[ { "id": 205139, "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-1966", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "90\n\n1897-1904 ― HOLMES WELCH\n\nChristian missionary to the Jews of Hamburg and Montreal, first as a Presbyterian, then as an Anglican clergyman; finally curate in an English country village.\n\n1904-1906 Odd jobs in London.\n\n1906-1909 Director of a large socio-economic survey of Belgium.\n\n1909-1915 Member of Parliament, speculator in Rumanian oil fields, forger of cheques,\n\n1915 Would-be German spy, who, after escaping from Britain, then escaped from the New York police.\n\n1916-1919 In English prison for forgery.\n\n1919-1922 Plotter in the Kapp Putsch in Berlin; salesman of information about other proto-Facist plots in several European countries; again in jail.\n\n1922 To the Far East.\n\n1922-1924 Advisor to a succession of Chinese warlords (Yang Shen, Wu P'ei-fu, Ch'i Hsi-yüan). Back to Europe, then to the U.S., then to China again, where he resolved to enter a Buddhist monastery.\n\n1925-1926 In Colombo, Ceylon, where he began to dress as a Buddhist monk and lecture on Buddhism; returned to Europe for an unsuccessful attempt to save his son from execution for murder in England.\n\n1927-1928 Buddhist missionary in San Francisco; then back to China.\n\n1928-1931 Whereabouts generally unknown, but sometimes living in Buddhist monasteries in Shanghai and Hangchow. From July 1929 to June 1930 on a tour of Europe, lecturing on Buddhism, dressed in Buddhist robes and signing hotel registers \"Chao-k'ung\".\n\nIn May 1931 he became Chao-k'ung officially when he was ordained at Pao-hua Shan, the most illustrious ordination center in China. The next year he went to Europe to collect disciples and arrived back in Shanghai with them on July 25, 1933.46 There were twelve of these disciples - English, French, Italian, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206524, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "66\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nIn 1889 Lockhart had married Edith Louise Rider Hancock, second daughter of Alfred Hancock,28 a Hong Kong bill and bullion broker, and he and his wife and two children moved in 1902 to their new home, Government House, at Ma-t'ou village, now renamed Port Edward. Ma-t'ou village had been originally the port of the old walled city of Weihaiwei29 and Government House was situated on a slight eminence overlooking Ma-t'ou village and divided from it only by an orchard planted by a Kew expert; there was not a fence anywhere. Port Edward was the centre of administration and contained the Government offices and the buildings occupied, until 1906, by the officers and men of the 1st Chinese Regiment of Infantry.30 But Port Edward was always very much of a 'pocket' capital, with only a handful of resident Europeans, mostly civil servants, and a few hundred Chinese merchants, craftsmen and fishermen.\n\nEqually the European community in Weihaiwei was always sparse, consisting of a few officials, merchants, and missionaries. With two or three exceptions all the Europeans resided on the small island of Liukung, where the native population was to a great extent drawn from the south-eastern provinces of China and from Japan. Liukung was only two-and-a-quarter miles long with a maximum breadth of seven-eighths of a mile but it became the headquarters of the permanent naval establishment and the site for the naval canteen (formerly a picturesque Chinese official yamên), the United Services Club, bungalows for summer visitors, a large hotel, and the offices of a few shipping firms. The several streets of shops were occupied mostly by Cantonese and Japanese.\n\n+\n\nIn 1903 there were only fourteen Europeans involved in the administration of Weihaiwei: the Civil Commissioner, the Secretary to Government, who also acted as magistrate, a financial assistant, three inspectors of police, two medical officers, one civil engineer, one foreman of works, two corporals, and two sappers of the Royal Engineers. The size of the establishment did not increase markedly over time, though an additional magistrate was procured. The Territory was divided by 1910 into two divisions, North and South. The North Division contained only nine of the twenty-six districts and was much smaller in both area and population than the South but it included the island of Liukung, where a small naval dockyard had been constructed, and Port Edward. It was under", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206526, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "68\n\nHENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE\n\nLondon. His official rank corresponded with that of a Lieutenant-Governor, so that he received a salute of only fifteen guns compared with the seventeen of first-class Crown-Colony Governors, such as that of Hong Kong. But, as R.F. Johnston pointed out: 'his actual powers, though exercised in a more limited sphere, are greater than those of most Crown-Colony Governors, for he is not controlled by a (Legislative) Council.'33 Lockhart's official duties, which of course kept him extremely busy, were nevertheless limited in nature, and the tempo of life in the Territory did not change dramatically during his tenure of office, for after the lease was signed, little was done with the Territory. At first, it was thought that the port could be transformed into a fortified naval base like Hong Kong, but to do so would have been extremely costly and would have involved the construction of a long breakwater and extensive dredging work in the harbour. In fact, the port was never utilised as a strategic naval base; it became merely a naval rest centre and a place where the British China Squadron lay at anchor when it paid its annual summer visit to North China. A few visitors also arrived from time to time and stayed at its European-style hotel, and an English school34 attracted boys from China, Japan, and Hong Kong.