several months. When the Communists took over, they did not dare venture out of their home. Uncle died in 1953 at the age of 83, and Aunt a half year later in 1954 at the age of 81.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211422, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "114\n\nGeorgette, herself a lawyer, married Iu Bing Leong, also a lawyer. Because he had been involved with the Nationalists in a minor role, he left his wife and daughter for the United States upon the rise of the Communists and is reported to be living with another woman, a fact that has deeply wounded Georgette, who has remained in Shanghai, ill with cancer.\n\nMoo Yun was a beautiful girl and while still young, married well. However, after a brief marriage, she was divorced and became dependent on her parents until she died after a goitre operation in Canton in 1934.\n\nMoo Sau, a graduate of Lingnan University, teaches in Hong Kong. She married a dancing instructor, who died in 1974, and is the one to keep her siblings informed of each other's doings.\n\nTing Cheong was 'given' posthumously to Father, who had taken a liking to the boy when they first met in 1919 and had suggested the possibility to Mother before he died. A male heir must have been important to him. Mother tried to be fair with her meagre resources by contributing to his schooling and sent whatever money she could spare from time to time, including a share of what Grandfather left Father. Uncle, in fairness to all his children, pooled what he received from Mother with his own assets in order that all of his children would share equally in his estate. We saw little of Ting Cheong and know less about him as an individual. He seemed shy and retiring, a man of few words. I often wonder if he resented being 'adopted out', even though this was in name only and as a gesture of love between brothers. Ting Cheong had had no say in the matter.\n\nI seem to recall that Ting Cheong had some training in the Customs Service in Peking before he was accepted and sent to the Customs Service in Canton, where he remained until 1949. He was 'punished' together with his colleagues for crime by association, rather than by evidence, because of the corrupt reputation of the service. Later he was allowed to work in Hainan Island until he obtained permission to move to Canton in 1978. He was given a small pension upon retirement, barely adequate for his needs. He and his concubine lived with his elder daughter until his unexpected death of tuberculosis on 25 June 1979. His first wife predeceased him and his four children are by his second wife. They are:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211496, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 212, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "188\n\nLet everyone bear in mind that nothing is to be rejected - a pamphlet, a newspaper, nay a handbill, which to the ordinary reader is no more than a valueless scrap of paper, may become, in the hands of the searcher, the means of an important discovery.\"\n\nUntil his departure from China in 1876, Cordier worked hard to build up the society's collection. He arranged exchanges of publications with other societies around the world and he regularly canvassed local foreign residents and members for donations. He was able to get, at no cost to the society, the British Parliamentary papers concerning China, Customs Service reports and other governmental publications, and a full run of the Shanghai Evening Courier. But in spite of his obvious successes, his last annual report revealed some frustration:\n\nDuring the last five years, the Society has endeavoured to enlist public sympathy and patronage to a greater extent, pointing out the wants of the Library in its annual reports; but the various appeals made have not fully realized the looked-for result. Unremitting attention and care have been bestowed upon the Library of the Asiatic Society; but the time thus spent, if not responded to on the part of the community, by a show of interest in its only literary and scientific institution, is uphill work, and naturally becomes disheartening.\n\nThat the Library meets a real want is proved by the great increase in the number of works consulted or lent out, as shown by the register kept for the purpose.\"\n\nHowever, when looking back thirty years later, Cordier spoke of \"the pleasant feelings I have in my heart in speaking of these days of yore\", and he acknowledged that his work with the society's library laid the groundwork for his career as a sinologist.2\n\nCordier was replaced by a German named Joseph Haas, who seemed to have been more concerned with keeping books than acquiring them. His annual reports were filled with items such as:\n\n \n \n :\n ¦", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211499, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "191\n\n24\n\nacquire new books. Everything seemed to be going well until the outbreak of World War I. Mrs. Ayscough's 1917 report summarized those war years!\n\n+\n\nThe continuance of the abnormal conditions caused by the war have rendered the normal development of libraries impossible; all exchanges from Europe are irregular in their arrival, and those from enemy countries arrive not at all.\n\nThat interest in Far Eastern affairs is greater than of yore is evidenced by the fact that the library is used by resident members, while those members who live in the interior, seem more and more anxious to avail themselves of the privileges granted to those who pay the registered postage on books they desire to take from the library,\n\n25\n\nOnce the war ended, the library rebounded quickly. To increase donations of new books, the society decided to review only those books which had been deposited in the library and letters to that effect were sent to publishers in Europe and America. About this time Samuel Couling, author of the Encyclopedia Sinica, wrote:\n\n26\n\nThe Royal Asiatic Society Library in Shanghai can have nothing said against it but one thing. It is admirably catalogued and attended to, the room is comfortable, and it is generously kept open during long hours for the studious public. Its only fault is that ... its outlay on books must be limited, so that although it possesses many works of great value there is always the chance that the very book a student needs most is not there. The library is a credit to the Society rather than to the public spirit of Shanghai.”\n\nThe fifth edition of the catalogue was printed in 1921, this time in shelflist order, and showed 3,092 titles, up by almost one-third from the last catalogue of 1909. The range of publications was impressive. In addition to the expected monographs and journals, there were extensive document holdings issued by the Shanghai Municipal Council, including minutes of the ratepayer's meetings, Water Works reports, Recreation Fund reports; publications of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service including tariff tables, lists of lighthouses, buoys, and markers, trade", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211992, "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": 407, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "382\n\nRobert Hart, Bart., GCMG Inspector General of Customs and Post, Peking [set in hard bound volume] + photograph and clippings re Congress (CARTON 1)\n\nWedding picture of European couple with Chinese mandarin guests (CARTON 2)\n\nConferences (CARTON 2)\n\nInteriors (CARTONS 1 and 2)\n\n1 red invitation in English to Hart from Viceroy of Chihli to dinner at the \"Naval Secretariate” (sic) 23 Feb 1894 (CARTON 3)\n\nList of mourners (CARTON 3)\n\nNOTES\n\nE. SINN\n\n1\n\n2\n\nThese notes are partially based on notes previously prepared by the Rev. Carl Smith.\n\nRobert Hart was Inspector-General of the Chinese Maritime Customs, 1863-1907. See Juliet Bredon, Sir Robert Hart: The Romance of a Great Career (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1909); Stanley Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs (Belfast: Wm. Mullen & Sons, 1950); John King Fairbank et al., eds. The I.G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press at the Harvard University Press, 1975); Katherine F. Bruner et al., eds. Entering China's Service. Robert Hart's Journals, 1854-1863 (Cambridge, Mass. & London, Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1986).\n\n3\n\nHere, Hart refers to Sir Robert Hart; Robert refers to his grandson.\n\nA SONG FROM SHA TAU KOK ON THE 1911 REVOLUTION\n\nVery few documents remain from the New Territories which refer to the 1911 Revolution, or which display any interest in the political disputes which lead up to it. One revolutionary document, a ferocious anti-Manchu and anti-Kang Yu-wei pamphlet, survives among the Yung Sze-chiu papers from North Sai Kung,1 and must represent a type of revolutionary ephemera to be found in the area at that date but no longer remembered - Yung Sze-chiu presumably picked it up in his local market town of Sai Kung about 1908. In general, however, local sources, both written and oral, pay little attention to the Revolution.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212024, "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": 439, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "414\n\nThe British stayed at Weihaiwei until 1930, when it was returned to Chinese administration. During the interim, the Kaiser and the Tsar had collapsed and China had gone through the Boxer uprising, a series of reforms, a revolution that toppled the Ch'ing dynasty, a period of disunity and warlord rule, and, finally, the establishment of the National Government at Nanking led by Chiang Kai-shek in 1927. The rise of Chinese nationalism increased demand for return of all foreign concessions in China, including Weihaiwei.\n\nPamela Atwell has taken it for granted that her readers do not need any historical background information. The story of Weihaiwei under British administration during this highly turbulent era as well as its return to Chinese rule was the focus of her research, embracing hundreds of documents in the Public Records Office in London, a number of unpublished private papers in England and Scotland, as well as sources in Japanese and Chinese but not Chinese archival documents.\n\nA meticulous researcher and skilful writer who also provided the readers with clear and interesting photographs, Dr. Atwell has produced a book that is a joy to behold, both for specialist readers and non-specialists. She has shown admirable understanding of Chinese institutions and British thinking, and thus has recreated an area that had needed a thorough examination by historians looking at imperialism in China. Dr. Atwell has found, for instance, that the leasing of Weihaiwei was not a simple and straightforward matter. The Chinese had first proposed the leasing through Robert Hart of the Imperial Customs Service and Ambassador MacDonald at Peking to a reluctant British cabinet. Then, after the British cabinet were convinced of the value of leasing Weihaiwei, the Chinese had second thoughts. Together with other diplomatic and political complications, it was not until 24 May 1898, after the Japanese forces withdrew, that the British ensign was finally hoisted over the port.