[ { "id": 204398, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "NESTORIAN CROSSES\n\n21\n\nNestorian community in his letters, and their king George, whom he converted from Nestorianism to the Catholic faith.\n\nThe scattered references to the Nestorians in the accounts of the friars are confirmed by Marco Polo (1271-1295) who with his father and uncle can represent for us the second group of travelling merchants. Everywhere through Central Asia and China Marco found Nestorian Christians, usually in the service of the Court, and probably more often than not of Syrian, Persian or Turkish race, employed as administrative officials by the alien government on account of their high standard of literacy.\n\nMarco Polo also confirms the existence of a Nestorian Christian tribe with their Christian king George (whom he confuses with Prester John as Odoric also does) at the Yellow River bend. It seems likely that the name 'Tenduc' which he gives to the region is the early pronunciation of T'ien-tê which was an old name of the present city of Kuei-hua{ in that region, near which is the important market town of Pao-t'ou in which Mr. P. M. Scott found the first fourteen crosses of our paper. Similarly the Tozan of Odoric may be identified with Tung-sheng, an early name for the same region. The Christian Mongol tribe situated by the Ordos bend of the Yellow River is known from various sources to have been the Onguts (Wang-ku people), to which Marco Polo refers, though confusedly, in calling their king Ung-Khan.\n\nThese facts are confirmed in a remarkable way by a Syriac document describing a pilgrimage of two Eastern Nestorian monks—one an Ongut, the other of Uigur stock—from their monastery near Peking to the seat of the Nestorian Patriarch in Mesopotamia in A.D. 1278. In the course of their journey they visited the Christian Ongut tribe by the Yellow River bend, and from them received a touching farewell.19\n\nIV. NESTORIAN RELICS IN CHINA AND MONGOLIA\n\nWith the expulsion of the Mongols from China at the fall of the Yuan dynasty in A.D. 1368, the Christianity both Nestorian and Franciscan that had been associated with their regime disappeared.\n\n17 Letters of Montecorvino, see Yule, op. cit., and Moule, op. cit., pp. 171 ff.\n\n18 Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, revised by Cordier, London, Murray, 1903.\n\n19 Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, London, R.T.S. 1928.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204481, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "102\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nthere are sometimes several. As a general rule they are small buildings, but the major clans have constructed large high spacious buildings with several courtyards and side rooms. Among the largest in the New Territories are the ancestral temples of branches of the TANG clan at Ping Shan and Ha Tsuen near Yuen Long. These are fine and impressive buildings but are not, unfortunately, kept in good repair. Much of the opposition to the British troops in 1898 was planned in the ancestral hall at Ha Tsuen. Beside the Ping Shan hall there is a school/library building, now used as a private residence.\n\n53 The reason is always said to be lack of funds though I suspect a lack of leadership is also a prime factor. The clan usually waits until something is seriously wrong, by which time it is often too late; a storm completes the ruination. There seems to be some truth in this as I have found newly built ancestral halls in several villages, e.g. the CHEUNG ancestral hall at Lo Wai, Pui O which was rebuilt in 1960 on a new site, the old one having been in ruins for twenty years.\n\n54 Clan worship at the graves still goes on, but is much more informal than in 1898. Mr. TANG Kiu-fong of Fui Sha Wai, a retired schoolmaster, previously quoted, who was born in 1894, tells me that when he was a boy the ceremony was taken very seriously. Everyone wore the long robe, elders were carried to the graves in sedan chairs, and male members of the clan were drawn up in ranks by generations and worshipped in strict seniority, under the direction of a master of ceremonies.\n\n55 These ancestral obligations often imposed considerable inconvenience and up to several days' travel for the whole family. Mr. CHEUNG Yau of Tai Ping village, North Lamma, (b. 1883) tells me that his grandfather settled on Lamma Island from his native village of Wai Tau in the Lam Tsuen valley in the present Tai Po district. Ever since he can remember, and until old age interfered with visits a few years ago, he has gone back to his ancestral village at least three times a year, as dictated by custom. For the first twenty-five years there was no railway and his family used to go by junk to Kowloon and walk the rest of the way, children included. Others went further afield. Mr. LAM Shue Chun, Chairman of the Peng Chau Rural Committee, told me that his family went regularly to their ancestral village of Nam Leng Wai in Po On, north of the border, and were interrupted in their journeys first by the Japanese and latterly by the Communists. He has been twice since 1942 and an uncle has been visiting fairly regularly up to last year. The family travelled to Kowloon by junk, then used the railway and had a long walk from Sham Chon Market. Sometimes there was no need to go from home as contact had been lost with the ancestral village which was too far away.\n\n56 They were full at any time. There is an interesting count of travel on the Colony's border roads and the Shum Chun ferries taken 11th and 12th December 1905 in Enclosure E to Despatch No. 59 in Correspondence relating to Kowloon-Canton Railway already quoted. The first was a market day, when the count of persons, with and without goods, roughly doubled the figures for the second, or ordinary day. On the two main ferries, for instance, the count on December 11 was with goods 1126, without goods 1379 and on the Shum Chun-Sha Tau Kok road 521 and 1302. On the day following the figures were 468 and 1124, and 158 and 550 respectively. At New Year and the two grave festivals the number must have been very much increased.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204539, "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-1963", "page_number": 20, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN MACAO\n\n15\n\ncemetery. Membership of the Board is open to the Consular Authorities in Macao of certain European Protestant nations, plus Protestant residents in Macao. In 1924 the Rev. John Galloway, a Canadian missionary, was appointed a Trustee; he still lives in Macao and it is to him that we are indebted for much of our information concerning the later history of these two cemeteries in Macao, the Old and the New. When the East India Company ceased operating in China in 1834, its property in Macao reverted to His Majesty's Government in England. But in 1870, it was thought wiser that the two cemetery properties in Macao should come under the ownership of one body, and the Old Cemetery property was transferred to the New Cemetery Trustees, under whose control it rests to this day.\n\nEntrance to the Old Cemetery. The door in the wall already mentioned gives entrance to the property which is on three levels; the highest or first level is a courtyard in which a simple chapel stands; the burial plots are on the two lower levels which we refer to as the Upper and Lower Terraces. A wide cement path leads down from the Chapel level to the Lower Terrace and a break in the left-hand wall on the way down gives access to the Upper Terrace. In the chapel are two wall memorials of interest; one is to a British merchant named Margesson who originally came from Surrey, and who was drowned on 17 June 1869 when the ship in which he was travelling struck a rock just a mile or two off the coast of Japan; the disaster occurred on a clear evening and in a perfectly calm sea, but the ship sank almost immediately with a big loss of life.\n\nThe other chapel memorial is to James B. Endicott who died of typhoid in 1870 after living for 35 years in Hong Kong, Macao, and Canton. He is actually buried in the Colonial Cemetery in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, but he has two daughters, an uncle, and many friends in the churchyard in Macao. Endicott was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, U.S.A. in 1814, and is a direct lineal descendant of John Endicott who sailed from the harbour of Weymouth, England, in 1628 in the ship Abigail on an adventurous voyage to the New World where he became the founder and first governor of the State of Massachusetts. James B. Endicott introduces us to the important American section of the foreigners who lived in Macao more than one hundred years ago, over fifty of whom rest in this cemetery.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204542, "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-1963", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "18\n\nLINDSAY RIDE\n\nDr. Robert Morrison. It is easily found, for if one continues straight on through the terrace from the end of the path one comes upon it amongst a group of altar tombs in the south-east corner of the cemetery. Morrison was a member of the London Missionary Society and was the first Protestant missionary in China, arriving from England via the States in 1807. He was a great Chinese scholar, wrote a Chinese grammar, compiled an English-Cantonese dictionary, and, along with a colleague, translated the whole Bible into Chinese. He became the indispensable interpreter and translator of the Select Committee of the East India Company, was taken by Lord Amherst in that capacity on his embassy to Peking in 1816, and was appointed in 1834 by Lord Napier to his staff when he assumed office in place of the East India Company in China. In 1825 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in virtue of his outstanding scholastic achievements, and was also a member of the society under whose auspices we meet tonight — the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nMorrison was buried alongside his wife, and next to her lies their very gifted son, John Robert Morrison, who died just as he was appointed the first Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong. Nearby lies another colleague from the same missionary society, Samuel Dyer, who did much to introduce metallic movable type to replace wooden blocks in the printing of Chinese books and tracts.\n\nAlong the eastern wall are to be found a number of members of East India Company families, and in the second row parallel to this wall is the second most frequently photographed memorial in the cemetery, that of Sir Winston Churchill's great-great-grand uncle, the 4th son of the 5th Duke of Marlborough, Lord Henry John Spencer Churchill, Captain, R.N. Near him lies a group of naval officers—Lieut. John Astell, Lieut. FitzGerald of the H.M.S. Modeste, and Captain Sir Humphrey le Fleming Senhouse, Senior Naval Officer in the China Seas during the attack on Canton in 1841.\n\nThe most conspicuous monument in the whole of the cemetery is a tall column near the north wall. It commemorates the life and death of Captain John Crockett who must have made a fortune when in command for some years of an opium storeship at Lintin. Nearby lies one of America's great ambassadors, Edmund Roberts, who served in the West Indies, South America, Muscat, Zanzibar,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204745, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "JOURNAL OF OCCURRANCES AT CANTON\n\n37\n\nNOTES ON HUNTER'S JOURNAL\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG and Sir LINDSAY T. RIDE\n\n1 Snow. Peter Wanten Snow, Consul for the United States in Canton. He surrendered the opium in American possession as demanded by Commissioner Lin, and was ready to promise that Americans would cease importing opium, but refused to have anything to do with the bond as the penalties were too severe. (See also note 43, bond.) (L.T.R.)\n\n2 Mr. Forbes. Joined the American firm of Russell & Co. in Canton in October 1838, became a partner 1 January 1839 and eventually was made chief of the house. Robert Bennett Forbes (1804-1889), first arrived in China in 1817. After some years back in the States he returned to China in October 1838 and was admitted a partner of Russell & Co., China on 1 January 1839. He retired in 1844 but had an interest in the firm till 1857. (L.T.R.)