[ { "id": 204875, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n153 \n\nthe cultivation of all plants whose names are qualified by the prefix faan,\" used for immigrants such as the tomato, the guava, the rambutan, one kind of melon, and the sweet potato. The peanut is not so qualified and it would appear that the prefix faan is used only for importations from the Pacific. The peanut bears no indication of foreign origin in its name. I do not know what it is called in the various dialects of Fukien, but Chinese books of reference refer to it as lok fa shang. The Cantonese name is fa shang, which is clearly an abbreviation of the former, while the Hakka name is ti tiu, which means earth bean. \n\nAgain it might be of some assistance if there could be recorded the names by which this plant has been known both in Arabia and in other countries of the Middle and Far East to which the Arabs introduced it. Another introduction, perhaps better described as a reintroduction, was the lemon. It would appear that the first Arab traders on their admission to Canton at the end of the sixth century took back with them the seeds of a plant then described in Chinese as yi mo (itself clearly a non-Han name) and from that plant developed and cultivated the now well-known lemon-shaped lemon which they called by the name Al-Laimûn which is the old Chinese name arabized by the common ending -n and the initial slurred with the definite article. The Cantonese then re-borrowed the Arabic name in the form of ning mung12 which we still use. Another Arabic word which was introduced into the language of Canton was the word amah, now familiar in the meaning of a Chinese female servant employed by a foreign family, which has nothing to do with the Cantonese word for grandmother2 but is a word for a female servant common to all the Semitic languages, including Hebrew it will be found in the Books of Exodus, xxiii. 12, Judges xix. 9 and many other places in the Bible. I suspect that many of the other words commonly used in Cantonese to express special relationships between Chinese and foreigners could also be found to have an origin in Arabic, Malay or other languages used by foreign traders in Canton before any Europeans were heard of: for example, sz tsai,16 sz tau,15 (which I think is the Arabic sayyid,1 fa wongł which is clearly the same word as the Urdu malik, originally meaning king and then gardener; kwun-tim,\" sz-naai14 and taipan3 If this surmise is correct, then these words are likely to have been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205753, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1969", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n53\n\nlocal recruits. The venture was rumoured to be the work of the Ming Lan Tong, a literary society of Tung-kuan city. Additional credence was given to the reports when it was learned that some officers of the Tong were members of the Hsin-an Tang clan. Police on patrol in the New Territory also noted that women were leaving their villages. By 10th May the exodus had reached major proportions.\n\nIt was evident that the Sham Chun river was not a defensible frontier and that the best way to forestall attack was to occupy the area from which it was to be launched. On 16th May two columns, numbering 1500 men in all, landed from Deep Bay and Mirs Bay and marched on Sham Chun. That evening the Union Jack was hoisted over Sham Chun market, to the accompaniment of a 21-gun salute. A proclamation was issued declaring that Sham Chun was British territory and that the Viceroy had no further jurisdiction in the district. There had been no resistance and no sign of forces massing to attack the New Territory.\n\nThe occupation of Sham Chun was confined to an area within five miles of the Sham Chun river, including Sha Tau, Sham Chun, and the road between them. Neither civil nor military jurisdiction were extended further. However, in the hinterland the occupation of Sham Chun and the proclamation which accompanied it were interpreted as a prelude to the occupation of the entire district. In particular, the Tangs of Pan T'in feared a punitive expedition against themselves.\n\nMuch of the information about subsequent events comes from one source. The Rev. Martin Schaub* of the Basel Mission had a station at Li Long, near Pan T'in, in the north of the district. Rev. Schaub wrote periodically to the officer commanding at Sham Chun and his letters convey a vivid impression of the activity precipitated by the occupation. Late in May he wrote that the leaders of Pan T'in had asked the larger villages to help in resisting the British. He said money was being collected and that armed men were making their way toward Pan T'in.