[
    {
        "id": 205321,
        "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": 83,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "76\n\nL. G. AIMER\n\nthe carrying and other heavy work, \"The men do not even know how to carry water\" and probably do not demand that the women give them lessons at it.' \n\nFrank 1925, p. 210f. Even among the Cantonese-speaking Punti population in Kwangtung, traditional women's participation in the work in the fields occurred; cf. Yang 1959, p. 21f. The notes above, however, are to be read as contrasts to Punti custom.\n\n35 Investments in house building on a large scale seem to be typical for all Chinese peasant communities with a marked inflow of external income. Generalizing from his experiences with three emigrant communities in Fukien and Kwangtung, Chen Ta writes:\n\n\"The most practical way to gratify their vanity is to build a house. Even when he does not contemplate a return in the immediate future, a Chinese emigrant who has made a fortune in the Nan Yang is quite likely to send a sum of money home for the express purpose of buying a new house\"; Chen 1939, p. 109.\n\nFrom another part of China, Francis Hsu notes that\n\n\"in this Yunnan community people became rich not through South-Seas emigration, but through tin mines and trading. As soon as a family becomes wealthy, it begins to build huge but largely unused houses ...\"; Hsu 1945, p. 48.\n\nBoth authors interpret house building as the symbolic aspect of the move from one social position to another by the sojourner in his home community, the big house being closely associated with gentry status. A comment on increasing house building in the New Territories in the beginning of this century is made in the N. T. Report 1899-1912, p. 56.\n\n36 Although these people have spent many years in English-speaking countries, none of them can converse in the English language. Also, this is largely true for the younger generation now residing in Britain. The Chinese emigrant is often sojourning in a Chinese enclave, the structure of which, in many important respects, is very different from that of his home community; it is still basically Chinese and offers social security in a foreign country. I have the impression that the sojourners have a fairly limited direct contact with the people of the country where they stay, especially if this is in Europe or America. Such contacts are also often highly formalized, of the type client-waiter relations in a restaurant. The surrounding social milieu is, I feel, experienced filtered through the culture of the enclave.\n\n37 In 1963 overseas remittances, in the form of postal and money orders cashed at the New Territories post offices, amounted to the value of HK$20,973,152. The corresponding figure for 1964 was HK$24,076,719; Hong Kong 1963, p. 60; Hong Kong 1964, p. 30. Considerable sums will also have been remitted through banks: these figures are not known. One item of information from the New Territories tells that one farmer annually receives about HK$1,500 from his two sons working in England; Topley 1964, p. 176. Ronald Ng (1965, p. 35) estimates the monthly remittances at £30, or HK$5,760 annually.\n\n38 This means that the daily income for a restaurant worker in Britain would amount to nearly HK$23. This may be compared to the daily wage of a worker in the New Territories which is about HK$10. Ng gives a similar figure for restaurant workers in the U.K.; Ng (1965, p. 35).\n\n39 The situation of the members of the overseas community in Britain could be compared to that of a villager of Big Stream Village working in a grocer's shop on the island of Aruba in the Netherlands West Indies. His salary there is 'over' US$100, i.e., at least HK$130, a month. The daily",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
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    {
        "id": 205523,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 65,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "60\n\nH. A, RYDINGS\n\nand \"Monthly Periodicals\" — including Quarterly Review and Once a Week. The complete list is reproduced here, rearranged alphabetically:\n\nAll the Year Round Blackwood's Magazine Calcutta Englishman Chambers's Journal\n\nChina Express\n\nChina Mail\n\nColombo Observer\n\nCornhill Magazine\n\nDaily Press\n\nDublin's Magazine\n\nFrank Leslie's Illustrated\n\nFraser's Magazine\n\nFriend of China\n\nFriend of India\n\nGalignani's Messenger\n\nHongkong Government Gazette\n\nHarper's Weekly\n\nIllustrated London News\n\nJapan Herald\n\nLondon Society\n\nMacmillan's Magazine\n\nNavy List\n\nNorth China Herald\n\nOnce a Week\n\nPall Mall Gazette\n\nPunch\n\nQuarterly Review\n\nSaturday Review\n\nSingapore Straits Times\n\nSporting Magazine\n\nStraits Times Extra\n\nSydney Morning Herald The Times\n\nWeekly Alta\n\nMany of these titles have, of course, long since ceased to be published, but it is perhaps surprising how many have survived, whilst others are still used for research purposes, although no longer",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206350,