\n\n3 Mr. Green. John C. Green of Trenton, New Jersey, first went to China as an agent of N.L. & G. Griswold. In 1834 he was admitted a partner of Russell & Co., China, and retired to New York on 31st December 1839. At the time of the disturbances he was Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce at Canton. He died in 1875. (L.T.R.)\n\n4 Mr. Delano. Warren Delano, Jr. of Fairhaven, Mass., came to China 1834 to join the house of Russell, Sturgis & Co., of Canton and Manila. He was a partner of Russell & Co., China for two terms, 1 January 1840 to 31 December 1846, and January 1861 to 31 December 1866. He was a great-uncle of ex-President F. D. Roosevelt. (L.T.R.)\n\n5 Mr. King.\n\nThis is most likely to be Edward King of Newport, R.I., who was taken into the firm of Russell & Co., as a clerk on his arrival at Canton in 1834 in the Silas Richards. On 1 July 1834 he became a partner and retired in 1842 to Newport where he died in 1876.\n\nThere was a Charles W. King of Olyphant & Co. in Canton at the time, but as this firm had nothing to do whatsoever with opium, he may not have been confined to the Factory. (L.T.R.)\n\n6 Mr. Low. Abiel Abbott Low (1811-1893) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and became a leading figure in both the New York and China shipping world. He first worked as a clerk in shipping firms in Salem and in New York and then went to China in 1833 as a clerk in Russell & Co. of which house his uncle, Wm. Henry Low, had been head for some years. He was made a partner in 1837, retired to New York where he founded the firm of A.A. Low & Brothers, famous for its clipper fleet. In 1863 he was President of the New York Chamber of Commerce. (L.T.R.)\n\n7 Spooner. Daniel Nicholson Spooner of Plymouth, Mass. was at this time a clerk in Russell & Co., Canton. He became a partner in January 1843 and retired to Boston on 31 December 1845. He returned to China again as a partner in January 1852, finally retiring in 1857. (L.T.R.)\n\n8 Gilman. Joseph Taylor Gilman of Exeter, New Hampshire, joined Russell & Co., Canton as a Clerk about the same time as Spooner. His dates of partnership and retirement were the same, too, as Spooner's. (L.T.R.)\n\n9 Mouqua. Also spelt Mowqua in pidgin English. His official name as Hong merchant was Lu Ch'i-kuang Lu Wen-wei✰✰ The suffix \"qua\" signifies \"an official\". (J.L.C.-B.) and his family name was (kuan in mandarin)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204786, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "PENG CHAU\n\n77\n\nsettlement is given below and it is sufficient to say that at first they owned little beyond their houses22 and seem to have been closely involved in fishing, at any rate in the second half of the century. When their senior elder Mr. CHUNG Fat ## (born 1876) was a boy of fifteen years old, his grandfather owned nine fishing boats of the Hoklo type. These rowing boats were manned with the help of other Hakkas, their friends and clansmen from the Tsuen Wan-Shing Mun-Pat Heung area of the present New Territories. They fished by day or night according to the season, using thread nets made in the shape of a basket and sold to them by Hoklo people. The boats were often out overnight, depending on the distance to which they went to fish and the nature of the catch. They often fished all round the Lantau coast and into Deep Bay, which is a long way for a rowing boat, though anyone who has seen the speed with which the rowers propel these craft off Cheung Chau will not be surprised at this. In 1896 Mr. CHUNG's uncle returned from Sandakan in Borneo, and took him there to work for three years, after which he came back, was married, and together with his uncles and cousins again made the sea his business. This time he did not do the fishing, but with two small sailing boats operated as a fish collector. On behalf of a shop, which was owned by a Punti of San Wui †† extraction then resident on Peng Chau, he went out to the Tanka boats fishing the neighbouring waters and bought their catch, for which he received a commission. At a later stage (1916-46) he worked two boats with which, in the summer months, he collected grass bought from the Lantau villagers opposite Peng Chau. He dried the grass and sold it the following year to fishermen for caulking their boats on a piece of land which he had bought for the purpose. By 1899 the CHUNGs had taken a lot of mortgaged land from the LUI family,23 and all this activity connected with the sea was in addition to farming paddy and vegetable fields, which was mainly carried on by the womenfolk.\n\nThese paragraphs illustrate the diversity of activities in a small coastal settlement like Peng Chau and the danger of assigning one group to its traditional role and no other. It exemplifies what, in 1840, the famous Commissioner LIN of Opium War fame reported as being a local Kwangtung saying, “Seven go to fishing, three go to the plough”, and again “Three parts mountain,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205274, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "The Travelling Palace of Southern Sung\n\n29\n\nSung Wong Toi Garden was finally completed in the winter of 1957. Acting upon the suggestion of the Chiu Clansmen's Association, most of whose members are the descendants of the early emperors and princes of the Sung Dynasty, whose family name was Chiu, the Government, with the valuable assistance of the Association, provided two stone tablets commemorating the Sung Wong Toi, one in Chinese and the other in English, on each side of the entrance to the garden. On the 28th December, 1959, a simple and dignified unveiling ceremony was held in the garden. The design and craftsmanship of the tablets are of the first quality. In particular the two dragons, symbolizing two emperors, were beautifully done. It was said that only a very few craftsmen in Hong Kong could have done them and that they should be ranked as one of the Colony's works of art. I had the honour of being asked to compose the Chinese text and to assist in translating it into English. I was also asked to compile and edit a book entitled Sung Wong Toi, A Commemorative Volume which was published in Chinese in 1960 by the Chiu Clansmen's Association.\n\nV. A FEW LEGENDS\n\nIn the text on the tablets above mentioned I stated that there existed a few historical sites connected with Tuan Tsung's stay in Kowloon. They may be of interest to you, in spite of their legendary character, if you are keen to know more of local history.\n\nNorth of the Sung Wong Toi rock it is said that there was a Chin-fu-jen mu (Lady Chin's Tomb). It is recorded in the Hsin-an Gazetteer that the Princess of Tsin Kuo, younger sister of Tuan Tsung, had been drowned nearby, or en route to Kowloon, and that a golden image of her was buried in that tomb. That was why it was called Lady Chin (Gold)'s Tomb. A large stone tablet was erected there with the name Chin-fu-jen engraved on it. I consider this as sheer legend, unsupported as it is by any substantial proof.\n\nTo the northwest of the hill is the popular Temple of Hou-wang (Hou-wang miao). Ch'en P'ei-t'ao, a famous scholar of Tung-kuan District in late Ch'ing, put out the theory that Yang Liang-chieh, uncle of Tuan Tsung, had died at sea on the way here; was subsequently buried at this spot; that he was posthumously given the title of wang (king); and that the local people built the temple in memory of his loyalty. I have found", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205342, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "LAND AND LEADERSHIP IN THE H.K. REGION OF KWANGTUNG 97\n\nLantau for a long time. He had a better start in life than either Chan or Cheung. His father was a schoolmaster with a business turn of mind who, besides owning land in his own village, had built up a small estate in a neighbouring settlement of Shek Pik where he had taught for many years.1 After being educated by his father at home he was sent to the District City to continue his studies in the academy there. However, despite this favourable beginning he does not seem to have obtained the first degree by examination after all, and had to purchase the title of chien sang later on.\n\nBeing literate and neither a shopkeeper nor a farmer he probably possessed more of the external attributes of a gentry member than the other two. He was well known in the area as a scholar and calligrapher, and his services were in demand for writing presentation scrolls and for composing suitable inscriptions for temples, monasteries, and private houses. He was also a geomancer or expert on “fêng shui” and was often called in by local people when they wished to site a new grave. All these were gentlemanly occupations. Kung was also a teacher and taught for some years at Shek Pik like his father before him. Later on, he also taught in the school run by one of the district associations in Tai O Market. However, he did not forget the business side of his life, on which his superior position depended, and continued to act as a money-lender and land-broker. At the time of the lease of the New Territories, he owned or managed eight acres of land in the Shek Pik valley and was recorded as holding mortgages on 30 plots of farm land there. It was left to his nephew, who succeeded him in the property, to dissipate the estate which had been built up by Kung and his father. This man was known locally as a gambler but when I saw him in 1962, aged seventy-two, three weeks before his sudden death, I was impressed with his appearance and manner, and could well imagine that his uncle and great-uncle had been public figures in the area.\n\nCommentary\n\nWhat points of general interest can be made from what is known of the origins and careers of these three men?\n\nIn the first place, it is interesting that two of them were Hakka at a time when Cantonese must have formed the great majority", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205859, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n159 \n\nthe poorest class each man owns one or more houses. Besides those used for habitation some of these houses are used for keeping cattle or storage of grass etc...... Some are ancestral and joss temples which are for worshipping purposes, and most of these were left by their ancestors, the cost of originally building each of them amounting to thousands of dollars. \n\nIt was usual for a family to own more than one small house in one of the rows of houses that characterised local villages, and for its members to spread into several whilst still feeding as one household. Among specific cases is the following statement of the position at Li Cheng Uk, New Kowloon about 1910: \n\n44 \n\nWhen I went to the LING clan of Cheng Uk as a sun po tsai (童養媳) or child fiancée at the age of eight, my future husband's parents occupied five houses in a row. I slept in one with my mother-in-law, two adult but unmarried sisters-in-law slept in another, my father-in-law and two adult unmarried sons in the third, an old uncle and aunt in a fourth, and the family's hired labourers in the last. \n\n++ \n\nIn the adjoining village of Sheung Li Uk another informant's family occupied five houses next to the clan's main ancestral hall: \n\nOne of these houses was an additional ancestral hall, built to honour my own grandfather, whilst the first of the other four was used at night by my mother and father and myself; the second and third were used by my unmarried brothers in their twenties; and the fourth and last by a married brother, his wife and their small daughter. All these persons fed together. Our domestic animals were housed in a wooden barn, though it was common for dwelling houses to be used as cow houses and pigsties and for storage of grass and firewood, agricultural implements and farm produce. Our family was quite prosperous but most other families in the village occupied only a pair of house.\" (Period circa 1900 - 1910) \n\nOn Hong Kong island a few similar examples have come to my notice in the course of reading and enquiry. \n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205978, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941\n\n53\n\n19 Sir Francis Henry May (1860-1922), Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Dublin. Hong Kong Civil Service 1881; Captain Superintendent of Police, 1893-1902; Colonial Secretary, 1902-1910; Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of Western Pacific, 1910-12; Governor of Hong Kong, 1912-1919. First cadet to become Governor. Altogether May spent 38 years in Hong Kong.