\n\n* The printed documents call him \"Hart\", but this must be in error for Rev. Martin Schaub of the Basel Mission. A photograph and brief biography are given at pp. 16, 438 of Marshall Broomhall, The Chinese Empire: a General and Missionary Survey, London, [1907]. Perhaps hand-writing was responsible for the wrong transcription into the printed documents, Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206263, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong\n\nCarl T. Smith*\n\n(A lecture delivered to the Branch on 15 March 1971)\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nThe opening of Tung Wah Hospital (1872)† marks the terminal date for this study of the emergence of a Chinese élite in Hong Kong. We are concerned, therefore, with the first thirty years of the colony's history, 1841-72.\n\nThe first decade was characterized by economic and social problems partially created by a shifting and generally irresponsible population. During this period, there was, however, a small number of settlers who were establishing themselves and their families with the purpose of making Hong Kong their permanent home, of acquiring capital, and of investing in real estate. As the Colony entered into the 1850s, this group increasingly assumed a position of leadership. It was recruited from a few successful contractors and builders, several government servants, compradores of foreign firms, and Chinese Christians attached to missionary groups.\n\nThe second decade of Hong Kong's history was marked by an influx of population and capital caused by disturbed conditions in South China created by the Taiping Rebellion. This influx turned into an exodus when hostilities began between the British and Chinese in 1857. But war brought more compradores to Hong Kong as foreign firms moved down from Canton.\n\nIn the third decade, there was a revival of trade, and a growing merchant class provided its share of élite. By the end of the\n\n* Rev. Carl Smith is Lecturer in the Theology Division in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and has been associated with the College since 1962.\n\n† It is difficult to know what date to give to the origin of Tung Wah Hospital. In 1869, a committee of concerned Chinese was organized. In 1870 (the usual date given for the foundation of the Hospital), the Tung Wah Hospital Ordinance was passed and the foundation stone was laid by the Governor. The Hospital was formally opened by the Governor on 14 February 1872.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207304, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "64 \n\nE. G. PRYOR \n\nThe Chinese community in Hong Kong became panic-stricken and there was a mass exodus of workers back to China. In the China Sugar Factory, for example, some 300 workers downed tools and walked their way back to Swatow about 180 miles away. The economic life of the colony suffered considerably as a consequence. So much so that Sir William Robinson recorded that \"without exaggeration, I may assert that, so far as trade and commerce are concerned the plague has assumed the importance of an unexampled calamity.\"* \n\nConditions in the hospitals became exceedingly crowded. The Kennedy Town Glass Works Hospital was intended to accommodate 100 patients but at one point contained 200 afflicted persons. Admissions to hospital at the peak of the outbreak averaged 80 a day whilst dead bodies piled up in the streets at the rate of over 100 a day. A new pig depot had to be hastily converted into a hospital to take 140 patients and the running of all hospitals was assumed by European doctors as it was soon found that Chinese traditional medicine was of no avail. \n\nDuring the frantic efforts to rid the colony of the plague about 7000 persons were dispossessed of their homes, 350 houses were condemned and sealed off and several boatloads of patients were sent to Canton. \n\nWith the advent of cooler weather the plague abated and there was hope that the visitation of 1894 would not be repeated. Indeed, there was no outbreak in the following year but in 1896 the oriental version of the black death stalked the streets of Hong Kong and carried off 1078 unfortunates, the majority being Chinese in the congested district of Tai Ping Shan. The plague thence became an almost annual occurrence usually making its appearance in February or March reaching a peak by July and then virtually disappearing during the autumn and winter. Over the period 1894-1901 some 8600 persons succumbed to the disease and this represented a mortality rate of about 95 per cent. \n\nRelentless efforts were made to root out the assumed cause of the problem which was generally thought to be insanitary living conditions. Regulations were passed requiring notification to the nearest police station of any cases of plague and in default of this obligation there was a penalty of $25, which at that time was a \n\n* Ibid, p. 5.