\n\nResearching as a political scientist, Dr. Atwell's major interests were in the juxtaposition of government authorities. She had observed that the British administration at Weihaiwei was noteworthy in several ways. The British never claimed sovereignty over the port. They maintained that Weihaiwei \"remained part of a foreign country within which Britain exercised legal jurisdiction, but it was not a colony and the Chinese living there were not British citizens\", (p. 12), British administrators were simply superimposed over traditional Chinese rural", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212027, "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": 442, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "417\n\ninterested in modern China or who are interested in the British in Asia. Dr. Atwell has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of how the British administered one small locality and coped with the demands of modern forces. Her work can be used as a guide or spring board for comparison of British colonial policy in other East Asian places, such as Brunei and the Straits Settlements, Hankow, Tientsin and Shanghai, say, with Hong Kong tossed in for good measure.\n\nWEI PEH T'I, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong\n\nSteven A. Leibo, Transferring Technology to China, Prosper Giquel and the Self-strengthening Movement, China Research Monograph 28, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1985.\n\nProsper Giquel, edited by Steven A. Leibo, A Journal of the Chinese Civil War 1864. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1985.\n\nThese two works, one of compilation and assessment based on a doctoral dissertation, the other of translation (with the help of Debbie Weston) and annotation with a lengthy introduction, have a considerable intrinsic interest because they deal with a rather extraordinary man. They have also a degree of relevance, over a century later, for the West's involvement with present day China's modernizing programme.\n\nThey are to be read in conjunction with other modern works on this period of China's self-strengthening efforts, including those listed in Dr. Leibo's introduction to Transferring Technology.\n\nProsper Giquel, a French naval officer, came to China during the Second China War. After service with the Joint Commission that guided the administration of the city of Canton during its four year occupation by the Allies, during which he laid the foundations of his knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ningpo. When that city was captured by the Taiping Army, he assisted the Sino-French \"Ever Triumphant Army” to recapture it, and later commanded it in the operations that led to the recapture of Hangzhou, for which he received high rank and honours from the appreciative Ch'ing government. Contacts made during this time led to employment after the Rebellion, in and outside China, that lasted until his death in France in 1886. His principal achievement was the construction and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212171, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "90\n\nbrought in own friends and those displaced, however capable, had to go out to find jobs elsewhere. It made for loyalties on a personal as opposed to a national scale.\n\nThe Customs service, under foreign supervision, was the first to produce a cadre of permanent officials, and other government departments now set out to follow that example. Yet it should be remembered that relationships in China are still almost exclusively on a personal basis. If I have some business to transact, and if I know the right man, it will probably be easy to arrange; but if I do not know the right man, or have not got friends who can give me the proper introductions, then my business will almost certainly languish indefinitely. Personal relations are important anywhere in the world; in China they are more important than anywhere else.\n\nIt was, however, in communications that the greatest advances had been made by the new government. Railways were in course of construction under capable Chinese engineers, trained for the most part in the United States; and a network of roads began to spread in all directions, linking remote and backward country towns with the progressive markets on the coast. The telegraph achieved popularity, and the long-distance telephone. Broadcasting stations were erected at a number of places; over these news and views went out in a common dialect, which was compulsorily taught in the schools, and concurrently the simplification of the written style in the newspapers led to the spread of a language understood throughout the country. So in many directions the new developments worked to break down the old partitions.\n\nA proportion of the national revenue had been spent in improving the amenities of the capital: wide thoroughfares were cut through the old native city: magnificent government offices rose here and there, topping happily the concrete styles of New York with the curved roofs of Cathay: the electricity supply was good: water was laid on. In the residential district elegant houses vied in diversity of design. The roads streamed with traffic, and the very latest in ferries carried trains across the Yangtze.\n\nIn the large treaty ports it was difficult for foreigners and Chinese to mix. Habits were too different. The Chinese like to drink with their meals; the foreigner likes to drink before he eats. The foods they", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212733, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 42, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "27\n\nrendered eminent service to the Imperial cause. The Double Dragon Jewelled Star (Shuang-lung Pao-hsing) was, he repeated, conferred on him in Kueichou during his first campaign in that province (1867-1869). He described it in his second note as consisting of a pure heavy gold [2oz or more] medal rather than a star, about one and a half inches in diameter, with a hole in the centre about half an inch in diameter, filled by a light sapphire globe revolving on a gold pin inserted through it. On one side were two dragons in high relief, on the other, four characters, also in high relief, viz. Ta-Ch'ing Feng-tseng meaning 'a title of honour bestowed by the Ch'ing dynasty'. The jewelled globe in the centre was intended to represent the light blue button and rank of colonel which Mesny then held. Had the medal been conferred by the Emperor, Mesny added, he would have worn it in Europe in 1878 but as it was the gift of a provincial viceroy he did not. Mesny also wrote that he preferred his ordinary Chinese rank and decorations, the Flowery Plume or single-eyed Peacock's Feather and, later, the ordinary order of Pa-t'u-lu with special designation of Ying yung, the Penetrating Knight, awarded to him by the Emperor.\n\nMayers, again, in The Chinese Government wrote about this minor award;\n\n'Isolated distinctions have indeed been conferred in China on foreigners of various nationalities, principally for services rendered in the command of drilled troops during the Taiping rebellion, and subsequently in the collection of the Customs revenue, which are known, with reference to the European term 'star', by the designation pao-hsing; but as these are bestowed, for the most part, by provincial authorities, and without the sanction of any established rule or recognised statutes, such as are required to constitute what is commonly known as an 'Order', the badges thus conferred can scarcely be regarded as having any real value as authentic marks of distinction.'\n\nMesny was recommended for 4th Degree civil rank in 1866 which, if it had been awarded, would have entitled him to wear a mandarin square 'wild goose' breast badge. He recorded that the fourth degree civil rank had the right to wear and were distinguished by a dark blue button on their official cap. The embroidered robe, mang pao, had but eight dragons with five claws on each foot. The dress badge worn by civil officers and all ladies of their class and degree bore the semblance of a swan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212741, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 50, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Bearing in mind that much of what he claimed was written from either notes or memory between the ages of 53 to 63, the almost obsessive way he describes the semi-nudity of the girls from the minority Miao suggests that he must have been sex-starved, a red-blooded young man, and a lone Westerner amongst an army of Chinese. Mesny described various tribes and sub-groups of non-Chinese and their customs in some detail in his articles in the Miscellanies, though he did seem to be more interested in their love life and marriage customs than, for example, births and deaths.\n\nHis description of the 'fair maidens' en route during his treks in central China eyeing him and he ogling them are frequent, with no lack of comment on their bare bosoms in particular and occasionally their genitalia. These were, as one would expect in Kueichou province at that time, not Han Chinese but tribeswomen from the Chuang, Lolo, Miao, and other tribes. He also allowed himself the pleasure of preening before them and, in one instance, washed the upper part of his body, combed his beard, and brushed his hair in full view of the local ladies who, he believed, 'expressed great admiration' for him. He was 36 at the time and ostensibly unmarried, though we suspect that he had already taken a Chinese lady to wife by Chinese rites.\n\nMesny, on the subject of marriage, made much of the fact that he very nearly became the son of a Cantonese millionaire named Huang, conditional on Mesny changing his name to Huang. This apparently took place in Hong Kong shortly after he had arrived in the Far East, in 1861, when he was still under the age of twenty and a turn-key at a Hong Kong gaol. It is hard to believe that a wealthy Chinese would be so desperate to acquire a foreign son-in-law, though we know no more than Mesny has seen fit to tell us. In the event, the marriage did not take place, and though he does no more than hint at it by stating that something unforeseen had turned up, it would seem more than likely that his dismissal from the Hong Kong Prison Service had something to do with it. He was then nearly ensnared by a Chinese friend who wished him to marry his sister. Mesny, however, claimed to have declined to be a party to any scheme depriving another man of his prospective wife, as she had been betrothed to a young man in accordance with the custom of the country. Mesny added that he did not wish to break the law, even if it meant hurting the feelings of the Chinese friend who, in Mesny's words, was 'no ordinary personage, in the common sense of the word, and the [proposed] voyage up the Yangtze with him gave promise of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212746, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "40\n\nin\n\nwould have been 20 when her father left Shanghai. She presumably remained there until she married in 1917. We know that Marie, in her middle age in Jersey, never referred ever to her time in China nor to her mother. If the subject ever arose, even with close relatives in Jersey, she promptly changed the subject. The only time she ever let slip anything about life in China was when the Chinese silken slippers were produced and she told her second cousin once removed that when her father, William Mesny, returned from a distant and lengthy trek, he found that his Chinese wife had bound her (Marie's) feet in accordance with custom. He ordered them to be unbound at once and never to be bound again. Incidentally, he wrote in his Miscellany in 1896, when Marie would have been two, that “... women must cease to cramp their feet: crippled women cannot produce healthy and hardy children.”\n\nIn 1905, writing about Eurasians, when his son would be 20 and his daughter about 10, he wrote 'the only prospects of a future easy life for the Eurasians in Shanghai are to be trained for service in foreign houses; the boys as clerks and such like, the girls as mistresses at least, though of late a good many of them have been induced to demand marriage and have succeeded in obtaining it.' There was little future in China for people of mixed blood, especially in the twenties and thirties of this century, and none outside it. Mesny's daughter's extreme sensitivity about her mixed blood simply reflects the era in which she lived.