[ { "id": 206668, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "210\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nUniversity Hall. The hall has accommodation for 80 students, all men. The present warden is Dr. Enoch Young, lecturer in physics at the University, through whose courtesy the Branch is able to visit this historic building today.\n\nWe shall then walk across to the Maison de Béthanie. This building, since renovated and added to, was originally constructed in the early 1870s by the French Mission.\n\nFather Caminondo who is in charge of the Maison de Béthanie has very kindly supplied the following account:\n\nAt a time when travelling was not easy and medical care not available in many mission countries, the Superiors of the Paris Foreign Mission Society decided to put up a house in the Far East for the sick and old missionaries.\n\nHong Kong was chosen for this purpose on account of its climate and medical facilities available. It must be added that at that time few places in the Far East offered the political stability and religious tolerance of the Colony.\n\nThe name of Béthanie was chosen after \"Bethany village\" of the Holy Scripture, and the inscription above the main entrance \"Lord he whom thou lovest lies sick\" is part of the message sent to Jesus by Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus became sick.\n\nMany Missionaries availed themselves of the facilities offered by the sanatorium. In 1884, for instance, 43 missionaries stayed for some time.\n\nApart from the delightful setting, the main interest of the Maison is its chapel. This is said to be built to the same design as the former French Cathedral in Tokyo, destroyed during the war. By kind permission of Father Caminondo, we are permitted to enter the chapel and walk round it, up one side to the sacristy behind the altar, and down the other.\n\nThe chapel is remarkable for its fine furniture and fittings which apparently date from its construction. Note the sets of altar tables, of different shape and decoration, on each side of the aisle, and the large wall cupboards in the sacristy which is, as its name implies, the repository for vestments, vessels etc. used in the chapel. There are two memorial tablets to martyred priests behind the entrance doors to the chapel.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206669, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n211 \n\nWe shall then walk to the Cemetery, five minutes walk through the grounds. I have not been able to re-visit recently, and you must look for yourselves. Father Caminondo states that there is persistent vandalism against the crosses on the headstones. From 1875 up to now, he writes, four bishops and 94 priests have been buried here.\n\nPokfulam Village. There is nothing attractive about the present village, which mostly consists of small single-storey stone or wooden structures erected in haphazard fashion round the single row of old village houses that constituted the original village. The village is listed in the Chinese district gazetteer of San On (1819 edition) and thus pre-dates the British occupation of Hong Kong in 1841. The Chan (1) clan of Pokfulam, which probably settled the area in the 18th century, is still there today. They are Puntis, from Po On district. The Chans owned most of the agricultural land in the area, and fished by line and stakenet from suitable points on the coast. One of their stakenets is still in use today. Many of the fields above the Hong Kong Waterfall (see below) still belong to them, and up till 1941 were used to cultivate rice. (This was prohibited after the war on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, as part of a government campaign against malaria).\n\nWe shall not enter the village which has now little of interest, but will walk to the point indicated on the sketch map* from which we can see the Red Brick Pagoda erected, according to the date on it, in 1916. Three old residents, born in 1897-1900, say that it was erected by decision of the village leaders with subscriptions from all residents. It was built to counteract the bad influences of a then new culvert constructed under the Aberdeen Road, near the point from which we shall observe. Its wide black mouth faced onto the village, and made the villagers uneasy. An epidemic in which many residents became ill, and a supernatural event in which a goddess appeared to one of the villagers in a dream, decided the issue, and the pagoda was built. It is named Ling Tap (). The image inside it is of the goddess, known as Li Ling Shin Che (4). She is said to be of local origin, but I have not yet been able to check this thoroughly.\n\nWe then walk into Tai Ku Lau. This was the building occupied by Nazareth House between 1885-1891. It was a European house\n\n* Not printed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211604, "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": 19, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "TEXT OF ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, DR. JAMES HAYES, \n\nAT THE ANNUAL DINNER 1990 \n\nSir David, Ladies and Gentlemen, \n\nSpeaking on behalf of the Society, it is my great pleasure to say how delighted we are to have our Patron, Sir David Wilson, together with Lady Wilson, with us on this occasion. Despite their overwhelming schedule, they have made time to be with us tonight, and we are the more appreciative: but not only on this account. \n\nSir David is a scholar-diplomat, a former Editor of The China Quarterly, and very well acquainted with the history of China and its tributaries, and their relations with the West. A Fellow of our parent body since 1968, he shares the concerns and aims of this Branch of the RAS, its youngest offspring. Both he and Lady Wilson take a keen interest in our progress, and