\n\n20 Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874-1938), Educated at Edinburgh University (Gray Prize; prox. accessit., Lord Rector's Essay); Magdalen College, Oxford (mentioned hon, causa Stanhope Essay). Hong Kong Civil Service 1898; Assistant Colonial Secretary, 1899-1904, Transferred to Weihaiwai 1904; Senior District Officer and Magistrate, Weihaiwai, 1906-17. Tutor to the Ex-Emperor of China, 1919-1925. Commissioner of Weihaiwai, 1927-30. Professor of Chinese and Head of Department of Languages and Cultures of the Far East, School of Oriental Languages, London University, 1931-1937.\n\n21 Sir Cecil Clementi (1875-1947). Educated at St. Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1899. Clementi, following his uncle and godfather, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, preferred an Eastern Cadetship, and was posted to Hong Kong. Land Officer and Police Magistrate in the New Territories, 1903-6, Clementi had the task of recognizing the land titles of over 300,000 claims. Appointed Colonial Secretary of British Guiana 1913-1921; Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1922-1925; Governor of Hong Kong, 1925-30; Governor of the Straits Settlements and High Commissioner for the Malay States 1930. In 1934 Clementi retired on account of ill-health.\n\n22 James Legge \"The Colony of Hong Kong\", China Review, Vol. I, 1872-3, p. 173.\n\n23 Dominions Office and Colonial Office List 1939, p. 624, states: \"The average number of cadets appointed to Malaya and Hongkong during the period of 1919-31 inclusive was between 9 and 10. Since 1931 the average has been 5-8, 6 generally. In 1937, 7 cadets were appointed, and 9 in 1938. There were none appointed to Hong Kong 1937, and only 2 in 1938. The demand for cadets in Hong Kong was always small”.\n\n24 For example, Thomas Sercombe Smith (1854-1937) was appointed a Hong Kong Cadet in 1882. In 1883 he was attached to the Colonial Office for a year; and in 1884, after a brief spell attached to the Colonial Secretary's Office, Hong Kong, proceeded to Peking where he studied Chinese, 1884-6. On the other hand, Arthur Winbolt Brewin (1867-1946), proceeded to Canton in 1888. Brewin, who was educated at Winchester, succeeded Eitel as Inspector of Schools in 1897; became Registrar General in 1901 and retired in 1912.\n\n25 Victor Purcell The Memoirs of a Malayan Official, London, 1965, pp. 108-109. The Index to Correspondence (of the Colonial Secretariat), compiled in 1902 by R. H. Kotewall, has a cryptic entry: \"Cadets studying Chinese in China must reside at a place removed from European social surroundings\".\n\n26 Alexander Grantham Via Ports, Hong Kong, 1965, p. 5.\n\n27 I have been able to discover the schools attended by 64 of the cadets: 52 went to schools listed in the Public Schools Yearbook; the other 12 to small private schools. Two cadets (H. E. Wodehouse and A. W. Brewin), it seems, did not go to a university; five I have been unable to trace; and of the rest - 78 in all — 55 went to English universities (Cambridge 25; Oxford 23; London 4; and one each at Leicester University College, Liverpool University, and Manchester University); 10 to universities in Ireland (Trinity College 8); and 11 to Scottish universities (Edinburgh 6,\n\n-55", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206090, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH\n\n165\n\nsaved by their uncle, a man called Yang Liang-chieh, and made their way with their mother to Foochow which they reached at the beginning of 1276. Their position was by no means hopeless. Most of Southern China was still loyal to them and they had hopes of reaching Canton before the Mongol armies and forming a line of resistance along the whole coast. With them was a famous statesman and writer Wen T'ien-chiang whose influence was very great. They had a considerable army; according to some accounts, it consisted of 170,000 regulars and was increased by 300,000 volunteers, and their court and retinue included a chief minister, Ch'en I-chung, and the general Chang Shih-chieh who recognized the eldest son as Emperor and were prepared to fight for him.\n\nAt Foochow they left behind a force under Wen T'ien-chiang and went first by sea to Chuan Chow, the port which had been a centre of foreign trade during the Sung dynasty. But here they found the local authorities hostile to them and carried on to Chao Chow. There a Mongol force appeared and tried to cut them off but they escaped in their boats and reached K'ap Tze Mun where they landed and marched inland with the idea of getting to Canton, but again they found the local authorities lukewarm and not to be trusted. They took ship and reached a place called Mui Wai in Kwangtung province.\n\nMui Wai or Lam Wai, as it is sometimes called, was undoubtedly in our region. The Topography says that the ruins of the travelling court were still to be seen there. But it has been impossible to identify it. On a map contained in the Topography it is set in the sea just opposite the Kowloon peninsula and from descriptions in texts it appears to be very near Kowloon.* It was densely wooded at that time. From what evidence there is one might suppose it was a part of Hong Kong island, or else one of the peaks to the north of Fat Tong Mun which was mistaken for an island or possibly in the neighbourhood of Mui Wo on Lantau, since the two names are euphonious. Wherever it was, the Emperors and their court appear to have settled there for one or two months, crossing several times by boat to a place on the mainland where they settled in the fourth moon of the year 1277.\n\n18 梅蔚 or 监蔚\n\n* See plate 19.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206091, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "166\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nThis site is near Kowloon City where the present Pak Tai temple stands. In the past some rare tiles of a dark ochre colour have been found there and apparently at one time a part of the foundations of the building were to be seen behind the temple. A village there was named Two Kings (I Wong) in commemoration of their visit and there is a tradition that they used the low hill covered with boulders just above it as a terrace or royal look-out. They remained there for about five months whilst their agents reported the movements of their enemies round Canton.\n\nAt the end of this period their position became desperate. Wen T'ien-chiang had organised an army on the Kiangse-Fukienese border and was trying to march on Canton and save the court from being cut off. But in the seventh and eighth moon he lost battles and was unable to make any progress. The Mongols then marched south from Canton against the Kings' army which they engaged in the ninth moon at Ts'ün Wan.19 There seems to be no local tradition about this battle, although it is mentioned in the most authentic texts on the subject. The Sung loyalists were defeated there and the court fled first to Lantao island and then farther west.\n\nWe now come to the death of the uncle of the two little kings, Yang Liang-chieh. He was the elder brother of the Kings' mother, and history does not mention him after the court had left Foochow. Local tradition is very positive that a marquis Yang (Yeung Hau) who on account of his loyalty to Sung was made a king (Yeung Wong) lived somewhere in the region, and he is worshipped as a god in a principal temple near Kowloon City which bears an inscription calling him Yang and saying that his first name is unknown. The identification with Yang Liang-chieh was made quite recently by a Chinese scholar20 and there is every reason to suppose that it was true that he accompanied the Emperors as far as this region where he died and was perhaps given the title of King after his death. Although the principal temple to him is at Kowloon there are others all over the region and two important ones on Lantau Island. This leads me to guess that he might have died on Lantau during the court's flight after their defeat at Ts'ün Wan. There is in any case mention in a particularly\n\n19 **\n\n20 In 瓜廬文賸 by 陳伯陶", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206488, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "30\n\nLEIGH R. WRIGHT\n\nentered the Borneo scene in 1839 very much the idealist-humani-tarian, nineteenth century liberal, gentleman adventurer, in the colonial tradition of such forerunners as Francis Light of Penang and Thomas Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore and sometime British governor of Java. Even much of the colour and romance painted by the early travellers and story writers bears up under the careful scrutiny of the historian.\n\nJames Brooke came from stock which had produced a seven-teenth century lord mayor of London. His father and uncle were civil servants in the East India Company, and James lived until aged 12 near Benares on the Ganges in British India where he was born in 1803.\n\nBrooke himself entered the military service of the Company after a somewhat indifferent education which involved only two years of formal schooling in the Norwich Grammar School. He was severely wounded in a campaign of the first Anglo-Burma war in 1825, and after a prolonged convalescence resigned from the Company, largely, we are led to believe, because of disenchantment with its conduct of eastern affairs and because of widespread corruption among Company servants.\n\nWhen in 1835 Brooke's father, then a retired nabob living in Bath, died leaving him a comfortable fortune of £30,000, James bought a schooner and fitted out an expedition to Borneo and the Celebes Islands, an area in the East Indies with which he was familiar from earlier voyages and from exhaustive reading of the accounts of George Windsor Earl and Stamford Raffles.\n\nBrooke's schooner sailed in December 1838 under the colours of the Royal Yacht Club. He looked forward to satisfying his adventurous curiosity about Borneo and perhaps doing some trading. He particularly wanted to penetrate to the interior of Borneo, and had in mind exploring up the rivers which flowed into Marudu Bay, on the northern end of the island. He was a private voyager, but the colours of the Royal Yacht Club commanded respect in naval and colonial circles and he was well received in Singapore where he arrived in May 1839.\n\nI\n\nThere he was given a pseudo-official mission to perform in Borneo. Several Singapore-based vessels had recently been ship-wrecked or plundered by Bornean pirates and their crews sold into", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207106, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n171\n\nTang Leung Sz passed Kung Shaang degree in the 38th year of Maan Lik♬ of Ming dynasty, A.D. 1610, and held the office of Fan-to.\n\nTang Yue Cheung took his Sau-t'soi✯✯ degree in the 2nd year of Yung Ching of Ts'ing dynasty A.D. 1724 and in the following year became a Lam Shang. In the first year of Kin-lung✯✯ A.D. 1736 he passed Kui Yan, second in the list of successful candidates, but just failed to pass the Wui Shi examination the following year. However, his name was put on the Ming T'ung Pong list and he was appointed as Hok-ching of Tak Hing Chau in Kwangtung province.\n\nTang Yue Cheung's name in the San On Record book is among the “Heung Yin\" or \"village worthies,\" and it is said there that:— Tang Yue Cheung was a scholar of a very kind and honest nature. He was very \"taan-chik”✯✯ (\"to wear the heart upon the sleeve for daws to peck at\") and his knowledge of learning was very wide. In all his dealings with his friends he was sincere and faithful, and as a Hok-ching he was very diligent. Once some of his students fell out with the authorities, and found themselves faced with a false accusation, but were too afraid to defend themselves. Tang, however, at once entered into the dispute, and through his clear-headedness kept his students out of trouble. In the 17th year of K'in Lung A.D. 1752 Tang was called to the capital to attend an examination, but he died there, and Fung Shing Sau (a Hon Lam graduate) wrote the epitaph \"for his name lives for ever,” to be carved on his grave.