\n\nMesny's Knowledge of Things Chinese\n\nThere is no doubt that Mesny's knowledge of Chinese life, customs, history, geography, etc. was extremely wide, bolstered, understandably, by works written by other foreigners, such as the Chinese Reader's Manual by W F Mayers, which is quoted from extensively. He went to some pains to explain that he saw as one of his responsibilities the importance of him educating both Chinese and foreigners in each other's cultures.\n\nMesny was not backward in expressing his views and opinions on all matters to do with China, be they economic, political, religious, social, or personal, occasionally echoing those of the few like-minded foreigners who professed that westerners, and in the case of Mesny, the British in particular, were well-intentioned in what they were doing in China but mistaken in their political and religious views, policies, and convictions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212755, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "49\n\nDespite the feeling we have acquired simply from his own writings that he had many acquaintances and few friends, that he was neither a European nor a Chinese and was held at arms length by both, that he was God's gift to the girls, that he offered guidance and good advice with great foresight to the Chinese, and was either ignored or his ideas purloined by others, the obituaries, possibly following a policy of avoiding speaking ill of the dead, described him as ‘a great traveller, a great scholar, a soldier, an author and publisher. A cheery man who most people knew, who at 77 walked briskly to and from his office, beloved by many, although not rich in the world's goods he was always ready to help others, and was of a very cheerful disposition. He endured many shrewd blows of fortune but always came up smiling.'\n\nHe must have been regarded both in Shanghai and in Hankow as an eccentric and colourful old man. Everyone would know of him but to what extent he was accepted socially we shall probably never know unless, that is, someone's private correspondence in which he is mentioned comes to light.\n\nNOTES\n\nMason was a young British official in the Chinese Customs on the Yangtze who organised the shipment of arms to and became involved with Nien rebels. Mesny, who knew nothing of Mason's schemes and plot, found himself officially ostracised after being accused by Li Hung-chang of being a rebel leader.\n\nIt is strange that there appears to be no reference to the typhoon in the available Shanghai papers of the day. Also, in view of his complaints about people's refusal to face up to disaster by taking out insurance, why did he not have the Rink insured? Probably, considering his circumstances, he was unable to afford the premium.\n\nThe Tsar-li Hui has been variously described as a minor religious cult, in Shantung province in particular, or as survivors of the White Lotus Society, an anti-dynastic body since its foundation in the fourteenth century through to its final defeat in Shansi in 1815. A number of members then joined the Nien revolt, and here we have a link perhaps between Li Hung-chang's accusation that Mesny was a leader of a Nien rebels during the Mason case.\n\n$\n\nMesny's Chinese Miscellany: Volume 2 item 1431 page 362\n\nBat'uru: 'A kind of Manchu Distinguished Service Order [DSO]' Johnston RF Lion and Dragon in Northern China. Murray: London 1910\n\nWilliam Mesny always referred to himself as 'Knight Ying of the Pa-t'u-lu' BA\n\nThis decoration was intended to correspond to European Orders [sic].\n\nGarrett, Valery M Mandarin Squares. Oxford University Press. Hong Kong. 1990", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212767, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "61\n\nNovember 1862\n\n1863 March\n\n1863 May 1864 April\n\n1864\n\n1864-1865\n\n1867 Winter\n\n1867\n\nhis junk and three others\n\nCaptured at Fu-shan-chan by Taiping rebels. Mesny held first in Soochow and Chang-shu, then at Pao-ying the Taiping camp, and finally in Nanking\n\nRescued by Adkins, the British Consul at Chin-kiang aboard HMS Slaney and taken back to Chin-kiang\n\nJoined Chinese Imperial Customs Service, Hankow\n\nResigned from Customs Service after fourteen months Involved in cotton broking\n\nEstablished the Hankow Horse Bazaar, a private hotel in Hankow, and set up Hupei Iron and Brassworks, Han-yang Romantic interlude with a Chinese widow in Hankow Mesny called on Tso Tsung-tang during the latter's visit to Hankow and was appointed his French and English Secretary, and was further offered the opportunity to accompany Tso on his campaign to the Northwest. Mesny also claimed that he had made recommendations to Marquis Tso Tsung-tang for a number of undertakings to help modernise China\n\nSold the Huper Iron and Brassworks to officials of the Viceroy of Szechuan province\n\nMesny's trek to war\n\n1868 June\n\nLate July or early August Late August\n\nSeptember\n\nLeft Hankow, after five year's residence, for Szechuan to become a drill instructor with the Szechuan Force\n\nArrived Chungking\n\nDeparted Chungking for Kueichou to join the Szechuan Force suppressing the Miao rebellion: he accepted employment as a military instructor (wu-chiao hsi)\n\nArrived Niu-ch'ang, the headquarters of the Szechuan Force in Kueichou\n\nSeptember 1868-May 1874 Involved in the military campaigns to suppress the Miao\n\nThe Advance: Late Summer 1868-March 1869\n\n1869\n\nPromoted Colonel, awarded the Star of China and the Flowery Plume The Retreat: Summer 1869-Summer 1870 1870/1871\n\n1871\n\n1872\n\nHelped form a joint stock company in Kuei-yang to \"recover mercury\"\n\nThe Withdrawal: mid-August 1870-Lunar New Year 1871\n\nca 1873\n\n1873\n\n1874 Spring\n\nEstablished a small day school for poor boys and girls in the Jade Emperor temple in Kuei-yang, importing suitable books and paying a Chinese teacher, a struggling student painter, Chin Yü-t'ang Siege of Hsin-ch'eng in upper Kueichou (Mesny involved in preparations for the siege during 1871)\n\nWent to Szechuan with General Chou Ta-wu\n\nPromoted Major-General and awarded the Ying-yung Pa-t'u-lu Left Kueichou for Szechuan: Margary expected to meet Mesny in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212797, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 106, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "91\n\nHart, Sir Robert [1835-1911]\n\nKnown as the \"I G” [Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs]. His Bureau was the one financial stay and prop, the negotiable asset, the one honestly administered and creditable branch within the Imperial government. He left the British Consular Service in 1861 to join the Customs Service, appointed I G in 1863.\n\nHill, David [1840-1896]\n\nWesleyan missionary stationed in Hankow until 1867. Died of typhus in Hankow. Hill was not only a witness with Griffith John at the re-marriage of William Mesny's brother's widow to E.G. Wilson in October 1884; he was also guardian with William Mesny to John's children.\n\nHung Hsiu-ch'uan ## [1813-1864] a Hakka\n\nLeader of the Taiping Rebellion: believed himself to be entrusted as the brother of Jesus to lead China and destroy the Manchu regime. [There is an inexplicable reference in Mesny's Miscellanies to a daughter 'of Hung?' wishing Mesny to return to Nanking to marry her]\n\nGordon, C G [1833-1885]\n\nAn English officer in the Royal Engineers who commanded the 'Ever-Victorious Army' against the Taiping rebels. He was appreciated by the Ch'ing Imperial government and was the first foreigner to be awarded the prestigious Yellow Riding Jacket. He later helped advise the Chinese during the Ili uprising in the early 1880s. He died in Khartoum during the Mahdi Uprising.\n\nJohn, Griffith [1831-1912]\n\nMissionary, LMS, Hankow 1861-1912. (Hill: q.v.)\n\nPrince Kung: also known as I-hsin [1832-1898]\n\nSixth son of the Tao Kuang emperor and half brother of the Hsien Feng emperor. Probably one of the most important Ch'ing dynasty officials in foreign affairs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212802, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "96\n\nCh'in-ch'ai Ta-ch'en ✯✯E : Imperial High Commissioner, a very senior appointment.\n\nEver Victorious Army ET: A European-officered Chinese force of the Imperial Army raised by the American, Ward, which ultimately, under the command of Colonel Gordon, assisted in putting an end to the Taiping Rebellion.\n\nExpectant... (Ho-ju) ✩A : A prefix indicating that an official was qualified and certified to take up duty in the post named.\n\nFan-t'ai #: A provincial treasurer known to foreigners as the Commissioner of Finance; charged with the fiscal or financial administration of a province.\n\nFormosa: The Portuguese name for the island of Taiwan.\n\nHakkas [Ko-chia] ** : One of the southern Chinese ethnic groups said to have migrated from northern China during the Mongol dynasty, ca the thirteenth century AD.\n\nHan-lin Yuan #: The Chinese National Academy, admission to which was the highest literary honour obtainable by a Chinese scholar.\n\nHo-shang : Buddhist monk or priest.\n\nHongkew : Site of the American Settlement in Shanghai, where Mesny later lived.\n\nHsien : Administrative district.\n\nHuang Ma-kua : The Yellow Riding Jacket. A high award from the emperor to his senior officials.\n\nImperial Maritime Customs: Chinese customs service with a foreign inspectorate largely able to control the collection of duties and taxes without the usual Chinese squeeze [q.v.]. Robert Hart became Inspector General in 1863.\n\nJingal (gingal): The Chinese blunderbuss. It was generally fired from a swivel fixed on a wall or wooden post, but sometimes it was fired with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213105, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "155\n\nto the front of the school building, to double the defences of the bridge, probably some time in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.\n\n27\n\nThe building of the gun-towers, the school, the Man Mo Temple and Meeting Hall, and the communal grave, is evidence for the prosperity and vitality of the town, and the village society in which it was set, in the later nineteenth century. By 1904, the market had about doubled in size, and in the number of shops operating, from its situation fifty years earlier. From its foundation in 1830-1835, in fact, the prosperity of the town seems to have increased steadily until 1898, with the only check being the very temporary set-back of the Taiping attack.\n\nThe Market and the New Frontier\n\nThe leasing of the New Territories to Great Britain in 1898 was traumatic for the villagers of the Sha Tau Kok area. The line originally proposed for the new frontier would have run along the Sha Tau Kok River from source to sea. This would have put two of the eleven village alliance areas of the Shap Yeuk into China, the market and the other village alliance areas into the New Territories. This was unacceptable to the Chinese authorities, who were unwilling to allow so significant a place as Sha Tau Kok to become part of the area administered by Britain. Eventually it was agreed that the frontier should run along the Sha Tau Kok River from the source down to the Sha Tau Kok bridge, and then be diverted from the bridge down the centre of the bridge access road to the sluice at Yim Liu Ha, then in a straight line to the sea, and thence east along the high-water mark to the mouth of Mirs Bay.* This line was drawn very close to the northern and western edges of the market. As such it isolated the market from the rest of Chinese territory; its only access was either over the bridge, which was half in Hong Kong, or through Hong Kong territory, or by sea through Hong Kong waters.