\n\nLockhart was administering a mainly agricultural region, equivalent in area to a small-sized Chinese district magistracy (hsien). The leased Territory, with its population composed principally of fairly well-to-do peasant farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, and artisans, was in composition like that of the New Territories which he had left. Lockhart did not feel called upon to alter drastically the life of this old, settled community, nor indeed was it the intention of the Colonial Office that he should. The Order-in-Council under which British rule in Weihaiwei was inaugurated stated: 'In civil cases between natives, the Court should be guided by Chinese or other native law and custom, so far as any such law or custom is not repugnant to justice and morality.'\n\nLockhart attempted, then, to preserve as much of the fabric of Chinese society as was possible. In his report for 1902, he wrote: \"With the policing of the territory at Hong Kong as a guide, it might have been thought that this question (the maintenance of peace and good order) was one easy of solution; but it required no long residence here to reveal that the conditions existing in the new territory of Hong Kong and those of Wei-Hai-Wei are widely different. In the former case, the natives had lived for about half a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206964, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n29\n\nvoyage from Haiphong. The China Mail's shipping notices reported that the Frejr had landed ‘H.M. The King of the Sedangs and 3 servants and 13 Chinese. The King, of course, was the Frenchman David de Mayréna. As soon as Mayréna had been rowed ashore to a waterfront pier, he hired a chair and was carried off to the Hong Kong Hotel in Pedder Street, where he was booked into Room 23.\n\nThe next day a reporter from the China Mail came to the hotel and interviewed Mayréna at some length in his room. The report that appeared in the newspaper that same day, three columns of print, was headed 'The King of the Sedangs in Hong Kong. An interview with His Majesty'. The monarch from Indo-China was described as:\n\na tall energetic man of, I should say, 50 years of age, with whiskers and a moustache turning gray, and a countenance full of vigour. One could not find a trace of the “exalté” about him. He was dressed in simple white clothes such as are worn by European residents here during the Summer, made by natives of his Kingdom or at least of the adjoining dependency over which the Jesuit missionaries have for several years exercised a kind of authority.\"\n\nDuring the interview the French Consul in Hong Kong, M. de Verleye, called, and Mayréna informed them that a royal palace was being constructed in the capital of his kingdom.\n\nThe day after the lengthy article on Mayréna appeared in the China Mail, the Hong Kong Telegraph also published a report on the King, in which its readers were told that:\n\nif many a man here in the Far East wrote his own history, even with a moderate adherence to the truth, it would make unusual reading. For romantic adventures, however, the, at present, principal guest at the Hong Kong Hotel far excels the average adventurer... His few visitors find him a tall, middle-aged, military gentleman, bearing many scars, and with an indifference to his rank except in so far as to assert his right to it at the outset.\n\nThe article affirmed that the King was\n\nnow desirous of attracting Chinese emigration to the Sedangs, with a view to opening it up. To men of enterprise and capital there should be a magnificent opening.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206972, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n37\n\nVicar Apostolic, Bishop Raimondi, and the heads of the various Catholic missions and organisations. He attended mass daily at the new Catholic Cathedral in Caine Road. But he drew a blank: no Catholic institution was prepared to finance any of his schemes. He now threw away his mask of piety, doubtless with great relief, and settled down to enjoy himself and to gull another class of person. He soon installed a mistress in a rented house in Lyndhurst Terrace, loaded her with gimcrack jewellery and dresses from Gate and Fairall, the milliners of Queen's Road, and hired for her a sedan chair, complete with liveried chair-bearers. She appeared with the King on sundry royal occasions at the Hong Kong Hotel.\n\nIt is difficult to identify Mayréna's 'consort'. Soulié asserts that she was a Miss Dahlberg,25 who had accompanied her brother and Mayréna to Hong Kong on the Frejr, and that Mayréna met this blonde Swedish ice-maiden in 1888 at Bangkok, where she was engaged apparently in archaeological exploration; but other writers suggest Mayréna's new mistress was a lady from an Italian Opera Company touring in the East,26 which arrived in Hong Kong in late 1888. The latter seems the more plausible account, for at that time European opera singers and ballet dancers were often accommodating ladies who desired nothing better than to be set up in state by some rich protector. Whoever she was, all witnesses agree that the \"Queen of the Sedangs' in Hong Kong was a most voluptuous demi-mondaine and that she fascinated the topers of the Hong Kong Hotel and the other hostelries that Mayréna frequented.\n\nMuch of Mayréna's roistering was done necessarily at the Hotel, since he could obtain credit and simply await the chits at the end of the month, and in its hospitable bar he met many kindred spirits, such as the atrabilious, scandal-mongering Robert Fraser-Smith,27 proprietor of the Hong Kong Telegraph, and also John Joseph Francis, Q.C.,28 Hong Kong's leading barrister and noted Irish tippler.