[
    {
        "id": 205325,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 87,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "80\n\nTHE CHINA COASTERS\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nJames Matheson sent his San Sebastian from Canton to ports in Fukien Province in 1820, to open up new markets for opium, and this is generally considered the pioneer voyage in the China coast trade. Although Matheson was Danish Consul at Canton at this time, and the San Sebastian sailed under Spanish colours, it is correct to describe this voyage as a British venture. The men who sailed the opium clippers, therefore, were the first 'China coasters', and since that time 'China coasters' have considered themselves a breed apart, distinct from the rest of the British Merchant Navy. The tradition of more liberal manning, of better pay, food, and conditions in general, pioneered by the opium clippers has continued to the present day.\n\nMany of the customs and practices of the lordly East Indiamen and of the Indian 'country ships' were inherited by the humbler 'China coasters'. The East Indiaman's captain could, and was expected to, make a fortune from carrying passengers and private cargo, in addition to the company's, and in self defence the latter stipulated a definite scale of perquisites for each member of the crew, from captain down to bosun and carpenter. Generous as this was, it was invariably exceeded. There was a much greater variety of 'pidgin' (=business) on the China coast, although it did not comprise such a high proportion of the China coaster's total earnings. As on the East India Company's ships, dabbling in certain types of 'pidgin' was considered legitimate and carried no moral stigma.\n\nThe most common and profitable pidgin came from deck passengers. It was on the emigrant runs to the Straits and Bangkok that this type of 'pidgin' was most prolific. I was introduced to this on my first ship on the coast, the Antung. The Antung was\n\nThe author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtse in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Two of his articles have been published previously in the Journal. \"European Navigation on the Yangtse\" in Vol. 3, 1963, and \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965.",
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    {
        "id": 205330,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 92,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "The China Coasters\n\n85\n\nwere very small, but had very powerful engines and steering gears. Only the high passenger and freight charges enabled them to run at a profit. One of the most important cargoes from the Upper Yangtse was tung oil, which was latterly carried in bulk. This oil was used in the manufacture of high quality paints and lacquers, and was so valuable that the privilege of cleaning out the cargo pumps after discharge was one of the most highly prized perquisites of the engine room staff. The Upper Yangtse was too dangerous for night navigation, so that the Gorge boats anchored each night at dusk, and set off again at dawn. Officers on these ships were paid a special bonus after a season on the Upper River, and also given local leave.\n\nBecause they operated in inland waters, the Yangtse riverboats were exempt from certain of the manning regulations which applied to deep sea British ships. Certificated masters and chief mates were always carried, but sometimes the second mates had no British qualifications, and were either White Russians or Chinese. During the inter-war years these White Russians were often former officers of the Imperial Russian Navy, and without exception were very capable and efficient. On the engine room side the chief and second engineers had British qualifications, but sometimes Chinese third engineers were employed,\n\nThe opium clipper tradition inherited by the 'China coasters' resulted in smart and well run ships, a credit to the owners and crews concerned. The pre-war 'China coasters' were probably the smartest ships in Britain's Merchant Navy, and their bright paintwork, gleaming brass work, and smart red-sashed quartermasters would have gladdened the heart of old Admiral Benbow. Their closest rivals under the Red Ensign were the coasters of the Straits Steamship Company which were based on Singapore, and which traded round Malaya and the East Indies. 'China coasters', apart from officers, had all Chinese crews, while the Straits coasters and their Dutch K.L.M. rivals had Malays on deck and Chinese down below, a good combination in pre-Sukarno days. Sailors and firemen sometimes spent a lifetime on one ship, and often the bosun and Number One Fireman would have started their careers on the same ship twenty-five years earlier. The Arab and Indian practice of the bosun and Number One being responsible for their department was followed on the China coast, and each department was very much a family and clan affair.",
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    {
        "id": 205333,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 95,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "88 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nChina Navigation Company fleet numbered over sixty ships and they dominated the beancake trade; they employed a dozen or so old coasters, ships which had outlived their usefulness in more demanding trades. These were naturally called 'beancakers'. When not beancaking, they relieved the liner ships when these went to dock, or supplemented them when seasonal demands of trade warranted this. They sometimes laid up for a few weeks between active spells, usually on the upper reaches of the Whang-poo River above Shanghai,\n\nLife on the beancakers was leisurely and easy-going. Bean-cakes were about the size of grindstones and half the weight, and were an easy cargo to handle, loading and discharging being carried out by coolies working through the cargo port doors in the ship's sides. The engines were little more than the bare \"three legs and twa pumps\", so that neither mates nor engineers were overburdened with work. Rumour had it that the engine room was locked up after the first day in port and stayed like that until just before sailing. In warm weather, all the officers arranged their accommodation on the poop, within easy reach of the ice-box. Beancaker captains and chief engineers were unambitious and asked nothing more than to be free of superintendents and office reports, and this life suited them admirably. The honour and prestige of sailing in a crack Tientsin liner held no attractions for such men,\n\nThe normal beancaker voyage was from Newchwang to Swatow fully loaded, with Dairen and Canton as alternative loading and discharging ports. After discharging, the beancakers went north to Shanghai in ballast, then took on bunkers and stores before continuing north to repeat the process. Sometimes a little general cargo might be taken from Shanghai to Newchwang. The complete voyage took about a month, and three or four voyages were made at the beginning and end of the season. The north-bound passage against the north-east monsoon could be long and trying, and when the monsoon was especially severe, experienced masters usually took the inside passage. This took advantage of the many islands between Swatow and Shanghai and was comparatively sheltered. It was only navigable for small ships of light draught, and it was advisable to anchor at night and negotiate most of the passage by daylight. Even with such delays, the beancakers often made quite good north-bound passages when,",
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    {
        "id": 206004,
        "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": 84,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION \n\nAND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE \n\nA. D. BLUE* \n\nUntil after the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858, emigration from China was illegal, but this law, like so many others, was more honoured in the breach than in the observance, especially in the southern provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung, and to a lesser extent Kwangsi. Traders, however, were allowed to go abroad under certain conditions, which usually included eventual return to China. There had been emigration from these southern parts of China to most regions of South-east Asia for centuries before 1858, and there were flourishing colonies of Chinese at all the main ports when the first Europeans arrived there in the 16th century. The Ming fleet under Cheng Ho is said to have killed five thousand Chinese at Palembang in 1406, and while this is almost certainly an exaggeration, it is certain that these Chinese colonies were already populous. While treating briefly with Chinese emigration to other parts of the world, the following essay deals mainly with emigration to South-east Asia. The Chinese called this region the 'Nanyang', which literally means 'Southern Ocean'; but it is often used to describe other countries even further south, such as Australia, New Guinea, and the South Pacific islands. In the pre-European and early European eras, most overseas Chinese were traders, money lenders, and craftsmen, and their contribution to the economy of South-east Asia was out of all proportion to their numbers.\n\nThe civil wars which succeeded the Manchu defeat of the Mings in south China in the mid-17th century gave a strong impetus to emigration; but the arrival of the Europeans in South-east Asia in time created the conditions favourable to Chinese settlement on a much larger scale. The Chinese were often the intermediaries between the Europeans and the native peoples, useful to each, but periodically incurring hostility from both. As they increased in numbers, the Chinese posed increasingly\n\n*The author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtse in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Three of his articles have been published previously in the Journal: \"European Navigation on the Yangtse\" in Vol. 3, 1963, \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965, and \"The China Coasters\" in Vol. 7, 1967.\n\n* See the note at the end of this article.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206005,