\n\nIn the late nineteenth century, China controlled imports and exports through customs regulations, enforced by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service. By the drawing of the frontier where it eventually was, the normal, day-to-day trade of Sha Tau Kok market suddenly found itself\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": 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": 213121, "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": 189, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "171\n\nHowever, the move towards Wang Tau Street had only led to building on the area immediately west of the old walled market by 1898. When the gambling house was established in Sha Tau Kok (about 1904), it found the area immediately south of the walls empty and ready for development. This area was quickly built over - a row of houses for prostitutes being built to the east, connected by a new alleyway through the walls with Lower Street, and the gambling house nearby to the west, closer to Wang Tau Street, was a long wooden building, set awkwardly at an angle to the street, which was used as a restaurant serving noodles (especially dog-meat noodles, for which Sha Tau Kok was famous). Between the noodle restaurant and the gambling house Wang Tau Street formed a small irregular triangular open space.\n\nNone of the elders claims to know anything of what the prostitutes' houses were like inside, except to say that it was generally believed that the prostitutes also offered opium to their customers. The prostitutes' houses were small, however, and probably consisted of two main rooms only: a front room where guests could take opium, and a bed-chamber.\n\n4).\n\nThis\n\nMore is remembered about the gambling houses. It was approximately square - about 40 feet by 50 - and two-storeyed. The western part of the ground floor was one big square room, of about 40 feet square. This had doors leading directly to the street on the north (leading to the street of the prostitutes' houses), west (leading to Wang Tau Street), and south (leading to the guesthouses and Customs Station). Of these, the west door was the main one. This ground floor square room was the main gambling hall. It contained four tables, where the game offered was Po Tau (which consisted of the manipulation of small, nested brass boxes). The game was very popular, and the room was often crowded. The eastern side of the ground floor comprises stores, service rooms, and the staircase up to the second floor. This contained (on the east) the residence of the manager, and, on the west, a second gambling hall, with wide windows overlooking Wang Tau Street. This second gambling hall was half the size of the ground floor one, and had two tables, at which Tsz Fa (七花) was offered. In addition, tables for Pai Kau (牌九) were set up in the street outside the main entrance, under an awning. The gambling house was a very prosperous business, and the little open space in front of its door was one of the central spots of the town - wood and grass for fuel were sold here.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213122, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "172\n\nThe guesthouses (), lower down Wang Tau Street from the gambling house, were three-storeyed shop-houses. The ground floor was the residence of the owner; sometimes a small shop was run as well. Above, on the first floor, was a dormitory for villagers and poor travellers staying the night in town. A few large beds stood here - for one or two cents, you could share a bed with whoever else was looking for a place to stay. For the more fastidious and wealthy, small cubicles on the top floor offered privacy and an unshared bed. Military officers visiting the town would stay in these private cubicles. The guesthouses did not serve meals; guests took food at the adjacent noodle restaurant. The 'totally comfortless' guesthouse used by the Basel missionaries in 1859 must have been of this type.\n\nThere was only one full-time opium divan in the market, although opium could be taken in the prostitutes' houses as well. Up until 1917, there had also been several low-class opium divans in sheds in British Sha Tau Kok - these were closed in that year, as part of the agreement to end trade in opium between Hong Kong and China which, it was hoped, would allow the Chinese Government to end all opium imports, and to control the sale of opium in China. The chaos in the border area, however, made it impossible for the trade on the Chinese side of the frontier to be effectively controlled, and the Sha Tau Kok opium divan continued to trade unmolested until 1951. Opium could also be bought for home consumption from the two tobacco shops in the market. These shops were also heavily engaged in smuggling opium into Hong Kong.\n\nNext to the opium divan was the market barber. In 1853 there had only been itinerant barbers in the town. This shop should be seen, to a large degree, as one of the service trades attracted by the opportunities brought about by the new frontier and garrison, like the prostitutes and the gambling house.\n\nBeyond the guesthouses, near the sea, Wang Tau Street was occupied by the fish laans and the Kowloon Customs Station. The Customs Station was rebuilt several times during this period. The Station building in existence in the 1920s was a solidly built, European style, single-storey structure, with a verandah, built of brick and tile. One end was the residence of the Assistant Superintendent. In the middle were the offices, and the barrack quarters for the junior staff were at the further end. The Customs also rented some nearby houses for stores and quarters. After the Station", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213269, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "71\n\nMost Chinese will, however, tell you that a dragon has sinews and veins which can be severed. Blood can be spilled. Thus, when the earth's flesh was pierced, blood, in the form of bright red, ochre-coloured earth, appeared during excavations for the construction of Hong Kong's underground railway in the 1970s. This could mean the time had come for workers to down tools. The evil that might follow had to be averted ritually. Taoist priests would then beat ceremonial gongs and offer prayers to pacify spirits of the earth where the dragon's peace was being destroyed. Exorcism in modern day Hong Kong is by no means uncommon (Raceday rites, 1987). Neither is exorcism uncommon in Christian churches. It is mentioned in the Bible.\n\nOne can compare certain Buddhist, Taoist or folk-religion ceremonies, which purify and bestow blessings, with walking through fields in Europe in springtime while conducting a Christian Rogation Service to ensure a good harvest.\n\nInterestingly, some Chinese came to the conclusion during the last century, that foreigners know far more about fung shui than they are prepared to admit. Otherwise, why would they have picked such a fine site (as it was then) for the Governor's residence? Why would they plant vegetation over the slopes of Victoria Peak in which dwells the resident dragon?\n\nReturning to the cutting edges of the Bank of China: a fung shui master is supposed to adhere to strict ethical standards and not do anything which could be construed as the 'black art'. He should not 'attack' a neighbour. However, in the New Territories, for example, a case where a successful family's fortune has suddenly waned has sometimes been traced to the desecration of an ancestor's grave. As a result, revenge against perpetrators was, in the past, not uncommon.\n\nA buried 'person' needs to 'breathe', and, whether he or she can do this properly or not, affects his or her descendants. Some believed Chiang Kai-Shek's rise to power depended on his mother's fine grave. This, the Communists are said to have dug up.\n\nThe People's Republic's 'Red Guards' went to considerable lengths during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) to destroy the 'Four Olds' (old customs, old habits, old culture, old thoughts). These included fung shui.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213312, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "114\n\nSmith, Michael G. Crystal Power, Llewellyn Publications, 1993\n\nSung, Z.D., The Symbols of 'Yi King' or the Symbols of the Chinese Logic of Changes, The China Modern Education Co., Shanghai, 1934\n\nThe Text of Yi King', The China Modern Education Co, Shanghai, 1935\n\nWalters, Derek, The Fung Shui Handbook: A Practical Guide to Chinese Geomancy, Aquarian Press, London, 1991.\n\nFeng Shui, Pagoda Books, 1988.\n\nWebb, Richard, \"The Village Landscape'. Beyond the Metropolis: Villages in Hong Kong, eds, P.H. Hase and E. Sinn, Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, 1995.\n\nWilliams, C.A.S. Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs, Charles E. Tuttle, USA, 1974\n\n- Outlines of Chinese Symbolism, Hong Kong's Living Environment, Customs College, Peiping, 1931\n\nWilliams, Martin and Richard Webb, 'Rural Landscapes', The Green Dragon, Hong Kong's Living Environment, Green Dragon Publishing, Hong Kong, 1994.\n\nWilson, B.D., 'Notes on Some Chinese Customs in the New Territories', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 23, 1983\n\nWilson, Colin, The Occult, Grafton Books, 1971\n\nYau, Hong-key, Geomantic Relationships, Beliefs, Culture and Nature in Korea, University of California, Berkeley, Chinese Association for Folklore, Corporate Unit Cultural Service, Taipei, 1976.\n\nAcademic Papers, Newspaper and Magazine Articles\n\nAu Yeung, Mabel and Arthur Kan, 'Let the Good Times Roll', Magazine, undated,\n\nChung, Challina, \"Two Lions Wait for their Tryst with Destiny\", Hong Kong Standard, 28 January, 1985\n\n'Countering Fung Shui', Building, Development, Real Estate and Construction Review, South China Morning Post, August 1982", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213390, "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "200\n\nFairbank, John King. The United States and China, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1948\n\nThe Missionary Enterprise in China and America, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1974\n\nFairbank, John K, Katherine Frost Brunet, and Elizabeth MacLeod Matheson, eds, The IG in Peking. Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs 1868–1907, 2 vols, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1975\n\nFay, Peter Ward, The Opium War 1840-1842, Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press, 1975\n\nFenn, William P. The Effect of the Japanese Invasion on Higher Education in China, Kowloon China Institute of Pacific Relations, 1940\n\nChristian Higher Education in Changing China 1880-1950, Grand Rapids (Mich), William B Eerdmans, 1976\n\nFerguson, Mary E. China Medical Board and Peking Union Medical College a Chronicle of Fruitful Collaboration, 1914-1951, New York China Medical Board of New York, 1970\n\nFeuerwerker, Albert, The Foreign Establishment in China in the Early Twentieth Century. Ann Arbor University of Michigan press, 1947\n\n-, 'The Foreign Presence in China', Cambridge History of China, vol 12, 128-207\n\nFishbourne, Edmund Gardiner 1811-1887 (Captain), Impressions of China, and the Present Revolution Its Progress and Prospects, London Seeley et al, 1855\n\nFisher, Arthur A'Court (Lt Col), Personal Narrative of Three Years' Service in China. London Richard Bentley, 1863.\n\nFisher, Emil Sigmund, Travels in China 1894-1940. Tientsin Tientsin press, 1941\n\nFitch, Janet. Foreign Devil, Reminiscences of a China Missionary's Daughter 1909-1935, San Francisco Chinese Materials Center, 1981\n\nFleming, George. Travels on Horseback in Manchu Tartary, London Hurst and Blackett, 1863\n\nFleming, Peter, News From Tartary a Journey from Peking to Kashmir. 