\n\nBy 1888 the Hong Kong Hotel, established in 1860, had become Hong Kong's social centre. One author claims it was ‘rightly termed the heart of the Colony, for it is one great social rendezvous for dinners, teas, dances, and is probably the most noteworthy meeting place in the Orient'.29 'Proteus', in the Hong Kong Telegraph, supplies this description of its grandeur:\n\nAfter a shower-bath and a change of clothes in our room—and all the rooms in the hotel are on the same scale of loftiness and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206973, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "38 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nsize—we hear the gong, and set off along its passages into the dining room. It is a regular hall, 50 or 60 yards long. The far side is broken by a row of French windows opening on to the stone verandah, which looks out over the harbour. A double row of great white punkahs, down the whole length of the place, swing slowly. The bright blazing sunshine outside is tempered by green blinds, let down over the arches of the verandah. Thirty or forty Chinese \"boys\" in complete and flowing white, keep up a perpetual come and go in their attendance on the tables. These suitably imposing surroundings became the setting for Mayréna's Hong Kong adventure.\n\nMayréna, the China Mail animadverted, ‘from an ardent pietist became a man of the world... He became an admirer of the opera and with royal prodigality distributed tickets to his friends'. The 'Queen' with her dames d'honneur were welcomed frequently at the Hotel, the 'Queen' arriving in a chair with four bearers, draped in regal sashes. Hong Kong, of course, was electrified by Mayréna's theatrical coups; but money was not forthcoming from the amused public. J.J. Francis, for example, was almost persuaded to finance a company for the working of the new kingdom but at the last moment backed out; other astute European businessmen refused to invest. But the King continued to make friends, to enchant his visitors, and to hold nightly revels in the public rooms and tap-rooms of the Hotel. After all, Mayréna, a great showman, provided splendid entertainment for a dull little Colony, accustomed to a stale diet of 'At Homes' and stodgy dinner-parties.\n\nUnluckily, Mayréna's waking hours were dogged by one Afong, a Chinese shopkeeper from Haiphong, who had supplied a large number of uniforms for the King's warrior hosts and had come to Hong Kong to present his bill. The jaunty Mayréna at first ‘gave it out that the Chinaman was a member of a syndicate that wished to advance him money; but as this story would hardly hold for long, the Chinaman was finally appeased'. It soon became clear, then, that Mayréna was not a man of substance, that his schemes were insubstantial, and that he was simply an amusing adventurer, good for a convivial debauch but hardly a sound partner in any serious business venture.\n\nIt was, however, the editor of the China Mail, George Murray Bain, who really brought about Mayréna's downfall by a systema-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206979, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 50, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "44 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nWhy did they fight? Again we cannot say; but it would seem sensible to suggest that Morès, a true-blue aristocrat, was antagonised by the monarchical pretensions of the bourgeois Mayréna, who had by his bogus elevation, leap-frogged over the Marquis to out-point him as King. \n\nThere is, finally, the further possibility that Mayréna had put the story of a duel about as a form of self-advertisement, designed to clarify the ambiguities of his status, to signal that he was a proper gentleman, for only 'gentlemen', not the commonalty, were permitted to engage in the duel by caste-conscious European society. But I think we should accept Des Voeux' implication, for as Governor he was likely to be well informed about what was really happening in the town. \n\nLast Adventures \n\nOn his return to Europe Mayréna stayed first of all at the Grand Hotel in Paris under the name of the Comte de Drey. He then opened a small legation in the Rue de Grammont. He was seen frequently on the boulevards and in the fashionable cafes and was interviewed by several noted journalists, including the feuilletoniste Alfred Capus.43 He survived by selling decorations and orders at the Café de Paris, at Weber's, and even at the Rat Mort and the Moulin Rouge, where one evening the singer Maurice Mac-Nab44 and the musician Charles de Sivry composed a national anthem for the Sedangs, an anthem that is unique in that its music is reminiscent of the can-can. But the big prize eluded Mayréna in Paris: he could not find a rich backer. In April 1899 he abandoned that city for Brussels. \n\nHere at last he found an appropriate victim. He met a rich Belgian industrialist, besotted by titles, who desperately sought ennoblement. The obliging Mayréna granted his wish. As King of the Sedangs, Mayréna conferred upon the industrialist the Order of Sainte-Marguerite and the title of Baron and gave him a slice of territory, at least on paper, for his new barony. The industrialist declared he would finance the King's return from exile. \n\nOn 15 January 1890 the 600 ton yacht, the Sachsen, moored to the quay at Antwerp, was about to sail for Indo-China. The royal standard of the King of the Sedangs—rows of daisies on a blue background—was raised expectantly. A choir sang the Hymn of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206980, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 51, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n45\n\nthe Sedangs, a warrior chant. Mayréna was in full dress uniform, complete with multiform decorations. He was saluted by the other European passengers, who inclined their bodies, and he responded with a military salute. Present were the ennobled and happy industrialist and several rich young men from the Brussels haute-bourgeoisie. The chaplain was a former curé, who had been unfrocked for immorality. And so Mayréna left Europe for the last time.\n\nThe voyage out was mostly uneventful, though Mayréna drank far too much and was often indiscreet enough to talk about his past with his courtiers. Court etiquette was strictly enforced aboard ship --- Buckingham Palace rules at table - except when brief forays were made ashore at Port Said, Aden and Colombo; then the King assumed his incognito as the Comte de Drey. On 18 April 1890 the Sachsen anchored in Singapore harbour.