[ { "id": 204375, "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": 7, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "2\n\nflourished between 1858 and 1948 was more fortunate because it was able to draw on the services of a far wider group of people who came to work in China in the years after travel and residence there was no longer restricted. The present Society is luckier still because, thanks to air travel, we have been able to draw on an extremely wide range of contributors in the first two volumes of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nWhen examining the table of contents of the six volumes of Transactions published in Hong Kong between 1847 and 1859, one sees the titles of several articles which it would be most interesting to read if copies of these volumes were available in Hong Kong. For example, in Volume III Harry Parkes, at that time British Consul in Canton, and later British Minister at Peking, described proceedings in a criminal Court at Canton, while Dr. Bowring contributed an article “On the Character and Writings of Commissioner Lin Tsih-seu”, which at that time (1851) was still very recent history. In Volume VI (1859) Dr. D. J. Macgowan wrote on Chinese opium while the Rev. Krone contributed “A notice of the Sanon district *”. This is of particular interest since the Sanon district included all of what later became the New Territories. The full list of contents of each of these volumes can be found in Bibliotheca Sinica by Henri Cordier, Volume IV, columns 2401-2.\n\n44\n\nBy way of contrast it is interesting to consider the contents of the first two volumes of the Journal of the revived Hong Kong Branch of the R.A.S. published in 1961 and 1962. Perhaps the first point which strikes one is the wider range of subject matter covered by these two volumes. In Volume I, Mr. Hugh Richardson, the last head of the British mission at Lhasa wrote on Tibet as it was, and Professor Drake reviewed the whole field of Western contacts with Asia. In Volume II Mr. Evan Luard's newly published book Britain and China, which covers the story of recent Sino-British relations, is the subject of a review-article by Mrs. Colina Lupton. Another noteworthy point is the number of admirable contributions from Chinese scholars in these two volumes. The six volumes of Transactions published between\n\n* Although I have made extensive enquiries I have been unable to locate copies of the Transactions in Hong Kong. The City Hall Library ought to have a set. (Ed.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204474, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n95\n\n2 Extracts from the Report are given between pages 181-209 of Papers laid before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong 1899, (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1900). For this quotation see p. 198. Lockhart was referring specifically to development which was noticeably lacking. The same cannot be said of the population during this period. The evacuation of the coastal areas (1662-69) caused a great disruption to the villages at the time. For a brief mention in English, based on Chinese authorities, see S. F. Balfour, \"Hong Kong before the British\", an article in T'ien Hsia, Vol. XI, No. 4, 1941, p. 334. In any case there has been a continuous inward flow of both Cantonese and Hakka since then, more especially of Hakka in the 19th century, from which time many of the hill villages in the Colony take their origin.\n\nIt is interesting to compare this report with a book on Wei Hai Wei, Lion and Dragon in North China (London, John Murray, 1910) which was written by a junior colleague from Hong Kong, R. F. Johnston (1874-1938) who went to Wei Hai Wei as Magistrate and Secretary to Government in 1904, probably at Lockhart's request. Johnston, later knighted and Professor of Chinese in the University of London was a man of great application and erudition who became tutor to the deposed boy emperor, P'u Yi, (1919-25) and wrote the well-known book Twilight in the Forbidden City, (London, Gollancz, 1934). He was himself Commissioner of Wei Hai Wei 1927-30. His detailed description of Wei Hai Wei, its people and their customs leaves an impression of the striking similarity of life and thought between that remote part of Shantung and this small corner of Kwangtung. The means of government was of course the same, but so also are the ways of doing and thinking which seem, in my own experience, hardly to differ at all despite the different agricultural background. To anyone interested in the Chinese peasant Johnston's book is a mine of information. The annual reports on Wei Hai Wei presented to both Houses of Parliament are, too, an interesting commentary on life in this northern leased territory.\n\nThe market towns of the New Territories in 1898 were Tai Po, Yuen Long, Tai O, Cheung Chau, Sai Kung and Tsuen Wan. A despatch of 1905 in connection with the Kowloon-Canton Railway No. 59 dated 11th January 1905 from Governor Sir Matthew Nathan to the then Secretary of State, Mr. Lyttelton gives some figures. Yuen Long had \"seventy-four shops of which twenty-five are large and deal in rice, oil, samshu etc. The remainder belong to barbers, doctors, jewellers, vegetable sellers, piece goods dealers etc.\" Tai Po Market consisted of twenty-three large shops and fifteen smaller ones, Tsuen Wan had a few shops supplying the local needs\". No figures are given for Cheung Chau or Tai O with which the railway was not concerned, but an inscription of 1878 inside the grounds of the Fong Pin Hospital at Cheung Chau states that there \"used to be over two hundred shops trading here\". Lockhart Papers 1899, p. 207 gave Cheung Chau a population of 5,000, whilst Tai O with its fisheries and salt pans was reported to have about 3,000. These were larger towns than Yuen Long (no figure given), Tai Po (280), Sai Kung Market (800) and Tsuen Wan (900). The present New Territories towns were not the largest in the San On district. Pride of place went to Sham Chun, now on the Chinese side of the border, with sixty-one large shops and three hundred and twenty-three medium sized shops, and to Kun Lan Hui, also north of the border which was the cattle centre of the whole district with fifteen large and one hundred and thirty-six medium sized shops. (Enclosure C to No. 59). See Eastern No. 88 Correspondence relating to the Kowloon-Canton Railway (London, Colonial Office, 1907).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204480, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n101\n\nSee paras. 38 These feuds, often of long standing, persist to-day. 77-79 of Mr. K. M. A. Barnett's annual administrative report for 1955-56 as District Commissioner New Territories for a good instance of traditional hostility. For other cases see paras. 97 and 43 of the annual departmental reports for 1957-58 and 1958-59.\n\nSee Smith Village Life in China p. 286, also p. 222 \"The local Magistrates take care not to intervene too soon or too far, lest it be the worse for them. When the fight is over the officers put in an appearance, arrests are made, and the machinery of government recovers from its temporary paralysis\", and pp. 282-86 for a northern instance of clan violence.\n\n40 According to Dyer Ball Things Chinese (Hong Kong, Kelly and Walsh, 1903) p. 326 \"a dreadful internecine strife, in which 150,000 at least, perished, took place between the Hakkas and the Punteis in the south-western districts of the Canton province, from A.D. 1864 to 1866, and arms and even armed steamers, were procured from Hong Kong by both parties\". See also pp. 369-70 of B.C. Henry's Ling Nam (London, Partridge, 1886),\n\n41 From information supplied by elders of Ho Chung village who were at school during or before 1898.\n\n42 See the section on Disasters in the San On Yuen Chi.\n\n43 See stone tablet outside Tin Hau temple, Kat O, Tai Po district.\n\n44 From a stone tablet dated Ch'ien-lung 42/4/26 (1777) at Yuen Long Old Market.\n\n45 From a stone tablet dated Chia-ch'ing 7/3/23 (1802) at the Tin Hau temple, Kat O.\n\n46 From a stone tablet dated Ch'ien-lung 42/lucky month, lucky day (1777) at the Hau Wong temple, Tung Chung.\n\n47 From a stone tablet dated Tao-kuang 21/7/19 (1841) at Tin Hau temple, Peng Chau.\n\n48 From a stone tablet whose date is uncertain, at the Tai Wong temple, Yuen Long Market.\n\n49 Variously, as above.\n\n50 Reminiscences of Mr. TANG Kiu Fong of Fui Sha Wai near Yuen Long, in an article in the New Territories Weekly for January 1962.\n\n51 Tree spirits are quite common in the New Territories where many old trees have joss sticks and red paper inscriptions placed under them on a rough altar. There is, in particular, a very large old banyan tree at Long Kang a few miles east of Sai Kung Market which must surely be the oldest tree in the Southern District. This is visited regularly by devotees. From personal experience of every part of the old Southern District I can say with confidence that belief in tree and earth spirits still exists to-day, and might indeed be said positively to flourish.\n\n52 An ancestral temple is not open to the public: it is for the private use of the clan, for whom alone it has any meaning. Most villages of any age and consequence have ancestral temples, and in multi-clan villages", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204635, "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHAU\n\n103\n\n20 See T'ung-tsu CH'U Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Harvard University Press 1962) chapter 9, especially pp. 161-164.\n\nI am indebted to Mr. W. Schofield, a former District Officer, and Cudet Officer, Hong Kong Government, for a reference to an inscription, now lost, relating to the foundation of the Lung Chun Yee Hok *** in 1847. The school, which is still standing inside the former Kowloon walled city, was opened by the district magistrate WONG Ming Ting after the sub-district deputy magistrate HUI Man Sham had reported that it was being built.\n\nOrme in his \"Report on the New Territories 1899-1912” in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 63, Appendix G, gives a school census for April 1912, by which time there had apparently been little change since 1898. There were 10 schools on Cheung Chau, average attendance 20, average monthly fee 38 cents.\n\n21 See HSIAO op. cit. pp. 235-240 and CH'U, op. cit., pp. 161-162. Occasionally government-sponsored schools were granted land for their maintenance. In the 28th year of Kuang-hsü (1902-3) four years after the lease of the New Territories to Great Britain, land inside the boundary, previously used for the purpose of aiding a school still in Chinese territory, was sold by order of the Commissioner of Education for San On district. Part of the proceeds had also been used for offerings at the Confucian temple (in Nam Tau).\n\n22 The group of titles on the defence bureau tablet is another demonstration of the widespread sale of degree titles and positions in the late Ch'ing period already remarked in several places. (see HSIAO Kung-Chuan Rural China p. 415 and chapter 10 of CH'U's Local Government in China under the Ch'ing op. cit., pp. 168-173 and notes and, in more detail, Chung-li CHANG, The Chinese Gentry. Studies on their Role in Nineteenth Century Chinese Society, (Seattle, University of Washington Press 1955) pp. 102-111. For contemporary notices see Rev. Krone \"A Notice of the Sanon District\" in Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong), Part VI (1859) p. 84 and Arthur H. Smith Village Life in China (Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier c. 1900 p. 121, amongst others.)\n\nNo fewer than twenty-one persons have titles prefixed to their names, many of them minor ones, of which three-quarters were probably purchased.