\n\nTang Man Wai was the only Tsun-sz come from the New Territories, and his name is recorded in the San On book under the column devoted to hang yee \"men of high repute.\" He was left fatherless at an early age, and had to work with the fishermen and wood-cutters in great poverty, to earn money to support himself and his mother. But all the while he was a scholar at heart and in his spare time he read his books and people said that he could be heard continually humming his lessons on the road, as he carried wood or worked with the fishermen. His uncle Tang Chan Ng, a Lam Shang, helped him, and his success in later years was greatly due to the old man's teaching. In the 14th year of Shun Chi A.D. 1657, Ts'ing dynasty, he passed his Kui Yan degree, but later failed for Tsun Sz and so returned to Kam T'in where he passed twenty years or more, living as a hermit.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207320, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "80\n\nHELGA WERLE\n\nThe girl comes out of hiding, and the fortune-teller takes her to safety.\n\nSU LIU-NIANG (SIXTH DAUGHTER SU) *** Drama in 10 acts, lasting about 3.4 hours.\n\nDramatis personae: Su family: Uncle, the eldest of the Su clan Mr. Su and Mrs. Su, their daughter, Liu-niang (6th young lady),* her maid, T'ao-hua, 1 girl-servant and 2 man-servants\n\nAct I\n\nyoung master Yang young master Kuo\n\nand his wet-nurse cousin of Liu-niang\n\nTao-hua the maid comes to the river returning from Hsi-lu\n\nwith a parasol, gay silk trousers and jacket, her hair in two knots one over each ear garlanded with flowers, the temple hair hanging down in two long strands which are adorned with coloured silk-strings. She calls the ferryman [old man-servant type with white beard], who arrives rowing with an oar. There are no other stage props. The movement of the boat is all indicated by mime.\n\nT'ao-hua hides behind the parasol fooling the ferryman and suddenly surprises him by showing her face. Then she pretends to be afraid to jump on the ferry, so the old man tries hard to bring the boat closer. With a wicked smile she jumps on the boat with all her strength, causing it almost to turn over. They perform a beautiful dance to balance the boat and she pretends to be terribly frightened.\n\nThey then start chatting and T'ao-hua proposes to sing a couplet each, composing it as they go along. But which of them first says things that are wrong or cannot rhyme has lost. The old man starts, \"In the first month all flowers bloom...\". T'ao-hua carries on, \"In the 2nd month the cotton tree blooms\" and so on.\n\n*The names of sons and daughters of important families (those with high doors) in these operas are called, for example, Su Liu-niang, meaning the sixth daughter of the Su family. The parents Su have only one daughter, but she is still called the sixth daughter because she is the sixth girl born in this generation to all the brothers of Mr. Su. The same is the case for Wu-niang meaning 5th daughter, called such although she is the only child of her parents. Ch'en San is the third (son) of the Ch'en clan. The term 'niang' is an address for a young lady, whereas the word 'chieh' 'sister' is used for a girl of humble birth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207616, "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": 4, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "164\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nHong Kong Island that had connections with Hang Hau and the Sai Kung islands. The city also needed fuel and building materials, and villagers in Sai Kung were soon carrying firewood into Kowloon City, sometimes selling it to the shops, but often to passers-by. Charcoal burning was also practised in the second half of the nineteenth century, but the practice died out in the early 1900's. Moreover, along the Sai Kung coastline and in several places in Junk Bay, lime kilns sprang up, producing lime from coral. The lime was used as plastering in city as well as village houses. A considerable brick-making industry also grew up in Pak Tam Chung, which at first produced red bricks for use in the city. Later, when this proved to be unprofitable the area concentrated on producing green bricks for building village houses. Even farming was affected. Towards the early 1900's, pig raising became an important source of cash income for the village household. The pigs were sold to butchers in Sai Kung and Hang Hau. Much of the meat was consumed locally, but a substantial amount must also have found its way into the city.8\n\nAs in other parts of the New Territories, some villagers in Sai Kung were recruited as seamen by foreign shipping companies. Foreign remittance came to be a regular source of income, and not a few returned with savings. There were those that did not go as far, who accepted work in Kowloon or Hong Kong.10 The extreme example of wealth derived from the city must be the business operations of Chan Ue Kwong of Ho Chung, Chan Wai T'ong of Tseung Kwan O, and Cheng Chiu Tsoh of Pak Kong. These three opened the I Hing General Store in Kowloon City, and became the richest men in their own villages. Some of this income was spent on land purchase and buildings, but Chan Ue Kwong became even wealthier as a money-lender in the village. Quite a few Sai Kung villagers who later entered business began as assistants in their shop. Chan Ue Kwong was well connected through his uncle with the officials in Kowloon City, and this must have helped his business.11\n\nSo far as we can tell, from the middle of the nineteenth century, economic development in Sai Kung proceeded unimpeded. After the New Territories was leased, land registration instituted by the Hong Kong Government further benefited the villagers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207698, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "ETHNICITY IN A HOUSING ESTATE IN HONG KONG\n\n71\n\neastern Kwangtung, cannot of course distinguish the two and usually are unaware of any difference in speech. Most Teochiu in the housing estate cannot differentiate the speech of Kap Jih people and Teochiu originally from Hui Lai villages near to Kap Jih. Thus Kap Jih are known to be Kap Jih only as a result of a person's self identification or participation in the local Kap Jih organization.\n\nAlthough most Teochiu in the housing estate have no close friendships or significant contact with Hoi Luk Fung, there are exceptions which are interesting in that such interaction does occur, albeit not frequently, and they serve to explicate the distance between the two groups. A few Teochiu do have friendship relationships with Hoi Luk Fung which are of course similar to Teochiu-Teochiu friendships; that is, each of the actors has expectations and responsibilities within the relationship which are appropriate for any such relationship, regardless of ethnic background. The major difference between a Teochiu-Hoi Luk Fung relationship and a Teochiu-Teochiu relationship is that in the latter the two people are likely to be very involved in a common network and norms concerning friend loyalty are reinforced and at times interpreted in terms of a loyalty to the local Teochiu group vis-a-vis other groups.\n\nThe first example of a Teochiu-Hoi Luk Fung relationship concerns an elderly Teochiu (C) who runs a small ground floor shop in one of the blocks within the estate. This man's shop sells mostly candy, soda, beer and other small items and also has a mahjong game continuously going in the back. A number of Hoi Luk Fung live in this particular housing block, and (C) has joking and acquaintance relationships with several who buy beer, etc. from his shop. One Hoi Luk Fung (D) calls (C) the honorific title \"uncle\" and usually stops and chats with the old man when passing the store. I met (D) on such an occasion and learned that his great great grandfather was originally from the old man's village in Hui Lai and that he moved to Hoi Luk Fung. Thus the old man and (D) consider themselves very distantly related as \"fellow villagers\". Both (D) and the old man label (D) as Hoi Luk Fung, and (D) speaks Hoi Luk Fung rather than Teochiu. He is involved in the local Hoi Luk Fung festival organization and in the only major Hoi Luk Fung temple organization in Tsun Wan (which is not in the immediate vicinity of the housing estate). The old man (C) had heard of this temple but had never been there. (C) and (D)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209607, "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": 264, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "242\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\n1 Dec. 1852 - first performance of amateurs under new management.\n\n12 Feb. 1853 — Victoria Amateurs.\n\n\"Twice Killed\" farce (John Oxenham, 1837) \"Slasher and Crasher\" farce (J. M. Morton, 1848)\n\n19 Mar. 1853 meeting at Victoria Theatre for purpose of forming a Corps Dramatique to arrange for another performance at an early date.\n\n20 Apr. 1853 \"Animal Magnetism\" farce (Mrs. E. Inchbald, 1758)\n\n\"A Kiss in the Dark\" farce\n\n19 May 1853 last night of season of Victoria Amateurs.\n\n\"Time Tries All\" dramatic drama (J. Courtney, 1848) \"Toothache, or The Prince and the Chimney Sweep\" farce\n\n1853/54 27 Oct. 1853\n\nMeeting at Victoria Theatre of those interested in theatricals to make arrangements for the coming season. (I found no notice of any performance for this season).\n\n1860/61 3 Jan. 1861 \"Still Waters Run Deep\" (T. Taylor, 1855)\n\n1861/62\n\n1862/1863\n\n29 Jan. 1861 new theatre, Hong Kong Amateur Theatre, performance by officers and gentlemen who have organized this establishment:\n\n\"A Bachelor of Arts\" (P. Hardwicke, 1853) \"A Nice Firm\" (T. Taylor, 1853)\n\n25 Feb. 1861 performance of Gentlemen Amateurs Mon. last.\n\n28 Mar. 1861 theatrical season drawing to close. Appreciation to the Committee. Difficult to see how the Amateur Theatrical Company could have managed without aid from the garrison.\n\nDec. 1861 - first performance of season:\n\n\"Cool as a Cucumber\" (M. W. B. Jerrold, 1851) \"The State Secret\" (A. Snodgrass, 1821, or T. E. Wilks, 1836) in same commodious erection as served so well for last year's performances,\n\n23 Jan. 1862 second public performance of Hong Kong Amateur Theatre:\n\n\"Not a Bad Judge\" comic drama (J. R. Planche, 1848) \"The Critics\" facetious tragedy (Sheridan, 1779)\n\n1862 season\n\n\"Cramond Brig\" (W. H. Murray, 1826)\n\nDec. 1862 The theatre a reproduction of last year's design. \"Uncle Zachary\" comic drama (John Oxenford, 1860) \"Fearful Tragedy in Seven Dials\" (Charles Selby, 1857)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210155, "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-1984", "page_number": 126, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "105\n\nHONG KONG ISLAND BEFORE 1841\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nHail, little isle! and Hong's fair haven, hail!\n\nFirst-fruits of China to the ocean-queen! New orient realms, new navies' embryo sail Glass'd in thy shifting horoscope are seen. May British virtue shine, in thee confest; And in her colony be Britain blest!'*\n\nThe cession of Hong Kong evoked different feelings in both China and Britain. In China, needless to say, there was scarcely rejoicing. The sixty-year-old Tao Kuang emperor, monarch of China since 1820, when asked to sanction the proposed Treaty of Peace that granted Hong Kong to Britain, spent the rest of the day and most of the night pacing up and down the corridor of his Palace, deep in anxious thought. Several times he was heard to mutter \"impossible\" and to sigh deeply. At last, at 3 a.m., he stamped his foot and proceeded to the audience chamber where he affixed the \"vermilion pencil\" to the draft. One of his subjects, the great Chinese statesman Tso Tsung-tang (1812-1885), then an unknown and rather unsuccessful scholar, wrote four poems in which he expressed grief and indignation when he heard that the British had taken over Hong Kong; and when he learned the final terms of the peace he was so overcome that he thought seriously of retiring to some lonely mountain retreat for the rest of his days.