\n\nWhen Mayréna stepped ashore he was at once stopped by a courier from the French Consulate and told that the Consul wished to see him urgently. At the Consulate he was greeted politely but informed that the French Government now claimed rights over the territory of the Sedangs, that he was therefore no longer King, and would be arrested if he set foot in Indo-China. Mayréna, after much argument, returned to Ralph's Hotel, where his officials and courtiers had lodged temporarily, and informed the party that the Sedangs had revolted and that it was impossible to proceed to his kingdom. The group, it appears, were not surprised by the turn of events. They had enjoyed a splendid ocean vacation at the expense of the rich industrialist, Mayréna's backer, but had no desire to seek martyrdom among the savages of the Moï country. At the end of the week the party - court chamberlain, chaplain, other officials and passengers - all returned to Antwerp by the Sachsen. Mayréna stayed on in Singapore. There was little else he could do.\n\nMayréna's sojourn in Singapore is not well documented, though Soulié claims Mayréna met in that city a European he had known formerly at Haiphong, a companion of Miss Dahlberg's brother, who was now domiciled on the island of Tioman and making a living by collecting birds' nests, those of the sea swallow, for the Chinese market. Mayréna decided to accompany this trader back to Tioman, because the island was under the jurisdiction of the Malay State of Pahang, and once settled there he felt he could not be extradited to either France or Indo-China, where he would have had to face trial assuredly for treason.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206990, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "ADVENTURERS IN HONG KONG\n\n55\n\nnot serve his full sentence because he was released on grounds of ill-health. But, as Des Voeux notes, the day after his release from Victoria Gaol he was seen avidly betting at the Happy Valley Race Course. He was, clearly a great card and popular with drinking circles in Hong Kong. The Telegraph was an evening newspaper. After Fraser-Smith's death, J. J. Francis became publisher and Chesney Duncan its editor.\n\n28 John Joseph Francis (1839-1901) was educated in Dublin and intended for the Catholic priesthood. But instead of entering the Church he enlisted in the Army, coming out to China in the Royal Artillery during the Second China War. He took his discharge in Hong Kong and commenced the study of law in the office of a Mr. Owens, solicitor. He was admitted to practise as an attorney in 1869 and entered into partnership with another solicitor and soon acquired a lucrative practice. Ambitious, he gained admission to Gray's Inn and was called to the Bar of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong in 1877. By 1888 he was the Colony's leading barrister. Francis was extremely touchy and truculent: in 1895 he returned to the Governor a silver inkstand, given to him in recognition of his work during the plague, on the grounds that the gift did not sufficiently acknowledge his services. He died of apoplexy at Yokohama's Grand Hotel in 1901. A fitting end: he was an apoplectic soul. Francis lived at 'Shirley House' in Bonham Road, a commodious residence with extensive grounds.\n\n29 A. Macmillan, Seaports of the Far East, London, 1923, p. 366.\n\n30 22 November, 1888. The Hong Kong Hotel, situated in Pedder Street, was originally managed by Parsees; in 1866 it came under European management and soon became a first-class hotel with all the facilities of a good West End hotel.\n\n31 7 January, 1889.\n\n32 Soulié states that Mayréna on his way to Hong Kong marooned Afong on Hainan Island but that the intrepid Chinese took passage on a junk and appeared in Hong Kong to haunt the King of the Sedangs.\n\n33 China Mail, 7 January, 1889.\n\n34 George Murray Bain (1842-1909) was born and educated at Montrose, Scotland. He joined the China Mail as a sub-editor and reporter (some say printer) in 1864. In 1875 he became sole proprietor of the China Mail and in 1879 took over the editorship of the paper himself. With N. B. Dennys he started the China Review in 1872. The China Mail was edited from Wyndham Street, a short distance away from the Hong Kong Telegraph on Pedder's Hill. Bain, unlike Fraser-Smith, appears to have been pious, temperate, and acutely respectable.\n\n35 Hong Kong Telegraph, 27 December, 1888.\n\n36 'Drey' was the name of a Sedang locality.\n\n37 China Mail, 24 January, 1889.\n\n38 Hong Kong Telegraph, 25 January, 1889.\n\n39 7 January, 1889.\n\n40 Sir Hugh Clifford, Heroes of Exile, London, 1906, pp. 69-70. Clifford states that it was the Hong Kong merchants 'who had paid his (Mayréna's) passage and had supplied his Majesty with a little ready money' and that they had been actuated partly by a desire to remunerate one from whom they had derived so much entertainment'. Sir Hugh Clifford (1866-1941), a colonial administrator, who served in Pahang from 1887 to 1899, was, apparently, in Hong Kong in late 1888; it is possible that he had taken local leave but I have been unable to confirm the fact.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207340, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "100 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nbesides music-halls and lodging-houses, the haunts of vagabonds well known to the police.19 \n\nThe spectacle of Jack Tars, returning from the grog-shops of Tai Ping Shan and Sai Ying Pun, tipsily and rowdily weaving their way along Queen's Road, affronted respectable Britons. A Wesleyan missionary complained in 1894 that the colony was always upset by the arrival of a fresh man-of-war whose crew once ashore would behave like wild animals. \"They drink like fishes,\" he complained, \"ride round the town in rickshaws, making night hideous with their shouts, eat over-ripe fruit from street stalls, are stricken with cholera, and die in a few hours.