        "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": 85,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "80\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\ndifficult problems to the governments concerned, and cruel, drastic, but ineffectual attempts were made to halt immigration. The massacres of thousands of Chinese in the Philippines in 1603, 1639, and again after the British occupation of 1763, are the most celebrated of many such occurrences, the last being caused by the Chinese having shown a marked preference for British rather than Spanish rule. In Indonesia the worst massacre took place at Batavia in 1740. Similar pogroms, but on a much smaller scale, continued in the Philippines down to 1820, and post-war Indonesia has shown a disquieting tendency to put the clock back two centuries in their treatment of their Chinese. But although victims of periodic bouts of xenophobia from the local peoples, in most countries of South-east Asia and at most times the Chinese were protected by the colonial governments which recognised the value of Chinese labour for their economies.\n\nBy the early decades of the 19th century the coolie trade between China and South-east Asia had attained substantial proportions -- although still nothing like so great as it was to become later -- and most of the trade was in the hands of Chinese junks of from 300 to 400 tons. Such craft could only sail before the wind and carried crews of up to ninety sailors, enough to man five European ships of the same size. They took anything from twenty to thirty days between south China and the Straits or Bangkok, and the coolies had a very uncomfortable time on the passage. No charts were carried, the only navigational instrument being a very rude compass, and they kept as close to land as possible. In the 1830s up to eighty such junks sailed to Bangkok every year, usually from Swatow, and by the mid 1840s, by which time European steamships were entering the trade, it was estimated that about 15,000 coolies were emigrating to Bangkok every year.\n\nA description of these old trading junks is given in S. Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom (London, W. H. Allen & Co. revised edition, 1883) vol. 1, p. 753. It shows inter alia that the number of passengers carried on these junks to the Nanyang could be very great. ... \"The cabins look more like niches in a sepulchre than the accommodations for a live passenger. The crew lie upon deck most of the time, and are usually interested in the trade of the vessel or an adventure of their own. The great number of passengers which have been stowed in these vessels entailed a frightful loss of life when they were wrecked. In February, 1822, Capt. Pearl, of the English ship Indiana, coming through Gaspar Straits, fell in with the cargo and crew of a wrecked junk, and saved one hundred and ninety-eight persons (out of one thousand six hundred with whom she had left Amoy).\" Ed.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206006,
        "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": 86,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 81\n\nUntil the treaty port era that began with the Treaty of Nanking 1842, most Chinese emigration was voluntary, and mainly to South-east Asia. Then the situation changed. Almost coincident with the opening of the treaty ports and the expansion of foreign shipping on the coast, a widespread demand for cheap labour arose in many parts of the tropics, to replace the recently emancipated slave labour, and also to supply the additional workers required for the increased agricultural and industrial development which followed the establishment of European administrations. In many of these places contract labour from China provided the solution.\n\nMuch of the contract labour was voluntary; but many thousands of the Chinese emigrants to the Spanish and ex-Spanish colonies of South America and the West Indies were kidnapped, abducted by unscrupulous crimps, or sold by cruel or poverty-stricken relatives. The coolies themselves were not always blameless, and many accepted engagement money and then failed to turn up at the collecting centres, or absconded before joining the ship. The labour agents employed by the centres received a capitation fee for every coolie they delivered at the coast, and were specially active during famines and depressions. In 1853 the capitation fee was three dollars per head, but in addition these agents often appropriated any money advanced to the coolies on the score of defraying expenses, and also charged them with the capitation fee, maintenance costs at the depot, and other expenses. As a result the unfortunate coolie often found himself saddled with a heavy debt which might amount to several months' wages before he ever set foot on the promised land. But whether voluntary or forced, the coolies were herded into wretched barracoons at the coast while waiting for their ship, and then suffered great hardship and cruelty on the voyage. In spite of repeated protests, British ships and Hong Kong played an invidious part in this infamous traffic in the early treaty port years.\n\nHowever, the British government soon made attempts to ameliorate the abuses of the emigrant trade but only succeeded in diverting much of it to other ports such as Whampoa, Macao, Cumsingmoon, Amoy, and Swatow. The Chinese Passengers' Act, passed in 1855, prescribed certain standards of food, accommodation, medical attention, and so on; and two years later a",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206008,
        "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": 88,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 83\n\nlanded in Cuba alive. Losses of up to 40% were not uncommon on such voyages, and it is not surprising that the emigrant trade was sometimes called the \"Pig Trade\".*\n\nMost of this emigration continued to be in sailing ships as the early steamships were not particularly popular in the emigrant trade; it was thought the passengers were not landed in such good condition as from sailing ships. The number of days at sea was not so important as the number and condition of the passengers landed. It is probable, however, that like the contemporary objections against carrying tea in steamships, the objections against steamships in the emigrant trade were mainly based on prejudice.\n\nBetween the 1840's and the 1870's, when emigration to South America and the West Indies was practically uncontrolled, conditions on the long passage from the China coast were as bad as those on the notorious 'Middle Passage' of the African Slave Trade. Sometimes they were so intolerable that the Chinese rose in revolt, and attempted to kill the captain and crew. Sometimes they would set the ship on fire, hoping either to capture the ship or escape in the confusion. Emigrant ships were usually provided with barricades on deck in those days, like those on convict ships, to prevent the coolies from attacking the officers' and crews' quarters, a device later adopted as an anti-piracy precaution on late 19th and early 20th century emigrant ships in the South-east Asian trades.\n\nDuring this same period Indians were emigrating to the West Indies, Mauritius, Fiji, and other places, and the Indian section of the emigrant trade has been studied more intensively than the Chinese. The Indian trade was not subject to such great abuses as the Chinese, as it was under more effective control at each end. Indians were also more amenable to discipline, so there was less danger of revolt on Indian emigrant ships. Their passivity and personal habits, however, made them more liable to illness, and the greatest dangers in the Indian emigrant trade\n\n* S. Wells Williams, Chinese Commercial Guide (Hong Kong, 1863) pp. 223-224, shows that coolies for the American countries were known as \"chü-tsai ## or pigs\" among contemporary Cantonese \"by an allusion to their [i.e. the Cantonese] mode of catching and carrying off swine in round baskets\". It is not known whether this phrase, which is still remembered today as 7, is of earlier origin. Ed.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 206010,
        "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": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 85\n\nat the French settlement on New Caledonia, after which the French authorities sent a ship to rescue the survivors on Rossel Island. Only one small Chinese boy was found, whose story was that the rest of the passengers and crew had been eaten by the natives. This was accepted as gospel by the press in Sydney where the boy was taken, although there were some glaring inconsistencies in his story, and it was repeated in the British Admiralty Sailing Directions. Not until thirty years later was it seriously questioned, when its most important critic was Sir William MacGregor, the first Australian administrator of New Guinea. It is now generally believed that, rather than wait to be taken on to Australia and a life-time of labour to repay the inflated cost of their passages, the Chinese had preferred to take a chance in New Guinea. Food, including the highly prized luxury bêche-de-mer, was comparatively plentiful, and life in New Guinea with freedom must have appeared infinitely preferable to life in the Australian goldfields saddled with a heavy personal debt. When the first official census was taken in New Guinea, many Chinese were recorded, of whose origins there was no satisfactory explanation.\n\nAnother notable incident in the history of Chinese emigration, and which had a happy conclusion, concerned the Peruvian ship Maria Luz in 1872. The Maria Luz had left Macao with over 300 indentured labourers for the Peruvian guano islands, and was forced into Yokohama harbour in distress. One coolie jumped overboard and swam to H.M.S. Iron Duke, where he reported that the passengers on the Maria Luz had either been kidnapped or decoyed on board under false pretences. As a result of the publicity and outcry which this caused, all the passengers were sent back to China. Peru had then no treaty relations with Japan, but threatened war unless Japan apologised and indemnified her. The British government, however, warned Peru that any hostile act on her part would invite retaliatory action by the Royal Navy; and the whole question was referred to France, who gave her verdict in favour of Japan. This case focussed public attention on the many unsavoury aspects of the emigrant trade, and also led to the opening of diplomatic relations between China and Japan.\n\nIt is necessary to remind ourselves that conditions in many of the emigrant ships to South-east Asia during the 1850's and\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
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    {
        "id": 206012,