\n\n2\n\n3\n\nIn England the young Queen Victoria, twenty-two years old and married with a baby daughter wrote to her uncle, the king of the Belgians, \"Albert is so much amused at my having got the Island of Hong Kong and we think Victoria ought to be called Princess of Hong Kong in addition to Princess Royal\".2\n\nHer Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, was not amused. He received the news of the Chuenpi agreement (January 1841) between Captain Elliot, the British Plenipotentiary, and the Imperial Commissioner Kishen, with disappointment and disapproval.\n\n* See Plates 1-3", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210332, "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-1984", "page_number": 303, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "282\n\nCHEUNG AH-LUM, A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\nCHOI CHI-CHEUNG\n\nOn February 2, 1857, Cheung Ah-lum, proprietor of the Esing Bakery, was charged with administering poison in bread with intent to murder on January 15 that year. The charge, defended by Dr. Bridge, who was Acting Colonial Secretary, was found unproven. However, Ah-lum was \"re-arrested as a suspicious character and detained in gaol until July 31, 1857\". He was released \"on condition of his not resorting to the Colony for five years\".\n\nThis Cheung Ah-lum was a member of the Cheung lineage of Heung Shan County (Hsiang Shan) (= now Chungshan). The Clan Record of this lineage was published in 1934, and contains a lengthy biography written by an old colleague, Chen Chao-ch'ang, in 1904, four years after Ah-lum's death. Since this biography gives a very different view of Ah-lum to that more frequently found, it is felt that a translation of this biography might be of interest, and it is, therefore, given below.\n\n“An Account of Ancestor Wu-sheng of the Chang (Cheung) Clan, granted the Honour of a High Official Title”\n\n\"His death name was Pei-lin, his style was Han-hung, and his assumed name was Wu-sheng. He was a native of Ya-kang of Heung Shan. His great-grandfather was Chiao-chin, his grandfather was Huan-pi, and his father was Wei-kang. He had two younger brothers, the first was Yu-hung, and the second was Tsan-hung. He was the eldest of the three sons of his father. From his youth, he was eager to excel. He could read the books his father gave him, and he had an excellent memory. However, because of poverty, he had to give up studying and followed Yung-yin, a man of the same surname whom he called uncle, to do business in Macao at the age of 13. From there, he learnt the ways of doing business with the foreigners. Knowing that Hong Kong was a newly opened port and that there were chances to develop business there, he decided to go to work in Hong Kong when he was 18. He became chief comprador of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210562, "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": 169, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "150\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\n59 H.S. Maine, Dissertations on Early Law and Custom (New York, 1886), 54.\n\n60 Ahern (1973), 154-155.\n\n61 Ahern (1973), 155–156; cf. R.L. and D.Y. Janelli, Ancestor Worship and Korean Society, 186-187; and especially Wolf and Huang (1980), 13-15, 333-335, and 337, who comment that 15-20 per cent of all marriages in the Yangtze delta during the period which they studied were uxorilocal, and that this figure may be as high as 40 per cent in Yunnan. Here again, however, it must be pointed out that Yunnan is on the periphery of Chinese culture - as Wolf and Huang emphasize during the course of this analysis, in West Town the native language is Min Chia — and this should warn us against incautious generalizations. The evidence is most appropriately surveyed on a regional basis. For example, on pp. 124-126, and 218, Wolf and Huang analyze data that suggest that, in the period 1886 — 1910, 10.2 - 12.8 per cent of all men marrying for the first time in the northern Taipei basin contracted uxorilocal unions, a figure which jumps to 13.4 - 17.8 per cent for women's first marriages between 1891 and 1915. In contrast, on pp. 351-352 they remark the complete absence of uxorilocal marriages in the New Territories.\n\n62 Ahern (1973), 121-122, and 152; cf. Wolf and Huang (1980), 112.\n\n63 Ahern (1973), 152, and 155. Johnston, Lion and Dragon, 285; and Yang (1945), 82, have also concluded that a person who fails to pass on the family property to his sons is not entitled to a tablet or offerings.\n\n64 Wolf (1974), 156-157; cf. Wolf and Huang (1980), 62.\n\n65 Harrell (1976), 379.\n\n66 Wolf (1976), 361; cf. 356-357, and Wolf (1974), 153, and 155-156.\n\n67 On the Voconian and Falcidian legislation, cf. F. de Zulueta, The Institutes of Gaius, 1 (Oxford, 1946), 112-113; F. Schulz, Classical Roman Law (Oxford, 1951), 205-206; W.W. Buckland, A Text-Book of Roman Law from Augustus to Justinian, 3rd ed. rev. P. Stein (Cambridge, 1963), 290-291, 342-343; H.F. Jolowicz, Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1965), 257-259; A. Watson, The Law of Succession in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford, 1971), 173.\n\n68 CIL 11.1436 = ILS 7258.\n\n69 W.W. Lambert, L.M. Triandis, and M. Wolf, \"Some Correlates of Beliefs in the Malevolence and Benevolence of Supernatural Beings: a Cross-societal Study”, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58 (1959), 162.\n\n70 Jour. Amer. Folk., 71 (1958), 457, although on p. 454 Gough notes that a child's maternal uncle, who has authority over him in Nayar society, is an exceptionally stern disciplinarian.\n\n71 Goody (1962), 409–410; cf. 328.\n\n72 On this point, see also S. Freud, Totem and Taboo (New York, 1952), 58-61. Goody (1962), 20-25, provides a brief but excellent overview of the history of the academic debate on spirit behavior.\n\n73 M. Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwantung (London, 1966), 151; Social Organization, 95, 98.\n\n74 Hsu (1967), 65, 223.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210853, "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": 204, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "187\n\nsoon the pet of the pious section of the San Francisco community.\n\nEveryone was impressed with this suave, intelligent and seemingly religious young Chinese gentleman. The Rev. Albert Williams, founder of the First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, after meeting A-chick, reported that \"his answers to questions touching matters of Christian doctrine are intelligent and satisfactory. He is associated with his uncle, accompanying him in a mercantile venture, and will remain in this city. I have much hope, that through his instrumentality we may bring the gospel more directly to bear upon his interesting country.” A-chick was viewed as a potential medium for missionary endeavour.\n\nSoon after A-chick's arrival, a Bible class for Chinese was organised by a Presbyterian Elder. Its first members were A-chick \"and his companions.” Among these was Lee A-kan, a former classmate at the Morrison Education Society School in Hongkong.\n\nIt was realised, however, that if the Chinese in San Francisco were to be reached by the church, it was not enough to have classes for them in English. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions was asked to send a Chinese-speaking missionary to San Francisco.\n\nThe Board sent the Rev. William Speer.\n\nMr. Speer had been in Canton for about three years, returning to the United States in 1849. His wife Cornelia Breckenridge and an infant daughter died within a few months of each other and are buried in the Protestant Cemetery at Macau near the grave of Dr. Robert Morrison.\n\nAfter his arrival in San Francisco, Mr. Speer began looking up the Chinese who had been connected with missionary churches or schools in China. He called on Tong A-chick. By then the young man was already in a position of leadership in the Chinese community and was recognised as a man of wealth.\n\nOf the meeting Mr. Speer remarks: “A-chick is regarded by the American community here as a man of more than common ability-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210866, "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": 217, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "200\n\nCARL SMITH\n\nof the China Mail had been unfriendly to both him and his brother and was ready to publish any unfavourable report concerning the Tong family.\n\n-\n\nIn September 1856, the editor commented: \"Numbers of the Tong family connected with the Hongkong Government have an unfortunate knack of getting themselves into scrapes, for we are told that A-chick... has latterly been rendering himself obnoxious to his countrymen in California as head of one of the hway (associations), and that even his life is in danger. We have heard that it is A-chick's intention to return to Hongkong.”\n\nA-chick did not spend all his time visiting the Governor as representative of the Chinese, acting as community peacemaker, drafting letters setting forth the Chinese side of a controversy, or appearing in court. He was also a successful businessman.\n\nNotices relating to his first arrival in California speak of him as an associate of his uncle. Their firm was that of Tun Wo and Company. Soon, however, Tong A-chick was the manager of the Sam Wo Company. There may have been an amalgamation of the two firms. The store of Sam Wo was on Sacramento Street above Kearny. It was in the heart of the Chinese commercial centre.\n\nAn 1853 account of the Chinese section says it was \"the spot on which they first located their canvas houses in 1849, and they have stuck to it with remarkable tenacity.\"\n\nThe San Francisco establishment had direct links with a firm in Hongkong owned by the Tong family. The United States Customs House records for the port of San Francisco contain several ship manifests of goods shipped by the Hongkong firm and consigned to Tong A-chick.\n\nThese manifests show the kind of commodity in demand by the Chinese in California, items which could not be procured easily locally. Without these familiar products the sojourner would have felt more estranged and homesick.\n\nThe most popular imports were waterchestnuts, oranges,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211230, "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": 291, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "266\n\nof life that would strike me as exceedingly fascinating and which as far as I could see remained unknown. The list of them can go on for hours if I was to express them: but, for instance, the tales that we heard about how buying and selling property was conducted, about the local weavers, about how irrigation and dams were mended, together with details of how villagers managed their affairs, the treatment of the sick, how houses were built, where you went to buy a boat, where you went to buy a bed, how you bought it, how you paid for it and what you did if all you had was rice and somebody demanded silver, and where you went to convert the one into the other. None of this, as far as I could see, had been recorded.\n\nConsequently, I threw myself in at the deep end, trying to record some of this, although I was grievously ill-prepared for it having no sinological background. It was merely that there was nobody else showing the slightest willingness to do it, except David who was up to his ears collecting inscriptions and books and doing his history projects. However, he had no time, and if I did not do it nobody was going to. I therefore came to the conclusion that it had better be done badly than not at all; for in another 10 years there won't be any chance of anyone doing it, well or ill, because the people will all be dead. And so, being there and being ready, I landed up with two jobs.\n\nThe first major interview that I attended was one done by David with the oldest senior villager in Shatin, the last villager in Shatin who could actually remember visiting the Magistracy in Kowloon City before the British came. He could just remember seeing in his youth the Chinese tax collectors coming to his village, and could recall being taken into the Magistracy by his great uncle who was a clerk there.