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207871, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "244\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\namong them is very irregular, even when allowance is made for the differences in size between the communities. There are clearly specialisations here, and sets of comparable statistics for other areas would be a necessary preliminary to a study of why, despite the fact that overseas migration has been very general in the New Territories in recent years, some communities have not contributed to it or done so on a very small scale. This problem has often been raised in studies of emigration from southeastern China, but it has never been thoroughly gone into, and it would be a pity if the opportunity to study it in the New Territories were missed.\n\n82. Why do people emigrate? New Territories men do not go abroad to make a new life or even, it would seem, to see the world. They, like millions of men from Fukien and Kwangtung before them, have sought a way of earning a better living; they have not intended to settle abroad (whatever later circumstances and opportunities may have suggested or dictated) and have hoped to be able to return home with enough money to sweeten their old age. Although, as we have seen, a few hundred New Territories women have gone to the United Kingdom to join their men, the general character of the migration has been male. In an ideal pattern, men go abroad, earn, remit money, and return. But a large-scale exodus of able-bodied men entails some serious consequences for the social and economic life of the people left behind. In some areas of the New Territories the absence of young and middle-aged men is so striking as to be obvious even to the casual observer. Inferences from the census data are not easy to draw, because the absence of men from the old-established communities may be marked in the figures by surpluses of men among the new population, but the 1961 data show significantly that of the five Districts Sai Kung has the lowest ratio of males to females (951:1,000) and that within the Tai Po District Sai Kung North and Sha Tau Kok stand out very sharply as areas with low ratios (794 and 782 respectively, whereas the ratio for the District as a whole is 1,019). Moreover, Sai Kung has had a low ratio over a long period (859 in 1921 and 800 in 1931). (See K.M.A. Barnett, Hong Kong, Report on the 1961 Census, vol. II, p. 25, Tables 110 and 111. Population figures, by sex, for individual villages and settlements are available from the 1961 census, although not published in the Report; they provide a valuable guide to the communities from which male emigration has been heaviest, although again, the presence of new", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210479, "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-1985", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "67\n\ncontact between Hakka landsmen and Tanka (Cantonese) fishermen in Kau Sai was very slight. In the normal circumstances of daily life and occupation, in matters of kinship and the vast majority of ritual and social occasions as much before the exodus in 1952 as after the fishermen simply ignored the local land people. The immediately following chapters, which treat of occupational, economic and family organization on the junks can safely do the same.\n\n5. THE BOATS\n\n33\n\nIn this chapter I describe the three main types of boat operating from Kau Sai in terms of the accommodation they provide for the tasks that have to be performed on them. These include caring for children and old people, doing the family cooking and much of its washing, copulation, birth and death, as well as fishing operations and most things connected with them.\n\n14\n\nAll Chinese junks have certain features in common. Among them the best known is probably the system of sub-division into watertight compartments. This was a Chinese invention of the early T'ang dynasty, only much later introduced into Europe. Bulkheads run both transversely and longitudinally, forming a kind of chequer-board pattern of watertight holds extremely convenient for storing fish, water, salt and ice, as well, of course, as items of gear and personal possessions. In some junks one or more outside compartments may be used for housing fresh fish alive, holes in the hull admitting a constant flow of clean sea water. The standard of sub-division on a Chinese junk is said to be far above that required by international regulations for the safety of passenger ships, and a junk is almost unsinkable by bilging alone.\n\nNearly all junks have a high stern and poop deck and are relatively low in the bows. Together with the usual forward rake of the masts (particularly marked in the larger vessels) this gives them a characteristically leaning, rather urgent, look. Except on the big long-liners, whose crews may include as many as sixty persons each trip, the forward part of the junk is used for carrying gear, fish and so on, not for accommodation. In general", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210845, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 196, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "179\n\nThe case of O Soey-cheong illustrates the predicament of the student in a missionary school. The conditions of enrolment obligated him to remain in school until his course of study was completed. At the same time he was dependent upon the school for his food, clothing, and lodging. If he was accepted as a theological student, he received, in addition, a cash allowance. By that time, as an advanced student, he had acquired a fair mastery of English, sufficient to qualify him for a larger income if he would leave his studies and use his language ability in business or as an interpreter.