\n\nthe first\n\nOf the purchased titles and posts five were chien-sheng degree by purchase, which was the prerequisite to purchasing any superior post, such as that of district magistrate or prefect. It was the most commonly purchased degree. Two others were styled chih-chien and chih-sheng. There were four chin-kung and four chih-yüan 職員。", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204759, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE \n\n51 \n\nI will here jump ahead and say that one study which is urgently needed to restore one of the missing pieces in our puzzle before it melts away, is the collection preferably on tape recordings, of local stories, legends and above all, songs and rhymes. These were formerly widely heard, especially among the Tanka43 and Hokloss boat people and among the Hakka149 villagers of the high plateaux where they are called shan-ko.117 When I was District Commissioner, New Territories, I attempted to arrange a performance of some of these shan-ko for the then Governor, Sir Alexander Grantham, but the star performer, who was a very old man, was afflicted by stage-fright and would not sing a note until after the Governor had left; nor would he allow the songs which he afterwards rendered to be recorded. However, I am sure this kind of reluctance could be overcome, perhaps by a little alcoholic inducement, but the point I really wish to emphasize is that now everybody has a transistor radio, no one wants to listen to the old songs and they are remembered only by the ancient. The evidence which they enshrine of the origin of our local people may be of high importance, quite aside from the artistic and musical merits of the songs and stories, and I think a determined effort should be made to ensure that this evidence, which we have so outrageously neglected while it was plentiful, should be put on record before it is too late.\n\nTwo non-Chinese words are the word yong for a village and the word kan53 for a water channel; if only more studies of the Yao languages were available, the list could be much longer. The late S. L. Wong of Hong Kong University, previously of Lingnam University, who had done original research among the Yao of two districts of Kwangtung Province, including his own native district of Tsang Shing,159 told me many years ago that one thing to look for when testing whether a \"Chinese\" village was of Yao origin was to keep a watchful eye and ear for traces of the cult of Pan-ku.112 At the same time he warned me that where the memory of tribal origin still lived among village traditions they were careful to conceal the fact from strangers, so that any direct question would almost certainly meet flat denial. This, I need hardly say, is characteristic of rural communities the world over and I have encountered similar difficulties even in recording the local names of mountains and streams, including one instance", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205832, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "132\n\nJ. T. COOPER\n\nhad contours. A few areas, such as Kwun Tong and Tsuen Wan, had been mapped with 20 ft. contours on a scale of 200 ft. to 1 inch.\n\nIn the New Territories, where land administration is the responsibility of the District Commissioner, the only large-scale plans were the old D.D. (Demarcation District) Sheets, surveyed in 1899-1904 by Indian surveyors seconded from the Survey of India. These sheets were at scales of 16 and 32 inches to one mile, i.e. multiples of the 1 inch to one mile series used in India. They had never been revised and were mostly in a very tattered state; several had been lost during the war. They were purely cadastral plans, i.e. they showed property boundaries but not topographical detail.\n\nIn the early fifties, it was decided to have the developed and cultivated areas of the New Territories re-mapped at a scale of 1/1200 (100 ft. to 1 inch). The undersigned was recruited to take charge of this project, which was commenced in 1954. The traditional method of plane-table survey was used, and no contours were surveyed, since the primary object of the new survey was to replace the old D.D. cadastral sheets for land administration. It was intended that the staff of the New Territories Administration should reconcile the property boundaries on the new plans with the old title plans (based on the D.D. Sheets) and the old land records.\n\nDifficulties and delays in recruiting and training local staff, and in retaining them once they had been trained, slowed the mapping programme, and after a couple of years, it was evident that the task of mapping the New Territories by such methods would require at least eight years. In the meantime, accurate contoured plans were urgently needed for the many large projects which were planned both in New Kowloon and the New Territories.\n\nAfter investigations into the feasibility and cost of mapping the whole Colony at large scales from air photography, tenders were called for in 1962. Bids were received from several international firms, and the contract was let in December 1962 to Hunting Surveys Ltd., a very experienced English firm. It was estimated that the whole project would take five or six years to complete.\n\nThe contract called for:\n\n(1) mapping at a scale of 50 ft. to 1 inch all areas of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and New Kowloon where plans", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205974, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n49\n\nThe staffing situation improved between 1897 and 1901 and 12 more cadets were recruited from England, the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States including Reginald Fleming Johnston, Cecil Clementi, A. G. M. Fletcher,50 and Geoffrey Norman Orme. The incorporation of the New Territories into the Colony meant that more recruits would be needed for district administration and as members of the Land Court set up to determine thorny problems of land ownership and tenancy.52 However, 17 cadets were recruited between 1901 and the end of 1914. There were losses of course: notably the gifted Stewart Lockhart who was transferred in 1902 to Wei-hai-wei as H.M.'s Commissioner, and the equally gifted R. F. Johnston who was also transferred to Wei-hai-wei as District Officer in 1904.\n\nA posting in the New Territories provided for some younger cadets an escape-hatch that removed them from office life in the Colonial Secretariat and other departments in the Central District. Service in the New Territories, a mainly agricultural area dotted with small village communities and small market towns, had more in common with colonial service in Africa and South-East Asia, and the cadet was left comparatively free to go his own way, lead an open-air life and exercise judicious authority. The job demanded initiative, stamina, and magisterial skills; and, if one is to believe Mr. Austin Coates,54 a cadet at a much later date, it was a deeply rewarding life which allowed a cadet to become involved in the lives of simple people, farmers and fishermen, small shopkeepers and craftsmen. Certainly, the report of the District Officers for the New Territories, such as those written by Stewart Carne Ross, have a little more colour than the stilted administrative reports presented annually by heads of departments.\n\nBy the 1920s cadets had become entrenched in most government departments and they filled all the senior posts in the Colonial Secretariat, the directing and co-ordinating agency of government. The exceptions were some departments, such as the Medical and Sanitary Services, Public Works, the Royal Observatory, and Marine Department, which necessitated at the top someone with specialist knowledge. The Inspector General of Police (also in charge of the Fire Brigade), the Director of Education, the Postmaster General, and the Superintendent of Imports and Exports, however, were all cadets, but not the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205978, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n53\n\n19 Sir Francis Henry May (1860-1922), Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Dublin. Hong Kong Civil Service 1881; Captain Superintendent of Police, 1893-1902; Colonial Secretary, 1902-1910; Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of Western Pacific, 1910-12; Governor of Hong Kong, 1912-1919. First cadet to become Governor. Altogether May spent 38 years in Hong Kong.\n\n20 Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874-1938), Educated at Edinburgh University (Gray Prize; prox. accessit., Lord Rector's Essay); Magdalen College, Oxford (mentioned hon, causa Stanhope Essay). Hong Kong Civil Service 1898; Assistant Colonial Secretary, 1899-1904, Transferred to Weihaiwai 1904; Senior District Officer and Magistrate, Weihaiwai, 1906-17. Tutor to the Ex-Emperor of China, 1919-1925. Commissioner of Weihaiwai, 1927-30. Professor of Chinese and Head of Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Languages, London University, 1931-1937.\n\n21 Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947). Educated at St. Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1899. Clementi, following his uncle and godfather, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, preferred an Eastern Cadetship, and was posted to Hong Kong. Land Officer and Police Magistrate in the New Territories, 1903-6, Clementi had the task of recognizing the land titles of over 300,000 claims. Appointed Colonial Secretary of British Guiana 1913-1921; Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1922-1925; Governor of Hong Kong, 1925-30; Governor of the Straits Settlements and High Commissioner for the Malay States 1930. In 1934 Clementi retired on account of ill-health.\n\n22 James Legge \"The Colony of Hong Kong\", China Review, Vol. I, 1872-3, p. 173.\n\n23 Dominions Office and Colonial Office List 1939, p. 624, states: \"The average number of cadets appointed to Malaya and Hongkong during the period of 1919-31 inclusive was between 9 and 10. Since 1931 the average has been 5-8, 6 generally. In 1937, 7 cadets were appointed, and 9 in 1938. There were none appointed to Hong Kong 1937, and only 2 in 1938. The demand for cadets in Hong Kong was always small”.\n\n24 For example, Thomas Sercombe Smith (1854-1937) was appointed a Hong Kong Cadet in 1882. In 1883 he was attached to the Colonial Office for a year; and in 1884, after a brief spell attached to the Colonial Secretary's Office, Hong Kong, proceeded to Peking where he studied Chinese, 1884-6. On the other hand, Arthur Winbolt Brewin (1867-1946), proceeded to Canton in 1888. Brewin, who was educated at Winchester, succeeded Eitel as Inspector of Schools in 1897; became Registrar General in 1901 and retired in 1912.\n\n25 Victor Purcell The Memoirs of a Malayan Official, London, 1965, pp. 108-109. The Index to Correspondence (of the Colonial Secretariat), compiled in 1902 by R. H. Kotewall, has a cryptic entry: \"Cadets studying Chinese in China must reside at a place removed from European social surroundings\".\n\n26 Alexander Grantham Via Ports, Hong Kong, 1965, p. 5.\n\n27 I have been able to discover the schools attended by 64 of the cadets: 52 went to schools listed in the Public Schools Yearbook; the other 12 to small private schools. Two cadets (H. E. Wodehouse and A. W. Brewin), it seems, did not go to a university; five I have been unable to trace; and of the rest - 78 in all — 55 went to English universities (Cambridge 25; Oxford 23; London 4; and one each at Leicester University College, Liverpool University, and Manchester University); 10 to universities in Ireland (Trinity College 8); and 11 to Scottish universities (Edinburgh 6,\n\n-55", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206564, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "106\n\nE. G. PRYOR\n\nbuilders, the development of low-cost housing schemes by Government, the imposition of penalties on unused private land, the conversion of godowns (warehouses) into tenements by adding on further storeys, the publication of standard house designs, the use of labour-saving machinery, the provision of large supply depots at convenient locations for building materials, the setting up of local industries in the New Territories for the manufacture of building materials, the establishment of bamboo and fir tree plantations for scaffolding and the continuation of rent controls.\n\nWhilst development in the Kowloon Peninsula gathered momentum, little became of the recommendations made by the Housing Commission and with the further growth of the population to almost 841,000 persons by 1931, of whom 79% lived in the urban areas, the housing situation reached serious proportions. Some indication of the congested living conditions is given by the densities which prevailed in the Western district where, on average, there were 917 persons per acre.20\n\nThe economic \"depression\" of the 1930s greatly reduced the prospects for effective action to help meet the Colony's pressing housing requirements. The situation was further aggravated by the continued arrival of people from China, which resulted in an increase of the population from 841,000 in 1931 to 988,000 by 1936.