1936 (Los Angeles Reprint JP Tarcher, 1982)\n\nOne's Company, New York Scribners 1934\n\n- The Siege at Peking. London Rupert Hart-Davis, 1959 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214300, "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "122\n\nhis birth and childhood, and my favourite stamping ground in China Taiyuan, the capital of Shansi province, to his first wife, the daughter of John Mesny, a junior employee of the Chinese Imperial Customs Service, the life of whose elder brother, William Mesny, was the subject of my earlier research [vide.: my paper in the Journal of the RAS HK Branch: Volume 32, 1992]. Sowerby roamed far and wide throughout northern China before serving for a while in France as an officer with the Chinese Labour Corps [vide: my Note on Chinese Labour Corps Graves in England in the Journal of the RAS HK Branch Volume 29, 1989]. He then visited Fukien province and met Caldwell whose book on the Blue Tigers of that province had intrigued me when I was much younger. Finally, I was drawn to Sowerby's life story because he was not only a dedicated member of the North China Branch of the RAS in Shanghai for whom he wrote prolifically and eventually became its President, an honour he held for some five years, 1935-1940 but also because he produced his fascinating bimonthly journal on both everyday and exotic Chinese subjects. Since his death nearly fifty years ago he has faded into insignificance and is forgotten by all but those who happen to come across his books and journals.\n\nArthur Sowerby was an explorer and author who lived through very exciting times, first as the son of a Christian missionary in the Chinese interior at the time of the decline of the Manchu dynasty, through the Revolution of 1911 and the fall of the Manchu dynasty to the War Lord period during which he roamed some of the more remote areas of northern China. This was followed by the crises and struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists, the incursions and eventual full-scale invasion by the Japanese, his incarceration in an internment camp in Shanghai during the Second World War, ending with learning during his latter years in retirement, first in England and then in the United States, of the Communist victory in 1949 and, just before his death, of the Korean War when China sent its \"Volunteers\" to aid the North Koreans against the South Koreans and their allies which included the Americans and British. During the last thirty-five or so years of his life he suffered great pain wracked as he was by arthritis.\n\nIt was said that he could speak Chinese ‘like a Chinese.' There is no reason to doubt this as he must have learned it at his ayah's knee though he appears never to have made any effort to learn to read and write the language. During his life in China, the next forty or so years,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214310, "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": 168, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "132\n\nArthur Sowerby was recorded in the Directory & Chronicle of China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China, etc. for the years 1932 and 1938 as manager of China Industries Ltd, with an office in Museum Road, Shanghai and in 1938, as a director of the Post-Mercury Company Inc., USA in Avenue Edward VII, also in Shanghai. The latter was involved in printing and advertising.\n\nArthur was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Zoological Society, a member of the RAS North China Branch and also President [1928] of the China Society of Science and Arts [in Shanghai], as well as being Honorary Director of the Shanghai [RAS] Museum.\n\niii\n\nHe married three times, the first time in about 1910, at the age of twenty-five, to Mary Anne Mesny, the daughter of John Mesny of the Chinese Customs Service. She would have been just about the same age as Arthur though more than likely his elder by a few years. She seems to have disappeared from the scene almost immediately, perhaps dying comparatively young but not before she bore him a son. She does not appear in any notes after their marriage even when his parents and sisters were evacuated from Taiyuan to the safety of Tientsin during riots. This suggests that she was no longer present after about 1911 or 1912. As Mary Anne's father, John Mesny, was married to a Chinese lady whom he married in Hankow in 1866, Mary Anne was half-Chinese. This was a time when mixed marriages and even more so, marriage to someone with native blood, was frowned upon by the more bigoted expatriates.\n\nHis second wife, to whom he was married at the age of forty-two in 1927, was Clarice Moise, the American with whom he founded the China Journal. Clarice died in 1944 during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai.\n\nHis third wife was Alice Cowens, an old friend and the lady who had nursed Arthur's brother when he had been gassed during the First World War. She was invited to join Arthur in Shanghai in the Autumn of 1946 at a time when he was too ill to travel back to England alone and promptly flew out, first to Hong Kong and then, five days later, she arrived in Shanghai and married him.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214603, "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": 18, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "first time that an RASHKB representative, in this case your President, has been invited to sit on a government committee of this nature.\n\nThe Branch has also been notified by various bodies who were searching for scholars: for instance the Urban Council which was looking for a Hong Kong Researcher(s) to compile a monograph on the history of the Urban Council. We have also received a number of queries from the media, scholars, students and members of the public. Such queries referred mainly to Hong Kong history, culture or customs. We were generally able to answer such enquiries. Subjects ranged from conditions in prisoner-of-war camps under the Japanese; to the retaking of Hong Kong in 1945 after World War Two; to a doctorate student seeking information about Wei Hai Wei. In another case the business house of Swire was trying to find out where the place, Bak Hin Hok, was. This was found to be, thanks to Dr Joseph Ting, a district in Canton as it was so named a century or so ago. In some cases, with such queries, a number of RAS members and considerable time, research and interviews have been necessary.\n\nThe RASHKB Volunteers\n\nThis working group of well over 20 members on roll has, for much of the year, gone off on expeditions every other week or so, to inspect and report on various buildings or sites. These have included such structures as the old Kai Tak Airport, military installations and Chinese shop-houses. There is no doubt that these inspections, which are another form of community service, are of significant value to the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office to whom reports are submitted. We are grateful to all our Volunteers many of whom put in a considerable amount of time and effort which includes research and writing up reports. A special vote of thanks must go to Bill Greaves and Bob Horsnell, both Chartered Surveyors, historians and long-time residents of Hong Kong, who lead our band of stalwart Volunteers.\n\n'Friends' of the RASHKB\n\nThis group of overseas RASHKB members has completed another successful year in Britain and a report, written by David Gilkes (RASHKB Immediate Past President), the 'Friends' Chairman, has been prepared. Your President was pleased to be able to attend their AGM in\n\nxvii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214930, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 26, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "Activities - Talks\n\nDate\n\n2000\n\nAppendix One\n\nFriday 28 April: Chinese Children's Books, by Don Cohn\n\nFriday 5 May: Recollections of a District Officer in the NT in the 1950s, by Denis Bray\n\nFriday 16 June: Pre-British Kowloon, by Dr Patrick Hase\n\nFriday 25 August: Lantau Mountain Camp, by Geoff Lovegrove\n\nFriday 22 September: The Architecture of the Chi Lin Nunnery at Diamond Hill, by Professor Puay Peng Ho\n\nFriday 27 October: Awards to Britons in the Service of China, by David Mahoney\n\nFriday 10 November: George Smith, Iconoclastic Bishop (1813-1871), by Dr Gillian Bickley and Dr Verner Bickley\n\nFriday 24 November: The Life of Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor, Commissioner of Customs 1857-1938, by Dr Cyril Cannon\n\nSaturday 9 December: Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City. One-day Conference jointly held with HK Museum of History to mark the Society's 40th Anniversary. Speakers: Reverend Carl Smith, Dr Patrick Hase and Tim Ko.\n\n2001\n\nFriday 9 February: Salt Production in the New Territories, by Dr Patrick Hase\n\nXXV", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214993, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 89, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "45\n\nwas selected and marked with the so-called Chinese eyes like those on a sea-going junk. It served with the 6th Battalion first as Fly-paper though subsequently it was re-named Fan-tan. The 6th Battalion later adopted the eyes as a regimental symbol. Mr David Fletcher of the Tank Museum at Bovington, in correspondence with the author, was not aware that this symbol was not generally adopted in the Great War. The 6th ultimately converted to Whippets, on which Mr Fletcher had never seen the Eyes symbol. When the 6th Battalion was disbanded after the Great War its various honours and customs were passed to the 4th Battalion which then adopted the Eyes as a Battalion symbol. The 4th Battalion used it on their vehicles from the 1920s and, when they amalgamated with the 1st Battalion RTR in 1993, it was adopted by them. In the 1930s the 6th Battalion was reconstituted and was still around to take part in the 1956 Suez action and never got back their Eyes symbol!\n\nIn the main exhibition hall of the Imperial War Museum in London there is a Mark V tank with \"European\" eyes. These tanks were introduced in the Spring of 1918 and first saw action at Le Hamel in France in July 1918. This tank, Devil [T9171] was believed to have served with B Company of the 4th Battalion of the Tank Corps and was still in service in 1925. This tank, belonging to the 4th Battalion, would have been entitled to the Eyes symbol.\n\nCamps and Recreation\n\nCamps were maintained behind the Front lines, some of the larger being at Boulogne, Calais, Dunkirk with the Head Quarters at Noyelles-sur-Mer. Hospitals were at Noyelles-sur-Mer, Arques, Moulle and Calais, with the Shorncliffe Military Hospital at Folkestone also being used for sick and injured Chinese. There was a prison for Chinese at Noyelles.\n\nLabourers died as a result of disease, bombings, gassing and, after the war, when clearing the battlefields and when digging graves, by the many unexploded bombs and grenades. Many also died as a result of the post-war influenza epidemic known as the Spanish Flu. I have seen two photographs, taken of the funeral procession of the German flying ace, Baron Manfred von Richthofen [the Red Baron] at Bertangles cemetery on 22nd April 1918 and amongst the crowd looking over the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215000, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "52\n\nfound four such phrases.\" They added, in answer to a question, that the CWGC commemorates all members of the Commonwealth forces who died in conflicts regardless of the circumstances of their death. Those who died following sentences given by Courts Martial are commemorated in exactly the same way as anyone else.