        "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": 92,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 87\n\nhundreds were to be seen, and the 1937 census showed Bangkok to have 196,000 Chinese females to 336,000 males. This shortage of female compatriots in the early centuries induced many Chinese to intermarry with the local Malays, Siamese, or Indonesians; and until well into the present century there always seemed a reasonable chance that the overseas Chinese would merge into the local communities. The relaxation of anti-emigration laws and the cheap and easy communications provided by the steam-ships, however, enabled more and more Chinese women to emigrate, and this reversed the previous trend towards assimilation. This factor may have been as important as political developments in increasing tension between the newly independent states of South-east Asia and their Chinese populations.\n\nBy the end of the 19th century the combination of enlightened public opinion and official action had mitigated the worst abuses of the continued coolie trade to South America and the West Indies. At the same time economic developments in South-east Asia were greatly increasing the already large demand for Chinese labour in that region. Rubber and tea plantations, tin mines and rice mills, all required labour which the local populations were either unable or unwilling to supply. As a result the centuries-old emigrant trade from south China increased many times over, and it was with this comparatively recent mass emigrant trade that the China coast steamship companies were most concerned. This became one of the most profitable sections of the China coast trade.\n\nThe domestic deck passenger trade had been important from the earliest days of foreign shipping on the China coast. The opium clippers had only carried European passengers, mail, and specie, in addition to opium; but all other foreign ships on the coast looked on deck passengers as a very important source of revenue. In a country so ill-equipped with roads as 19th century China, shipping played an indispensable role in passenger transport. In 1849, for instance, when the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao Steam Packet Company was formed and commenced a regular service between the three ports, the cost of a deck passage between any two of these ports was one dollar. The speed, regularity, and safety of the foreign steamships soon enabled them to capture the cream of the deck passenger trade from the junks.",
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    {
        "id": 206014,
        "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": 94,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 89\n\nmaking their first venture abroad in those years were joining relatives or friends, and had been able to borrow enough on future earnings to ensure a comfortable passage. There were always a few unfortunates, however, who, in their anxiety to escape from the poverty and misery of their native village, had borrowed their passage money from money lenders or their tongs at ruinous rates of interest.\n\nConditions for most of this century were certainly vastly changed from the middle decades of the 19th century. Prospective passengers lived in boarding houses in Amoy or Swatow when waiting for a ship, and the ship's compradore often had a financial interest in these boarding houses or worked in close co-operation with their owners. As there was keen competition in the 20th century emigrant trades, not only between different shipping companies, but under the compradore system — between different ships in the same company, the prospective passengers were well treated in the boarding houses, which bore little resemblance to the barracoons of the 'bad old days'.\n\nBeside the China coasters, overseas ships on the Far Eastern run also took part in the emigrant trade, especially to the Straits and Bangkok, as this could be fitted into their wayport schedule; and even the large and luxurious Canadian Pacific liners were not above carrying a few hundred deck passengers from time to time. Ben Line steamers, too, sometimes called at Amoy and Swatow and took up to two hundred deck passengers to the Straits or Bangkok or vice versa, but on many overseas ships the passengers had to supply and cook their own food, and sleep on wooden planks laid over steel decks. The overseas ships were not normally so well suited for deck passengers as the regular coast ships, and by the First World War the latter had captured the cream of the trade.\n\nIn the South-east Asian trades south-bound traffic normally exceeded north-bound, but not to a disproportionate extent. Many overseas Chinese returned home, either for a holiday or to retire, and north-bound ships were especially busy just before Chinese New Year, and south-bound just after this important festival. These north-bound ships, where many passengers were carrying the savings of a few years or even of a lifetime, were the most tempting for pirates, and were specially equipped to deal",
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    {
        "id": 206015,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1970",
        "page_number": 95,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "90 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nwith this menace. North-bound ships also carried several dead Chinese in their coffins, and spare coffins to accommodate any who might die on their way home. These latter were not buried at sea, but were invariably carried on to China for interment in their ancestral village, \n\nNot every Chinese who emigrated to the 'Nanyang' became a wealthy 'towkay', but most overseas Chinese communities were by Chinese standards prosperous, and all retained their liking for traditional Chinese foods and delicacies. This resulted in a substantial south-bound trade in such things as Swatow cabbages and oranges, live and preserved fish, lychees, Chinese wine, and preserved eggs; all of which paid high freight either to the shipping company or to some member of the crew. \n\nAmoy and Swatow had always been the major ports for emigration to South-east Asia, and they retained this importance until emigration came to an end shortly after the outbreak of the Pacific War; while Hong Kong was always the base for most of the ships engaged in the emigrant trade. The China Navigation Company was the coast company most concerned with the emigrant trades to the south during this century, although the three principal coast companies — China Navigation, Indo-China Steam Navigation, and China Merchants Steam Navigation Companies — were all equally concerned with the deck passenger trades on the coast and on the Yangtse. \n\nL \n\nFor most of the inter-war years the China Navigation Company operated weekly services from Amoy and Swatow to Bangkok and Singapore respectively, with four ships on each service. They had also one ship on a fortnightly service between Amoy and Manila, and four ships on a weekly service between Shanghai and Haiphong, with calls at the intermediate ports of Amoy, Swatow, Hong Kong, and Canton. In this latter trade cargo and deck passengers were equally important. The Bangkok trade had previously been operated by a German company, Nordeutscher Lloyd, which had bought out an earlier British concern, the Scottish Oriental Company, in 1899. Butterfield and Swire had been agents for both companies in south China, and when the German company in turn sold out during the early years of this century, Butterfield and Swire inherited this increasingly valuable",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206016,
        "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": 96,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE\n\n91\n\ntrade for their own China Navigation Company. During most of the inter-war years a Norwegian company also operated a weekly service between Swatow and Bangkok in opposition to the China Navigation Company; but the latter's faster and more modern ships enjoyed the lion's share of this trade. The Singapore trade was an inheritance from the Blue Funnel Line, and came to the China Navigation through their close connection with the Holt family.\n\nFor several decades before the First World War much of the emigrant trade to Indonesia was in the hands of German companies, but when German overseas shipping was eliminated after the outbreak of war in 1914 this trade passed to Dutch companies, in particular the K.P.M. and the J.C.J.L. lines. Previous to 1890 a consortium of Dutch planters had employed coolie brokers in Singapore and Malaya for recruiting purposes, and Malaya was always something of a reservoir of Chinese labour for much of South-east Asia, especially for Indonesia and Siam. Entry into Malaya was easier than elsewhere, and there were more frequent and cheaper shipping services between south China and the Straits. It was always a comparatively simple matter for Chinese—authorised or unauthorised—to cross the short Malacca Straits into Indonesia or the ill-defined boundary between Malaya and Siam.\n\nThe Indo-China Steam Navigation Company was not nearly so deeply involved in the southern deck passenger trades as the China Navigation Company, but their Japan-Calcutta ships took part in the Straits trade on their way up and down the coast, and their Hong Kong-Sandakan ships had a near monopoly of the comparatively small trade to British North Borneo. Most coasters on the Hong Kong-Shanghai service called at Canton and carried deck passengers, but there was also a small fleet of specially designed river steamers employed between Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao, which provided daily and nightly services between the three ports, and thus an out and in connection for emigrants. The Canton river steamers were smaller editions of the Yangtse steamers, and their night departure from the Praya at Hong Kong, when they were a blaze of flamboyant and garish lights, was a spectacular sight before the Second World War. The six or seven hour passage between Hong Kong",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206017,
        "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": 97,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "92\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nand Canton, and the shorter passage between Hong Kong and Macao, was for many Chinese passengers an opportunity for a prolonged gambling and drinking session.\n\nThe peak years of Chinese emigration to South-east Asia were those immediately preceding the world-wide economic depression of the early 1930s. The rubber and tin industries of South-east Asia were particularly hard hit by this depression, and Chinese immigration into all the countries of the region was severely curtailed. There had only been a very partial revival to pre-depression levels when the Pacific War broke out, soon after which Chinese emigration completely ceased.\n\nOwing to the different countries of South-east Asia adopting different methods of classifying nationality, it is practically impossible to obtain an accurate estimate of the number of Chinese in the region at any time; but well-informed authorities agree that at the outbreak of the Pacific War the number of people who regarded themselves as of Chinese race was about 8 million, that is between 5 and 6% of the total population. By far the greatest concentration of Chinese was in Malaya, where in 1947 the Chinese population of the Federation and Singapore was 2,605,000 out of a total population of 5,823,000. Singapore was, and still is, almost a Chinese city, and in 1947 there were 730,000 Chinese in a total population of 941,000. It is even more difficult to estimate how many Chinese were moving between China and South-east Asia in any year, but considering isolated figures relating to different countries, this must have amounted to several hundred thousands when the traffic was at its height. In 1929 Indo-China had a surplus of Chinese immigrants over emigrants of 40,000; while in the same year 195,000 Chinese males entered Malaya. In 1937 again some 8,000 Chinese entered British North Borneo.\n\nAlthough mainland Chinese have been unable to travel abroad since 1949, Chinese still move between Hong Kong, Formosa, and South-east Asia; but their numbers are infinitesimal in comparison with the vast traffic during the colonial era. However, the China Navigation Company is engaged in two specialised passenger trades which bear a little resemblance to the emigrant and deck passenger trades of the old days. One is the carriage of indentured labourers from Hong Kong to the Pacific phosphate",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206018,