        "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": 167,
        "title": "RAS-1971",
        "content_text": "A SHORT HISTORY OF MILITARY VOLUNTEERS IN HONG KONG\n\nJAMES HAYES*\n\nOn the occasion of the disbandment of the Hong Kong Volunteer Corps in May 1866, His Excellency, after expressing his thanks for time, exertions and money spent for objects so essentially Public, went on to express his belief that the spirit which originated the Volunteer movement would be found to exist fresher and stronger than before, if any real and urgent necessity were to arise for defending, by force of arms, the rights of the Crown, or maintaining the supremacy of the Law in this Colony. The Hong Kong Volunteers would doubtless in such emergency come to the front again more numerous and efficient than ever!\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nThere have been military volunteers in Hong Kong for almost as long as there has been a Colony. Hong Kong was occupied in 1841 and the first volunteers were established thirteen years later, in 1854. However, the existence of a Volunteer force does not make Hong Kong unique. In this respect, as is shown below, it takes its place in the great movement which, in its modern re-incarnation, was created by patriotic fervour in the British Isles\n\n* Mr. Hayes is a member of the administrative branch of the Hong Kong Civil Service. He is a reserve officer of the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers) and has been Hon. Editor of this Journal since 1966.\n\n1 The Hongkong Government Gazette, 26th May 1866, G.N. No. 81.\n\nThe footnotes to this article are given at the foot of each page. The following abbreviations are used:-\n\nVol — The Volunteer, the current journal of the Royal Hong Kong Defence Force published annually since 1950. Y.B. = Year Book of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps 1934-40.\n\nS.P. = Printed Sessional Papers of the Hong Kong Government, being papers presented to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.\n\nHan. Hong Kong Hansard, being the published proceedings of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. These were printed in the Government Gazette and the Hong Kong Daily Press. There are bound annual volumes in the library of the Colonial Secretariat, Hong Kong.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210693,
        "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": 44,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "27\n\nsaid that no man loved Ireland more dearly, and there was no warmer heart in Ireland than his. He asked why Irishmen loved their country more than the English, who were daily getting more cosmopolitan, and the Scots who were daily getting more English, loved theirs. He suggested that the reason was that the Irish were a little less selfish and a little more generous, and gave preference to strangers over their own. They loved Ireland as their mother because over the last thousand years they had suffered and laboured much. That had made them patient, enduring, witty, generous, self-reliant, hospitable, brave and reckless. They had great learning to be proud of. Before St. Patrick came, and their Saxon friends were still going about painted, Ireland had laws and a recognised society. St. Patrick had little to do but introduce the spirit of Christianity. Irish immigrants were the backbone of countries where they lived and had succeeded everywhere. One fault that the Irish were gravely charged with was that they drank too much and were too fond of whiskey. He exhorted all present to resolve not to bring discredit on their country by excessive drinking, and to give up drink for six months to help the Duchess of Marlborough's Famine Relief Fund. After that he recited a poem entitled “Dear Ireland\".\n\nAs to Queen Victoria, in 1893 speaking at a meeting of the General Chamber of Commerce called to discuss the coining of a British dollar, he expressed opposition to anything bearing the Queen's head being made in a foreign country. At a meeting of the judiciary and legal profession in 1901 to pay respects to her memory he began his speech, which was twice as long as those of the Chief Justice and Attorney General combined, by describing himself as \"the senior member and actual, although not official, leader of the local Bar, and the solitary representative among the higher members of the profession of the Irish race and Roman Catholic community.\" He said “Loyalty to the throne is a duty most strenuously enforced on every member of the Catholic Church. The personal loyalty of Irishmen to the sovereign has always been conspicuous, the few contemptible exceptions only making the loyalty of the vast majority the more conspicuous\".\n\nHe was a public person, interested in most things that went on and ever ready to express his view about them. His talent for oratory ensured that his views were often heard. He was connected with many societies and clubs and because of his legal training was much in demand to sit in committees. He was ambitious and a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210800,