\n\nThis is what most of the students did. It was a discouraging development for teachers who had set out to train religious workers for the Chinese church.\n\nYOUNG A-CHICK'S EARLY SCHOOL DAYS\n\nWhen the gold fever affected the students in the schools in Hongkong and Canton, their principals had to use persuasion and diplomacy to keep their older students from joining the exodus to California and Australia.\n\nOn the other hand, some of their graduates were sent overseas with the blessings of their former teachers. Armed with letters of introduction, they were able to establish contacts outside the Chinese community. One of these students was Tong Mow-chee, known in his school days as A-chick. He was a former pupil of the Morrison Education Society School and of St Paul's College.\n\nBefore describing his departure from Hongkong and his rise to leadership in the Chinese community in California, we shall relate his experiences as a schoolboy in Macau and Hongkong and as an interpreter in Shanghai and Hongkong.\n\nTong A-chick was the eldest of three brothers. Their family home was Tong Ka, a village in the Heung Shan District (now Chung Shan) not far from Macau. The harbour upon which the village was located was the opium ship anchorage at Cumsingmoon.\n\nWhen the Morrison Education Society School was opened in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210875, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 226, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "209\n\nThe fifth brother, Ho Wooi-shang, became an assistant in the business of A-tick, Hongkong's most successful tailor at that time. In addition he had a business at Honam in Canton. While visiting there he was wounded by a Chinese tax officer. He lingered long enough to make his will but died not long after leaving a family of small children.\n\nIn the collection of the Legge family, which was deposited in the Archives of the London Missionary Society, there is a photograph of Ho Shun-chee, alias A-lloy. On the back is written: “To Miss Legge with kind regards from her sincere friend,” and an added note by Dr. Legge's daughter, Edith: \"He told me he had attended the emperor when he went to pray at the Altar of Heaven.\"\n\nIt is indeed a long step from a Hongkong classroom to the Altar of Heaven at Peking.\n\nTO THE GOLDFIELDS DOWN UNDER IN SEARCH OF CONVERTS\n\nAmong the students of Dr. Legge's school in Hongkong were a number of boys from the Ho clan. Two orphaned brothers, Ho Low-yuk and Ho Mei-yuk, were near relatives of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong. Both went to Australia after finishing school.\n\nThey were part of an exodus of Hongkong-educated boys seeking their fortunes in overseas communities. As English speakers in a place where their countrymen were cut off from the general community, they served to bridge the gap. At the same time, government officials and Christians interested in the conversion of the Chinese needed someone through whom they could communicate with the immigrants.\n\nA-low and another young man from the school were urged by Dr. Legge to emigrate to Australia. Because of the unsettled conditions in China created by the Taiping rebellion, Dr. Legge felt it was not a good field for these two young men he had trained as religious workers. So provided with letters of introduction to a Congregational minister in Melbourne off they sailed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210880, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 231, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "214\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nAfter the discovery of gold in Otago in 1861, there had been a great rush of prospectors. When the fields had been worked over and new fields opened in other areas, there had been an exodus.\n\nThe local authorities were eager to recruit men who would be willing to continue to work the Otago minefields, hence their hope to attract Chinese labour from Australia.\n\nThere was a possible obstacle. Threats had been made that if the Chinese entered the goldfields they would be run out. This had been published in 1857 in another district, where an Anti-Chinese Committee had been organised to fight the \"Mongolian filth.\"\n\nThe fear expressed itself in spite of the fact that no Chinese were planning to come to New Zealand at that time. The memory of the threats remained, however, and before bringing any of his countrymen, Ho A-mei wanted to assure himself they would receive protection.