\" He insisted that for soldiers and sailors (and possibly for most others in the East at the present moment) \"total abstinence is a duty\".20 \n\nThe Wesleyan missionary, a fervent supporter of the temperance movement, misunderstood the reasons for excessive drinking among servicemen in Hong Kong. It was not due to innate depravity or irreligion. Soldiers and sailors drank because of the tedium, the hideous boredom they had to endure as pariahs in Hong Kong. They were totally excluded from polite European society; there were no young white women of their own class to walk out with; there were few entertainments, except lugubrious church or mission functions, provided for them. Off duty the only pleasures available, apart from a climb up the Peak, a jaunt in a sampan, or a visit to the Botanical Gardens, were the drinking dens and brothels of the more welcoming Chinese quarters of the town. \n\nSailors, in particular, led almost completely isolated lives in the Far East. News from home could take months to reach their ships. Often they spent over a year without going ashore on leave. Walter White, a ship's painter, joined H.M.S. Scout at Sheerness in 1859, left England in that year and did not return from service on the China Station until 1864.21 His experience was typical. He spent New Year's Day, 1862, in Hong Kong and put up at the European Hotel, a hostelry overlooking Tai Ping Shan. From the verandah of his hotel, he wrote home, \"you can sit and look down upon the teeming, squalid living, jangling and evil smelling Chinese quarters.\"22 But it was in this teeming quarter that White and his naval companions were obliged to spend their evenings of leave, \n\nMajor Henry Knollys epitomises the life of the British gunner in Hong Kong in the 1880s thus:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209584, "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": 241, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "219\n\nby their spotless virtues\". A claim that must have raised a few eyebrows.\n\nWhile the actresses were available, there seemed some doubt about the actors. Lord Saltoun, Commander of the Forces, noted on the 25 November 1842 that the Theatre was to open on Wednesday, \"But who are to be the actors, I have no idea. I believe some amateurs from the navy”.\n\nOnce opened, the life of the Theatre was short. Mr. Dutronquoy departed from Hong Kong quite suddenly on the 17th of December. It was alleged that he had to close his Hotel and Theatre under orders from the authorities and pay a fine of $500. This was denied by his agent who stated that the reason for the closure was because Mr. Dutronquoy had “received personal violence added to insult and abuse the preceding evening\". One wonders if the \"spotless virtues\" of the actresses may have been the cause of his troubles.\n\nThe next notice of dramatics is in December 1844 when a proposal to form a company of amateurs under the patronage of the Governor was announced. It was expressly stated that the authorities regarded the project as a \"protection against vice”. Little action took place, however, until the winter of 1845-46 when a group had been organized, a venue secured, and five bills put on between December and June at Aqui's Theatre in the Lower Bazaar.\n\nThis theatre had been erected some few months previous to the amateurs' first performance there. It was intended for Chinese entertainment, but, being available, it was used by the Hong Kong Amateurs even though it was in the heart of the Chinese section of the city, an area which was usually avoided by the European population of the day.\n\nLoo Aqui, the owner of the Theatre, was a leader of the Chinese community. It was alleged that he was allied with pirates but during the recent British-Chinese hostilities he had been very useful in securing provisions for the British forces. As a reward for these services he had been permitted to take up a number of lots in the Lower Bazaar, the area which was allotted to Chinese who had aided the British. On his property, Loo Aqui", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211200, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 261, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "236\n\nOne correspondent devoted his letter to reasons why the park scheme was useless. He explained that had he been at the meeting: \"I might have been tempted to abandon my customary reserve and lift up my voice to protest.\" As an alternative, he was presenting his views in the correspondence column.\n\nHe objected to labelling the scheme a park: “A park without trees is an anachronism.\" But given the fact that it would be a vast lawn where cricket, football, and tennis could be played, the question remained as to who would use it.\n\nIn the writer's opinion, \"not the gilded youth of our gay city,\" why travel to Happy Valley when the cricket ground (now Chater Park across from the Hilton Hotel) was within steps of their offices? Furthermore, next to the cricket ground at the seaside was the Victoria Recreation Club with a gymnasium, facilities for swimming and boating, and, perhaps the greatest competitor to Happy Valley, \"the seductions of the Boathouse bar.\"\n\nHe did concede that the ground at Happy Valley might be used for the occasional game of football, but otherwise it was not likely to pull sportsmen away from their more convenient facilities in Central. Otherwise, what one could expect to see at play in Happy Valley was \"a handful of European schoolboys and a few ragamuffins of the lower order of Chinese.”\n\nThe ground would hardly see the swirling skirts of females playing games. In the first place, a genteel lady would not disport herself on a public playing field. And in the second place, they had had since 1884 their own Recreation Club on the Peak Road as well as the lawns of their own homes for games of tennis and croquet.\n\nUse of the proposed park by Chinese could be ruled out because, in the opinion of the writer, \"they are not a playing people as playing people are known in the West.\" The sporting activity of Europeans appeared to the Chinese to be undignified and not in keeping with propriety.