        "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": 98,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 93\n\nislands of Nauru and Ocean Island; and the other is the Pilgrim Trade from Malaya to the Red Sea Port of Jeddah. The passengers in this latter trade are mainly Malays, who travel in near-luxury conditions comparable with European tourist class. Food and accommodation are suited to Moslem tastes and prejudices, an Iman travels on the ship, and there is a mosque provided in the accommodation.\n\nLater Chinese emigration to South-east Asia was largely the result of the economies imposed on the region by the European colonial powers, and the agricultural and industrial development which these powers initiated. On achieving independence at various times after 1945 each country has attempted with varying degrees of success - to weaken the economic and political position of their Chinese populations, and in the early 1960s Indonesia even attempted their repatriation on a substantial scale. It is in this country that the Chinese have been subjected to the harshest and most cruel treatment, with thousands being killed in pogroms reminiscent of the worst years in Indonesia and the Philippines in the earlier period. It may be that the contribution of the overseas Chinese to the economic development of South-east Asia, has in these latter years at least been counter-balanced by the political instability caused by their presence, but for this they are not wholly to blame.\n\nNOTE\n\nAn account of the Ch'ing government's attitude towards the emigration of its subjects is given at pp. 26-29 of Victor Purcell's The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1965).\n\nIn his well-known work, The Middle Kingdom (London, W. H. Allen & Co., revised edition, 1883) vol. 1, pp. 278-9 S. Wells Williams states that \"The obstacles put in the way of emigrating beyond sea, both in law and prejudice, operate to deter respectable persons from leaving their native land. Necessity has made the law a dead letter, and thousands annually leave their homes.\" He then quotes the following striking passage from W. H. Medhurst's China: Its State and Prospects (1838). \"Emigration is going on in spite of restrictions and disabilities, from a country where learning and civilization reign, and where all the dearest interests and prejudices of the emigrants are found, to lands like Burmah, Siam, Cambodia, Tibet, Manchuria, and the Indian Archipelago, where comparative ignorance and barbarity prevail, and where the extremes of a tropical or frozen region are to be exchanged for a mild and temperate climate.\"",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206777,
        "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": 54,
        "title": "RAS-1973",
        "content_text": "48\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nThe Forbes completed the last few days of her passage under sail, in order to reserve a few tons of coal for the river passage. When the Chinese pilot came on board to take her up to Lintin she was under steam with wind and tide against her. He showed no astonishment, however, and quietly gave the helmsman his orders as if everything was normal. At last the captain could stand his bland indifference no longer, and asked him if he had ever seen a steamship before. The pilot calmly replied that this mode of propulsion had once been common in many parts of China, but had fallen into disuse. He knew that everything was alright so long as black smoke came from the funnel, but as soon as white steam appeared he was uneasy. Chinese acquainted with 'pidgin English' came to call a paddle steamer like the Forbes \"outside walkee\", and a screw steamer \"inside walkee\".\n\nAlthough this attempt to beat the monsoon failed in terms of the charter, it was still considered a success. During the passage between Singapore and Lintin coal had been transhipped from the Jamesina to the Forbes three times, each transhipment taking 3 to 4 hours. It was thought that 2 or 3 days could have been saved by speedier bunkering at Singapore and speedier transhipment at sea. That the experiment was not repeated was due to several factors. One was the lack of suitable fuel at Canton; the Forbes burned wood on her return passage. Another was the prospect of objections from the Chinese authorities.\n\nThe most important factor, however, was the greatly improved sailing ships which were being built at that particular time. In 1829, just a year before the Forbes-Jamesina experiment, the first and most famous of the opium clippers, the Red Rover, appeared on the scene. In her maiden voyage the Red Rover made the round trip between Calcutta and Macao in 55 days, carrying 800 chests of opium. She had equally successful passages in the next two years, by which time she had at least three rivals on the run. From then no one thought of employing steamships against the north east monsoon in the South China Sea, and the success of the opium clippers kept steamships out of the opium trade for another twenty years. The Red Rover, like many of her successors and rivals was built in India, at the Howra Dock Company's yard. She was launched in September 1829, and for her first few years was owned by her captain, the famous Captain Clifton, in partnership with",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207339,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1975",
        "page_number": 107,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY\n\n99\n\nadjacent to the European business centre, the so-called Central District (Chung Wan), or, eastwards along Queen's Road, in the district of Wan Chai.\" Once Kowloon was acquired, pong-paân were attracted to this new area of settlement because of low rents and the propinquity of the docks, wharves and godowns soon established there, which in time gave employment to numerous European overseers. At the end of the century, Kowloon had become the principal habitat of lower class Europeans. There were terraces of houses occupied solely by them. A witness wrote:\n\nThese are generally employees in the dockyards, or clerks, or the families of engineers and mates of the small steamers that have their headquarters in Hong Kong... Hong Kong looks down on Kowloon with all the well-bred contempt of Belgravia for Brixton. And even in the despised suburb on the mainland these social differences are not wanting. The wives of the superior dock employees are the leaders of Kowloon society; and the better half of a ship captain or marine engineer is only admitted on sufferance to their exclusive circle.18\n\nBut the part of Victoria most frequented, especially at night, by the European lower orders—soldiers, sailors, merchant seamen, beach-combers and others—was Tai Ping Shan, a densely populated Chinese residential area west of the Central District. In 1875 a visitor to Hong Kong wrote:\n\nPassing westward along Queen's Road, we come upon a quarter of the town much frequented by seamen of all nations. Here spirits are sold in nearly every second shop, and bands of common sailors may be seen spending their time and money on questionable drink in more questionable company, roaring out some rough sea-song in drunken chorus, or dancing to the time of a drum and flute, accordion or cornopean. The piles of Chinese houses which rise above this locality embrace Tai-Ping-Shan, or the hill of great peace. The name is a fine one, but a fine name will not hide the sins of the place. Tai-Ping-Shan is inhabited, for the most part, by Chinamen; but men are found there belonging to all the nations of the East. As for women, these are principally Chinese; they are numerous enough, but of the lowest type. There are strange hotels in this quarter,\n\n* There are a number of 19th century street maps available for early Hong Kong, held in the Public Records Office, Hong Kong.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207560,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1975",
        "page_number": 328,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "320\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nFoo Akow. In 1877 some of the premises were listed by streets; viz Main Street with forty houses and shops, Back Street with twenty small family residences, the Praya with five substantial buildings recently built, and six wooden houses near the Dock.\n\nIn 1880 the use of the premises are again given, though not all premises used for business purposes may be so recorded. The following summary, however, gives some indication of the business development of the settlement. There were seven chandlers, two eating houses, three barbers, and one each of druggist, rice shop, fruit dealer, and painter. By this date there were four more buildings on the Praya, and a fairly new group of houses opposite the entrance to the Dock premises. It might also be of interest to list the buildings contained within the Dock company's compound: the West Dock, ‘sheer legs', caisson, timber sheds on stone pillars and tiled offices, boiler maker's engine shop, moulder's shop and smith, the East Dock, pumping house, coal sheds, work shop, dwelling house, mat sheds, saw mill, boat building sheds, a new house with stores and new shops.\n\nThe business of the village in 1884 consisted of thirteen grocers, three eating houses, six barbers, two opium shops, two druggists, and on the beach to the west of the village four boat-building establishments. In addition there were single individuals listed as carpenter, fishmonger, shoe dealer, fruiterer, vegetable seller, and painter. This is probably not an exhaustive list of business and trades carried on, but it gives a fair picture of the local tradesmen at that time.\n\nThis year 1884 was a turning point in the physical development of the village, for in December of that year two fires within five days destroyed the major part of the settlement. The first fire broke out in a mat shed on December 11, and twenty-two timber houses with tile roofs for the temporary occupation of workers at the dock were consumed, whilst some dozen other buildings were pulled down to stop the progress of the fire. The newspaper notice (Daily Press, Dec. 12, 1884) remarks that \"the loss of property sustained was not very great, but a number of pigs were burned to death.\" The more serious fire was on December 16th, \"among the matsheds and shanties of a swarm of squatters who have settled down there.” The sight of the flames leaping into the sky seen from the Hong Kong side caused “a decidedly uncomfortable time to some of the shareholders of the Dock Company by the doubt as to whether the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207562,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1975",