\n\nAbout six months later this old man died. He was the father of a very senior district leader. My connection with him is very good, and so we were able to convince him that his father would not object to having the entire funeral proceedings taped, photographed and described from beginning to end. David, myself and Barbara Ward did this. About 400 photographs were taken by various people, about 4 hours of taping was done, and about 15", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211405, "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-1988", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "97\n\nA note on our genealogy\n\nThe genealogy of our family began with Heen Bow, because he was the one to form the West House (4) of Cha In village. He was, therefore, considered the first generation, although Joong Goong was the first to settle there. The route taken was the one usually taken by others fleeing southward from Fukien to Kwangtung. Nan-hsiung Prefecture is located in the northern part of Kwangtung. My father told me that Tung-kun was also one of the stop-over places and that the Cha In natives speak a subdialect derived from Amoy where their forefathers had passed through.\n\nCha In village consists of three branches of the clan Poo Shan, East House, and West House. My father, of the West House, often distinguished the relationship of a clansman as one from Poo Shan, or the East House, or the West House. There was an annual rivalry between the East and West to be the first to worship and beseech blessings at the grave site of the First Ancestor during the Ching Ming Festival. Family traditions had alleged that Li Jung, the founder of the East House, had been conceived before his parents were married, but I am not sure myself of the facts here.\n\nThe performance of bravery by Li Jen was the one event in the village of national importance that was a source of great pride to the clan.\n\nThe word 'Goong' is a title of respect.\n\nThe following sequence of characters indicated the generation to which one belongs: Sai, Duk, Jok, Kau, Wing, Ngin, Pui, Ki, Mung. The appropriate character is incorporated in the name taken at marriage, and this name is framed and hung in the main room of the home. From this name, one would know how to address and pay respect to a fellow-villager. For example, a Wing generation would address a Kau generation as 'Uncle'.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211406, "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-1988", "page_number": 122, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "98\n\nMy Paternal Grandparents* \n\nGreat Grandfather Chan Tak Yong \n\nwas born around 1816. He was married twice, and bore one son by his first wife and four sons by his second. He traded in pottery and earthenware, a business which took him to the cities of Macau and Canton where he had the opportunity to deal in silver and gold exchange. As he prospered, he built a home for each of his sons and provided for their common use a library, a store-house for grain and one for wood. He operated a grocery business and a pawn shop, where villagers could borrow money or bank their savings. Apparently such a life of ease provided no incentive for his sons to become independent, and several of them became addicted to opium and died in their early 20s, leaving young widows without male issue and without financial means. The Chinese saying that wealth cannot last more than three generations came true. \n\nThe oldest of Great Grandfather's sons was Jok Jun F, several of whose grandsons emigrated to the United States: George Goon Sun who settled in Los Angeles; Harry Wah Kwok who settled in Santa Anna; and Henry Wah Heen, also known as Bak Wing Ĥ who settled in San Francisco. \n\nMy grandfather was the second son of Tak Yong, but the first son of his second wife. Grandfather was born on 29 June 1845. His 'milk name' was Ngee Lok; his marriage name was Jok Chiu f'FBB; and his name in the business world was Chock Gee #2, the name by which he was generally known. Because Great Grandfather's younger brother, Tak Loo, died at the age of 22 without male issue, Grandfather was 'adopted out' to him. \n\nJok Sau F, the third son, bore three sons by his first wife and three more by his second. I met one of them, Dai Mee, a not very bright-looking fellow, who was given a job at the Bank of East Asia in Canton by First Uncle. \n\nThe fourth son, Jok Sui F, died young without male issue. Therefore Jok Sau 'gave' one of his sons, Ngit Chiu FJE, to this brother. \n\n* See Table 1.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211407, "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-1988", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "Table 1: Genealogy of the Chan Family\n\nChan Tak Youg (Violet's great grandfather)\n\nChan Jok Jun\n\nGeorge, Harry, Henry\n\nChan Jok Chiu (b. 1845) m (1) Au (Violet's grandparents)\n\n(2) Leong\n\nYung Kam in Yim (First Paternal Aunt)\n\nGeorge Goon Hop (adopted) m (1) Auyoung\n\n(2) Liu\n\n \n Gladys Yung Hoy m Lan Kwai\n \n \n Claudia in George Murphy\n David, Michael\n \n \n Calvin m Barbara\n Jennifer, Jason, Jeffrey\n \n \n Kwock Wah m Mona Lew\n Paula, Donna, Marcha, David, Jonathan\n \n \n Lorna (adopted) m\n Lawrence, Paul, Yolanda, Twila-dawn, Keith, Robin\n \n\nChan Ping Wing (First Paternal Uncle) m Ching (Concubine: \"Small Aunt\")\n\nChan Po Ling m (1) Auyoung\n\n(2) Kan (Concubine: Kam)\n\n \n Linda, Judy, Lillian, Robert, Chi Fai, Anthony, m Dorothy (5 daughters)\n \n \n Rosita, m Robert Ting (1 child)\n \n\nChan Ping I (Second Paternal Uncle) m Auyoung\n\nToby in Louise Dung\n\n \n Melody m Johnson Chen, Carol m John Lee, Sonja in Tai Min Wan, Jade m Eddy Lin, Lloyd m Deborah, Lena m Jeffrey Lu\n \n\nHelen m Tong\n\nCharles (children)\n\nGeorgette m Lu Bing Leong (daughter) Moo Yun\n\nTing Cheong (2 sons, 2 daughters)\n\nMoo Sau\n\nChan Ping Yip m Jong (Violet's parents)\n\nRuth\n\nViolet m John Lew m\n\nMe Yuk\n\n \n Helen m (1) Edmund Tin Wai Tong\n \n \n Edmund Yee Sing m (1) Susan Loui\n Kevin\n \n \n (2) Gertrude Kristiansen\n Syrilyn, Clayton\n \n \n (2) Tso-yu Fu\n Lynnette Wen-chu\n \n \n Russell m (1) Lila Kung\n Dora m Tso-chien Shen\n \n \n Eugene m Nancy Chun\n Wendell, Celia\n \n \n (2) Susan Carter\n Russell\n \n \n Gilbert m Christine Liao\n Warren, Tabitha\n \n\ndaughter m Leong Ting Bau (Second Paternal Aunt)\n\nYung Yik m Auyoung (Third Paternal Aunt)\n\nSuk Jun, m So (4 sons, 3 daughters)\n\nSuk Num, (3 daughters, 1 son), Suk Chiu, (2 sons, 2 daughters) Chan Ping Lim (d. 1903) (Fourth Paternal Uncle)\n\nChan Jok Sau\n\nL-6 sons (including Dai Mec, Ngit Chiu and Dai Geng)\n\nChan Jok Sui\n\nNgit Chiu (adopted) d 1924 in Honolulu\n\nChan Jok King\n\nJu Dai, Dai Geng (adopted)\n\n99", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211408, "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-1988", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "100\n\nUnfortunately Ngit Chiu, who went to Honolulu and worked as a carpenter, became addicted to opium. A burial permit dated 15 November 1924 states clearly that he had died of an overdose. Whenever he visited us, and that was not often, he would borrow from Father, who would give him only a few dollars since he disapproved of Ngit Chiu's drug habit. In 1919 when I visited his foster mother in the village, she inquired about him because she had not heard from him for many years, but I was forewarned not to tell her about his circumstances.\n\nJok King, the fifth son, also died in his 20s and left a daughter, Iu Dai, but no male issue. Likewise, Jok Sau ‘gave' another of his sons, Dai Geng, to this brother. Dai Geng did not live long and left a widow with several sons in Canton where he had been working in a bank. Jok King's widow and daughter remained in the village. They were both quite agitated the day Aunt Auyoung and I visited them, as they related how someone had tried to get into their home by ladder via a rear window. Aunt Auyoung did not seem to feel the incident really happened, tried to be very reassuring and told them no one would dare to harm them because First Uncle would not allow it. Iu Dai is said to be the first and only old maid in our village. Because her mother was so selective of a husband for her, when she reached 18, she was considered too old to be sought after. Even though she was a victim of an old culture, the village youths would tease her about it. During World War II when no one could send support to her, I heard that she had to go out to beg for food.\n\nAfter Great Grandfather's death, his business continued under Jok Jun, after whose death Grandfather took over. The business failed under his management, reportedly due to a bad loan to Grandmother's family for the operation of an oyster farm. This is the reason given why no photographs of grandmothers in our family were preserved – certainly misplaced hostility. Grandfather therefore decided to emigrate to Hawaii to seek a livelihood and hopefully to be able to return the depositors their money. According to Second Uncle's wife, when she was left in the village, she often had to hide from the creditors. Many years later, First Uncle paid these debts on a percentage basis.\n\nMy grandmother, surnamed Au, was born on 23 January 1846. She was a native of Joo Poo Tau Village, and was related to...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211409, "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-1988", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "101\n\nsome of the Au's in Honolulu, such as to Evelyn Lee Ho's mother, who was born an Au. First Uncle thought I resembled Grandmother in looks. She had six children, three sons and three daughters:\n\nDaughter Yim Chan Shee\n\nSon Ping Wing Wi\n\nSon Chung Chi\n\nBC née Chan Yung Kam hao Shing Mi\n\nBBC née Chan Yung Yick\n\nPing I William\n\nDaughter Leong Chan Shee\n\nDaughter Auyoung Chan Shee\n\nSon Ping Yip 炳業\n\nGrandfather, from hearsay and from a photograph taken in his 60s, was a sophisticated, handsome and bewhiskered gentleman. He had a literary degree which was purchased, no doubt to enhance his status. He evidently enjoyed the lighter side of life, and even in his old age, he would sing Chinese operas while accompanying himself on a moon harp, an instrument he left to us but which we failed to appreciate. Whether he gave Grandmother cause for worry or not, she became mentally ill after the birth of Father. She would voice concern that Grandfather would take in a concubine and would express fear of losing her children. She died on 23 November 1880, when Father was barely two years old. Grandfather remarried and by his second wife surnamed Leong had his seventh offspring, a son, Ping Lim. She was from Lung Ait Tau Village (龍隘頭村), and was born on 13 October 1860.\n\nGrandfather followed First Uncle to California, then sent for Second Uncle to join them. Grandfather then went to Hawaii and sent for his second wife and Ping Lim, but left Father in the village with the wife of First Uncle. When Father was 14, he accompanied his oldest sister, Yim Chan Shee, to Hawaii. The two families settled in a small Chinese community located on Prison road, across the road from the former site of Oahu Prison, overlooking Honolulu Harbour and the Oahu Railway Station, and easily accessible to Chinatown.\n\nGrandfather and a group of friends started a Chinese grocery business at 79 N. King Street on the Maikai side between Manunakea and Smith Streets, named Wing On Tai (永安泰). On its Waikiki side was a similar store managed by Yee Mun Wai, father of Dr. Lester Yee; on the Ewa side was Yuen Chong Mil¦ owned by Lee Lit, father of Dr. Robert Lee,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211410, "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-1988", "page_number": 126, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "102\n\nand others. Grandfather was the book-keeper and his 'sworn brother', Lum Gam Chin, was the manager. In those days Chinese immigrants were very clannish and used these stores for various purposes. Consequently Wing On Tai was patronized by those from the See Dai Doo District. They spoke a subdialect of Fukienese known as Nam Long. Many of them were rice farmers from Waiahole, Waikane and Punaluu on Oahu and from the Panalei Valley on Kauai. They would charge their purchases during the year and would clear their accounts just before the arrival of the lunar New Year; they would send their grain to be milled and sold; they would remit money to their families in China through the store facilities; they would stop by to socialize; and some would use the living quarters located behind the store as a temporary stop-over place. In those days meals were served to the employees, an amenity extended to visitors. Therefore, Wing On Tai was not only a place of business but also a community centre, as were other stores to their own clansmen.