\n\nHe received an open welcome from the Dunedin merchants and the Otago authorities. After a brief stay at Dunedin, A-mei returned to Melbourne with the assurance that Chinese miners would be both welcomed and protected.\n\nWhen he arrived back in Australia, he had posters put up at the various mining areas inviting Chinese to the New Zealand fields.\n\nThere was a decidedly cool response. The Australian Chinese miners were still uncertain of the reception they might receive in New Zealand.\n\nA-mei, however, remained undaunted. In words reflecting his pride and persistence, he reminds his readers: “Desiring, however, not to be discouraged by the shaken confidence in me by our countrymen, nor relishing the idea of frustrating the hopes of those friends of your city, under whose hospitable roofs I had the opportunity of enjoying many a pleasant hour during my visit, and much less did I like to have a failure in any scheme I undertake, I commenced at once with undivided attention and vigorous activities, and after much difficulty I succeeded in inducing a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213944, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1997", "page_number": 14, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "that a copy of the Journal is given, free, to all fully-paid-up members. Also, while our lectures are free, our visits provide leadership and quality that one is unlikely to find elsewhere, at a similar cost in the private sector for example. It should be noted that, to encourage students to join, their annual subscription remains at only HK$50.\n\nAlthough there has not been a mass exodus of expatriates from Hong Kong, many have left, and, in turn, new people have arrived, often short-term stayers. Our Branch is becoming less British in composition. With the RAS in some ways an international institution, with branches or affiliated organisations in places like Japan and Korea which never formed part of the old British Empire, for our Branch to become more cosmopolitan is not a bad thing. However, although we have tried to recruit more Chinese members over recent years, we have had limited success with numbers varying from 15 to 20 per cent of total membership. Nevertheless, although we have organised a few lectures in Cantonese, we are basically an English-speaking society in what has become, since the Handover, a more Cantonese-speaking community. But, in spite of this change, the RAS still fills a need in Hong Kong in its present form. Having said that, if our Branch wishes to increase considerably its number of Chinese members, then it will have to organise many more functions in the local language.\n\nWe are a society catering partly to scholars, and some of the quality research on Hong Kong has been undertaken by RAS members who have endeavoured to place their findings on record, in some cases before the old ways of life disappear forever. But, at the same time, the RAS is popular with newcomers to Hong Kong who wish to learn something of local history and about Chinese culture, one of the most important cultures in the world.\n\nHere it should be said that many of our members contribute a great deal to the Hong Kong community, and, as a result, five were named in the June 1997 Queen's Birthday Honour's List. They included Dr Michael Lau, Professor I.J. Hodgkiss, Mr Randolf O'Hara, and Ms Caroline Courtauld, who each received an MBE, and Mr Peter Halliday, who was awarded the Queen's Police Medal.\n\nxiii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214801, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "181\n\nREFERENCES\n\nAbbas, M Akbar 1997 Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press.\n\nAgamben, Giorgio 1998 Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford. Stanford University Press.\n\nAnderson, Benedict 1994 'Exodus' Critical Inquiry 20.2. 314-27 Winter\n\n1983 (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London. Verso Editions.\n\nBahloul, J 1996 The Architecture of Memory: A Jewish-Muslim Household in Colonial Algeria, 1937-1962. Cambridge and New York. Cambridge University Press.\n\nBaker, Hugh 1984 'Life in the Cities: the Emergence of Hong Kong Man'. The China Quarterly (467-79).\n\nBaudelaire, Charles 1863 (1981) Selected Writings on Art and Artists. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.\n\nBaudrillard, Jean 1994 Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor. University of Michigan.\n\nBell, Daniel 1976 The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York. Basic Books.\n\nCampbell, Colin 1987 The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. Oxford and Cambridge (Mass). Basil Blackwell.\n\nChambers, Iain 1994 Migrancy, Culture, Identity. London, Routledge.