\n\nOfficers and NCOs supplied by the British consisted of volunteers from the British Army as well as British officer-candidates from China, consisting of missionaries and members of the China Customs Service from Treaty Ports. Some were promoted from the ranks.\n\nThose from the Chinese Customs Service in Shanghai include Arthur H H Abel, who was gazetted as a 2Lt in May 1918; George B Appleton, who enlisted with the 16th Bn Middlesex Regt in February 1915 and transferred to the CLC in April 1917 as a sergeant, being promoted to 2Lt in May 1918; Charles N Cross, who in August 1917 joined the CLC as a 2Lt, transferred to the Royal Air Force in July 1918 and transferred back to the CLC in March 1919 as a captain; Arthur HF Edwardes served with the CLC from April to July 1917 as a 2Lt, and in August 1917 was promoted acting captain commanding No 59 Company CLC in Belgium; Ernest N Ensor, enlisted in December 1914 in the 9th Bn Royal Irish Fusiliers and, after promotion through the ranks, to captain in August 1916, was transferred in July 1917 to command No. 27 Company CLC. Amongst his medals, and being Mentioned in Despatches, he was awarded the Order of the Wen Hu, Fifth Class, for military services. Hugh G Lowder served in various Army battalions before transferring to the HQ CLC from which he was demobilised in March 1920 in the rank of captain. He also received the Order of the Wen Hu, Fifth Class, in 1919. Walter Moore served two and a half years with the CLC, from June 1917 to October 1919. John Murphy served with the Royal Marine Artillery, first in German New Guinea and German West Africa, then in France and also on HMS Warspite. In September 1917 he transferred to the Army and from the Armistice to May 1920 he was attached to the CLC conducting coolies from France back to China. Norman Travers was commissioned as a 2Lt into the CLC in May 1917 and was attached to the Royal Flying Corps, with Chinese, on forward aerodromes, subsequently working also in the forward area in trench, ammunition and lines of communication, finally assisting clearance of the devastated areas.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215001, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "53\n\nOf those from the Chinese Customs Service in Shanghai who served with the Allied Forces, the names of 23 are on their Roll of Honour and have been buried or commemorated not only in the UK, Belgium and France but also in Greece and Turkey.\n\nDecorations\n\nMany Chinese members of the CLC received the British War Medals but this is a subject into which I have not carried out any research. The Meritorious Service Medal for devotion to duty was awarded to Zhao Wende [30828] and Wang Chenjing [30064], both Labourers of the 57th Company CLC, and to Liu Dianzhen, Class One Ganger of the 108th Company CLC. Also to Wang Yushao [15333] Labourer of the 59th Company CLC [of Da Cheng county in Zhili] for bravery, his citation reading:\n\nNear Marcoing [near Cambrai] on June 6th, 1919, he observed a fire on a dump of ammunition situated close to a Collecting Station. On his own initiative he rushed to the dump with two buckets of water which he threw on the fire and then seized a burning British 'P' Bomb [apparently the cause of the outbreak] and hurled it to a safe distance from the dump. He then continued to extinguish the burning dump which had spread to the surrounding grass in which rifle grenades and German shells were lying. By his initiative, resource and disregard of personal safety this Labourer averted what might have been a serious explosion.\n\nYan Dengfeng [91085], Class One Ganger of the 130th Company CLC was also awarded this decoration for:\n\nOn 23rd May 1919 at Bailleul [near Armentieres] following an explosion, he worked constantly for four hours removing tarpaulins from the stacks of ammunition and drenching them with water.\n\nSgt W J Yaxley [553653] British Army, serving with the 60th Company CLC was also awarded this medal.\n\nThe Chinese Order of Wenhu [The Order of the Striped Tiger]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215210, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 306, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "270\n\nconnection, as my mother was a Yip from Chan Uk Village, also at Nam Tau. There were over ten families of Ng in Kowloon Tsai, but we had no ancestral hall there. There were two parts to the village, an upper and lower part - Sheung and Ha Wai. We lived in the Ha Wai. There was a Tin Hau temple at the village, and we had puppet shows on the goddess' birthday every year when I was young. We also had a Ta Chiu in the village every ten years.\n\n'I was married to a Li of Sheung Sha Po Village when I was 18. My husband was a revenue officer in the Customs service. We had three houses in the village, but they were all demolished for the airfield extension. We were sent first to a vacant tenement house in Cheung On Street [not identified in a modern street guide, but very likely to have been in nearby suburban Kowloon] whose owner had left. We were there for 4-6 months, before moving to Model Village.\n\n'I am Shing Sung, now 55, a Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau and came to Kowloon when I was 18 to join my uncle who owned a wooden house at Tsat Kan Uk [The Seven Houses], a place north of old Kowloon Tsai Village. I later built a wooden hut there for myself. I came to Model Village after the war. I remember that there were private fields in the general area, as well as government land. People named Fung, Hui and Tsang owned fields there before the war.\n\n'I am Madam Law Mui, aged 57, also Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau, and came to Kowloon when I was 20, to marry Shing Sung's elder brother - also to The Seven Houses. We farmed government land there, for which we had a permit and paid fees, both before and after the war. There were many people at Ap Tsai Wu (Duckling Pond), the name of the general area where we lived and farmed. They were scattered here and there, because we were all vegetable farmers and you built your own house beside your own plot of land. Like Shing Sung, we moved to Model Village after the war.\n\n'I am Madam Kwai-fung, aged 64. I am a Hakka, born at Sha Po Tsai, Kowloon, where my family had lived for several generations. My father kept a store in Lower Sha Po, near Blacksmiths' Street in the Kowloon City suburb. When I was 22, I was married to Ng Sam-hong, a Punti, of Old Kak Hang Village, next to Nga Tsin Wai, when we had gone to live in a newly repaired house. We had two houses of our own at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215581, "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": 358, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "308\n\nThe Gula Lighthouse, situated at Longitude East 113°35,' Latitude North 21°11.' is 52 1/2 feet (13.3 m) high. Its light, originally lit by paraffin as an unclassed light, was modernised in 1910 by the installation of a group-flashing apparatus of the Third Order which can be seen for 20 miles in clear weather.\n\nOn 20th March 1875.\n\nCape D'Aguilar is at Latitude 22°12' 14\" N. Longitude 114°15' 44\" E.\n\n10 T. Roger Banister (1932). The Coastwise Lights of China, Shanghai: Inspectorate General of Customs, Statistical Department, p. xiii.\n\nAn example provided by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1957, Vol.14, p. 88 shows that a lighthouse of 200 ft. in elevation is visible at a distance of 16.22 nautical miles. It can be seen by an observer at an elevation of 30 ft., which by itself has a visible distance of 6.28 nautical miles, within 16.22 + 6.28 = 22.50 nautical miles.\n\n12 CO129/166 pp.351-357 Letter from Earl of Kimberley to Hong Kong Governor Arthur Kennedy, 11 July 1873.\n\n13 The corporation of Trinity House is said to have developed from the Trinity Guild formed by Archbishop S. Langton in the 13th century. The Guild owned a hall and alms-houses at Deptford for the benefit of seamen and their families. It also checked the pillaging of wrecked ships on the English coast. Trinity House, located at a place overlooking Trinity Square in London, has been the headquarters of the Lighthouse Service in U.K. since 1796. At present it owns 72 Lighthouses, 13 Major Floating Aids, 18 Beacons, 429 Buoys, 48 Radar Beacons and 7 DGPS Reference Stations. http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/\n\n14 CO129/172 pp.17-22. 1974/06/03\n\n15 CO129/172 pp.17-22. 1974/06/03\n\n16 HKGG, 12 June, 1875. P. 242.\n\n17 CO129/167 pp.124-128.\n\n18 Sessional Papers of 1901.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215585, "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": 362, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "312\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY INCLUDING WORKS CITED\n\nBanister, T Roger (1932), The Coastwise Lights of China, An Illustrated Account of the Chinese Maritime Customs Lights Service, Shanghai.\n\nBruce, Phillip (1990), Suggested Notes for Royal Asiatic Society Visit to Waglan Island.\n\nDyson, Anthony (1983), From Timeball to Atomic Clock, Hong Kong Government Publication.\n\nEndacott, G B (1958), A History of Hong Kong, Oxford University Press.\n\nA Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong Kowloon and the New Territories (1960), Hong Kong Government Printer.\n\nHarrison, Paul (1999), East India Company Guns, letter and information to Author.\n\nHayes, James (1999, February 16), letter to Author.\n\nHong Kong 1962 (Year Book), Review, the Port of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Government.\n\nHong Kong Observatory (1999, February 26), letter from Director to Author.\n\nHong Kong Standard (1989 August 23), Lowering Flag for Last Time.\n\nJones, Kenneth Sutton (1985), Pharos: The Lighthouse Yesterday and Tomorrow, Sparton Press, UK.\n\nLack, AJ S (1999, April 19), letter to Author.\n\nLee, H C (undated), About Waglan Lighthouse, a paper, prepared by Hong Kong Government Marine Department.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215598, "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": 375, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "بلد\n\n325\n\nthey listened to his plans to modernise China and how he could raise the capital to assist them succeed in doing so, they always went their own ways, often adapting his plans but - as he stressed - without his guiding hand they were never the success they could have been had he been permitted to supervise them.\n\nIn 1905 he described how back in 1879 he had travelled to Sichuan from Guiyang where he had been trying to persuade the Guizhou Provincial Governor, Chen Yuying, to develop the resources of the province by means of a railway from Guiyang to Yongxian in Guangxi province, connecting that city with Canton by a line of steamers on the Yun and West Rivers. He then spent over six months in Chongqing, again offering to supply funds and plans for building suitable steamers to navigate the upper waters of the Yangzi, through the Gorges as far as Chongqing and beyond to Yibin. He added that he was able to speak with authority on the navigation of the upper Yangzi by steamers, \"but no one would listen to me, and even intelligent foreigners, when consulted on the subject, declared I was a visionary and an imaginator of many impractical plans. Some ten days later in a subsequent issue of his Miscellany he wrote 'Whilst here in Shanghai in November 1875, I offered to superintend the construction of a suitable steam-boat for navigation on the upper Yangzi, as far up as Yibin and Chengdu, but the wise Britishers of those days declared that was an impossibility, because British naval officers had studied the subject and declared it to be impossible. I proved to be a good quarter of a century ahead of the progressive age.' Steam-boats now navigate the Upper Yangzi for all that, though they are not as useful as they might have been, had they been devised and constructed under the guidance of a mastermind!