        "page_number": 330,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "322\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\ngreat blaze they saw was not being fed by the engine sheds and the numerous and extensive buildings of the Company there.\" (Daily Press, Dec. 17, 1884).\n\nAfter the fire, the area was laid out into regular lots and the government began disposing of them at public auction. It was at this time that the building sites were regularized and the streets were officially named. Fronting the Dock Company's property and the sea was Bulkely Street, with buildings only on the north side. Behind it was Market Street (now Wuhu Street). The Public Market built in 1886 occupied a block on the north side of this street in the centre of the laid out portion of the village. These were the two main streets running east and west. At the east end of the village was Hill Street, (now Tientsin Street) running north and south, next to the west was Dock Street, then Station Street leading up to the Police Station situated on a hill behind the village, then an unnamed street (now Marsh Street) and finally Temple Street leading up to the Kun Yam Temple nestled under the hill behind Market Street. Also behind Market Street both on the east and west side of the village were rows of small family houses.*\n\nIn the 1890's the area of Hung Hom near the present Chatham Road was being developed for industrial establishments. The area was known as West Hung Hom. At the turn of the century, there was at Hung Hom a match factory, a sugar candy factory, a glass factory, and a dozen or so boat building yards. There was also a Hotel and Tavern, owned by an Indian who left a will.\n\nVarious Hong Kong capitalists invested in Hung Hom lots. The partners of Lapraik and Company owned several blocks in front of the Market House. These were later sold to the Hong Kong Land Company. When new lots were laid out to the west in the 1890's, Ho Tung and later Lau Chu Pak, of the Yaumati Ferry Company, bought several of the blocks. Li Kwong also owned valuable lots at Yaumati.\n\n(b) Some local institutions: Schools\n\nA Government-subsidized village school was established under the direction of the local community, and several Christian schools were opened. The Church Missionary Society had lots at the east end of the village, the London Missionary Society in 1883 applied\n\n* Two maps showing Hung Hom in 1892 and 1901 are printed respectively at p. 321 and between pp. 322 and 323.\n\nPage 330\n\nPage 331",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207720,
        "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": 108,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "A HAWAIIAN KING VISITS HONG KONG, 1881\n\n93\n\nsuccessful in negotiating a Reciprocity Treaty effective in 1876. This gave Hawaii and the United States duty-free trade with each other. For Hawaii, it meant that sugar and rice, the principal agricultural products exported to America in that period, brought about an era of prosperity to the islands.\n\nHawaii, since its chance discovery by the English explorer, Capt. James Cook, in 1778 in his search for a Northwest passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, advanced rapidly from a primitive, feudal state into a stable monarchy under Anglo-American tutelage. Beginning with King Kamehameha I in 1795, King Kalakaua was the seventh ruler of this tiny kingdom in the central Pacific Ocean, which is over 2,000 miles from San Francisco and 5,000 miles from Hong Kong. By 1898, Hawaii was annexed as a United States territory until 1959 when Hawaii became the fiftieth state of the American Union.\n\nEarly relations between China and Hawaii started soon after Capt. Cook's discovery in 1778. American and European trading vessels passed by Hawaii on their way to the Pearl River estuary. The sandalwood trade from Hawaii to China flourished from 1790-1840. To the Chinese in the Canton-Macao area, the Hawaiian Islands became known as Tan Heung Shan #2 or Sandalwood Mountains.\n\nBy the time of King Kalakaua's reign, the Pearl River delta area furnished the principal labor supply for Hawaii's agricultural development and Hong Kong had become the principal port of departure. In 1864, the Hawaiian government started to take an active part by establishing a Bureau of Immigration. The ending of the American Civil War (1861-1865) affected the sugar market favorably for Hawaii. Dr William Hillebrand, newly appointed Commissioner of Immigration, went to Hong Kong and other areas in the Far East in 1865 in search for labor suitable to Hawaii's burgeoning sugar plantations. With the help of the Reverend Wilhelm Lobscheid and the Chinese emigration agency, Wo Hang *, Hillebrand carefully selected 521 Chinese laborers, including ninety-five women and thirteen children,\n\nThey left Hong Kong in two single-deck ships, the Alberto and Roscote, arriving in Honolulu on September 23 and October 12, 1865.2 Chinese labor, both under contract or as free immigrants, contributed greatly to the agricultural economy of Hawaii.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207789,
        "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": 177,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA (With especial reference to the Upper Yangtze)\n\nA. D. BLUE*\n\nWest China, and in particular the provinces of Szechwan and Yunnan, interested British merchants in India before the end of the eighteenth century, and this interest increased after Britain got a foothold in Lower Burma in the early nineteenth century. Not until Britain was established at Shanghai and on the Lower Yangtze, however, did the British China traders take any great interest in West China. Until the 1860s, therefore, the initiative in opening West China to British trade came from the West, and concentrated on reviving the old caravan routes from Upper Burma into Yunnan. The Treaty of Yandabo between Britain and Burma in 1826, which established Britain in Arakan, Assam, Manipur, and Tenasserim, rekindled interest in these old routes. Sino-Burmese contacts went back many centuries, but were usually recorded from a diplomatic or military aspect, although it was well known that there had been considerable trade along these routes. At this time Canton was the only British foothold on the China coast, and the much shorter land route across Burma seemed to offer many benefits to British and Indian merchants in both India and Burma. Then, and for many years afterwards, India was the source of most of China's foreign imports, cotton and opium in particular, and much of British policy in the Far East was concerned with maintaining and extending this trade.\n\nAn interesting side product of this China-India relationship was the proposal to import workers from west China for the infant Assam tea industry. The East India Company had become interested in the possibility of tea production in Assam as early as 1823, when indigenous tea plants were found in the Upper Brahmaputra\n\n* The author served as an Engineer Officer with the China Navigation Company from 1928 until 1938, and was on the Yangtze in 1930 in the Shengking and again in 1934 in the Wuhu. He was captured by pirates in the Newchang river in Manchuria in 1933 and held prisoner for five and a half months. Five of his articles have been published previously in the Journal. \"European Navigation on the Yangtze\" in Vol. 3, 1963, \"Piracy on the China Coast\" in Vol. 5, 1965, \"The China Coasters\" in Vol. 7, 1967, \"Chinese Emigration and the Deck Passenger Trade\" in Vol. 10, 1970 and \"Early Steamships in China\" in Vol. 13, 1973.\n\nPlates 20-25 and the sketch-maps at the end of the volume illustrate this article.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208598,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 55,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "28\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nPART I: JANUARY — NOVEMBER 1941\n\n1:\n\nJANUARY\n\nReports coming in from our South China missions indicate almost a \"rush\" on the part of the people to enroll in Doctrine courses leading to Baptism—we learn that Father Regan in Kweilin has baptized over a hundred in the past six months.\n\nFather Sandy Cairns, sojourning at Stanley during January, introduced deck tennis and badminton, to keep us in shape during the winter months—and overcame his hereditary inhibitions to the extent of paying for the equipment. Father Sandy is awaiting favourable winds, and a slackening of pirate activity, to take him back to his mission in Sancian Island after his relief work in Canton.\n\nDr. Baker of the American Red Cross, spent an evening with us. He told of the arrival of several hundred tons of cracked wheat for the East River area. Since all the people of that area speak Hakka, he is hoping Bishop Ford will lend him two priests to act as inspectors to see that the wheat is properly distributed.\n\nFEBRUARY\n\nFather O'Melia has been invited to sit on the Government Board of Examiners, to pass on the Chinese qualifications of all Government servants who require a knowledge of Cantonese in their work. This is fine recognition of Father O'Melia's stature as a Chinese scholar.\n\nOn the 13th, Dr. Wong-Man, Commissioner of Public Health for Kwangtung Province and Dean of Lingnam University Medical School in Canton, had dinner with us, gave us a talk on the Provincial Health Program, learned of the Maryknoll Fathers dispensary work in the Province, and promised to work out a plan of cooperation between the Government and Maryknoll.\n\nBishop Paschang received a pass from the occupation forces to visit Hong Kong but his purpose for coming here was only to leapfrog to the unoccupied areas of his Diocese to visit the priests and Sisters. While he was here, Father Joe Sweeney arrived, describing the exciting trip he had just made: the motor launch carrying himself and other passengers was attacked by a Japanese patrol boat as evening was coming on, but escaped capture when darkness",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209430,