\n\nHowever, in 1935 new legislation was introduced whereby the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903 was split into a separate Buildings Ordinance and a series of Public Health Ordinances. One of the changes brought about by the new Building Ordinance was that the maximum depth of domestic buildings was reduced from 40 ft. to 35 ft. although this could be exceeded if every storey were provided with windows to ensure that the whole storey was adequately lit. The provisions of the 1903 Ordinance regarding the height of buildings were also modified, but differential controls continued to apply in favour of property owners who had leased land before 1903. In short, the height of buildings was still governed by the width of the street but, within this limitation, buildings could not exceed 3 storeys unless built of fire-resistant materials; in order to exceed 5 storeys the consent of the Governor-in-Council was required.\n\n20 Commissioner of Census, \"Report on the Census for the Colony for 1931\" Sessional Papers. Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1928-1932, Hong Kong 1932, pp. 108-109.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206771, "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-1973", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "42\n\nPETER WESLEY SMITH\n\nLockhart, A contemporary newspaper, however, revealed the true nature of the explanation: 75 marines and two Maxim guns.7\n\nThe Special Commissioner was appalled by the discourtesy of the villagers. They were reported to the Viceroy at Canton, who was to \"deal with the matter in a proper manner\", and a deputation from Kam Tin was obliged to apologize in Hong Kong.\n\nSuch punishment failed to impress the inhabitants with the error of being disrespectful to British officials, for when occupation of the New Territories commenced in April 1899 the Tangs of Kam Tin were foremost in organization of the resistance movement. Again, therefore, stern reprimands were required, this time by the use of gunpowder. On April 18 a party of sappers from the Hong Kong Regiment blew down the walls flanking the gates of both Kat Hing Wai and Tai Hong Wai, and a few days later the villagers themselves, as an act of submission, carried the two pairs of gates to Flag Staff Hill (Tai Po).10 There they were admired by Governor Sir Henry Blake who, wrote Stewart Lockhart, “instructed me to forward to him a pair of gates from Kam Tin\". This was duly done in May, though the villagers had to be reminded to send in a socket.12\n\nThe two sets of handsome gates were both defective, one wing of each having suffered from the back-scratching of generations of itchy Kam Tin pigs.13 The remaining gates in good condition were combined to make a pair and were appropriated by Blake for \"Myrtle Grove\", his home in the Irish county of Youghal.\n\nIn 1924 the residents of Kam Tin petitioned for the return of the gates. They were supported by the District Officer (North), who referred to the gates as objects \"of pride to the inhabitants on account of their workmanship and antiquity”, and the Assistant Superintendent of Police (New Territories) recalled their whereabouts. His wife had formerly been maid and companion to Blake's daughters, and she remembered seeing the gates at Myrtle Grove in 1902. Stewart Lockhart, then retired after serving for many years at Wei Hai Wei, was asked to approach Lady Blake for their recovery.1 His mission was successful, but when the gates arrived back in Hong Kong the Tai Hong Wai villagers recognised their half and claimed possession. Long negotiations ensued between elders of the two villages, and eventually, reports O'Dwyer, \"the amount of face that would be gained for the whole clan by their erection as a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207674, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "The Teochiu ethnicity in urban Hong Kong\n\n47\n\nThere are no comparable local level organizations in the urban areas,* though the government has encouraged the development of local-level urban neighborhood associations (Kaifongs), which are presumed to reflect local opinion and to be effective in influencing government decisions affecting the local area. The Kaifongs in resettlement estates with which I am familiar currently fulfill neither of these functions and are hardly considered organizations worthy of much effort to control. Teochiu have primarily been \"isolationist\" in devoting attention and effort to developing their own associations into what are clearly the most active and representative organizations in the local area. The local Kaifongs have thus not become an important focus of interethnic competition. Kaifong associations in other areas of Hong Kong are at times more active in local affairs. They appear to be particularly active when organizing local protest against new governmental policy which would adversely affect local residents. Hong Kong's newspapers periodically carry stories telling of the efforts of particular Kaifongs to mobilize support of local residents against new policy.\n\nThe primary functions of Kaifongs have been to provide social welfare services, serve as a communication channel to government, and to provide prestigious positions for ambitious local leaders (Kan, 1970:95). Kan describes the general image of Kaifongs in the following manner:\n\nthe more 'generalistic' orientation of the Kaifongs is more amenable to the government than is the 'particularistic' orientation of the clan, district, and dialect associations. For this reason, the majority of the population as well as the government itself have believed that the Kaifongs may become the most effective intermediaries between government and people. (Kan, 1970:94).\n\n*The City District Office scheme, initiated in 1968, is intended to bridge the communication gulf between the masses of people in urban areas and government. City District Officers are charged with assessing the overall impact of government policy, and with maintaining contact with all local organizations. In effect, the purpose of the scheme is to \"provide the public with a local manifestation of the Government... (The City District Officer Scheme, 1969: title page).\n\nFor brief discussions of divergent government policy in the New Territories and urban area, see Report by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, The City District Officer Scheme, 1969; Wong, 1975; and Miners, 1975.\n\nSee Annual Departmental Reports of the District Commissioner, New Territories, for brief descriptions of the Rural Committees.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207819, "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": 207, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "192\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nand the Nuffield Foundation), and partly by the London School of Economics and Political Science out of a Ford Foundation grant. In addition, for the first three months of my work in the New Territories I was fortunate enough to receive from the Hong Kong Government the services of a guide-interpreter and the use of a motor car. I wish to record my appreciation of this aid.\n\n2. My plans were not to be fully realised. Before the end of the first period of three months I fell ill, had to enter hospital, and was medically advised to leave Hong Kong. The result has been that, while I have been able to carry out most of what I intended to do under the heading of a general survey of New Territories social conditions, I am forced to write this report away from the Colony, cut off from the chance of checking my findings and filling in gaps in my knowledge.\n\n3. My report is based on field observations made from early February to early May and on reading done in the same period in the Colonial Secretariat Library. I travelled extensively in the New Territories but, owing to the fact that I lived for most of the time in Tai Po, I am more familiar with conditions in the District of that name than with those of the other four Districts.* It will be obvious, too, that the short time at my disposal sets a severe limit to the validity of my generalisations. Anthropologists usually spend some months getting used to a new field before embarking upon detailed enquiry, for there is a good deal of groundwork to be done. If I am bold enough now to set out some of my preliminary findings and tentative conclusions it is because I believe that the New Territories Administration ought to be given an idea of the kinds of problem which anthropologists find important and of the possibilities of correlating the interests of social research workers with its own. There will be increasing opportunities for co-operation. To begin with, in the autumn of this year two graduate students at London University are expected to arrive in Hong Kong to undertake intensive field work in the New Territories. My colleagues and I hope that their studies may be of some service to the Administration. Certainly, they will be able to probe more deeply into matters which in this report are treated superficially.\n\n* Yuen Long, Tsuen Wan, Sai Kung and Islands. An account of the New Territories at that time is given in the Annual Departmental Report of the District Commissioner, New Territories 1963-64, and of Hong Kong as a whole on the Hong Kong Annual Report 1963, both printed by the Government Printer, Hong Kong - Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208169, "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": 208, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "192\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nContinuously to the present, since elders in both communities were boys and reportedly before, worship of these heroes has been carried out twice a year, at the times of the first and second padi harvests (described as 春分*). It even continued throughout the Japanese Occupation, a hard time when traditional practices were sometimes dispensed with and not taken up again. Such practices, whilst tending to keep each community together, also had the effect of perpetuating a rift; and the existence of such shrines did nothing to reduce the endemic bickering that characterized much of local society at that time.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Sessional Papers 1928 (see the District Officer North's report which follows at Part C to the Notes for this Visit).\n\n2 See Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong Government Printer, n.d. but circa 1960): 148-152.\n\n3 Copies of genealogies of the Cheng (#) Tang (*) and some other local lineages have been recently deposited in the Chinese Library, University of Hong Kong.\n\n4 They also went to Tai Po Market and to North West Kowloon.\n\n5 YEUNG Kwok-shui (#) of Yeung Uk, a small single lineage settled since the Ch'ien Lung period.\n\n6 Local place name of the district city of Hsin-an.\n\n7 Gazetteer: 154.\n\n* Gazetteer: 150. Lo Wai is claimed to be the oldest of the Tsuen Wan villages.\n\n9 See e.g. G. N. Orme's Report on the New Territory 1899-1912 in the Hong Kong Government's Sessional Papers 1912: paras 58-60; and the file CSD1903 Ext/17, minutes of 6 April and 5 May 1905 in Public Records Office of Hong Kong.\n\n10 Gazetteer: 150-151.\n\n11 GR.\n\n12 Shek Lei Pui (†) was the name of a village moved to Sha Tin in the 1920s to make way for an extension to the Kowloon Reservoir. See H.K. Government's Administrative Reports 1924, page Q146, para. 4.\n\n13 Gazetteer: 151.\n\n14 The Tin Hau Temple inscription says a wooden tablet, worshipped for 70 years.\n\n15 of Sam Tung Uk, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk, died 15th October, 1956: para. 119 of District Commissioner, New Territories' Annual Departmental Report 1956-57.\n\n16 From the names listed it seems likely that, as stated by informants, friends and relatives of the Shing Mun people from the Pat Heung (Gazetteer: 170) aided them in the war against Tsuen Wan.\n\n17 According to the Tsuen Wan tablet, the fighting took place with sharp weapons. (i).\n\n18 This name was a purely Shing Mun description and does not appear in Gazetteer which only refers to the other Pat Heung to the north.