[ { "id": 204403, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "26\n\nCURRENCY PROBLEMS IN A CYCLE OF CATHAY\n\nG. FINDLAY ANDREW, O.B.E.*\n\n44\n\nIn these days of simplified travel, when one may either \"pay as you go\" or travel first and pay later; when the traveller is spoon-fed by agencies and bear-led by travel bureaux, the many difficulties which faced the would-be traveller in the Chinese Empire during the early days of this century are almost entirely forgotten. Not the least of these were the many problems which arose in connection with financing such journeys. I shall only refer to foreign exchange very briefly as my subject has to do with the disbursement of Chinese currency. Suffice to say, in passing, that the sixty years under review has witnessed the pound sterling at $2.90 Mex, and the U.S. $ at sixty cents Mex. at the nadir, through to the astronomical zenith of 1949 when staffs had to be paid in the National currency twice daily and then given time off to spend the money before it deteriorated further.\n\nTo-day the would-be traveller presents himself, hat in hand before the Manager of his bank, arranges an overdraft, converts the proceeds into letters-of-credit or travellers' cheques, then proceeds blissfully upon his way shedding rays of sunshine through the distribution of his \"promises to pay\". This was not so in the days at the turn of the century. Then, the traveller in the interior of China might be able to engage his transport by payment with the native bank draft or gold or silver bullion, but the day by day road expenses had to be paid in the existing common currency of China, the old brass cash—the coin with a square hole in the centre. At that time the issuance of this currency was under the control of the Imperial Throne and new issues were uttered by each fresh monarch, perpetuating his memory by the inscription thereon. The value of the brass cash was based upon the tael of silver and fluctuated with the law of supply and demand. In the larger centres the daily rate of exchange was fixed by the Chamber of Commerce.\n\nBut in the matter of the exchange of silver into cash at the exchange shops there were many vagaries to be taken under\n\n*The author was born in China and was engaged for many years there in welfare work,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204455, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "76\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nThe New Territory comprised an estimated 376 square miles of hill and plain situated on the mainland of China and a number of offshore islands, large and small, some of which were inhabited and some were not. For the purpose of this article it is sufficient to say here that in 1898 it was primarily an agricultural district consisting of a few broad valleys and many pockets of farm land among the hills or at their foot, both on the mainland and on some of the larger islands, with a few market towns here and there. The emphasis was on agriculture, though there were a few small industries in operation. Village life was bounded by the two rice crops in summer and autumn and the winter season, when most land lay fallow; and by the occasional visit to the market town, often two or three hours away and over the hills, always on foot, and frequently laden with produce and livestock to sell or exchange.\n\n3\n\nIt goes almost without saying that this small slice of territory, only half the size of San On District which was one of the smaller administrative districts of the Kwangtung Province, and 1,500 miles from Peking, was an insignificant part of the Chinese Empire. However, despite its minute size and remoteness from the central provinces and the seat of government it was fundamentally Chinese and essentially Confucian in its component parts, two features which are worth emphasising. One of its former District Magistrates made an observation covering both these points in a Confucian discourse which he contributed to mark the restoration of a school at Kam Tin in 1744 when he wrote \"In this era of prosperity culture has spread to even this remote place near the sea. Here the Book of Poetry is read as early as sunrise\".4\n\nThe integrated life in which everything under Heaven has its place and plan is a recognisable feature of the Confucian code which was evolved and formulated in an agricultural society ever 2,500 years ago. A study of the daily life and background of New Territory people in 1898, which was also placed in an agricultural setting, though one based on the cultivation of rice and not of wheat, leaves me with the impression that the high degree of mental and environmental integration attainable within a Confucian framework had certainly been attained here. Life was lived generation after generation according to a set pattern. The disciplined life imposed upon an agricultural community", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208122, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH \n\n145\n\nand might bring anything from a complicated murder to a petty assault case: the former, with its formalities, always ticklish for an inexperienced lay magistrate. The next job was to interview people sent for by the D.O., deal with any disputes brought up by the parties or the Police, and hear any land cases fixed for that morning. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons the longer cases could be heard: failing these, there were always land deeds and registers to sign, files to deal with, or minutes to write. At the end of the day the ledger, cash books and receipts would come in for checking.\n\nIn my time most of the cases that came to my office were from the nearer islands, New Kowloon, and the Tsun Wan district. Another class of case nearly always taken there was Resumptions, which I always considered the most distasteful and unpleasant task a D.O. can be expected to perform: for though resumptions in 1917 were usually paid for at cent a square foot, and those in 1926 at 34 cents a foot, I never felt that money could in any way make up to a peasant for the loss of most or all of his land. Nearly always they wanted land in exchange, which it was rarely possible to find. I may remark here that when Mr. Ruttonjee started the brewery at Sham Tseng about 1926 he secured the land for it partly by leasing a piece of foreshore from Government and reclaiming, and partly by leasing agricultural land from the villagers who were mostly surnamed Fu (— should be a Chinese character, possibly 祖 or 夫, but as per rule 1, it is preserved as is, assuming it was (4)) for a fixed term at a yearly rent, thus giving them a regular income and a right of re-entry on their land in default of payment, which seemed to me a very fair arrangement, though the raising of foreshore levels made a terrible mess of the fields.