        "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": 87,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "# THE STRIKE AND RIOT OF 1884\n\n# A HONG KONG PERSPECTIVE\n\nELIZABETH SINN*\n\nIn the autumn of 1884, Chinese dock workers in Hong Kong staged a strike against French ships. The strike spread, bringing trade to a standstill and creating much animosity. After a few days, a riot broke out in the Central and Western districts. This caused great excitement; the military was called out, the fleet was put on the alert, and the government passed new legislation for preserving the peace. The local press became almost hysterical. It became a diplomatic issue between Peking and London, and questions about it were raised in the House of Commons.\n\nYet, despite the uproar these events created, relatively few historians, including historians of Hong Kong, have paid attention to them. This paper is an attempt to reconstruct this dramatic episode, and to examine its significance.\n\nIn 1884, the war between China and France over Annam dominated the horizon of East and Southeast Asia. The year before, the Chinese had despatched regular troops quietly into Tongking. As negotiations broke off, the Chinese court feared a French attack on China itself, and important officials were sent south to consolidate the front. P'eng Yu-lin,** a president of the Board of War was appointed Commissioner for the Coastal Defence of Kwangtung, and in the following year, 1884, the conspicuously pro-war Chang Chih-tung became Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. Officials and people both of Canton and the surrounding region responded excitedly to every move the French made.\n\nOn 5th August, 1884, French warships bombarded Keelung,\n\n* Miss Sinn is a Ph.D. candidate of the University of Hong Kong, currently working as Resources Officer in the History Department of that University.\n\n** All Chinese names/words will be Romanized according to the Wade-Giles system except where there are other transliterated forms in common usage.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211683,
        "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": 98,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "73\n\ntwin Thorneycroft semi-diesel engines drove the craft at six or seven knots, a speed by no means excessive when we remember that during the summer the Yangtze ran five knots. Furthest aft were quarters and a galley for the Chinese crew, the “laodah” and his assistants in crime, the engineer, and two deck-hands.\n\nThree of us were now accommodated in the \"Hsun Si\", and settled down to pass the time of day, assisted by the Consul's gramophone, which we had had the foresight to borrow, and his tantalus, which it had fallen to our lot to escort. We did well enough so long as the weather remained calm, but the houseboat was top-heavy, and when the east wind got up against the flow of the river, raising a short choppy sea, the boat would roll alarmingly and bump heavily against the side of the destroyer. The first lieutenant would come along and throw a jaundiced look over the side at his paint, and order us off. We would have to turn out the engineer to start up the engines, and away we would scurry, slapping into the chop, heading for a bend some miles up the river where we could find a lee under the north bank.\n\nThe Chinese authorities on shore had issued orders that no Chinese subject was to communicate with the foreigners in their ships: but the Navy had left guards in the hulks, to which launches passed back and forth; and it was not long before contacts were again established through this channel. For seventy years Chinese and foreigners had lived next door to each other in peace and friendship, and the ties thus formed could not so easily be broken. They had traded together to mutual advantage, they had feasted and toasted each other, they had helped each other in times of difficulty; on either side were memories of pleasant days and kind deeds.\n\nSo at night sampans would creep out in the dark; little gifts of food would be sent off from the shore, and news would be given of the situation. How much damage had been done? Were the native banks still open? Were our servants being ill-treated? Had the Garrison Commander issued any proclamation?\n\nMeanwhile the Rear-Admiral, commanding the Yangtze British Gunboat Flotilla, had chartered a middle river steamer for the evacuees. The S.S. “Kiang Wo\" had sufficient cabin and dining accommodation to take us all, and anchored in the Yangtze for three months the foreign population of Kiu Kiang lived in what came to be known as the \"Floating",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211865,
        "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": 280,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "255\n\nDIARY OF VOYAGE TO CHINA*\n\nFrom March 10, 1861 to August 6, 1861\n\nIt is with a combination of curious feelings that this journal is commenced. There is a mingled hope and fear, gloom and light, anticipations of a bright future, and occasional forebodings of ill. Yet whatever may befall, whether pleasure or pain, prosperity or adversity, it is a joyful fact that nothing can happen unless directed by a Father's hand. Jesus knows all, and safe under his guidance all will be well.\n\nSunday, March 10th\n\nWent on board at ten o'clock, and just put matters straight enough in the cabin to be able to spend the Sabbath. About eleven I came on deck, just as the vessel began to move out of the basin. She was towed down the Thames. A great crowd of people saw her departure. As she floated down the Thames I often gave way to melancholy thoughts, when I considered all I was leaving behind, and all that is in store for me. Sometimes the burden felt greater than I could bear. Yet I felt that Jesus was with me, and under his guidance I feared no ill: it was my Father's business I was about, and surely he would give me grace and strength to perform it.\n\nThe Prince Alfred went easily down the river, and cast anchor off Gravesend. On board were several people, friends of the captain, who although it was Sunday, were going to Gravesend for a holiday and treat, at his expense. They were a swearing set of fellows, and seemed to be old captains of ships. A Sunday in such company I never spent. I would not go to lunch with them, and at dinner time I was glad when all was over, and I could be alone in my cabin. But even here their shouting and laughing, when the wine and spirits began to take effect, was a great nuisance to my ears and mind. I never spent such a Sunday in my life. So as soon as it grew dusk I fastened my cabin, made up a bed and tried to sleep. For two days I had had a headache, which now grew worse, and very little sleep I had. My cabin, although in the quietest part of the ship, is rather the worse for noise. Every person that walks overhead on the deck is distinctly heard, and the noise is enough to keep one awake, to say nothing of the rolling of the ship.\n\n* From the John Fryer Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212314,
        "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": 256,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "233\n\nHong Kong for several years, Bill Wyllie, was seconded to Hutchison in 1975 by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, as 'company doctor' to put the business house's finances in order. After he had achieved this he left Hutchison's in 1981.\n\nThen in the early 1980s Li Ka-shing, believed to be the richest man in Hong Kong, became the largest shareholder in Hutchison's. His company, Cheung Kong (meaning long river and signifying 'everlasting'), held a 37 per cent stake. With a Chinese Taipan the company was no longer the bastion of British management that it had been in earlier days. However, under Chairman Li Ka-shing there is an English Group Managing Director, Simon Murray.\n\nToday Hutchison-Whampoa is thriving, and its activities range from general trading, including importing and exporting, to property, engineering and building materials. The group also has major interests in such subsidiaries as Hong Kong United Dockyards (in the past Hong Kong and Whampoa Docks), Hong Kong Electric Holdings, and A.S. Watson and Company of which more later. These firms, which in the past were basically British, are thus now largely Chinese controlled.\n\nDockyards\n\nThe first Hong Kong built vessel, the 80-ton Celestial, was launched from a slip at East Point on 7th February 1843, and a Royal Naval Dockyard started in 1854 (this was phased out in the late 1950s). Docks were also built by Douglas Lapraik and J. Lamont at Aberdeen in 1857.\n\nNevertheless, it has been claimed the first 'great firm' to be established in the Colony was really the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company, although the industry had its origins, regionally, in Canton. That is why the word Whampoa (a place in Canton) is included in the above name. The firm is No.1 on the Register of Companies. Austin Coates maintains in his book, Whampoa, Ships on the Shore, that the formation of Union Docks (which was absorbed into the Hong Kong and Whampoa Docks in 1870), in 1863, was\n\nthe most significant commercial and industrial moment in Hong Kong's history.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
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    {
        "id": 212387,
        "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": 329,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "306\n\nthe San Bernadino Strait and searched the east coasts of Samar and Mindanao.\n\nBy the 24th December the Sphinx had arrived in Davao and made preparations for an eastward search through the Caroline Islands. Following fruitless enquiries in Palau from the local chieftains, the Sphinx churned her way further east through the myriad islets and atolls.\n\nBy the time HMS Sphinx had reached the Enderby atolls, Cmdr Brown had begun to lose hope of finding the Norna survivors. One last possibility lay ahead of him. Truk (now known as Chuuk), was the group of islands closest to St Augustine on the intended route of the Norna's castaways. In the early morning of the 3rd March 1862, HMS Sphinx eased her way through Truk's 100 mile circular coral fringe.\n\nNo sooner had they entered the lagoon than they saw an European style boat being rowed frantically towards them. The four lascar occupants scrambled up to the Sphinx's deck and explained they were from the shipwrecked barque Norna. They also told Brown that the rest of the crew were being held captive as slaves on various other islands in the group; they themselves had managed to escape.\n\nAfter a minor skirmish with the natives, HMS Sphinx rescued all the castaways from the Norna save for one who had died a few months earlier from the treatment meted out by the Trukese. It had been all but a year since the Norna was wrecked on the reefs of Oroluk Lagoon.\n\nOn the 19th March 1862, HMS Sphinx set course for Guam where they arrived six days later. After 10 days of rest and recreation, Brown set the Sphinx on course for Hong Kong and came to anchor close by the guardship, HMS Princess Charlotte, which was anchored not far from today's Kellet Island.\n\nHMS Sphinx had more than successfully acquitted herself in her endeavours. She had sailed and steamed nearly 6,000 miles through the little known waters of the Western Pacific in search of a crew who might or might not have survived. However, the naval authorities in Hong Kong firmly believed there was more than a fair chance of",
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    {
        "id": 212859,