\n\nAnyone who would expect to find “young Chinese gentlemen", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211896, "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": 311, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "286\n\nand pretty. There are abundance of trees of all sorts growing at the sides of the roads. The shops of the Chinese amused me very much as we went along. At last we came to \"Hughan's store\", where there is a great space, with easy chairs, etc. for loungers and loafers. Hughan is a ship chandler, and by keeping this place pretty comfortable he gets the captains of all the English and American ships there, and of course gets the job of supplying their ships with provisions, etc. Before the whole lines of stores and offices there is a path, with a roof to it so that one can walk about for an hour without being in the burning hot sun, which in Java is very injurious, especially to Europeans.\n\nWe took a short drive about the town with the captain, who was looking out for some spars for the ship, and then set off out in the country to Madame Baines' Hotel, which is the only English place where one can get to. It was a three-mile drive, but the beautiful appearance of the place made me think nothing of the distance. The Dutch, to whom the island belongs, are the greater part of the European population; consequently, the town is in every direction intersected by canals as is Holland. These canals serve the purpose of drainage, washing, and to keep the air cool. On each side of them is a very wide road, shaded by large trees from the sun. Thus the streets are very wide and airy. There are, of course, a great many bridges. The European houses are very grand, and nearly all built on the same model.\n\nOur two poor horses at last brought us up to our Hotel, where we arrived about two o'clock. It was half an hour before we could get anyone to attend to us, since it is the custom to sleep in the middle of the day. At last, after walking about over the house, we were met by our hostess, a Scotch lady of colossal dimensions, but withal a pleasant agreeable old party, who at once made us at home, and got us some \"tiffin\", or breakfast. All her servants are Malays, and she can speak the language very fluently. Indeed, when well spoken, Malay is a pretty language.\n\nHer house is an average specimen of all the European houses in Batavia. It has only one story on account of earthquakes, but it is very lofty and airy. There is a large dining hall and entrance hall, while round the house are the verandahs, where people spend a great part of the day, and especially the evenings. Facing the road, the verandah is very wide and lofty. In the garden is a stream, running round a small island, which has some fine clusters of trees, which are so curious that I cannot describe them. Some of the leaves are as large as a good-sized tablecloth. Round", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211898, "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": 313, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "288\n\nI had a good long yarn with Madame Baines on the verandah. When I told her what I was, she became very religious all at once; but I could see it was only hypocrisy, although she had an oily tongue. The Bishop of Victoria was there in 1856. The people were highly pleased with his visit, and all who I heard speak of him seemed to do so with respect. She was acquainted with a Mr King of the Scottish Free Church, who had returned from Scotland only three months ago; and promised to introduce me to him and drive me there in her carriage.\n\nAt eleven o'clock I went to bed. My room was very fine and airy. All the beds in Java have to be curtained all round to keep out the mosquitoes, which would prevent sleep, and sting finely into the bargain.\n\nThe captain and wife came from the ship to the hotel the next day. They made themselves such fools by wanting to appear grand that everybody laughed at them behind their backs. No sooner had the captain left the table, and the rest began to talk, when Mr Phillips began: “Well of all the disagreeable obstinate men I ever saw, I never saw anybody to beat him. I can see it in his looks although I have never spoken to him nor know who he is\". When I told him it was our captain he wanted to know if he had not guessed right. I told him I must be excused from answering that question. Madam was finely laughed at, and reckoned up in just the terms she deserved. Since our return to the ship these parties have been equally run down by the captain and wife,\n\nA\n\nTwo days I took a walk into the town in the middle of the day. I was afterwards told that no European would ever be able to do it, for it was enough to kill the strongest man on account of the sun's intense power. However it had not the least effect upon me. In fact I felt all the better for it.\n\nOn the first day I started to go into town but took a wrong turning, and went out through one of the Chinese quarters into the country, where I had a few miles' walk. The scenery was very fine indeed. The palm and betel nut trees, and trees of which I have no idea formed a delightful shade. Even the country is intersected by canals. But whether in town or country, you always find the shore of the canal crowded with washermen. The clothes are never washed, but merely beaten. They get a smooth stone, and after soaking the clothes in the water, they keep dashing them on the stone, swinging them for that purpose round their head.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211899, "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": 314, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "289\n\nEvery few yards you see people bathing. Women come down and go out into the middle of the water up to their shoulders, and then dip and scrub the little brown youngsters and teach them to swim. In places the water is quite alive with them, men, women and children altogether. It is quite disgusting to see such scenes of indecency, but people there seem to think nothing of it.\n\nOn the second day of my walk, I went into town and found a French watchmaker, and got him to put me a new glass, in place of the one I broke in the Channel. I had to pay three rupees, (5/-) for it. Nobody there charges less, and they never do any job to a watch under five rupees. I had a good chat with the old fellow, and got him to repair the hands into the bargain. In his shop I found a young German who could speak almost every European language.