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208174, "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": 213, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\nThe total cost is therefore: \n\nResumptions for sites \n\n$ 3,839.31 \n\nSite-preparation \n\n31,500.00 \n\nWells \n\n2,400.00 \n\n170,148.00 \n\nHouses \n\n8,346.00 \n\nAgricultural Resumptions \n\n54,122.47 \n\nForestry resumptions \n\n15,250.00 \n\nPineapple resumptions \n\n8,428.00 \n\nFung Shui or fruit trees \n\n2,165.00 \n\nIncidental expenses \n\n700.00 \n\n$296,898.78 \n\n197 \n\nJ. A. FRASER, \n\nDistrict Officer, North \n\n9th January, 1928. \n\nD. AU-YEUNG OF LAN NAI TONG'S ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN \n\nOF THE WAR \n\nRound about a century ago, there were a number of small villages in Tsuen Wan. They were the CHENGs and CHEUNGS of Shing Mun Village, the AU-YEUNGs of Lan Nai Tong, the LAWs of Shek Lei Pui Village, the HUIs, TSANGs, WONGS, LAUS of Lo Wai, the YAUs of Kwan Mun Hau and others. The villagers, totalling over one thousand people, made their livelihood out of farming. Although life was hard, they were sufficiently fed and clad. As the villages were connected by intermarriages, feasts and gatherings in which every member participated were held during festive occasions. \n\nOne day, two brothers of the AU-YEUNG clan returned from abroad,* bringing with them a lot of luggage and gifts. On their way to the village, they met some Shing Mun villagers who happened to be carrying brushwood to Shamshuipo (Kowloon) for sale. \n\n*'abroad' could mean anything, including Hong Kong! See District Commissioner New Territories Annual Departmental Report 1956-57, para. 3.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209366, "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": 23, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION IN AN URBAN ORGANIZATION: THE MUTUAL AID COMMITTEES\n\nJANET LEE SCOTT*\n\nThe Mutual Aid Committees (MACs), or as they are more commonly known in Hong Kong, were first established in June of 1973. They are organizations composed of residents of a building, or more rarely, a group of buildings, and have the dual aims of promoting a sense of friendship and mutual reliance among all authorized tenants and of cooperating to promote better security, a better environment and more effective management generally (City and New Territories Administration 1982:1).\n\nWhy are Mutual Aid Committees established? Investigations and interviews with government officials carried out during 1976-1978 suggested the following reasons. The first was the desire of the Hong Kong Government to improve communication with the people of Hong Kong. The MACs were originally created under directives from the Home Affairs Department, and came under the jurisdiction of the City District Offices, themselves set up under the City District Officers Scheme of 1968. As one writer described this Scheme:\n\nThe CDO Scheme was announced at the beginning of 1968, but the first CDOs were appointed in the middle of that year. The Scheme divides the urban areas into ten districts: four on Hong Kong Island and six in Kowloon. A City District Commissioner on each side of the harbor coordinates the work of the CDOs, each of whom has liaison and other duties.\n\n* Dr. Janet Lee Scott is a member of the Department of Anthropology, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research on the Mutual Aid Committees was supported by a grant from the Institute of Social Studies of the Chinese University. Doctoral dissertation research carried out during 1976-1978 was supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant, an N.D.F.L. fellowship awarded through Cornell University, and a grant from the Cornell Center for International Studies. The author wishes to express her appreciation for such generous financial support.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209391, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "26\n\nJANET LEE SCOTT\n\nNOTES\n\nIt might be mentioned that the adult population of Hong Kong was, at the time of Mutual Aid Committee formation, already well acquainted with the idea and work of urban organizations. While the Mutual Aid Committees had (and still retain) their own unique design, their structure (and their functions) were not unfamiliar and they were not viewed as mysterious committees having no resemblances to other, more traditional, Chinese organizations.\n\n* The other five subdivisions are: Kam Kwok Mansion, Luen Hop Building, Mei Tung Estate, Pui Man Tsuen Cottage Area, and Pok Oi Village (Wong Tai Sin District Report 1982:271).\n\n* The exact total, provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate, was 21,221 at the end of February, 1983.\n\n• At the end of 1982, the exact figure was 523,927.\n\n* The Mark I blocks include Blocks #1-5, #9, #10, and #12, and the Mark II group is made up of Blocks #13-20 and Blocks #22 and #23. The remaining blocks (#6-8, #11, and #21), already rebuilt, are now referred to as Converted Buildings (Wong Tai Sin District Report 1982:272).\n\n• This information was provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate.\n\n* At the end of February, 1983, there were 26 Mutual Aid Committees in the Lok Fu Area and 286 Mutual Aid Committees for the entire Wong Tai Sin District.\n\n* The selection of male members is because all but one of the chairmen of the Lok Fu Estate Mutual Aid Committees interviewed were male. In addition, the opinions of female members towards participation were investigated during the research period of 1976-1978.\n\n* Block #23 of Tung Tau Estate is still divided into floors for the purpose of MAC formation. In early 1983, it had five MACs, one for each three floors.\n\n10 In 1982 the old titles of City District Commissioner and City District Officer were changed to District Officer and Assistant District Officer respectively. At the same time the old Home Affairs Department and New Territories Administration were amalgamated into a new department known as the City and New Territories Administration.\n\n11 The official certificates of registration are framed and prominently displayed in the committee's office, or if the committee lacks an office, are kept by an officer, most often the chairman.\n\n19\n\nHowever, given the apathy of many residents and the low attendance at many MAC meetings, one might wonder if any committee has been dissolved by popular action, the second alternative.\n\n10 This is the schedule as described by the Wong Tai Sin District Office, Tung Tau Sub-office. The office of the Housing Manager, Lok Fu Estate, explained that the conversion has already been completed and that 114 families (the figure as of March, 1983) had already moved in.\n\n\"These figures have been provided by the office of the Housing Manager of Lok Fu Estate, and are accurate as to the end of March, 1983.\n\n16 The C.C.C. number is a code number found on the Hong Kong Identification Card and is written under the Chinese characters of the individual's name.\n\n10 According to the Tung Tau Sub-office of the Wong Tai Sin District Office, there are no instances of the mishandling of MAC funds known in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209991, "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": 250, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "228\n\np. 10. Kani, Hiroaki, A General Survey of the Boat People in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1967, p. 22.\n\np. 12. Leland, Charles G., Pidgin-English Sing-song, or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect, London, 1876, p. 4.\n\np. 14. Lin Yutang, My Country and My People, London, 1936, p. 120.\n\n16. Doolittle, Social Life, Vol I, pp. 253-254.\n\np. 16. Lin Yutang, My Country, p. 121.\n\np. 17. Percell, Victor, The Chinese in Southeast Asia, 2nd edn., London, 1965, pp. 17-18.\n\np. 18. Staunton, Sir George T., Ta Tsing Leu Lee: Being the Fundamental Laws, and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes, of the Penal Code of China, London, 1810, pp. 543-544.\n\np. 22. 'Notes and Queries', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol XI, 1971, pp. 204-209.\n\np. 22. Annual Departmental Report by the District Commissioner, New Territories for the Financial Year 1959-60, Hong Kong, 1960, p. 33.\n\np. 24. Annual Departmental Report by the District Commissioner, New Territories for the Financial Year 1951-2, Hong Kong, 1952, pp. 5-6.\n\np. 25. Sayer, G. R., Hong Kong 1862-1919. Years of Discretion, Hong Kong, 1975, p. 97.\n\np. 26. Teng Ssu-yü 'Chinese influence on the Western Examination System', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol VII, 1943, p. 305.\n\np. 33. #AŢ✶ Shanghai, 1947, p. 1086.\n\np. 34. Yang, C. K., Religion in Chinese Society, California, 1961, p. 155.\n\np. 38. Backhouse, E. And Bland, J. O. P., Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking, London, 1914, p. 325.\n\np. 40. Williams, S. Wells, The Middle Kingdom, New York, 1913, Vol II, P. 435.\n\np. 41. Smith, Arthur H., Chinese Characteristics, London, 1900, pp. 234-235.\n\np. 42. Williams, S. Wells, Middle Kingdom, Vol II, p. 451.\n\np. 44. McAleavy, Henry, The Modern History of China, London, 1968, p. 87.\n\np. 44. Chow, Carl, Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom, London, 1941, p. 116.\n\np. 45. Werner, B. T. C., Myths and Legends of China, London, 1922, p. 162.\n\np. 46. De Groot, Religious System, Vol V, p. 532.\n\np. 58. Doolittle, Social Life, Vol I, pp. 268-269.\n\np. 58. Stevens, K. G., Chief Marshal T'ien', Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol XV, 1975, p. 305,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210964, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "OBITUARY: K. M. A. BARNETT, O.B.E.\n\nThree contributions to the memory of a remarkable man, Fellow of the RAS of Great Britain and Ireland (1949) and a founding member of the Hong Kong Branch: from James Hayes, Derek Davies, Solomon Bard.\n\nThree weeks ago one of the most distinguished retired members of the Civil Service passed away in England. Mr. K. M. A. Barnett's death was noted in the South China Morning Post on 30 October 1987. A factual account of his services was provided, beginning with his posting here as a young Cadet Officer in 1932 and ending 37 years later with his retirement from Hong Kong, but with a further 10 years' service for the United Nations Organisation in Malawi and Bangladesh on duties connected with the census.\n\nIt is difficult to do justice to this exceptional man. Few friends of his own or a later generation could claim to have covered quite the same ground, or in the same way. For this reason, letters of appreciation have to come from several persons, and not from one pen alone. Dr. Bard's letter printed on 20 November is a case in point, (see pp. 8-10 below).\n\nAs a Hong Kong civil servant his greatest achievement was probably the 1961 Census, the first for nearly thirty years. He established the office (the present Census and Statistics Department) and was its guiding genius. The work suited him to a “T”, for he was able to bring to its organisation and subsequent reporting, all the knowledge, experience and intellectual qualities that make it a lasting and major landmark in the history of Hong Kong's post-war development. Each segment of the land and sea population, by origin and occupation, each type of dwelling place (and they were legion in those hard times), education, marriage and much else was covered in the 3 volume report, and he personally wrote the manuals for the field staff and supervisors. He conducted further investigatory work, including the 1966 By-census, before retirement in 1969.\n\nMy own association with Ken Barnett stemmed from our being colleagues in the Administrative Grade of the Civil Service, and from shared interests. He was District Commissioner, New Territories when I was posted to the District Office (South) in 1957, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210965, "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": 27, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "2\n\nserved under him for the next nine months until he was replaced by the late (Sir) Ronald Holmes. It was my first posting after language study, and I was inexperienced and ignorant. Ken was formidable by reason of bulk and intellect, and I was instinctively wary of him. He was, too, one of those rather \"larger than life\" personalities around whom legends and stories had already accumulated. However, he turned out to be both kindly and helpful. More, he was informative; and for a new District Officer anxious to know more about his charges it was fortunate that he had written about local history, something that had attracted insufficient attention from the Civil Service, or anyone else for that matter. I probably saw more of him than the other DOS, because of our joint preoccupation with the Shek Pik Reservoir investigations and the fact that his town office was in the District Office (South) building on Gascoigne Road, Kowloon.