\n\nChan Hoi-man 1994 'Culture and Identity' in The Other Hong Kong, ed. P. Choi and L.S. Ho. Hong Kong. The Chinese University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215981, "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": 280, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "214\n\nnot fully known. There was apparently some disturbing news passed along unseen lines of communication that a large group of unruly men, nearly 5,000 in all, had been rounded up in Wye-chow and urged on by Soo and another gentry collaborator, Wong Chik-wai, to sneak into Poklo and capture the district magistrate, Legge, and Ch'êa. Their intentions were apparently malevolent, fully inclined toward \"punishing\" all three if they were found. In fact, their progress toward Poklo was slower than the Hoppo anticipated. On October 10th, the day Legge left to return to Canton and then on to his young family in Hong Kong, the vigilantes had already \"made prisoners\" of the Prefect of Wye-chow and the District Magistrate of Kwye-sheen, capturing them as they returned from the previous day's festivities in Poklo.\n\n1584\n\nCh'êa himself, Legge reflected, \"was full of joy, as I was, and unsuspicious of danger.\" Apparently sometime during the evening of the 12th or 13th, a group of men surrounded the London Mission's house in Poklo and provoked Ch'êa to come to the door by having a small child knock on it. Having tricked him by this means, they grabbed him, beating him till they could control him by other means. Soon afterwards this kind of aggressive physical persecution spread to all the places where residents had become Christians, neighbours saving themselves by becoming informants, causing a desperate exodus from many places. News that finally did filter down to Hong Kong came from the mouths of a handful of refugees who managed to escape from the area.\n\nLegge's daughter, Helen Edith Legge, put together a series of letters including translations of notes and verbal news received by Chalmers in Canton as well as passages from letters of her father to reconstruct the final days of Ch'êa's persecution. Even though one local Christian named Wong Shan Yen, possibly a wealthy farmer Ch'êa had often met over the years, offered a large ransom to have Ch'êa released, the vigilantes had other purposes in mind.85 First tortured with fire,86 and then later moved to another hamlet where he was hung overnight to a beam by his thumbs and big toes, reawakened into the consciousness of his pain by water dashed in the face, Ch'êa's enemies were merciless. Only if he promised to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216425, "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-2003", "page_number": 184, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "134\n\nPre-war there were a large number of local Chinese in Russian employment in Manchuria. A typical throw-away line in a correspondent's lengthy report was the description of the unexpected naval assault on the Russian Far Eastern Fleet in Port Arthur in February 1904 which precipitated the war. \"The town was in confusion after this sudden and unexpected attack on the town initiating the conflict. Food prices soared as Chinese traders sold up and fled. Throughout the bombardment the Chinese streamed out to the hills wailing with fear. Clerks at one of the banks disappeared with large sums of money. Meanwhile, Chinese who were forbidden to travel by train during the mass exodus had converged on the harbour hoping to find places aboard foreign ships. Sampan men made a small fortune ferrying refugees out to the ships. Social organisation fell apart as Chinese servants and shop keepers fled leaving their employers and customers, the Russians, to fend for themselves.\"\n\nIn August 1904 the Japanese entered the Treaty Port of Newchwang (Niuzhuang, now known as Yingkou), the Russians having pulled out without fighting. The Japanese were surprised the Chinese there did not welcome them as deliverers, regretted the departure of Russian friends, and charged the Japanese two dollars where they only charged the Russians one. During the interval between the departure of the Russians and the arrival of the Japanese, Chinese refugees poured into the settlement in a ceaseless stream, carrying their goods and chattels. This was an all too familiar pattern ahead of the advancing armies.\n\nA correspondent's description of life in Mukden ahead of the approach of the Japanese as winter set in 1904 included his impressions of the daily scene with 'Manchus and Chinese, the men almost indistinguishable from one another, the Manchu women differing in their free stride from the mincing tread of their Chinese sisters. Cossacks and Chinese had soon established quite friendly relations. At every step you can see soldiers bargaining with inflexible Chinese for a bottle of vodka, or a handful of nuts or a pair of socks. Sometimes you see a soldier eating an apple in a fruit-seller's stall. This soldier was supposed to discharge the duties of a policeman, and the apple represents bribery and corruption.'\n\nAlthough there were many reports of Chinese and Manchu peasants taking sides and fighting for one or other of the belligerents for what", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]