\n\nIt was around 1899 that Wing On Tai started the Iwilei Rice Mill on a large piece of land on Iwilei Road, in the heart of the then Red Light district. Ping Lim wrote to Father in Hilo that Yim Quon, one of the principal shareholders, had selected Chew Lum Chan (probably a distant cousin) to oversee the weighing of the grain. There were also living quarters on the grounds for the employees and I remember being there with Mother to visit Mrs. Lum Gwo, a daughter of a Chan clansman married to the book-keeper who succeeded Grandfather. Even for that short distance we went there in a hack, a horse-drawn buggy. In the early 1920s when Lum Siu Bun was manager, the two businesses were dissolved and the mill property was sold to the Hawaiian Pineapple Company and on this land stands the huge pineapple tank. Because Grandfather had deeded his holdings to Father when he left for China, Mother and we children received several thousand dollars of the liquidation distributions. Mother sent her share to First Paternal Uncle and Second Paternal Uncle, and used the balance to build a duplex on our Fort and Kuakini Streets property where a store was already standing.\n\nGrandfather cared very much for his second wife. When she became ill, reportedly from tuberculosis, he nursed her tenderly. When she died on 4 October 1899, he felt the loss so keenly that he sought solace in opium. His grief was compounded by the death of Ping Lim a few years", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211411, "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-1988", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "103\n\nlater. He had always been concerned about the future of his sons, sending the two older boys to California to seek their fortune, nurturing the two younger ones with schooling in Mills School and Punahou Preparatory School, and giving them constant counsel, as evidenced by the many letters he sent to Father in Hilo.\n\nGrandfather finally decided to go back to his native land, still depressed over the loss of his youngest child. His sight was already failing because of cataracts. In 1907 or 1908, he departed for his home village, accompanied by Aunt Yim and her family, but he stopped over in Shanghai to visit with Second Paternal Uncle and his family. After about four years, he proceeded to Hong Kong, on his way back to the village. He was met in Hong Kong by his nephew, Gut Kau, and taken to a hotel. One morning as he was reaching for a towel, he collapsed and passed away, no doubt from a heart attack, without seeing his native home again. The date of his death is recorded as 14 May 1911.\n\nGrandfather had always maintained that a nephew was like a son, and coincidentally, it was a nephew who was with him at the end and who took care of his interment. I was told that he was 63 years of age when he left Honolulu and 67 when he died. Although I have no recollection of Grandfather, I do have a mental image of a fine-looking, elderly gentleman in a Chinese cap and gown from a large photograph which graced our parlour wall for many years, and I feel a sense of pride and love for him from whom I am descended.\n\nFirst Paternal Uncle\n\nFirst Paternal Uncle was born on 3 January 1868. His 'milk name' was Ping Wing, his name upon marriage, Hee Kau, and his business name, Shing Min. He was a distinguished-looking man, tall and handsome, with nicely-formed features. He held himself erect and kept a trim figure even in his later years when I came to know him well. My father told me that his two older brothers were considered the two handsomest young men in their village. After studying English in Hong Kong and getting married, he emigrated to the United States in 1886 as a carpenter's apprentice. He eventually became connected with the Bank of Canton in San Francisco and was rumoured to be the idol of women entertainers in that city.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211412, "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-1988", "page_number": 128, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "104\n\nFirst Paternal Aunt I joined him in 1897. She was surnamed Ching and was born on 16 August 1869 in the village of Tin Bin. A kindly, passive and not well-educated lady, she was anxious to be liked, but did not have the authoritativeness, shrewdness, and skill necessary to manage a large Chinese household. Because she bore no children, Uncle asked Cousin George Goon Sun Chan to bring a 'bought' girl with him into the United States as his own wife, when in reality she was to be Uncle's concubine. This was in 1903. Her name was Wong Lin Hing, a native of Soochow, and she was born on 7 February 1887. Although she was addressed by the family as Ngee Nai, namely, Second Concubine, I called her Small Paternal Aunt, to give her more status. In San Francisco, these two women, by shelling shrimp in the home, were able to use their earnings for investment that gave them some income of their own. During the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, it was a very difficult experience for Uncle when he had to flee with Aunt on his back because she could not run with bound feet.\n\nIn response to one of Uncle's letters bemoaning the fact that he had no children by either spouse, Father responded, without realizing the full impact, that if they lived near each other, he would let him have one of his children. Uncle immediately wrote that friends passing through Honolulu on their way to California could take the child to him. Fortunately for me, it was my younger sister, Me Yuk, still an infant, who was presented to Uncle. I have never discussed with Mother what her feelings were, but I suspect that she had little say in the matter and had dutifully acceded to a husband's decision and that she carried a great burden of guilt over it. When Me Yuk was about four or five, Small Aunt took her along to visit friends in Sacramento, and on the way back by boat, she developed convulsions and died. She was described as a sweet, appealing, and talented child, a little performer, whom Uncle proudly showed off to his friends. He doted on her and lavished her with fine clothes, some of which were sent to us after her death. It was traumatic for the family. Small Aunt contemplated suicide as she felt that she was to blame for the child's death. Me Yuk's remains were later taken to Hong Kong for reburial, and in 1932, she was buried a third time by Mother to rest next to Father and Ruth in the Pokfulam Christian Cemetery, Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211413, "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-1988", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "105\n\nBecause of conflict between the Heong Shan and the Toy Shan cl stockholders of the bank, and depressed over the loss of Me Yuk, uncle returned to China in 1910. I remember them when they stopped over in Honolulu and the trip we took with him by taxi to the Pali. He presented Mother with a pair of etched California gold bracelets, one of which I now own. On my first visit to China in 1919, Uncle was working for the Sun Company Ltd., a large department store in Hong Kong, but he later returned to banking as the Branch Manager of the Bank of East Asia in Canton until his death during World War II.\n\none at 96 Kennedy Road, Hong Kong,\n\nM, Canton, on the bank of a small\n\nHe established two homes and the other in Lai Chee Wan river. The former was a sturdy concrete building of British design and character, while the latter was Chinese, with an enclosed courtyard and garden. Since he had accumulated a comfortable fortune, he acquired an estate in Deep Water Bay near Aberdeen, Hong Kong, where he would retreat from time to time to enjoy the beautiful flowers which his gardeners cultivated. His Kennedy Road home was like a hotel, open to relatives from the village and to other visitors as well. He found jobs for male relatives from the village who wanted to work in the city; he contributed to the support of needy kinsmen; and he paid a percentage of the debt owed to creditors of the family pawn shop which had failed during Grandfather's tenure. He was a true head of the house, assuming responsibilities for the care and support of many.\n\n1\n\nSometime before 1919 when Uncle got settled again, he brought into the household his \"Third Concubine\", a native of Sun Yup. Born on 12 December 1897, she was considerably younger than Uncle. Uncle seemed quite fond of her. This was probably threatening to both First Aunt and Small Aunt, for the former then adopted a son, Po Nin, who was born on 17 February 1908, but he died from tuberculosis when he was in his teens. Small Aunt tried very hard to conceive by frequently going to the temple to pray for a son and miraculously became pregnant and bore a son, Po Ling, on 10 May 1915. A great deal of rivalry existed between the two concubines that resulted in intrigues and accusations until eventually Uncle reluctantly had to send Third Concubine out of his household, reportedly because there was proof of her infidelity. However, he gave her a sum of money in order that she could learn to be a midwife and become self-supporting. It is reported", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211414, "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-1988", "page_number": 130, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "106\n\nthat she did not follow through.\n\nDuring World War II the Japanese took over Uncle's Hong Kong home and the family had to retreat to the cellar, which fortunately was huge, roomy and above ground. Since communication between Hawaii and Hong Kong was impossible, we did not learn of the details of the deaths of both Uncle and Aunt. Uncle did have a history of bladder stones and Aunt, diabetes. Later, the Communists appropriated his home in Canton, and Po Ling subsequently sold the country estate and the Kennedy Road home. Po Ling, trained in law at the Soochow University and at University of Illinois, went into banking and finance like his father. He lived for many years in Malaysia, but, after suffering a stroke, he went back to Hong Kong where he started a finance company of his own.\n\nBecause I felt deprived of a father early in life, Uncle seemed to fill that void in 1932 and 1935 when I was living in China. He opened his home to Mother, Dora and me, allowing us to live in the Hong Kong residence while his family lived in Canton. After Mother and Dora left for Honolulu, I could always have the key to the house and take the train from Canton to Hong Kong with several colleagues to spend a few days there. Small Aunt was an efficient manager of the household, a task given to her when First Aunt proved inadequate. She not only saw to it that Uncle and her son had every comfort but she was always thoughtful of me too. For example, she would often send a maid to True Light Middle School where I was teaching with specially prepared soup, or have some ready for me on my visits. She and Mother became quite close to each other and took a trip to Shanghai and Soochow, accompanied by Dora. They did not have an opportunity to see each other again after Mother returned to Hawaii in 1933, but they kept in touch by mail. My husband John and I saw Small Aunt for the last time on our visit to Hong Kong in 1972. In January 1976 she had a chance to fulfill her wish to see the United States once again, particularly San Francisco. Accompanied by her granddaughter, Rosita, she visited with Dora in Honolulu and with other relatives and friends in California. When Po Ling sold the Kennedy Road home, Small Aunt went to Australia to live with her grandson, Anthony, but after about a year she returned to Hong Kong to be with Po Ling, over whose health she was greatly concerned. In 1980, at the age of 92, she died in her sleep.