        "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": 168,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "153 \n\nwrote to Marshall, asking him to intervene on behalf of these Jews. Marshall spoke to Zhou Enlai and Zhou was able to release the Jews as a gesture to the Russians.\" In 1983, only one Jew, a 75-year old woman by the name of Agre, who was born in Russia but was officially listed as stateless, remained in China. The last Jewish resident in Shanghai, a Max Lieberman, died in 1982.\n\n12 \n\nSome Prominent Sephardic Jews in Shanghai \n\nThe first Sephardic Jews came to Shanghai to work for the Sassoon interests, then left to establish enterprises of their own. A number of them prospered and founded dynasties of their own, but I can only give account for a handful of them here.\n\n13 \n\nThe Sassoons \n\nDavid Sassoon was the first Jewish trader in China. The Old Chronicle of Hong Kong recorded Sassoon as 'the first Jewish merchant that set his foot at Canton.\" The Sassoons were Sephardic Jews who had been in Baghdad for several generations by the time David Sassoon was born in 1793. David left Baghdad in 1825 for Bombay where he organized a company to export raw cotton to China and Great Britain. At that time, the East India Company still maintained a monopoly on tea, but had adopted the practice of permitting their employees deck space on Company ships to carry private goods between India and China. People like Jardine and Matheson had used their allotted space to ship opium, which had been grown specifically in India for cash sale in China, despite the fact that opium was considered contraband by Chinese authorities. When the Company's monopoly ended in 1833, private traders began to trade on their own. Jardine, Matheson and Company dominated the opium trade until the 1870s.\n\ne moved from place to place, the responsible",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212911,
        "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": 220,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "205\n\nout as soon as I was able to make out my surroundings. I have never seen such a dense swarm of mosquitoes. Thank goodness we never had to use this shelter.\n\nOur departure for Hong Kong that spring was dramatic. From the hospital we took the ancient hospital motor boat down the creeks to Canton. We found the river steamer for Hong Kong moored in the fast flowing stream. It was surrounded by an impenetrable mob of sampans carrying people fleeing from the Japanese attack on Canton which was expected any day. Our motor boat could not get to the gangway so we transferred to a sampan. We approached the ladder from downstream as most of the boats were tied to the steamer upstream. We soon found out why because as each sampan cast off from the ladder another, aided by the stream, pushed its way in from upstream. We could make no headway. The only possible approach was from the bows. As we worked our way slowly down we saw that the captain was getting worried by the crowds swarming on board. He had to sail or be swamped. Our luggage was manhandled across the intervening sampans but my father would not allow us to be passed along in the same way, which I thought was a pity. The captain saw us and waited only until our sampan at last made the steps. He then gave the order for his crew to chop through the mooring ropes of all the sampans still tied on. Once freed of these, he weighed anchor and set off for Hong Kong - an overnight journey.\n\nP & O to England – Canadian Pacific to China\n\nIn 1933 my father was due for leave so the whole family, now comprising four children and parents, set off on the P. & O Rawalpindi, a ship which was converted to be an armed merchantman during the war and sunk by a U boat. Travel by sea was the most commonly used way to reach Europe. From about 1933 one could go a little faster by taking the Trans-Siberian railway. Fast mail was marked 'Via Siberia' on the envelopes. The sea journey involved four days at sea to Singapore and trips to the Botanical Gardens there. Then on to Penang, Colombo, Aden, through the Suez Canal perhaps with a stop at Marseilles, where some in a hurry got on the train through France to England, a stop at Gibraltar and thence to Plymouth where we got off for a train to Herefordshire. Most passengers went on to Tilbury in London. There was a leisurely routine about the trip. Beef tea was served on the deck mid-morning and tea in the afternoon. An enterprising steward rounded up a number of children to help him gather up the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212917,
        "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": 226,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "211\n\nthe loading and unloading of cargo, listening to the varied languages of the coast in Foochow, Amoy and Swatow. It was always a thrill to catch the odd Cantonese phrase as we neared home. At one port we took on board a large number of pigs which were housed in pens on the deck forward of the accommodation. The loading of these pigs involved tremendous squealing generated by the beating of the pigs to make them move. We thought this was cruel so, in the evening, when the loading was finished, several of us sought out the bamboo poles that had been used for beating the pigs and threw them overboard. At sea off the ports we would come across massive fishing fleets. On one occasion our ship was in collision with one of these fishing junks and took the crew on board. We heard that one man had been lost but the rest rescued, including the family of the owner. They looked a miserable wet group on board and I imagine there was a good deal of argument about whose fault the collision was and bargaining about compensation. In any event the ship was stopped for several hours before the fishermen were taken off by one of the other boats.\n\nStorms and Pirates\n\nThese journeys were made in the winter so there was no danger from typhoons but the North East Monsoon produces almost continuous gales in the Taiwan Strait and China Sea. This monsoon sped us on our way south and held us up on the way back. The little ships bucketed about all over the place but any seasickness was soon over. It was great fun hanging over the very bows in a big sea watching the ship's stem come right out of the water and plunge back. The year when the sea froze over we found the first ice in the form of tiny plates like fish scales. These got larger and larger until we found drifts of serious ice. The ship had to take one or two runs at some of these drifts and we had a great struggle to get alongside when we reached the port in Chefoo.\n\nPirates were common on the China coast but only once was a school party involved in a piracy. This was the Shanghai party travelling back to school on the Tungchow in, I think, January 1936. The pirates, believing that this ship had a load of silver, got on board in Shanghai as deck passengers. The deck passengers were segregated from the cabin area and bridge by bars and locked gates while armed White Russian guards patrolled the decks near the bars day and night. Once at sea the pirates killed the White Russian guard and took over the ship. The ship disappeared for days. Nobody had any idea where on the thousands of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213636,
        "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": 232,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "207\n\nJack Edwards, since well-known for his work on behalf of ex-P.O.W.s, and their families. The trial began on October 3rd 1946 and ended with convictions two weeks later. I need say no more as Jack Edwards had written a graphic account of the conditions at Kinkaseki in his book \"Banzai you Bastards\".\n\nMy second case turned into a marathon. It opened to a crowded courtroom on October 21st 1946 and ended in an equally-crowded court on November 30th - Hong Kong's longest-running War Crimes Trial. The Royal Navy took a special interest in the case due to the number of Naval Personnel who had perished, and the Hong Kong Commodore sent out a signal that all Naval Officers not on sea duty were to attend the opening of the trial in No.1 uniform with medals and swords. About fifty did so, arriving early to take up the front spectator seats in the Jardine East Point Godown (since demolished) which had been furnished as a court. A Naval Officer sat as a member of the Tribunal.\n\nThe accused was of medium height, and aged 45. He held himself well in the dock. He spoke passable English, but preferred to give evidence in his own language. The accused, Captain Kyoda Shigeru, had been Master of the \"Lisbon Maru\" which sailed from Hong Kong for Tokyo on September 27th 1942. It had on board, in overcrowded conditions, 1816 undernourished British and Allied P.O.W.s who were being moved to Japan to work in factories there. It also carried a substantial number of Japanese troops returning for relocation and a general cargo. Three days after sailing from Hong Kong the \"Lisbon Maru\" was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine which punched a hole in the stern and thereafter the vessel was slowly sinking. The Officer-in-charge of the P.O.W. detachment, a young Lieutenant Wada, ordered the accused to batten down the prisoners in the hatches, and to remove the ventilation chutes.\n\nAccording to evidence, the accused first argued with Lt. Wada, but when the order was repeated he gave instructions to the Ship's Carpenter to carry it out. As the ship slowly sank, conditions in the holds became more and more intolerable, and deaths due to drowning and asphyxia began to occur. No food or water was supplied. The air was foul, and they were in darkness. There were no latrine facilities.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    {
        "id": 213810,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1996",
        "page_number": 162,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "134\n\njourney, and paid him 10 cash each for them, and then we came to the boat.\n\nIt was no easy thing to get on board, and as it was my first attempt at a Chinese craft, I was quite disgusted with the affair. After being on deck for a while, I found the two cabins which 5 men were to occupy. Each cabin was about the size of a chest of drawers, and cockroaches and smaller vermin revelled among the dirt. However, there was no help for it. Lechler, who has lived as a Chinaman and previously worn a tail for 10 years, took it all as a matter of course, and seemed quite at his ease. These boats are about 50 feet long, with the stern very high out of the water, and the bow very low. There is one principal mast and sail, which does all the work. In a minute the sail can be hoisted, and in 10 seconds can be lowered. Clumsy as it all is, it is surprising what good sailors Chinamen are. There is no danger if they are left to themselves. They can tack in less than no time. The \"shut kung\" calls out \"chun shun\" and the great sail sweeps round across the deck in a trice. All who are on deck must instantly stoop very low, or they will find themselves lying sprawling on the lee side.\n\nThe arrangements being made we started off in company with 8 other boats belonging to the same firm. Our ship was the chief one, and was named the \"Shoon-lay\" or \"good profit\"; all of them had names meaning gain and profit (all the Chinamen ever think about). We got out of the harbour by the use of the two immense oars or sweeps at the stern, which move the ship along tolerably fast. Then when we were clear of the harbour, we made for \"pirates bay\". The weather was delightful; the sea was very clear; and we went on charmingly with a brisk breeze. Hong Kong at a distance is certainly a fine place. The immense Peak behind the town is a grand spectacle, and the fast increasing colony, with its fine houses on the hillside are beautiful to look at, especially on a clear day, in the sunshine. We had no end of fun among ourselves, and kept a continual fire of jokes at Stringer's dog, which was condemned to be eaten on the voyage. I gave it to a Chinaman and told him to kill it and eat it; much to Stringer's dislike and our amusement.\n\nWe were each armed with a revolver, and each had a stick or something else in case of need; we had, moreover, two double-barrelled guns, with which we now and then let fly at the wild ducks. At three",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213812,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1996",