\n\n3\n\nPaul King : In the Chinese Customs Service: Heath and Cranton Ltd : London : 1924.\n\nArchibald John Little : Through the Yang-tse Gorges or Trade and Travel in Western China: Sampson Low, Marston & Co.: London : 1898 [Third and Revised Edition].\n\nFacing p. 288 of Little's book, Through the Yang-tse Gorges or Trade and Travel in Western China.\n\nWilliam Mesny: Mesny's Chinese Miscellany : Shanghai : 1st January\n\nPage 375\n\nPage 376", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215681, "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": 458, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "410\n\njunk and used this to trade up and down the river between Ichang and Chunking, all the while studying the river and its treacherous rapids. He soon gained the deep respect of all the junkmen he came in contact with and was given the name Pu Lan Tian by them.\n\nAfter trading in this way for some years he was approached by the Chinese owned Szechwan Steam Navigation Company to assist in the design of a purpose built steamer to trade on the Upper Yangtze. This vessel \"Shutung\" was built in Southampton by Thorneycrofts for £6,000. She was 115 feet long, 16 feet beam and drew 3 feet. Under Plant's command \"Shutung\" operated a 14 day service between Ichang and Chunking. She carried 12 First Class passengers, 66 deck passengers and 60 tons of cargo in lighters lashed alongside the vessel. The service proved to be very popular and a second vessel \"Shuling\" was commissioned.\n\nIn 1910 Plant was offered the post of Senior Inspector, Upper Yangtze in the Chinese Maritime Customs (CMC). He accepted and, in the course of the next few years, compiled a 'Handbook for the Guidance of Shipmasters on the Ichang-Chunking Section of the Yangtze River.' He also wrote a slim volume entitled 'Glimpses of the Yangtze Gorges.'\n\nPlant retired from the CMC in 1919. In recognition of his outstanding service, the CMC and the Chinese Government built him a small bungalow on the outskirts of the village of Xintang. This bungalow perched on a small promontory overlooking the mouth of the Xiling Gorge and the Hsin T'an Rapids. Steamers using this stretch of the river saluted Captain Plant by sounding their whistles and he would reply by waving his hat or handkerchief.\n\n1921 and the Plants decided to return to England for a short holiday before returning to Xintang to live out the rest of their lives. They were feted everywhere they stopped on the journey downriver to Shanghai. Here they took the Blue Funnel ship which was to take them to England. Sadly, en route to Hong Kong, Captain Plant came down with pneumonia and died at sea on 26th February, 1921. Tragedy struck again when Mrs. Plant died in Hong Kong shortly after arrival. They were buried together in the Colonial Cemetery, Happy Valley (now called Hong Kong Cemetery).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216027, "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": 326, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "260\n\none of the ports of call on the routine and customary journey up the Yangzi. It was also within easy reach from Shanghai, no more than a night's sail, with the more adventurous and especially the sportsmen spending a short vacation there. The game varied from wild boar to pheasants and a typical excursion was described by Percival1 who, in April of 1887, was invited by Sir Roderick Runnimede to join him in a voyage up through the Yangzi gorges. Percival wrote that 'it was not a scientific excursion, there were no new countries to discover, no new people to trot out before the world, no new trade routes to open up; it was simply an excursion for health and pleasure combined. In a short time we arrived at the city of Chinkiang [Zhenjiang] itself, the place never having recovered its prosperity since it was burned by the [Taiping] Rebels about 1860. Not more than four or five years earlier [i.e. 1882-3] the shooting around Zhenjiang was all that could be desired; game (principally birds) of every description was most abundant. Sportsmen made Zhenjiang their headquarters. Feathers and fur - everything, in fact, between snipe and leopard - could be found within easy distance. Each year as cultivation advances, population increases, and villages, destroyed by the rebels are gradually being rebuilt, so game is being driven farther and farther into wilder and more remote regions∗. Percival went on to describe how one winter afternoon some years earlier he had joined W. De St. Croix, an old friend, stationed in Zhenjiang in the service of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and using Zhenjiang as a base they had sailed in the Custom's cruiser up stream to shoot wild fowl. After several days shooting they returned and, on the following day, set off on ponies for the Wu-chow-shang [Wuzhou Shan] Hills, about ten miles south of Zhenjiang to round off the trip with three or four days among the boars and deer.\n\nFrom the early 1890s and for about six years local post offices existed in eleven of the treaty ports issuing their own stamps, one of which was Zhenjiang. A contemporary comment noted that just as many of the stamps were sold to tourists and collectors as were used postally.\n\nZhenjiang down the centuries\n\nZhenjiang has been a place of great importance for a great many centuries. In the beginning, no more than a crossing point for boatmen plying their ferries across the Yangzi, it was known in much earlier times first as Dantu and then as Runzhou. Local historians", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216059, "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": 358, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "292\n\nwas buried there beside his first wife in the Zhenjiang cemetery when he died in Changsha a mere two months later. By the late forties, the cemetery had disappeared beneath industrial buildings.\n\nThere was quite a scandal about the Methodist chapel in about 1907 when, during an evening service, the whole congregation started to wriggle and scratch themselves. Many left hurriedly, and the preacher was almost alone when the service ended. It was then discovered that the Chinese caretaker had turned the place into a paying doss-house for coolies and beggars, and every pew was crawling with bedbugs and lice.\n\nMesny's Involvement with Zhenjiang 1863/5\n\nNow to an entirely different slant on activities within Zhenjiang. William Mesny was a Jerseyman who ran away from home in 1854 at the age of 12 and arrived in China in 1860. His autobiographical writings describe scenes from his diverse and exciting career in China from his earliest days as a lowly gaoler in Hong Kong, through his sailing days as a master on a small Yangzi trader, his time as an Imperial Customs Tide-waiter in Hankou, to the peak of his career serving with the Chinese Sichuan Provincial Green Standard army, ending up as a brevet Lieutenant-General. From there on, he was a self-appointed adviser to senior Chinese officials, travelling far and wide throughout China, and ending his days as an impoverished 'poor white' first in Shanghai and towards the end in Hankou, where he died in 1919. Although he had little to do with Zhenjiang itself during his time on the Yangzi, he was involved with others who had.29\n\nMesny, writing about his time on the Yangzi, first as a youth commanding a lorcha and then as a Customs Officer with the Chinese Imperial Customs, explained that on his first trip up the River, the comparatively short journey on from Zhenjiang to Nanjing took five hours with a call at Shi'er Wei, an important salt town on the northern bank of the river. An hour and a half before reaching Nanjing, ships would pass the Third Fort guarding the narrow defile under Guanyin Shan. It was there that in April 1862, Mesny was wounded and captured by a fleet of Imperial gunboats whose role it was to stop supplies of all kinds reaching the Taiping rebels. Mesny was sailing for Hankou from Shanghai with a full legal cargo, but to the Imperial gunboats, the 'Imps' as they were referred to by westerners, all vessels were fair game. Mesny", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216071, "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": 370, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "304\n\nMason's book is fairly thick and contains numerous anecdotes about life on the China coast which in the main have no particular relevance to his later criminal escapade. He explained that he had had no experience of criminal matters and therefore made many mistakes which, with hindsight, he should never have made. He referred also to the American consul in Zhenjiang, General Alexander C. Jones, Mason's oldest and most intimate friend in the port, a southerner who had commanded cavalry on the losing side of the Civil War, and then later, in Hong Kong, Mason assumed the role, in disguise, of an American sailor who had been beached in Hong Kong. He made a great point in his book of how Sir Robert Hart had favoured him as a good employee of the Customs Service, and that looking back he was able to see that Hart had been at pains to try to warn him off doing anything stupid. The tenor of the tale was that Hart and others, including the US consul and the British Consuls in Zhenjiang, had known that Mason was up to something, even, perhaps, what he really had intended to do. Mason ends with no apologies or even any thought of the stupidity of his acts. Out of context, his book would be a \"cracking good yarn\" but taken at face value, it depicts Mason having Walter Mitty fantasies.\n\nHart's letters39 to his London representative reveal that Mason was a 4th Assistant B in Chinchiang [Zhenjiang] in 1887. By mid-1891, in a short sentence within one of his letters, not in any way connected with Mason, Hart refers to the Gelao Hui, whom he did not see as particularly hostile to either foreigners or Christianity but were anti-dynastic and whose activities were incipient rebellion. In the October of the same year, he first mentions the Mason affair and comments on the immense harm it had done to the Service. He attached a draft telegram in which he called Mason ‘a foreign conspirator who had bought arms, seized at Shanghai, with his own money, and whether he himself [Mason] was amateur detective, conspirator, dupe or lunatic remained to be seen, as also whether his disclosures, plot confederates, etc., exist elsewhere than in his own diseased imagination'. There is no indication in any of Hart's published letters that he was aware of Mason's plans, despite, as we learn later, all had already been revealed to the local Customs Commissioner in Zhenjiang.\n\nIn Mason's Confessions, he tells of his attempt to resign from the Customs and of Hart's reply which explained that according to the regulations, this was not possible. He added half-way down his letter to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216072, "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": 371, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "305\n\nMason that 'You [Mason] have been left at Chinkiang not because you have been overlooked, but because you have shown a particular proficiency in acquiring the Nanking dialect, and I did not wish to interrupt these studies by transferring you to another province. It is also important for me to train certain men in the intricate business of Transit Passes40 peculiar to Chinkiang alone, and I have been pleased with your mastery of this branch of our work'.