        "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": 151,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "134\n\nD.L. MICHALK\n\nare committed. However, any foreign proposal which is consistent with these plans might be more favourably received than one which is not included.\n\nIn the short time that Hainan has been opened to foreign investment, forty-four contracts representing a total investment of US$ 87 million have been signed with foreign firms, thirty-four of which were operative in 1983. To provide technical counterparts for these projects, more than 4,000 intellectuals, cadres and workers have been transferred to Hainan, while many overseas Chinese have also offered their services. Talks on a number of key projects are under consideration including a petrochemical plant, an express highway, additional power stations (China Daily, 1983), and a tunnel link with the mainland across the Qiongzhou Straits (South China Morning Post, 1984), while the first joint-venture for onshore oil exploration in China was recently arranged for northern Hainan with an Australian consortium (Sydney Morning Herald, May 27, 1985).\n\nAlthough significant development has taken place over the past five years, naive mishandling and in some instances outright abuse of the autonomy delegated to Hainan officials has hobbled the momentum. Recent reports of corruption and profiteering on Hainan have exposed a sophisticated system where racketeers have spent cherished foreign exchange on imported cars and home appliances made cheaper by the preferential import duty cuts the island enjoys, and resold these on the mainland at huge profits. One source alleged that the racket involved the purchase of more than 89,000 cars, 2.86 million televisions and 252,000 video recorders which cost more than US$ 1.5 billion in foreign exchange (Thompson, 1985). Besides prosecuting officials, the Central Government has reacted by strictly limiting funds for joint-ventures and technology imports, and increasing import duties by as much as 80 percent to price foreign goods out of the local market.\n\nHainan's agriculture has also undergone development through the adoption of new agricultural policies and the transfer of technology from western nations. In the last five years substantial changes to commune structure and productive practices have occurred with the introduction of the \"production responsibility",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210907,
        "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": 258,
        "title": "RAS-1986",
        "content_text": "real meaning and vote according to their firm convictions.\n\n241\n\n\"And yet when we asked that the resolutions be explained in Chinese, so that we might judge for ourselves and vote conscientiously, it was unceremoniously refused. I leave to the impartial public what to think of this.\"\n\nHe signed his letter \"Ho Kwan-sun, Late Haikwan (Customs) Banker, Swatow\".\n\nThere were few in the community of that day who could be called impartial. The Chinese were only in the first stages of an awareness of their importance for the general welfare of Hongkong. This, in turn, produced a feeling that they should have a voice in matters of general public concern. The foreign community for its part could not believe the Chinese had a fundamental loyalty to the interest of Hongkong. They feared that the Chinese in Hongkong would join forces with corrupt officials in China and block what foreigners considered the proper expansion of commerce and undercut British prestige and power in the East.\n\nThis first attempt of Chinese and foreigners to unite in an open meeting on a public issue served to drive the two groups farther apart, at least for a time.\n\nHOW THE CHINESE WERE\n\nKEPT OUT OF THE MEETING\n\nThe public meeting called for October 7, 1878, to discuss “public insecurity\" was the first held in Hongkong at which there was a large Chinese delegation. From the standpoint of promoting better relations between the various sections of the community it was not a success. Ho A-mei told the Chinese side in the letter he wrote to the Daily Press. In it he related how the Chinese had had no opportunity to express their views.\n\nThe Europeans, however, who were able to speak out at the meeting, made it lively. Much of the interchange occurred after the Chinese had left; however, the remarks made point to the reason the Chinese were treated as they were.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211181,