we are most grateful for their support and encouragement. \n\nThis is also an occasion of another kind for me, since (though not leaving the Council) I am stepping aside after 25 years as an office-bearer of the Society, the last seven of them as President. Seizing on this opportunity to the full, I have made some gratuitous observations on the role and modus operandi of the Society in the coming years in my Annual Report to the AGM, and shall now indulge in a more personal aside. \n\nOver many happy years working for the Society and doing \"recces\" and preparing Programme Notes for visits to places of interest, the one that still means a great deal to me was our visit to Bethanie in 1972 in its centenary year; both for its own sake and for its insights into bygone Hong Kong. \n\nThe Maison de Bethanie, nowadays a storehouse for the University of Hong Kong, was the sanatorium of the Paris Mission, that valiant body which preached the Gospel in China and other countries of the Far East from the 17th century on. \n\nIn his brief note for visitors, Father Caminondo who was in charge at that time wrote for me, “At a time when travelling was not easy and \n\nxviii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211605, "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": 20, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "medical care not available in many mission countries, the Superiors of the Paris Foreign Mission Society decided to put up a house in the Far East for sick and old missionaries. Hong Kong was chosen for this purpose on account of its climate and medical facilities available. It must be added that at that time few places in the Far East offered the political stability and religious tolerance of the Colony\". \n\nThose words have long rung in my ears. I doubt if there could be a finer unsolicited tribute to British Hong Kong. \n\nI must confess, too, against that stirring background of service, and recalling the over 100 priests and high dignitaries of the Mission who were buried in the private cemetery then within the grounds, that I was moved by the inscription that can still be found over the entrance. \n\nFather Caminondo had continued, \"The name of Bethanie was chosen after \"Bethany village\" of the Holy Scripture, and the inscription above the main entrance \"Lord he whom thou lovest lies sick\" is part of the message sent to Jesus by Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus became sick”. \n\nTruly memorable, at least for me. \n\nBut enough of the past: though it enriches the present. We are a strong Society in both numbers and spirit. We aim to continue in the service of scholarship and mutual understanding in this great City for as long as may be possible. Judging by the record of the last 30 years, there will never be a shortage of willing workers and contributors, whether British, Chinese or others. With Sir David's consent, I shall now ask him to propose a toast to the Hong Kong Branch of the RAS. \n\nxix \n\nJAMES HAYES", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213330, "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": 152, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "134\n\nPokfulam and Bethanie, July 1972\n\nDuring an address at the 1990 Annual Dinner in the presence of our Patron and Lady Wilson, I reminded members of this visit to the \"Maison de Bethanie\" in its centenary year, some eighteen years before. This particular local tour had meant a great deal to me; on its own account, and for its insights into bygone Hong Kong. Made in the height of the Hong Kong summer, it took in University Hall the former \"Nazareth\" of the French Mission's complex at Pokfulam with its famous Mission Press, operated between 1884-1953 together with \"Bethanie\" itself, and the old Pokfulam Village. As was stated in the programme notes for the visit, it was being made to a part of Hong Kong Island that had not witnessed the same degree of change as other districts. \"Even today\", I wrote in 1972, \"it is easy to imagine what Pokfulam was like in 1841 when Britain occupied Hong Kong.\"\n\n\"Bethanie\" had been built by the Fathers of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris; otherwise called for short, the French Mission. Suffice it to say here, that this particular Catholic Mission provided more workers and more martyrs than any other of the bodies that evangelized the Far East. It originated with some French priests who, in the mid 17th century, had been invited to Tonkin to help with the Jesuits' work there, and its first missionary to China had begun work there in 1681. By the time the Mission received a mention in Samuel Couling's Encyclopaedia Sinica in 1917, it had under its care 12 Vicariats with 462,321 Christians, and more than 160 of its members had been made bishops.\n\nBut it was by \"Bethanie\" itself, the embodiment of so much heroic effort, that I was so stirred. As stated in the Journal, its chapel had then still contained beautifully finished ecclesiastical furniture and fittings that, in mediaeval fashion, had obviously been made by artisans working on and round the site for as long as required, when the building was nearing completion. Its walls carried memorials in marble to martyred priests, and the adjoining Mission cemetery had held the remains of a hundred former priests and high dignitaries, many of whom had come to \"Bethanie\" to die of sickness contracted elsewhere or to spend their declining years amidst its peace and safety - for the \"Maison de Bethanie\" was essentially a sanitarium for the entire overseas Mission, and Hong Kong had been selected on account of its climate and the medical facilities available. Father Caminondo, who permitted our visit and provided a valuable note,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 } ]