        "page_number": 164,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "136\n\nWe coasted along, and could only move by using the sweeps behind, and the six oars in front. Capt Drummond and I took each an oar, and had a long pull. Just before we entered \"Deep water Bay\" we found the tide had turned and the current was dead against us. So we came to anchor, and the other accompanying ships did the same, all near each other, for fear of pirates. When the anchor is cast the boy who attends to the Religious ceremonies, ascends the poop with a roll of paper which he lights and waves to and fro and then throws overboard. Then the gongs began to ring at a fine rate, to frighten away the evil spirits, and at last the shouts of the men gradually died away in the stillness of the night; and only an occasional shout was heard from the distant shore from the huts of the fishermen, who were boiling their nets in very large coppers.\n\nWe had previously taken tea, and Mr Lechler had addressed the passengers in the hold: and then, it being late we prepared to turn in for the night. We had our evening devotion, and as we knelt on the deck in the moonlight, and listened to the voice of prayer, breaking the stillness of the waters, in the sight and hearing of the heathen around us, I felt a sensation which words cannot describe. Then as we rose and sang \"From all that dwell below the skies,\" there was something so soothing, so comforting in the music, that as the last notes died away in the distance, and all was calm and still, I felt transfixed to the spot. \"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast,\" and never did I feel its power more than on this occasion.\n\nMessrs Irwin and Drummond slept on the deck, while I tried to sleep down below in the small box, with Lechler. But sleep I could not. A tooth began to ache, and gradually increased to such an extent that at 1 o'clock I got up, and went round to the man on the watch and all the Chinamen I could find, to beg a morsel of tobacco to put into it. At last one fellow gave me a piece, which though it did not prevent the pain, yet gave me so much relief that I got nearly an hour's sleep. At 3 o'clock the tide turned and we again got under weigh, after which there was no more sleep for me. The night before, I was up till after two o'clock writing for the Bishop: so that I was quite worn out.\n\nThe wind was against us, what little there was, and so we had to scull and row all the way. At daylight we were entering the river, and after a good wash, and breakfast, we were ready for action. The men",
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    {
        "id": 214049,
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1997",
        "page_number": 117,
        "title": "RAS-1997",
        "content_text": "84\n\nKowloon, mainly for ships in the coastal trade, was opened in 1868 to be followed soon afterwards by a shorter 80m-long dock. A few years later (1876) the 140m-long Cosmopolitan Dock and dockyard at Tai Kok Tsui were commissioned. Subsequently the much larger 168m-long Admiralty Dock at Hung Hom was completed in 1888 and later extended in length by some 8 metres in 1903, to be followed by further lengthenings in 1911 and 1931.\n\nIn the summer of 1907, the 170m-long Admiralty dry dock in Victoria, with an entrance width of 29 metres and 9m clearance at lowest spring tides, and Tai Koo's great ashlar-faced 238m-long 27m entrance-width graving dock (now a car park in the Tai Koo Shing development) at Quarry Bay, the latter capable of accommodating the largest ship then afloat (the liner Oceanic), were both commissioned. By laying down the former dock where it did and extending the original dockyard, with an 8ha reclamation which was started in 1900, the Navy sealed the long-held hopes of making Victoria a coherent city with a continuous commercial waterfront. Due to difficult foundation problems, including removal of a 1.2 to 1.8m layer of hard porous coral and the need to install hundreds of steam-driven hardwood piles through the underlying decomposed granite to secure the site, the naval dry dock finally took seven years to build whereas the larger commercial dock at Tai Koo was finished in five.\n\nThe whole of the Tai Koo dockyard development took seven years to completion in 1908, a remarkable achievement in so much that it not only included the large dock but also excavation of some 1.3M cubic metres of hillside to form a 21ha site, which included a 8ha marine reclamation, and the adjacent section of the 23m-wide cut for King's Road, and the building of an entire complex of slipways, workshops and all the ancillary works which are needed to make a large dockyard a world of its own. It is interesting to note that Admiralty engineers in 1908 regarded locally-made cement as unsurpassed in fineness and tensile strength (at 28-days around 750lb/sq in or 5.2MPa), and it was used exclusively when building the new naval and Tai Koo dockyards.\n\nWharfs\n\nBy 1843 there were several comparatively small piers and jetties on the Island located between East Point and Sheung Wan. Pedder's",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214510,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1998",
        "page_number": 368,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "337\n\nis good and allows for reasonably fast travel; the journey took about three hours. I had suggested to the guide beforehand that perhaps a stop along the way for \"refreshment\" would be in order. The bus pulled into an establishment that looked for all the world like a desert caravanserai, or some hostelry from the Wild West. The only commodity of any sort on sale was a type of large black mushroom, and a tea-like drink made from it. Our main interest, however, was with the toilet facilities - until we saw them, that is. A few of us were in enough need to make the considerable effort to go inside. Others decided to cross their legs for another couple of hours. I can only presume that German influence had not spread this far north.\n\nOn the way into the city of Yantai a large street-side sign was spotted saying \"No Whistling within the City Boundary\". Nobody could explain the purpose of this, unless it was a reaction to endless British tourists whistling Colonel Bogey.\n\nThe first point of interest in Yantai was the Fujian Hall. This was not in keeping with the colonial flavour of the trip, but was relevant to us southerners as being an outpost built in the north by the Fujian community that had been very active in business in the early days of Chefoo.\n\nMost of the old British remains are concentrated in a fairly small area - from the promontory of Yantai Hill east along the sea front to the former Chefoo School.\n\nYantai Hill is the place that once housed the British and other foreign consulates. It is very pleasant to walk the narrow roads and paths in this small area. A number of buildings remain, although very few are still used. Some are boarded up, and some remain only in the form of their foundations. It is not clear which was which, even with the benefit of old maps from the last century. However, a clear impression can be had of the peace and tranquility that still reign here, and of the commanding position that the residents must have had. I could almost hear a scratchy wind-up gramophone playing and the chink of ice in glasses of G&T.\n\nTo the west of the hill is the port, and there are still a number of small dock-side buildings that might date from the 19th century, but",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214792,
        "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": 207,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "172\n\nSaub us uj, listen carefully to what the Master has to say, the Master carries a crossbow on his back and a cock under his arm to accompany you, and now leads you into a deep dark forest, with great crickets wailing, take no notice of them, have no fear, for this is the sound of your own daughters and sons weeping and lamenting, you make your own way and go ahead, go ahead and play\n\nSaub us uj, listen carefully to what I am telling you now, the Master has led you past the leaping mountain crags of Dragon and Tiger, I now take you to your very own country to find the hillside of your grave, that is your country and there is your land, putting aside the breath of life, go off and play\n\nThe Master who leads you to find your country and your land, will lead you to return home again along the flowery path of revival, in the central hall, you will hear the sound of the reed pipes like great crickets wailing, and the sound of the drum like the mighty thunder roaring, but have not fear, these are the ways and the paths of your ancient Mother and Father...\n\nIn tales and legends of the past, the Hmong who have traditionally been shifting cultivators, speak of a vanished kingdom from which they were ousted by the all-powerful, dominant Han Chinese (Tapp 1989). Their dislocation as shifting cultivators and denizens of South East Asia is thus constantly referred to a 'lost point of origin' which is at the same time, most definitely, a physically located place, assumed by many Hmong to be located somewhere in their ancestral homelands in the mountains of southern China.\n\nDuring the many deaths, losses and separations of the political conflicts the Hmong were involved in during the Indo-China Wars from 1954 to 1975, these legendary and nostalgic recollections of the past took on an added personal poignancy, as parents were separated from children, husbands from wives and brothers from sisters, during the fighting and then through the refugee diaspora which followed 1975. This is truly what Robin Cohen (1997) calls a ‘victim diaspora', showing clearly the intrinsic relation between the formation of modern nation-states and the existence of displaced populations (Vertovec and Cohen 1999; Agamben 1998).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x",
        "rank": 0
    }
]