\n\nHe used to come in once a week, on set days, and I remember once being indignant upon hearing his booming voice on another day. “Oh well” I thought resignedly, for I was still very new, “he'll come in shortly”, and dismissed him from my mind. Some time later I heard his voice again, and realized it was a tape recording on which his secretary must have been working, a draft speech or something of the kind.\n\nAfter he left the N.T., our association was mostly personal. Through joint interests, including membership of the Royal Hong Kong Defence Force, we met from time to time. The Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, to which he lectured occasionally, was another shared interest. After he left Hong Kong on retirement we exchanged letters periodically. I also saw him on his visits to his family here, and particularly remember the last occasion (1986) when, together with the then District Officer, Yuen Long, we arranged a visit to the border area including the Mai Po marshes. We began with a picnic lunch at Island House which had been his home when he was District Commissioner, New Territories. This was a particularly happy and relaxed family occasion, with his grandchildren, on which I look back with great pleasure.\n\nOne always got a lot out of Ken. Our mutual interest in local people and their history led me to send him copies of any draft", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211763, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "13\n\n153\n\nPP.\n\n12 The inscription recording the rebuilding is at Faure, Luk and Ng, op. cit. Vol. I, 128-129, but it is unreadable through weathering, except for the heading and date.\n\n(4). Loe An-lim (羅安廉) (42), Qianren Wenxian (千人文献), ÑÍAL. [Collected Writings of Men of Past Ages], unpublished manuscript collection, Vol. 2, ff. 75a. (Copy in library of Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Kowloon Central Library, Hong Kong). Lee An-lim was a villager of Sheung Wo Hang.\n\n(3) Lee An-lim, Qianren Wenxian, op. cit. ff 73-78.\n\n+\n\nAs honour board recording the donors to the 1920 repair has recently been found. It lists the donors by village. Every village in Ta Kwu Ling donated (except Ping Che, Chuk Yuen, Nga Yiu Ha, very probably included with their lineage brethren in Tong Fong, Law Fong, Ping Yeung), as did the villages close to the road both in the Sha Tau Kok area (Shan Tsui, Yim Tso Ha, Yim Tin, Wo Hang, Nam Chung, Luk Keng, Wu Shek Kok and Sha Tau Kok Market) and in the Sham Tsun area (Sham Tsun Market, Lo Wu, and Wong Pui Ling). Shek Wu Hui from further away also donated. See Win Wen Wei Pao (SCHEW) of 17 September, 1991.\n\nU¿÷\n\n16 Detail from the tablets commemorating the departed leaders of the monastery, and from information given by the recently deceased resident nun. The tablet of Kuk Shan Kit reads: 羅浮山寶積古寺監裤正宗第上三代主持上谷下山潔老和尚莲座. The tablet Kuk Shan Kit placed to commemorate his deceased predecessors names the \"ordained monks\" HIBA · MAZA\n\n+\n\nJ\n\n# and Ki£*, all of whom were dead by the date of erection\n\n+\n\n1\n\nof the tablet, and ✯, at that date still alive, as well as predecessors as rulers of this monastery\" ALLKILMINER and \"those monks who founded this monastery\", A WILDFORIKA BAIMM-\n\nL\n\n17 See P.H. Hase, “Notes on Rice Farming in Shatin', in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 21, 1981, pp. 196-206; D. Faure, The Rural Economy of Pre-Liberation China: Trade Increase and Peasant Livelihood in Jiangsu and Guangdong, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1989, pp. 46-57 and 212; and Hong Kong Annual Report: Report by District Commissioner, New Territories for Year Ending 31st March, 1950, Noronha and Co., Hong Kong, 1950, p. 5.\n\nTH The Ho clan of Tsung Yuen Ha descends from Ho Chan, the Earl of Tung Kuan in the early Ming, and the Ho family history (CBMGKR — a manuscript volume in the University of Cambridge Library) suggests this area was in Ho Chan's hands before the end of the Ming. It was certainly in Ho family control before 1393 when Ho Chan's family were proscribed. The Tang family has occupied the Lung Yeuk Tau villages, Loi Tung and Tai Tong Wu since the fourteenth century at the latest. A Tang clan also occupies Au Ha (PUF Aoxia) and Wang Kong Ha (Huanggangxia). I have not been able to discover if these two villagers are genealogically connected with the Loi Tung and Lung Yeuk Tau clan, although this is unlikely. The Man family has occupied Ping Che for **18 generations\", according to village elders, i.e. probably from the fourteenth century. The same family occupies Tong Fong, Heung Yuen Wai, and Lin Tong, Liantang), and a branch of it was resident at Man Uk Pin (**Man Family Houses\") before the present residents, the Chung (鍾) clan moved there in the early eighteenth century. The To clan has been resident at Chau Tin village for **500 years\". Local villagers consider that the Lei family has been resident at Lei Uk for as long as the To and Man clans have been at Chau Tin and Ping Che. All these clans are Punti, although sections of the Man clan at Tong Fong, and those at Heung Yuen Wai and Lin Tong, now speak Hakka. Shan Kai Wat (Lam surname, 林), Fung Wong Wu (Yip surname, 葉), and Law Fong (Law surname, 羅), are all included in the list of villages in existence in 1661 included in the 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer, along with Au Ha, Tsung Yuen Ha, Ping Che (Ping Yuen 平遠), and perhaps Ping Yeung (坪洋) (Gazetteer, Ch. 3, f 12-13). Other Punti clans in the Ta Kwu Ling area (Wong, 黃, Chan, 陳, and Law, 羅, at Kan Tau Wai, and Hau, 侯)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212106, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "G. Knapp, The Chinese House: Craft Symbol, and the Folk Tradition (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1990). Knapp does not cover the paintings and stucco work that were a marked feature of the Kwangtung architectural style. For examples of this fine traditional decorative work, see Rural Architecture in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, Government Information Services Department, 1979).\n\nIn the Hakka villages of the Tsuen Wan district, this \"animal\" was always a unicorn. In Cantonese villages the lion was usual. However, their purpose and motivation was clearly the same. Informants said there were differences in the dance performances of lions and unicorns; unicorns \"crept, bobbed and weaved\", whereas lions would \"stand up and prance\". The musical accompaniment, drums and gongs, was the same, and previously firecrackers had been an indispensable part of any performance by lions or unicorns.\n\nHugh Baker mentions that the Liaos of Sheung Shui were known throughout the New Territories for their unicorn dance team. See the interesting information given in his Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village (London, Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1968), p. 193.\n\nSee my \"Notes on Temples and Shrines on Hong Kong Island\" in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 27 (1987), p. 287.\n\nMonlin Chiang, Tides from the West (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1947), p. 9. John Francis Davis, The Chinese, A General Description of the Empire of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, 1836) Vol. 2, pp. 29-30.\n\nFrom the memorial tablet to Mr. Chan Wing-on, Chairman of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee and Chairman of the 18th Term, New Territories Heung Yee Kuk 1950-52, at the Wing On Pavilion, Fu Yung Shan, Tsuen Wan. Mr. Chan died on 15 October 1956; see Annual Departmental Reports, District Commissioner, New Territories, (1953-54 para. 56, and 1956-57 para. 119).\n\nFrom a “Short History of Yeung Uk Village\" (in Chinese), published at the time of the village resiting in 1965 and written by Yeung's eldest grandson, Mr Yeung Cho-ling. According to the commemorative tablet, the grave was repaired on a lucky day in the middle month of the autumn season in the 10th year of Kuang Hsu, that is in September-October 1884.\n\n1736; but in fact the ping-san year is the 1st year of Ch'ien Lung's long reign. There was probably another, less altruistic factor at work here too: since it was believed that the graves of good people have a beneficial effect on the fortunes of their family for generations to come. It is implicit in this case that the good influences of the grave were not yet spent.\n\nFor a more recent example from Tsing Yi Island, see my Rural Communities, op. cit., p. 143.\n\nContents more than values, I suggest? Wolfram Eberhard, Cantonese Ballads (Munich State Library Collection) (Taipei, The Orient Cultural Service, 1972), p.2.\n\nR. David Arkush, \"Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Proverbs\" at pp. 310-335 of Kwang-Ching Liu (ed.) Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990).\n\nHelen Kwok and Mini Chan, Fossils From a Rural Past, A Study of Extant Cantonese Children's Songs (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1990), pp. 17, 29.\n\nLucien Bianco, Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1971), successively pp.126, 94-95.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212878, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "172\n\nThis letter is both a classic of its kind and rather special—in its content warranting translation in full. It was composed in the literary style, and the writer's calligraphy is of a high standard. It is altogether a superior production, and of a kind now seldom seen. The writer was either an old village scholar or a retired schoolmaster, since the younger generation no longer has these literary skills or is trained in them. The letter was accompanied by a copy of the grave tablet erected in 1962 by the four branches descended from Ancestor Shui-tai, and by a list of all male descendants in the after generations, including mention of those who had gone abroad. It is beyond doubt that the clan took the government's notice to remove the grave very seriously indeed.\n\nAccidental Damage to Graves and Urns\n\nSuch statements by those concerned—and they can be many times multiplied since they were the rule—indicate how very concerned villagers became if an old grave, and especially a founding ancestor's grave, was likely to be interfered with by the authorities. Sometimes the files record damage by accident or even by intent. Where accidental damage to graves occurred in the early postwar years, when a large military garrison engaged in frequent exercises across the countryside, the British Army was sometimes the culprit. In 1963, the District Office received a letter from the Tangs of Kam Tin about one of their ancestral graves on the slopes of Tai Mo Shan. 'It has recently been discovered that this ancestral grave has been damaged by military trucks... We are anxious to have it repaired; and as we cannot afford to do so, shall be much obliged if you will sympathize with us and provide the cost of building materials, so that we may proceed to repair the grave as possible in order to pacify the souls of our ancestors and calm ourselves.'8\n\nOn another such occasion, the then District Commissioner, New Territories, upon learning that an ancestral grave had been damaged during a military exercise, arranged for a ceremonial visit to be paid to the village by the brigade commander, the command land agent, the district officer concerned and himself. This was done to show respect to the family and to acknowledge its concern, as well as to show the authorities' desire to make speedy reparation for the damage caused.9 The villagers no doubt appreciated this gesture.