\n\nDuring the time I was at Batavia the horse races came off. The plain in front of the Hotel was the race course. Although of course I had nothing to do with the races, I amused myself by looking at the people from the verandah. There was a motley throng of people dressed in their gay holiday clothes. The Malays of all descriptions were dressed in pink cotton clothes. The Chinese in white coats, light blue trousers and straw hats. The Armenians in long flowing robes of yellow or blue, the Arabs somewhat similar, with large turbans. The half-caste and Europeans were dressed as is the universal custom in white. Consequently there was a mixture of colours, as well in dress as in countenance. The fruit sellers were very busy, and seemed to be making a deal of money. The Chinese, with their usual carefulness and forethought, each brought a little bundle of fruit with them so that they might not have to pay through the nose for it. Of the races I can say nothing since I saw nothing; only it pleased me to see a tremendous shower come on in the middle day of the three, and put a stop to the day's fun.\n\nOne day I bought some clothes of the men who infest the place, viz. two kobias, a kind of loose white jacket to sleep in, and wear in the morning, and two pairs of perjaumers, or native loose trousers for the same purpose. Of course people here never think of using bed clothes, and these sleeping clothes are as thin as possible. I also bought a light silk coat, and a pair of white jean trousers.\n\nDuring our stay Captain Moate, unknown to me, got two quart bottles of gin, and got dead drunk. I could not have thought it of him,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214418, "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": 276, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "242\n\nagreeable in appearance.\n\nWe barely made it back to the European quarter and went into a hotel kept by a Pole. He said he had lived in Moscow for two years, when he was about fourteen and now he was over forty. I wanted to speak to him in Russian but he doesn’t remember a word. In a room closed from the heat, we were served a lunch of tender tasty fish and tough ham, which however we didn’t touch. P. then got into a sedan chair and ordered himself to be taken to some banker or other, while I set off further down the street to some superb quadrangular barracks. I passed an avenue with miserable scraggy trees and then walked along the water’s edge. It was no longer so hot, with a cool breeze coming from the bay. At the sea front I saw numerous large red insects flying from spot to spot. I wanted to catch a few and take them to G. Chasing after them I was unwittingly drawn to the gates of the barracks and found myself in a huge courtyard, which serves as a training area for the regiment.\n\nSome English officers saw me from the balcony, came down and invited me to join them, ‘to drink a glass of wine.’ We went into one of the rooms where the furniture, the crockery — everything confirmed what is said about the splendour of the officers’ way of life. Silverware and the finest linen are the normal accoutrements of their messes and dining-tables. The officers eat together at the one table and they adhere so strictly to this officer-family way of life that they are rarely absent from dinner. A spacious balcony, or verandah, where the masters of the barracks lazily doze during the hours of siesta, runs round the whole building. I declined the wine and was treated to some lemonade.\n\nIt was late and a sensuous, glittering and captivating night had descended when I returned to the pier, where I found P., waiting for the ship’s dinghy. Meantime a Chinese boat stood there before us; in the moonlight we could see two female figures in it. “What do we need the dinghy for?” I asked. “These women can ferry us across: let’s get in?” We got in and both women, holding on to the one oar, attached to the stern, began turning it briskly to right and left. The moon shone right in their faces: one was old, the other about fifteen, pale, with black, narrow, but nevertheless beautiful eyes; her hair was fastened at the back with a silver pin. “Take us to the Russian frigate!” we said. “Two shillings!” The young one named their price. “A hundred pounds sterling for some—", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215025, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "77\n\nAppendix A to CLC In France\n\nI was fortunate to receive a letter from Mrs. C M. Gibb, who now lives in Glasgow, with recollections of her short stay at Noyelles when her father was serving with the CLC.\n\nHer father, John M. Morrison, was called up in 1916 and trained with the Scottish Rifles. He was commissioned and stationed in Glasgow where he was fortunate enough to live at home. For the final battles of the war he was found to be unfit for active service and was posted to the CLC. [see photograph] With Mrs Gibb's kind permission, I can do no better than quote her letter dated 28 February, 2001, in full.\n\nMy father, John M. Morrison, was a lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry and from the spring of 1918 until the late summer of 1919 was with No 8 CLC. My father's tartan trews and glengarry fascinated the Chinese. They pronounced his name as 'Modarn.' In the summer of 1919 the British officers were allowed to bring their families out to France and as a small girl of seven I spent nearly four weeks (from August 17th to September 10th) with my father, mainly so far as I remember at Noyelles. I remember being introduced to the Chinese who seemed to me to be enormous men with very large grins, and I also remember my mother and I watching them from the hotel marching away carrying the goods they had bought (one man was marching with a very large gilt bird cage). A senior British officer with red tabs was also watching with tears rolling down his cheeks, he had spent much of his life in China and called the Chinese his 'children.'