\n\nMy first spell at the D.O. South ended in about four weeks; but in March 1923 I left the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs for good, and became 'Lord of the Isles', and not a mere substitute. This gave me the chance to carry out researches without applying for Police launches, so I expect the appointment pleased the Water Police! It was the custom for the D.O. South to hire a big launch from a Chinese firm to take him, his bailiff, and his Chinese demarcator to Cheung Chau and Tai O on alternate Wednesdays if business there demanded his presence, or there were enquiries to make, or local applications for land to consider. For this he got a large travelling allowance, I think $1200 a year, which I believe I nearly used up every year, though I don't remember asking for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211615, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Cinema, at North Point (constructed in the early 1950s), is suspended; or the English style, Kentish-Rag, stone retaining wall on the south side of Battery Path in Central. One wonders if the latter was commissioned by some homesick Englishman.\n\nAnd, while parts of the Territory have been disparagingly called \"concrete jungle”, there are modern structures of merit. Depending on your taste, the St. John's Building (Lower Peak-Tram Station), Admiralty Centre; and the Macau Ferry Terminal spring to mind. The foyer at the Landmark, and the high-rise, high-tech Exchange Square, with its \"electronic plumbing\" so tenants can plug in for centralised computer services, are also of merit. Other recently completed buildings show an impressive degree of distinction and aesthetic sensitivity.\n\nIn an article written by Doctor Alan Birch in 1978, previously Reader in History at Hong Kong University, he stated that 95 per cent of the Territory's buildings had been erected from 1946 onwards (even if the deterioration of some belies their age). Although that was probably a very approximate estimate, since then many more old buildings have been torn down. Hong Kong is a city-state where, with the exception of the plot on which Saint John's Cathedral stands (which is freehold), all land is leasehold held from the Crown: this demands that landholders maximise their income from the land in as short a time as possible.\n\nTo give some idea how dramatically the skyline has changed: until World War II the seven-storey Peninsula Hotel, on the Kowloon waterfront, which served as the Japanese army headquarters during the occupation, was considered tall. Since then, the skyline has changed dramatically every decade.\n\nCatherine II (Catherine the Great) (1729-96), Empress of Russia, who together with her many architects erected royal palaces and public buildings, said that building was a disease, like alcoholism. Not too dissimilarly, in Hong Kong, Aw Boon Haw, the son of a Chinese herbalist, who together with his brother, Boon Par, produced the famous \"cure-all\", Tiger Balm, was told by a sooth-sayer that he would lose his fortune and die if he stopped building. When he eventually departed he had erected 26 castles around Asia, as well as the well-known Tiger Balm Gardens in both Singapore and Hong Kong. These, which contain figures depicting stories in Chinese history or mythology, were built to promote Aw's well-known pharmaceutical products.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213266, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "68\n\nback door. In this way prosperous winds are not allowed to blow straight out of the other side. Considerable care was taken, too, in selecting the positions and angles of the two long escalators leading up to the first floor of the Bank. They should not directly 'confront' the entrance.\n\nUnlike most enterprises in urban Hong Kong 'The Bank' still has an open space in front of it and a sea view. The harbour is the bathing place of the dragon. With water signifying money this is important. Water is the most powerful of all the Elements. It is non-resistant. It can wear away rocks. A deluge can sweep all before it.\n\nIn many cases planners go to some lengths, among other measures, to ensure that interior water features assist good joss to circulate throughout a building. The height of the ejection of water of a fountain is often considered important.\n\nThe now liquidated Hong Kong Branch of the Bank of Credit and Commerce was sadly not so wise. '... the BCC displayed a large water feature which cascaded away from the entrance... this means (in fung shui terms) wealth pours out of the bank. I am surprised anyone should put their money into this bank in the first place,' a fung shui master contended.\n\nThere are countless cases where western managements have paid consideration to fung shui in Hong Kong (Saw, 1990:8) In Exchange Square, for example, a special skylight was installed and the 'water curtains' on either side of the two escalators are spectacular. In the Hyatt Regency Hotel doors and furniture were repositioned.\n\nVirgin Atlantic Airways timed their first flight to the Far East to start on a propitious day. Marks and Spencer buried lucky gold coins in strategic positions under floors in its stores, and Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm, also pays regard to the 'caring philosophy'. Asians, of course, like to see Westerners respecting their culture. In turn, it is good for business (Sunday Times, 1995:16).\n\nThe author has no hard data, but his personal recollections are that clearly far more interest is shown in fung shui by western establishments today than 40 or so years ago. Certainly there is far more interest in it now than there was between the two World Wars. Going back still further,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 } ]