\n\nSuch actions could be two-way. Meritorious actions by officers of the District Administration were also recognized. I once received a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212884, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "178\n\nNOTES\n\n1\n\nSaid by one of the Tangs of Ha Pa. The father had won a Jockey Club lottery ticket\n\nMrs Wong Chau Yuk-bing, 10 July 1991\n\nI once became concerned with a grave on a hill above Tsuen Wan. There had been a mistake and confusion when exhuming illegal graves and removing the remains to an authorized cemetery. My subsequent enquiry showed that this slope contained a number of graves of Chans of Sam Tung Uk, repaired in 1919, and another old grave belonging to their cousins from Kwan Mun Hau, a recent reburial of another of their graves whose old site had been required for development; the earth grave with stone tablet dated 1954 belonging to another local lineage recently taken up and remains placed in an urn (whose removal caused all the trouble); and a Tsang grave dated 1909 but removed at some time previously. The enquiry showed that the hill was a favoured burial site, that it was mostly monopolized by the Chans of Sam Tung Uk; that they had received objections from Kwan Mun Hau to a new grave and had not used it but found another site.\n\n4\n\nThe exercise was prompted by what I personally felt was the misguided notion that all the owners of old graves could, and should, one fine day be asked to exhume them.\n\n4 This was still felt to be the case, even though some leading members of the clan were Christians, with forebears who had also been members of the local protestant Chuen Yuen Church, established in Tsuen Wan about 1905.\n\n+\n\nAddressed to DOTW but sent to NTA HQ. See Secretary for the NT's NT L/M No.(172) in E/948/78 to TM&DO TW dated 11 December 1980, enclosing Chinese letter dated November 1980.\n\n+ Chinese letter from Mr. Wong Kit-hung, Village Representative of Shui Pin Village, Yuen Long, dated 14 January 1980.\n\n\"Wong Cho-yip and 22 other villagers of this place are the owners of the grave of Ancestor Shui-tai at Tsing Lung Tau. Ancestor Shui-tai was buried there in the tenth month of the first year of Tung Chih [1862], so that the grave has a history of 120 years. The villagers have recently learned that the government will resume the land there for development. They fear that great damage will be done to the fung-shui [of the clan] if the grave is destroyed. We entreat you to remedy the situation quickly [by cancelling the notice] or by compensating for this loss, so that they may choose a lucky day for the removal of their ancestral grave (and another auspicious burial ground for).\n\nM\n\nChopped DOTW Inward. Serial No. 1861 of 17 August 1963. The District Commissioner gave an account of a ceremonial visit following damage to a grave. See Annual Departmental Report, District Commissioner, New Territories, 1955-56.\n\n4\n\nADR, DCNT 1955-56, para. 87.\n\nMr Wong Kwai-chi, Land Inspector, Class 1. He and I had been colleagues and friends since we first served together in the District Office South, twenty years before.\n\n|| DOTW file TW6/WL/71, Chinese letter dated 4 May 1971.\n\n1:\n\nSee JHKBRAS, Vol. 17 (1977), p.189 for background.\n\nFile TW130/983/77, for China Light and Power Company's electricity supply sub-station on NE Lantau.\n\n14\n\nThis was partly their own fault, as owing to a particularly intense intra-lineage feud, all through the late 1970s and most of the 1980s they could not agree on removal terms,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213093, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "142\n\nimportance of an unexampled calamity. However in spite of difficulties in balancing the budget, many public works projects were completed during his term. He governed with a liberal-mind for he increased the number of unofficial seats in both the Legislative and the Executive Councils in response to a demand for reforming the government. He also agreed to have an unofficial majority on the Sanitary Board. Generally regarded as an able administrator he stayed for fully six years as Governor, the longest tenure held by any governor thus far. In the history of modern China, he would be remembered as the Governor of Hong Kong who imposed a five-year ban on Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who then went to London and was kidnapped but rescued by Sir James Cantlie but that is another story.\n\nSir James Stewart Lockhart, the main target of Lowson's attack, was Registrar General and acting Colonial Secretary in 1894. There is a biography of him written by Shiona Airlie entitled 'The Thistle and the Bamboo.' He emerged from it as a capable but ambitious man who was eager to seek promotion ahead of his time, and in spite of what Lowson said of him, he got on well with the Chinese. The function of a Registrar General in the early years was to deal with Chinese affairs, not legal matters as at present, in fact, the initial title was Protector of the Chinese. In this office, Lockhart maintained good relations with the directors of Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk and the District Watch Committee, the three main representative bodies of the Chinese community. As to his character, he was said to possess 'humoured geniality which endeared him to his contemporaries' but 'occasionally his patience snapped and from a man considered in the main to be warm-hearted and genial, he became angry and stubborn.' He made at least one important contribution in connection with the Epidemic. After the Resumption of Tai Ping Shan Ordinance was passed, action had to be taken to demolish the old houses. Both landlords and tenants put up a spirited resistance as they both had to suffer financial loss, no rent to be collected by the landlords for sometime and no cheap lodgings for the tenants who were mostly coolies. The coolies threatened to go on strike which would paralyse the city in already very difficult circumstances. Lockhart, who was fluent in Chinese, having been a cadet in the Hong Kong Civil Service, was instrumental in solving the dispute which ended amicably. In 1895, at the age of thirty seven, he became Colonial Secretary when his acting appointment was substantiated. In addition, he was appointed as Special Commissioner for the New Territories in 1897 after the lease was settled. In 1902, he went to Weihaiwei as its first Civil Commissioner. On his departure the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213443, "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-1995", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "6\n\nfrequently in consultation with rural committees and village representatives.\" For example, during the year 1956-57, of 138 land disputes which the District Officers dealt with, 30 were settled through rural committees or other local bodies, 92 were settled out of court and 16 were decided in court.” And in the following year, of 112 land disputes, 19 were settled through rural committees or other local bodies, 70 were settled out of court and 23 were decided in court. The method of disposal of one such case is recounted in the District Commissioner's report for the year 1948-49:\n\n\"For the first time since 1913 a land dispute, which had dragged on for nearly a year, was resolved when one of the parties satisfied the District Officer Taipo of his good faith by decapitating a cock in a local temple, a supreme test of honesty. As the dispute was not formally heard under Part II of the Ordinance, the legality of this expedient will fortunately not be subject to review by a Judge.\n\n1920\n\nThirdly, the Full Court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to entertain a further appeal from the decision of a judge of the Supreme Court under section 23 of the New Territories Regulation Ordinance, 1910,\n\nThere are, however, a further eight unreported cases of the Supreme Court sitting in its appellate jurisdiction from decisions of the land officer in land cases arising in the New Territories. The cases all date to the first post-war decennium until 1956. The pre-war records of the Supreme Court were destroyed during the Japanese occupation 1941-45; and since 1956 there has been no appellate proceeding of this type.\n\nWithout proof by evidence in court, it would clearly be dangerous to rely upon works describing customary law obtaining generally or in certain areas of China in the past, as information as to customary law obtaining in the New Territories for Chinese customary law \"is subject to divergencies not only from Province to Province but sometimes from clan to clan in the same neighbourhood.\" Such books may have some comparative value. It is, however, to be regretted that it is difficult in Hong Kong today to trace even one copy of those works written in English to which reference was made by the 1948 Committee.*2\n\nApart, then, from the Report of that Committee, which covers the wider field of Chinese customary law generally obtaining in Hong Kong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213444, "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-1995", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "Kong and only occasionally refers to particular aspects of that law obtaining in the New Territories, and apart from the two reported cases, there is no published material dealing specifically with Chinese customary law of the New Territories which the courts may apply in cases arising from those territories.\n\nAlthough such law must be established by proof acceptable to the court, there is an apparent and an urgent need for a restatement of that law. Such a restatement would, it is submitted, be likely to be of assistance to the courts and to the legal profession. The material for such a restatement must naturally be accumulated over years, the most likely sources being the officers of the Administration and of the technical Departments, who are in daily contact with the inhabitants of the New Territories. In 1958 the District Commissioner stated-\n\nwe sadly miss the pre-war records. Successive District Officers in each district had, prior to 1941, built up what they called their \"Bible\" of knotty points of custom, obtained from independent witnesses who were alive in 1899 and were called not by either party to the dispute, but in accordance with Chinese practice by the Court itself.**\n\n(Although that loss may be held to the account of the Japanese, it does appear that nation has more than adequately repaid its debt to sinology by its scholars' researches into Chinese customary law.*4) During the last decade administrative and technical officers have again undertaken the task of collecting material on Chinese customs maintained in the New Territories and it is on the unpublished results of their labours that the ensuing restatement of Chinese customary law is based.\n\nThe Country and The People.\n\nThe area of the New Territories comprises 355 square miles of land and 673 square miles of sea. The leased territories extend in strict definition from Boundary Street in the middle of Kowloon to the Shum Chun River but the area of 7 square miles immediately to the north of Boundary Street is known as New Kowloon and is administered not as part of the New Territories but as an extension of the Urban Area, that is, the ceded territory of the Colony proper.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213451, "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-1995", "page_number": 47, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "14\n\nEven portions of the sea and the bed of the sea, foreshore, sand beaches, and any land whatever which may be turned into use and profit, are claimed and in some cases registered\n\nAll land in the New Territories with effect from 23rd July 1900 was declared to be Crown Land.\" Any Crown Land not included in a Block Crown lease was, therefore, unleased Crown Land. But the District Commissioner records:-\n\n\"Certain prescriptive rights over \"Crown Land\" have, however, always been recognised either tacitly or by official acknowledgment; most villages have rights of this kind over a greater or smaller area adjoining them, where they graze their cattle, cut grass and bury the dead...