        "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": 242,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "217\n\nA letter appeared in the Daily Press endorsing the idea of a contribution to the Imperial Institute. The correspondent claimed that a contribution from Hongkong could benefit both the donor and the project: \"If Hongkong can help to prevent (the institute) being a failure, it would be rendering an invaluable service to the Empire, and a double service to the Colony.\"\n\nThe double benefit, for Hongkong would be that of promoting the Colony's trade and of “getting us out of our mess.\" The mess, of course, was the inability of the community to express common agreement on a memorial. It was making the people of Hongkong look foolish.\n\nHe suggested to the proposer and the seconder of the park project that they withdraw their motions, for surely “they will not miss the chance that withdrawing their proposal would give them of making a friend of the Queen as well as remaining (signed) 'Friends of the Governor'.”\n\nAgain, the proposal met little response, but Hongkong's lack of interest did not materially impede the project. Other sections of the Empire were more liberal and enthusiastic.\n\nIn May, 1888, the Queen granted a charter of incorporation to the Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the Colonies and India and the Isles of the British Seas. A building was erected in South Kensington.\n\nIt served as a centre for scientific research and a bureau of economic resources for the Empire. In 1962 a new building was erected and the name changed to the Commonwealth Institute.\n\nHOW SPORT CAME TO THE VALLEY\n\nIt was usual for a planning committee to predetermine the agenda for public meetings in the Hongkong of the nineteenth century.\n\nIt was decided that at the public meeting on March 2, 1887, to plan Hongkong's observance of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214895,
        "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": 310,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "284\n\nOur guide, Cong, took us to visit the Citadel and explained that it was planned and constructed on traditional principles of intermingling Occidental and Oriental architecture as a result of the appropriate use of local geographical features. The Citadel of Hue was once a masterpiece of the Vietnamese people. The Imperial City, the second wall, is dotted with offices where the monarch and high-ranking mandarins came daily to work. The Forbidden Purple City, the third wall, was the private quarters of the Emperor and his family, which included hundreds of palace maidservants and dozens of eunuchs. It was fascinating to see that the walls and Royal Palaces of Hue were built on the principles of Chinese geomancy. The whole complex faces southeast, taking the Royal Screen Mount as a natural screen. Two islets in the Perfume River play the roles of \"left dragon\" and \"right dragon\", thus guarding the city. In general, the monuments of Hue are made chiefly of ironwood and other Vietnamese traditional materials. They are constructed, however, on a specific \"module\" and largely to suit the climate and environment of the region.\n\nAfter the Citadel, we visited the Tu Duc Tomb built between 1864 and 1867. Emperor Tu Duc was crowned King during this period of Vietnam's history when capitalism was developing in the West. He was an expert in philosophy, oriental history, as well as literature, yet he failed to rule the country successfully. Having no son to succeed him aggravated the situation. To seclude himself, he ordered the construction of his tomb as a fairyland with poetical features, making it a lifetime recreation ground and a special world for his eternal life after death. With several palaces and a specific man-made landscape, the tomb itself is a second ‘Imperial City', an ideal and heavenly world.\n\nThat night we had an imperial banquet where we were all required to dress up as mandarins and someone needed to be King and Queen. There was no one better than Dr. Dan Waters, RAS President, to be the Emperor, and Pru, an RAS member, took the part of the Empress. With their costumes and majestic headwear, it was strange to see Dan and Pru looking so noble. We were all perspiring, and Dan and Pru were being fanned by waitresses, turned court servants, during the whole meal. The weather was so hot that once we had taken our group picture in which we were wearing costumes, the first thing we did was to get rid of the heavy mandarin dresses before we ate. But Dan and Pru took it so seriously that they wore their imperial gowns till the end.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x",
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    {
        "id": 215196,