\n\nFor the next couple of months Mason's name crops up in some dozen or so of Hart's letters, usually towards the end of a letter on, what were to Hart, weightier matters. Such comments included 'The Yamen finds \"Mason Affair\" very handy: it can now return the Legation fire neatly after last summer's bombardment sustained for the riots, etc.\n\nMason was brought to trial in the British Supreme Court before the British Consul-General and the Shanghai Settlement's Chief Judge, N J Hannen, on 29 October 1891, charged simply with the illegal possession of dynamite to which he pleaded guilty. Although he had declared before and after the trial that he was a member of the Gelao Hui, had acted to further its plans to overthrow its government, and had personally brought the dynamite into China with unlawful intent, these facts were not mentioned at the trial nor did the Chinese government produce any evidence. The Chinese Legation in London later exerted pressure to demand that Mason, on his release from prison in Shanghai, be tried in Hong Kong on charges of crimes and conspiracy against the Chinese state. Mason was, however, not tried again.\n\nHart, at one point, refers to Mason's comrade Croskey who Mason himself mentioned in his \"Confessions\" as a spy, put there by the Customs Service to watch Mason and who, according to Mason, betrayed and ruined him. In practice Croskey had been promoted from the outdoor staff to the indoor, and then posted to Zhenjiang. Mason somewhat naively explained his plans and plots to Croskey shortly after they met, and Croskey informed his boss in Zhenjiang who in turn asked Croskey to learn more about Mason's plan. Croskey resigned from the Service in the November 'on Sir Robert Hart's recommendation'. Croskey, according to Hart, was a promising young American citizen, a grandson of the first Sir Thos. Bazley, a Manchester MP.41", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216073, "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": 372, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "306\n\nThe last mention of Mason in Hart's letters refers to Mason in 1897 having sent Hart his book The Shen's Pigtail or Other Cues of Anglo-China Life. Mason, wrote Hart, had been in low water at home and twice [Hart] had helped him. Mason was, added Hart, a clever fellow who, before the C'Kiang affair broke out, had just got himself on to the ladder of advancement, and in that matter [the Mason affair] he was to Hart's mind, the victim of mixed motives - he was curious, and he wanted to serve Hart, and got into a quicksand.\n\nHart was much kinder to Mason than ever Mesny would be. Mesny, in his Miscellany some ten years later, related in great detail, both from notes and from memory, the extraordinary story related above of being persecuted by Mason.\n\nMesny also wrote in his Miscellany [6 Feb. 1896] that he had gone through the evidence [on the Mason Case] in the British Blue Books and could not see how any mortal could come to any other than one of two conclusions - either Mason had been paid by the Chinese to get up a bogus scare [to create anti-foreign action] or that he was a mere maniac. Nine-tenths of his revelations had been unquestionably pure fabrication. At the bottom of the page, Mesny added, without offering any evidence, \"I am now fully satisfied that Mason was paid by the Chinese.\"\n\nOn an entirely different aspect of life in Shanghai, we read in a postscript from Mesny on the snobbish attitudes of the British in China that adds colour to our story. The British Consul in Shanghai held a party in May of 1899 to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria. Mesny wrote in his Miscellany that despite not receiving an invitation, a fact which confirms that he was ostracised by fellow Britons, possibly because of his wife or because he made a point of living among and mixing with Chinese, though it could also have been due to his very pro-Chinese stand, he turned up at the Consulate only to be turned away by the British police at the gate. This short note in the Miscellany describing the slight would appear to have been his method of getting his own back.\n\nAs with most small expatriate bodies, factions existed. Mason described in his 'Chinese Confessions', the problems of a 'British bachelor in the Imperial Customs Service in Zhenjiang, a small Customs", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216376, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "84\n\nfrom China. Hart complained that it was difficult to get proper private tutors for their elder daughter, Evey. In his letter to Campbell on 2 July 1875 he said: \"I fancy Evey will be a grandmother by the time you find my rara avis!” (ibid: 198) Hart also wanted to concentrate on his work without disturbance. When he was finally reunited with his wife and children after almost a quarter of a century's separation, he did not feel completely comfortable and even hoped that they would be gone soon \"for I want to be alone to attend to the hundred and one things.\" Thus, during the period 1879-1881 when Lady Hart lived with Hart in Beijing, the couple must have discussed seriously future plans for her to return to settle in London. This is when Hart wrote to Campbell and insisted that his three wards should not be sent back to London to live with the Davidson couple.\n\nFrom this it can be seen that it wasn't just a matter of kindness, generosity, or even love that motivated Hart to make such expensive provisions for his three wards by Ayaou. Hart had always been cautious and gave mature consideration to his arrangements for his wards, not just in 1866 when he prepared to go home and marry a European, but also during the period 1875 to 1879 when he began to make plans for his wife's return to live in London permanently. He was kind to his wards; but he was also rational and determined to prevent both his married life and his career from being troubled by the wards.\n\nREFERENCES\n\nBell, Stanley. 1985. Hart of Lisburn. Lisburn: Lisburn Historical Press.\n\nBell, Gertrude. 1903. The Gertrude Bell Archive.\n\nBickers, Robert. 1999. Britain in China. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.\n\nBruner, Katherine F, Fairbank, John K, Smith, Richard J. 1986. eds. Entering China's Service - Robert Hart's Journals, 1854-1863. Cambridge and London: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.\n\nFairbank, John K, Bruner, Katherine F, Matheson, Elizabeth M. 1975. eds. The I.G. in Peking - Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs 1868-1907. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.\n\nFerguson, Niall. 2002. Empire: the rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power. London: Allan Lane. Pp 185\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216377, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "85\n\nGraveson, R. H. and Crane. F. R., A Century of Family Law. 1957.\n\nLondon: Sweet & Maxwell Ltd.\n\nKing, Paul. 1980. In the Chinese Customs Service - A personal record of forty-seven years.\n\nNew York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc.\n\nLittle, Lester K. 1975. Introduction in Fairbank, John K, Bruner, Katherine F, Matheson, Elizabeth M. 1975. eds. The I.G. in Peking - Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs 1868-1907. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.\n\nMcCusker, John J. 2003. “Comparing the Purchasing Power of Money in the United States (or Colonies) from 1665 to 2002.” Economic History Services, 2003, URL: http://www.eh.net/hmit/ppowerusd/.\n\nSmith, Richard J, Fairbank, John K, Bruner, Katherine F. 1991. eds. Robert Hart and China's Early Modernisation - His Journals, 1863-1866. Cambridge and London: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.\n\nWang, Hongbin. 2000. He De Jue Shi Zhuan - Da Qing Hai Guan Yang Zong Guan. (The Biography of Sir Robert Hart - The Foreign I.G. of Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs) Beijing: Culture and Arts Press.\n\nWright, Stanley F. 1950. Hart and The Chinese Customs. Belfast: WM. Mullan & Son (Publishers) Ltd.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Transcribed by Deirdre Wildy, 18 September 2003\n\n2 Transcribed by Lan Li and Deirdre Wildy, 15 August 2003\n\n3 It is supposed that Hart had made Declaration 1 as a legal document, as in his letter to Campbell dated 11 August 1905 he added a post script dated 19 August - the same date that Declaration I was written: \"Yours 7th July received: herewith cover with statement for Murray Hutchins.\" (Fairbank, Bruner and Matherson 1975: 25, 1479) Murray, Hutchins & Co. was Hart's private solicitor, in Declaration I he mentioned: \"The children were sent to England and it was arranged that W. Hutchins my lawyer should take charge of them...\" Transcribed by Deirdre Wildy, 18 September 2003\n\n* In Declaration 1 Hart wrote: \"Anna died some seventeen years ago\". In his letter to Campbell on 8 July 1906, he wrote: \"The enclosed from Mr. Anderson, announcing the death of a former ward, Herbert Hart, has just reached me here through the Legation.\" (Fairbank, Bruner and Matheson 1975: 1513) \"Gertrude Bell in her diary on 5 May 1903 recorded that she went to Sir Robert", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216486, "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": 245, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "195\n\n-\n\nCornell Plant died at sea shortly before their ship's arrival at Hong Kong. Alice Plant died a day or so later and they were both buried in Happy Valley Cemetery, Hong Kong. This posed the question what happened to the two young Chinese girls? This is partly answered by an extract from a letter written to Cornell's younger brother Charles by J.L. Smith, the British Consul at Ichang, an old friend of Captain and Mrs Plant:\n\nThe reference to the two girls as \"adopted daughters\" is a mistake. The two girls were waifs bought by Mrs Plant a number of years ago and brought up by her as servants in her own house. They were too young to marry and therefore Mrs Plant was taking them home with her, intending to bring them back at the conclusion of her furlough after which she intended to marry them off and give them a small dowry. They are now being sent back from Hong Kong to Miss Moore of the Church of Scotland (Ladies) Mission here: Miss Moore desires to keep them for four or five years in her excellent girls school so that they can get an education after which she will see that they are decently married off or settled down in some occupation in the same way as Mrs Plant would have done. There is a movement on foot amongst friends of Captain and Mrs Plant to raise a sum of money to meet the expenses that will be entailed in connection with the education, etc. of the girls.\n\nIn the event, some $4,000 was raised by the friends and colleagues of Captain and Mrs Plant to educate the two girls and set them up in life. Although the Royal Library of Scotland has some of the letters sent home by Miss Amelia Moore to the Church of Scotland, no mention has yet been found of the two girls and what happened to them.\n\nThe 30 foot granite monument overlooking the gorges put up in memory of Captain Samuel Cornell Plant show the high esteem in which he was held by his friends, his business associates and the Chinese Customs Service. On his death, tributes were received from the representatives of many countries including France, Japan, and the United States of America. More personal were the feelings expressed in \"Plant the Pilot\" a poem written shortly after his death and the inscription on the silver inkwell presented to him by Captain F Scurr, shortly before his final voyage in 1921 as a small memento of many kindnesses while 'dodging the dragon.' It was all summed up in the words of his good friend of over ten years, the British Consul at Ichang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]