\"\n\nThe question of clan lands has right from the outset been a thorny problem. The Memorandum states:-\n\n\"Small villages and hamlets often place themselves under the protection of large and influential clans to which they refer all their complaints and from which they expect assistance in case of attack, robbery, and lawsuits. In some instances the smaller villages pay their land tax to the Government through the influential clans... These clans have, as before stated, claimed large tracts of land, which they have never occupied, but which they have leased in perpetuity to others, who undertake to bring the land under cultivation. The greater part of the land claimed by clans was never registered and, as a rule, it appears that no land tax was ever paid on this land to the Government.\" The cultivators, who have paid rent for years to the clans, in view of the fact that the land had not been registered, were afraid to dispute the rights of ownership, as they anticipated it would result in the land being resumed by Government and they would thus be deprived of their right of cultivation.\n\n+\n\nThe sequel is to be found in the \"Memorandum of the work done in the Land Office, Hong Kong, in respect of the New Territories for the year 1899***.\n\n\"The most serious matter of all, however, has been the stand taken by the farmers against the clans, their former landlords. The clans and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213460, "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-1995", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "23\n\ndecorated cock but in order to make this valid three conditions must be fulfilled.\n\na valid betrothal;\n\nan intention of the bridegroom to attend the marriage ceremony; and the eventual arrival of the bridegroom for consummation.\n\nThe witness explained that in certain parts of China because of lack of communication a bridegroom was sometimes delayed and as a matter of expediency a cock was sometimes allowed to represent him.\n\nA settlement was negotiated by the third day of the hearing and the learned Chief Justice held that he was entitled under the circumstances to grant letters of administration jointly to the plaintiffs and the defendant but by consent the grant was made to the first and third plaintiffs, that is to the widow and one of her sons, and they were to pay about a quarter of the value of the estate to the defendant, who had filed a caveat as next of kin, against his abandoning all claims to the estate.\n\nCases of such marriages by proxy are rare and those which have come to the attention of the authorities in Hong Kong were celebrated in the neighbouring Chinese territory.\n\nIn 1954 Mr D. R. Holmes, the present District Commissioner of the New Territories, took statements from two villagers from the Po On District of China in regard to this customary form of marriage. One witness first distinguished the custom of a representative of the bridegroom's family taking a cock with a red thread tied on its leg to the bride's home in order to fix the date of the wedding. This custom takes place a few weeks before every wedding whether by proxy or otherwise. On the evening of a proxy wedding day there was a distinct and separate cock representing the husband carried by an attendant, which went together with the bride into the household shrine to worship the ancestors of the bridegroom's family. This cock too had a red thread on its leg. The act of worship was an essential part of the marriage custom. Only a “kit fat” wife could be taken in this way.\n\nThere is no form of customary marriage by proxy where the bridegroom is present but the bride absent.\n\nThe custom of “sam p’o tsai” or prospective daughter-in-law exists in the New Territories. Since it is practiced particularly by Hakka.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213468, "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-1995", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "31\n\n* These powers of the Land Officer sprang from the New Territories (Land) Ordinance, 1905 (No. 36 of 1905).\n\n1 Such powers were originally conferred on District Officers by the New Territories Small Debts Court Ordinance, 1908 (now repealed). By agreement of the parties, District Officers, by virtue of the proviso to that section, could determine suits with subject matter up to $5,000 in value ($1,000 HK is the approximate equivalent of £62-1st in 1962 - Editor).\n\nBy the Convention of Peking, 9th June 1898 vide Laws of Hong Kong, Allibone's Edition 1913, Vol. III, pp. 6-7.\n\nibid, pp. 8-9.\n\n* § 7, Supreme Court Ordinance 1873 (now s. 5 of Cap. 4).\n\nExtracts from a Memorandum on some Legal Aspects of the Hong Kong Extension, by W. Meigh Goodman, Attorney General of Hong Kong, dated December 1898, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1899, p. 209 at p. 210.\n\n19 Mr. Chamberlain (then Sir Joseph) to Sir Henry A. Blake, Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1899, p. 177 at p. 178, para 5.\n\nTranslation of the Chinese Proclamation dated 9th April 1899, being Appendix IX to Sir Henry A. Blake's Report to Mr. Chamberlain dated 19th February 1900, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1900, p. 280.\n\nvide my article \"The Choice of Chinese Customary Law in Hong Kong\" (1962) 11 International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 231 at pp. 232-233.\n\n\"Chinese Law and Custom in Hong Kong\" Hong Kong 1953, (hereinafter cited as Committee Report 1953) Appendix 1A at p. 122.\n\n1bid, Chap. II, para. 13 at p. 8.\n\n15 Memorandum of the District Commissioner, New Territories, to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, dated 20th March 1958. It would appear that the 17th April 1899 was the date intended (vide the Governor's Proclamation of 8th April 1899 which appeared as Appendix XX to the Governor's Report in Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1900 at pp. 291-292) to bring the Colony's laws into force in the New Territories with effect from 17th April 1899.\n\n18 (1962) 11 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 231.\n\n17 loc cit para. 6.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213469, "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-1995", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "32\n\nnow s 5. Cap 4\n\n10 The late Mr. G.E. Strickland in the penultimate paragraph of his Appendix I to the Committee Report, 1953\n\n20 (1910) 6 HKLR 12, at p. 53 per Sir Francis Piggott, C.J.\n\n\"Committee Report, 1953.\n\nMarriage by Chinese Law and Customs in Hong Kong, (1958) 7 International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 437\n\n2 Chinese Marriages in Hong Kong, Government Printer, Hong Kong, 1960\n\n* TANG CHOY HONG vs TANG SHING MO & OTHERS. (1949) 33 HKLR 58 (concerning succession to land see below), and CHAN PUI vs CHU YAN KIT (1950) 34 HKLR 297 (concerning agricultural tenancies)\n\n* Committee Report 1953. Chap II para 11 at pp 6-7, and Annual Departmental Report District Commissioner New Territories. 1954-55, para 72 (Hereinafter such reports are referred to as Report DCNT 19)\n\nReport, DCNT, 1950-51, para 26 and 1954-55, para 72 This attitude among the Chinese was always the reaction to litigation and possibly was born of a general distaste for their ancient judicial procedure, vide R.H. Van Gulik, T'ang-Yin-Pi-Shih \"Parallel Cases from under the Pear-tree\". Leiden. 1956, P. 58\n\n\"Report, DCNT, 1956-57, para 106\n\n16\n\nReport, DCNT, 1957-58, para 98\n\npara 43\n\n* CHEUNG Sau Tim vs CHEUNG Yo, Lam (1948) 32 HKLR 31\n\n\"vide Committee Report, 1953. Chap III, para 31\n\n\"ibid paras 34 and 40\n\nLik\n\nMemorandum of 20th March 1958, addressed to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs\n\nvide McAleavy's article \"Certain Aspects of Chinese Customary Law in the Light of Japanese Scholarship.\" BSOAS, 1955, Vol XVII Part 3. p. 535\n\nFor the customs of the land-dwelling Cantonese and Hakka I have had recourse to notes\n\n \n \n \n \n !", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213473, "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-1995", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "36\n\nHong Kong Sessional Papers, 1900, pp 26-269 This Report was forwarded to London under cover of Sir Henry A. Blake's despatch to Mr Chamberlain of 19th February 1900 and this Memorandum of Land was subsequently published as Command Paper 403 in November 1900 (vide Committee Report, 1953, Chap III para 39 and Appendix 10 at p 207, where only two extracts appear) Mr Lockhart stated that the Memorandum was prepared with the assistance of Mr. Messer and Mr Ts'oi, Cader and First Clerk respectively\n\nA later, verbose but less informative source is \"Some Notes on Land Tenure in the New Territories\" attached to the Report, dated 4th March 1901, on the Land Court for 1900 by Mr HHJ Gompertz (who in 1909 was elevated to a puisne judgeship), a Member of that Court - Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1901 p 371 at p. 374\n\n17\n\nThe Emperor of China\n\nre the Chinese Government and Imperial Rent\n\nReport, DCNT, 1959-60, para. 171. The District Commissioner's Report for 1947-48 records (at para 29) that it was discovered in that year that one hamlet had never paid Crown rent since the British occupation of the New Territories This was remedied by the grant of a Block Crown Lease\n\n90 8. New Territories Ordinance (Cap 97)\n\n\"Report, DCNT, 1959-60, para 171\n\nTA\n\ne The Chinese Government\n\nby Bruce Shepherd, Deputy Land Officer, dated 17th January 1900, being Appendix VIII to Lockhart's Report, para. 12 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1900, p 277 at p 279)\n\n44\n\nReport dated 18th February 1905 of Mr C. Mcl Messer, member of the Land Court (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1905, p. 149)\n\nReport dated 7th March 1905 of Mr JR Wood, Member of the Land Court (Hong Kong Sessional Papers 1905 p. 147)\n\nIbid, and see also Report on the New Territories 1899-1912, para 21(1), (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1912, p 46)\n\n7\n\nTregear, op cit, p 62\n\nDA\n\nReport, DCNT, 1959-60, para 177 and Tregear, loc cit\n\n44 Wilson's Notes\n\nalso sometimes termed \"Ching Sheung\" according to Wilson's Notes", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213475, "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-1995", "page_number": 71, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "38\n\n+ Pung Shan Land Case No. 24 of 1954. TANG LAP LEUNG »» TO SHU KAN (unreported) against which the appeal was similarly dismissed by Reynolds J-Civil Appeal No 24 of 1954 (unreported)\n\nWilson's Notes\n\n(1950) 34 HKLR 297\n\nVide Tenancy Tribunal Appeal No 40 of 1950, NG CHOW HING & OTHERS vs KAM WING CHAN & OTHERS, (1950) 34 HKLR 201\n\nTls Report on the New Territories 1899-1912, para 97 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1912 p. 58) General accounts of \"fung shui\" may also be found in Burkhardt, Chinese Creeds and Customs Hong Kong Vol I p 129 and Vol II p. 137\n\nReport DCNT 1959-60, para, 120\n\n120 Memorandum of District Officer, South, to DCNT, dated 22nd December 1959\n\n121 Report on the New Territories 1899-1912, paras 21(2) and 98 (Hong Kong Sessional Papers. 1912, pp 47 and 58), and Report, DCNT, 1959-60, paras 120 and 135\n\n12 Literally notification of the gods ceremony. Report DCNT, 1959-60 para. 125 and memorandum of District Officer, Yuen Long, to DCNT dated 30th October. 1959\n\nReport on the New Territories 1899-1912 para 98 (Hong Kong Sessional papers. 1912 p 58)\n\nDO Yuen Long, loc cit The District Commissioner's Report for the year 1951-52 contains an amusing account of how one village geomancer was confounded (at para, 19).\n\n25 Wilson Notes\n\n125 ibid\n\n127 Cap 97 viz ss. 27, 29, 30 part II, ss. 14 and 57, vide Committee Report, 1953. Chap II, para. 13 at p 7 and the preliminary point decided in the case of TANG CHU YI HONG vs TANG SHING MO and OTHERS (1949) 33 HKLR 58\n\n128\n\nFor which see Chinese Marriages in Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1960, Greenfield. op cit, and Committee Report, 1953\n\n19 vide intra\n\n10 Things Chinese, 4th Edn 1903, p 424 cf MH Van der Valk. An Outline of Modern Chinese Family Law Peking, 1939, pp 82-83, regarding the position under the Nationalist", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213647, "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-1995", "page_number": 243, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "219\n\nwould have been rakish nonentities in their home country, and it is incontestable that there was an element of 'keeping the numbers up' in the recruitment of British expatriates by the Hong Kong Government.