        "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": 292,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "256\n\nTHING\n\nT\n\nNeedless to say, I bought the book (for $8.40!) but for many years until quite recently in fact - could not bring myself to read it properly. This I have now done and have discovered that it is not a book to be trifled with. It should be read slowly and carefully, and savoured, if one is truly to understand and enjoy it. It is, as the Daily Express described it at the time, 'a true story of piercing beauty' and as Ed Murrow said of Winston Churchill, Suyin 'mobilised the English language, and sent it into battle.'\n\nThe book\n\nTrue story? I didn't know that, either, until very recently and this explains how, and why, I came to write this Note. In April 2001 Council Member Jason Wordie wrote a piece about our immediate Past-President Dan Waters in The South China Morning Post. Dan shared with us the fact that he lives in Realty Gardens, Conduit Road, which was the former site of the Foreign Correspondents Club. Dan also noted that behind his apartment block is the pavilion where Han Suyin and Ian Morrison, a correspondent for The Times, used to meet before he was killed during the Korean War.\n\nIan Morrison, circa 1943\n\nHurried e-mail to Dan. Was this the basis for A Many-Splendoured Thing? Yes. But Suyin's lover was called Mark Elliot, both in the book and the motion picture? Yes, but obviously dramatic licence was involved. But Ian Morrison was British and Mark, in the motion picture, was American? Well, maybe William Holden, consummate actor though he was, would have had trouble imitating a British accent. Can I have a look at the pavilion? Sure, come for lunch next Sunday. So I did.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215253,
        "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": 30,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "Appendix\n\nActivities for 2001/2002\n\nDate Lectures\n\n2001\n\nRoyal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch\n\nFri 20th April: Dr Janet Lee Scott on The Fung Chew of Hong Kong\n\nMay 4th: Harry Harum on The Last Emperor's Garden Restored after 75 Years.\n\nMay 18th: Pauline Poon Pui-ting on Domestic Servant Girls: the Po Leung Kuk\n\nFri 1st June: Drs Gillian and Verner Bickley on \"How Hong Kong History entered the Space Age”.\n\nFri 3rd Aug: Hugh Phillipson on 150 years of Hong Kong's Water Supply\n\nFri 31st Aug: William Shang on Imagination and Reality in the Drawings of William Alexander.\n\nFri Oct 19th: Kim Salkeld on Life in Government House.\n\nFri October 26th: Cesar Guillen Nunes on \"Macau's St Paul Façade: a Re-table-Façade?\".\n\nFri 16th Nov: Dr James Hayes on Village Culture in South China.\n\nFri Dec 7th: Dr Dan Waters on Hong Kong in the 50s and 60s\n\nSat Dec 8th: Tim Ko and Jason Wordie on 60th Anniversary of the Fall of Hong Kong\n\n2002\n\nFri Jan 18th: Dr Paul Van Dyke on Daily life in the Pearl River Delta during the era of the Canton Trade.\n\nFri 1st Feb: Susannah Hoe on Lady Macdonald and the Empress Dowager. Summer 1900.\n\nFri 8th Feb: Prof Paul Cohen on Humanizing the Boxers.\n\nFri 15th March: Jonathan Wattis on South China and the Pearl River Delta in Western Maps.\n\nXxvii\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    {
        "id": 216144,
        "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": 443,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "377\n\nADVENTURES IN PUBLISHING:\n\nHOW THE CRIPPLED TREE BECAME KALEKIE\n\nDRZEWO\n\nPETER HALLIDAY\n\nA few weeks after I took up residence in Hong Kong in the autumn of 1967, I was taken to the cinema by what had now become a new friend. The film we saw that Saturday afternoon - I remember the circumstances with undiminished clarity - was Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, starring William Holden and Jennifer Jones. The film made a very deep impression upon me and I have to confess that, as we filed out of the cinema, I wept unashamedly.\n\nIn 1972, or thereabouts, I was contentedly idling away an hour or so, browsing in a bookshop - to this day still a particular pleasure - when I came across a book entitled A Many-Splendoured Thing by Han Suyin. Memories of Love is a Many Splendored Thing came flooding back. Could this be the book behind the film or vice versa, I wondered?\n\nI bought the book but for many years - until quite recently in fact - could not bring myself to read it properly. This I have now done and have discovered that it is not a book to be trifled with. It should be read slowly and carefully, and savoured, if one is truly to understand and enjoy it. It is, as the Daily Express described it at the time, ‘a true story of piercing beauty.' As Ed Murrow said of Winston Churchill, Suyin 'mobilised the English language, and sent it into battle.'\n\nAlthough the Daily Express described Suyin's book as a true story, for some reason I had always assumed that it was a novel. Last year, however, through various circumstances, I discovered that this was the literal truth (I would have discovered it much earlier had I read My House Has Two Doors, also by Han Suyin, but unfortunately I did not read this until very recently). A Many Splendoured Thing tells the true story of a love affair between Suyin and Ian Morrison, a correspondent for The Times of London. They met in June 1949, in Hong Kong. Tragically, Ian was killed in Korea on 12 August 1950, when the jeep in which he was travelling was blown up by a landmine.\n\nA tribute to Ian Morrison appeared in Vol. 41 of JHKBRAS.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]