\n\nWhen my father used to talk in later life about his time with the Chinese he expressed nothing but admiration for them, and gave the impression that he and the other British officers regarded the Chinese as being superior both physically and mentally to any of the other labour units either European or non-European. The interpreter with No. 8 CLC was a Mr. Wong who came from Shanghai and spoke a number of languages. Much to the amusement of my father's Commanding Officer, Captain Greenhill, Mr. Wong was not only essential for communicating with the Chinese but also for communicating with the French. The Cook was a very experienced and gifted man who was stolen by a visiting...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215481, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 258, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "207\n\nbirthplace of Bhutan's first king, Ugyen Wangchuk. There were one or two dogs, children playing, old people wandering through, and 27 members of the Royal Asiatic Society being waited on hand and foot. I got a clear impression of what it must have been like to take The Grand Tour in Europe in the 18th Century. I have seen prints and paintings of people wandering at will over sites of enormous classical importance, threading their way between dogs and children playing amongst the ruins, thinking to myself 'those were the days.' I imagine that in years to come such sites as the one at which we were to have lunch will be cordoned off and entered only on payment of an admission fee. I felt extraordinarily fortunate and privileged. To complete the picture, two small boys were playing Pooh-sticks from a stone bridge over a very fast stream.\n\nLunch done, we found the caretaker of the once-royal residence and he led us inside. My first impression was that we had entered Gormenghast Castle; I was to have this impression again a few times in the coming days. Upstairs in the large wooden building, one room led into another and another, until finally, at the end of the link, was the privy, from which there was direct access to the grounds via a narrow chute.\n\nNext to come was Jakar Dzong, or the Watchtower of the White Bird. Set in a commanding position up the mountainside, this looked every inch a watchtower from without. Within, it was rather like going back to a medieval European castle, in which a small village had taken root. Galleried wooden courtyards and stone steps, it would make a fantastic hotel if permission could be gained. Its present uses include a chamber for the District Court. Some of the monks were very young (monklets, perhaps), and one of them asked me in Japanese if I was alright (‘O genki desu-ka?”), reminding us that we were probably not the only tourists to have visited, although we had seen no others.\n\nAs the day was getting on, we had to as well, as the next item on the itinerary was the Jakar bazaar. Sadly for the shopaholics amongst us this turned out to be a single shop. Being the second day of New Year all the others were closed. So it was back to the hotel for tea and bickies and a much-needed opportunity to get some laundry done. Then as the light faded, again, so did the electricity, again.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215940, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 239, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "173\n\nHong Kong had symbolic meaning: he could not be seen to desert until the last minute. The drama of his escape with such a show of force and British aid was a clear and explicit political statement. The KMT had their own escape network but this particular escape was a means of showing that the British, too, had a credible system for dealing with the exigencies of occupation.\n\n+ XY\n\nMany reasons were circulated at the time to explain the escape. A smokescreen had to be concocted to disguise whatever the true purpose of the mission might have been. Much has been made of the story of a plot by the triads to massacre thousands of Europeans in Hong Kong during the Battle. The source of this story was GS Shaftain, head of Criminal Intelligence in the Police Force. He said an informant told him of the plot on 11th December to activate two days later. He then claimed that he assembled hundreds of triads leaders in a hotel, where, through the intervention of a senior Shanghai triads leader, they were persuaded to desist, in the nick of time, on payment of a large bribe. This story passed unquestioned and lauded by the kind of European whose racial stereotypes assumed that Chinese were basically untrustworthy criminals, motivated only for money. (Shaftain claimed the triads leaders stole the silverware from the hotel). However, it is, as even Shaftain himself was to admit 'an implausible and fantastic story'. As a police officer, he would have known that the idea of hundreds of triads leaders meekly turning up for a mass meeting in the middle of an invasion was bizarre. The triads were originally political secret societies as well as criminal, and many had strong links and loyalties to the KMT. Indeed, the Nationalists had long been working with the triads sympathetic to themselves against the Wang Ching Wei faction and the triads who supported them. A pragmatic police officer would also have understood the sheer logistics of preparing and indeed calling off such a huge plot in the midst of battle. Certainly there were fifth columnists, but violence towards foreigners was minimal, particularly considering the intensity of anti-foreign feeling and riots during the 1920's and 30's. In any case, the triads rank and file were gainfully employed looting and extorting in the wake of the Japanese advance. The idea seems to have developed because some of the Japanese propaganda leaflets advocated killing white people, but there does not seem to be any evidence that this was taken seriously, except perhaps by the Europeans, aware of being defeated by an enemy who believed in Asia for the Asiatics. Shaftain must have been delighted at the ease with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]