\n\nJames, though, was never to give anything less than a hundred per cent effort to his work and to Hong Kong in general. After a year's language training, he was posted to the Southern District Office as District Officer. His first assignment was to co-ordinate the clearing of villages soon to be immersed under the new Shek Pik Reservoir on Lantau Island. Thereafter he served with the Resettlement Department, the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, and the Commerce and Industry Department, in addition to his posts within the City & New Territories Administration. A notable posting was as Deputy Commissioner for Labour from 1982 to 1985. The apogee of his career was as Regional Secretary, New Territories, an area and whose inhabitants he had come to know and love. His postings are remarkable in that he spent almost all of his career outside the Government Secretariat, in contrast to the norm which is generally a mixture of work in the policy branches of government and, in James' words, 'key' departments. Generally, postings to the departments, other than to the most senior positions, are not sought after.\n\nThis book will make a good, informative read for people with little knowledge of Hong Kong and its government. It is written in an informal, pleasant style and there is no impaling of former colleagues or slagging of the system, although James does start drifting towards a characterisation of the political reforms of the eighties towards the end of the book, the impression being that he was not entirely enamoured of the new scheme of things. For 'insiders', there are few surprises and the book is not, therefore, riveting, although it will bring back memories for some, though.\n\nWell done, James, a good addition to the shelves from a former leading civil servant.\n\nPETER HALLIDAY", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213970, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "4\n\naloof on his return. The present writer can vouch for his active approval of an African-inspired experiment whereby departmental administrative officers in the urban areas would collect and transmit upwards a monthly 'intelligence digest' of local opinion, morale and responses to government action or inaction, and of attitudes to prominent local figures and to Chinese or foreign affairs: this was meant to supplement what was collected in their own specialist manners by the HK Police Special Branch (SB), the New Territories Administration (NTA), the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)'s Political Adviser (PA) and the Security Liaison Officer (SLO). Some of what was collected may have been too near the knuckle, some was rather too easily discounted as mere \"gossip,\" important though that might be as a reflection of influential belief at the grass roots, and some may have hurt the dignity of those who had the existing duty of intelligence-gathering. The governor was persuaded to drop the experiment as proving trivial.\n\nBut Trench also showed interest in another interloping proposal that, in the absence of any generalist government institutions to supplement the Secretary for Chinese Affairs (SCA)'s advisory staff (who liaised with the various kai fong (Neighbourhood) Welfare Associations, Clansmens' Associations and Residents' Associations, which were often self-perpetuating), District Officers (DOs) should be appointed in the urban areas; these should have certain executive functions, fewer than those of their colleagues in the New Territories so as not to encroach on the licensing prerogatives of the Urban Council, but sufficient to ensure that all should know of their existence and, above all, of where their offices were. Primarily they should oversee and co-ordinate the activities of the various professional and technical departments in their bailiwicks, but also, like paternalistic mandarins, inquire into, report upon and seek answers to the needs and concerns of the inhabitants. This suggestion was effectively smothered by a DCS who was unable to understand what such DOs might achieve in a city that existing institutions did not already adequately do: the concept of such junior, peripheral, government officers being responsive to people, as opposed to being mere executive agents responsible for essential infrastructural public services, was alien. Apart from the SCA's and District Commissioner New Territories (DCNT)'s contacts with often self-appointed élites, there was little by way of direct exchange with the man in the street: the same DCS once said, \"Government must, of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214872, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 287, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "256\n\nGetting to Tong Fuk at that time was a slow business. After taking a scheduled ferry from Hong Kong, and travelling along the new South Lantau Road to the road-end at Cheung Sha, half the distance to Shek Pik, we had still to walk along old country paths and ford large and small streams. One of these stream courses was wide and boulder-strewn, and crossing it in full flood after heavy rain, as well as several smaller ones, was guaranteed to give one a thorough soaking. However, being young and active, and in high spirits, we thought nothing of it. In fact, I positively enjoyed it! Nonetheless, when visits were so time-consuming and there was plenty of work to do in the office and elsewhere in the District, the need to go out so frequently in that short space of time was not appreciated.\n\nOn this occasion, local opposition was centred on one especially sensitive spot, where the villagers insisted that rock and boulders be broken up by hand instead of being removed by blasting with explosives. My reluctant acquiescence made the District Office unpopular with the government engineers from the Roads Office, who thought we were pandering to the villagers. So it might have seemed, but there was otherwise certain to be a conflict with people who were quite numerous, united in their opposition, and always capable of taking the law into their own hands, not omitting sabotage of contractors' equipment and installations. In this respect, I may add, they were no different from the majority of New Territories' villagers of the day.\n\nTo run such a risk was not advisable in circumstances where both the senior police and civil authorities were based in Kowloon, several hours' journey from the site. Violent confrontations would not have been acceptable to my seniors; and in any case, it was part of my personal responsibility as District Officer to avoid that kind of thing. Moreover, further, and more prolonged delays would be certain to ensue. This was unthinkable.\n\nNonetheless, our experiences on this particular occasion were certainly rather trying. The full story, on two and a half closely typed pages, was contained in a minute to the District Commissioner dated 27th May 1958. I do not know whether it has survived in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, but fortunately I kept the copy on which this account is based.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 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": 215836, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "68\n\nAll associations were required to be registered under the Societies Ordinance of the Laws of Hong Kong or as limited companies under the Companies Ordinance. Partly because of this, another duty undertaken by officials was to attend or officiate at the inaugurations of new terms of office-bearers, including administration of an oath of office to the new incumbents. This was particularly the case with the rural committees and the kaifong welfare associations, which (as major channels of communication with the local public) had close links with, and came under the supervision of, the District Commissioner, New Territories, and the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and their senior staff in the districts.1\n\nDuring my fifteen years in the New Territories Administration (NTA), and five more in the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs (SCA, which later became the Home Affairs Department or HAD) both of them to be described as \"political\" departments whose staff had direct dealings with the public, we were also in contact with a miscellany of other community bodies, including the many clansmen's (same name) and district (same place) associations, in both town and country. From the early 1970s, these were joined by the government-sponsored and assisted Mutual Aid Committees, of which large numbers were formed across the whole territory.\n\nThose officials with district responsibilities (including police), were invited to all major local functions as a matter of course, and the officiating officers were either the District Officers, or their superiors in headquarters or in concerned departments. I attended a great many functions during my service in various departments, and thus became familiar with their way of conducting them. This hardly varied, the difference being mainly a matter of degree and extent, depending on the importance of the bodies concerned and the nature and significance of their events.\n\nThe Nature of the proceedings\n\nA marked formality characterized all their occasions. The ceremonies followed set procedures, and each stage was introduced by a\n\n1 For anyone wishing to learn more, the index to Friends and Teachers indicates where information concerning these and other Chinese associations, and their interaction with government departments during my service (1956-87) can be found.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215838, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "In the essentially conservative society of the day, partial to the observance of etiquette and sensitive to social niceties, it was equally necessary for the government departments involved in district administration and community liaison to have the services of similar experts. The former Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, and the old-style District Administration New Territories/New Territories Administration, were the two departments in question. Even more than the associations, they had to do everything in the approved style, and with smooth efficiency.\n\nIn the SCA, there was a Chinese Literary Clerk to advise and assist the senior staff. There was also a Calligraphist, whose duties included writing the apothegms requested by associations to grace the pages of their bulletins and special publications (Plate 1). These posts are listed in the SCA's printed annual departmental reports (e.g. 1966-67, Appendix 21). In the DANT, such assistance was provided by a specially selected senior member of the government's General Clerical Service. A Calligraphist came later, together with an Interpreter/Translator in headquarters (see e.g., the District Commissioner's printed annual departmental report for 1964-65, Table XI). Such help was needed if we and our Offices were to function properly within the old system: meaning, in conformity with the accepted norms of polite (i.e., educated) Chinese society.\n\nOutside the headquarters, a notable contribution was made by the Liaison Officer grade in the two departments. Their senior officers' detailed knowledge of the associations' leaders and general expertise was vital in guiding the expatriate element among their superiors. And although, on one occasion, it was unkindly said of the liaison staff in the former Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, that 'all they were good for was arranging chairs and seating, and ushering guests to their seats,' such remarks overlook the great importance attached to protocol and etiquette in traditional Chinese society and the creation and maintenance of a sense of wellbeing between the guests and their hosts.\n\nIn truth, many persons took notice of performance. Government departments and community associations alike would be criticized for any mistakes or omissions, whilst any \"gaffes\" made during speeches - including the unwary or inadvertent choice of words to whose sounds other, disreputable, meanings could be construed - would be noted at once, and give rise to profane mirth or even ridicule. I can vouch for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]