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211415, "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-1988", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "107\n\nPo Ling, Uncle's sole heir, was in business in Malaysia for many years, but returned to Hong Kong following a stroke. He has been married twice. His first wife, née Auyoung, died of tuberculosis early in their marriage. His present wife, Su Min Kan, is the mother of three daughters and two sons: Linda, Judy, Lillian, Robert and Chi Fai, all of whom were educated in England. I met Su Min for the first time when she and Po Ling toured the United States in 1978 with Linda and Robert. Po Ling's concubine, Grace Kam Siu Wai, born 28 February 1918, and her two children, Anthony F, born 12 May 1945, and Rosita b, born 20 July 1953, are settled in Australia. Anthony, married to an Australian, Dorothy, has five daughters. Rosita, married to Robert Ting, has one child. Because of the distance between Uncle's family and ours, contacts are infrequent and I am afraid family ties will weaken and be lost in time.\n\nAs for me, fond memories of Uncle and Small Aunt linger still, and I cannot forget his affection and concern for me when he took a launch from Shameen, Canton, to True Light Middle School at Paak Hok Tung, to comfort me upon the untimely and tragic death of my fiancé. To have lived in his truly Chinese home was to experience the joys of an extended family, the sharing of sadness and happiness, the concern for one another's well-being, the responsibilities falling upon and assumed by the head of the family, and the respect towards our elders and for each other — attributes which have drawn our families close for several generations and which have increased my appreciation of the ancient culture of my people.\n\nSecond Paternal Uncle\n\nMuch of the information on Second Paternal Uncle comes from letters he wrote to Father and from the autobiography of his eldest son, Toby, written in Chinese.\n\nUncle, the second son in the family, was born in our ancestral village on 17 August 1870. His 'milk name' was Ping I; his marriage name, On Kiao; his adult name, Chung Chi. The last was the name he was known by outside the family. He was taught in the village by a tutor and most likely had studied some English in Hong Kong before Grandfather sent him at the age of 16 to join First Uncle in San Francisco.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211422, "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-1988", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "114\n\nGeorgette, herself a lawyer, married Iu Bing Leong, also a lawyer. Because he had been involved with the Nationalists in a minor role, he left his wife and daughter for the United States upon the rise of the Communists and is reported to be living with another woman, a fact that has deeply wounded Georgette, who has remained in Shanghai, ill with cancer.\n\nMoo Yun was a beautiful girl and while still young, married well. However, after a brief marriage, she was divorced and became dependent on her parents until she died after a goitre operation in Canton in 1934.\n\nMoo Sau, a graduate of Lingnan University, teaches in Hong Kong. She married a dancing instructor, who died in 1974, and is the one to keep her siblings informed of each other's doings.\n\nTing Cheong was 'given' posthumously to Father, who had taken a liking to the boy when they first met in 1919 and had suggested the possibility to Mother before he died. A male heir must have been important to him. Mother tried to be fair with her meagre resources by contributing to his schooling and sent whatever money she could spare from time to time, including a share of what Grandfather left Father. Uncle, in fairness to all his children, pooled what he received from Mother with his own assets in order that all of his children would share equally in his estate. We saw little of Ting Cheong and know less about him as an individual. He seemed shy and retiring, a man of few words. I often wonder if he resented being 'adopted out', even though this was in name only and as a gesture of love between brothers. Ting Cheong had had no say in the matter.\n\nI seem to recall that Ting Cheong had some training in the Customs Service in Peking before he was accepted and sent to the Customs Service in Canton, where he remained until 1949. He was 'punished' together with his colleagues for crime by association, rather than by evidence, because of the corrupt reputation of the service. Later he was allowed to work in Hainan Island until he obtained permission to move to Canton in 1978. He was given a small pension upon retirement, barely adequate for his needs. He and his concubine lived with his elder daughter until his unexpected death of tuberculosis on 25 June 1979. His first wife predeceased him and his four children are by his second wife. They are:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211423, "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-1988", "page_number": 139, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "Son Zhi Leong & Daughter How Ming W\n\nSon Zhi Gong EMI\n\n115\n\nDaughter Leong Yuk J R\n\nZhi Leong, not yet married, is a secondary school teacher in Canton, and How Ming is in the performing arts. Little else is known of their education and their careers.\n\nIn summary, Second Paternal Uncle was an ambitious man, unwavering in his goal for advancement. He worked hard to attain a profession which afforded his children more opportunities than he had and with which he served his country and humanity. His love for his parents and siblings was no less, as evidenced from the letters of concern, advice and encouragement he wrote to Father.\n\nFourth Paternal Uncle\n\nA seventh child, a son named Ping Lim Wilff, was born to Grandfather and his second wife on 22 November 1883. He was five years younger than my father. I know little of his early childhood, except that he had left the village with his mother to join Grandfather when he was nine. It was not until December 1895, in a letter from Second Uncle to Father, that we learn he was attending the same school as Father, undoubtedly the Christian School for Oriental Boys in Honolulu. A bright and promising youth, he attracted the attention of a missionary, Miss Woods, who was instrumental in securing a home in Manoa for his convalescence before his death. She was evidently also a friend to Father because she gave my parents a wedding gift of a fine China fruit dish which we still treasure.\n\nWhenever Grandfather was unable to pay the full tuition for his two sons, he would ask for assistance from First Uncle, who would respond dutifully. There is no record of when Ping Lim finished high school. However, two of his letters to Father, then in Hilo, were especially interesting from a sociological and historical point of view. On 26 December 1899, he wrote that as a result of the discovery of plague in Honolulu's Chinatown, traffic among the Chinese had greatly decreased; that Aunt Chan Hoy's son had died suddenly; that the Chinese Church", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211426, "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-1988", "page_number": 142, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "118\n\nIn May 1903, he wrote that he had been ill since the 7th of April, three weeks before the examinations. He said that he had 'walking typhoid fever' but felt he had been cured since he no longer suffered from fever or numbness of his legs, although he was still thin and weak. His doctor had assured him he would be perfectly well by the end of the month. Subsequently, in July, he went to San Jose for a short vacation with plans to transfer to Stanford University the coming year in order to benefit from the more hospitable climate of Palo Alto. Due to increased responsibilities with the arrival of his concubine in San Francisco a few weeks before, First Uncle could not help Ping Lim much except to pay the doctor's bill of 50 dollars, and to advise him to return to Hawaii in view of the fact that First Uncle could not continue supporting him. Grandfather sent him 20 dollars, but he still had to borrow 200 dollars from a friend. He also asked Father to send him 30 dollars to buy himself a new suit. He must have left California for Honolulu soon after that, because a letter from a friend, Otis S. Lee, dated 18 August 1903, expresses surprise to learn of his departure and said that all his friends missed him.\n\nAlthough it was hoped that convalescence in Manoa would restore his health, Ping Lim died on 2 October 1903. It was a great blow to the family, especially to Grandfather. There was a eulogy to him in the San Francisco Chinese newspaper, for he had cultivated the friendship of a group of students from China and of other intellectuals exposed to Western thinking who would later participate in the political changes in China.\n\nIt was an annual ritual in early spring for Father to take Ruth and me with him to the Lin Yee Cemetery in East Manoa (established 7 June 1889) to pay respects to Uncle Ping Lim and his mother. We would take the Manoa street car to the end of the line, walk some distance along a country road to reach the cemetery and place a bunch of asters, Father's favourite offering, on each grave, located only after a long search among unkempt plots. Fourteen years after Uncle's death, Father hired a man to exhume the remains of Uncle and his mother in order to return them to their native land for permanent burial. I remember watching with fascination, after the earth was removed, the man lifting the lid from the wooden coffin and seeing a fully-clothed shape of a body that quickly deflated as air got to it. Taking mouthfuls", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211427, "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-1988", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "119\n\nof wine, the man sprayed it all over the area as a purification ritual before he removed bone by bone and wrapped each with a piece of white cloth amidst burning incense. He labelled the bones as he went along in order that the remains would be in their proper positions when reburied in a sitting position in a large urn. Father learned that 90 percent of the bones were intact because the burial area was dry.\n\nStep-Grandmother was exhumed at a later date but I was not present. A pair of jade bracelets and a jade ring were recovered. After storing them in a large handkerchief for years, Mother finally threatened to throw them away as they were stained, probably discoloured by the absorption of body fluids. Thereupon I salvaged them, soaked them in alcohol for several days, kept one of them for myself and let Helen have the other. Dora would have none of it. Because the ring broke into pieces, we threw it away. Surprisingly, with wear, the yellowish stains disappeared and the bracelets became greener and greener, acquiring a beautiful sheen and revealing their original beauty. I gave mine to Dora when she learned to appreciate it and kept for myself a white jade bracelet, one of a pair that had been buried with Paternal Grandmother in China and shared with us by First Uncle's concubine. These bracelets are much treasured by us. The Chinese believe that funeral jade is a charm against harm, but for me, wearing the bracelet brings me closer to my ancestors.\n\nFirst Paternal Aunt Yim\n\nFirst Paternal Aunt Ai, whose maiden name was Chan Yung Kam $32, was born in 1861 (?) and was the eldest of my Grandfather Chan's seven children. She was married to Yim Mow Chow also known as Yim Goon Chan, of How Chang Villaget. She was mother substitute to my father after Grandmother Chan's early death. Aunt Yim left China with my father in 1892, landing first in San Francisco before transferring to a whaling vessel for Honolulu to join Uncle Yim who had emigrated earlier to Hawaii. At one time, he repaired watches for a living, but during the Honolulu Chinatown fire of 1900, he was employed as a clerk in Sing Chan 14, a plumbing shop.\n\nSince Aunt Yip did not have children, they adopted George Goon Hop, reported to be the infant son of a Japanese barber, whose wife had become emotionally disturbed at childbirth. George was born", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211428, "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-1988", "page_number": 144, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "120\n\non 23 June 1898, and was thoroughly spoiled by Aunt Yim. When George was nine years old, his mother took him to China, but after a year he returned alone to live with First Paternal Uncle in San Francisco. On his way to California, he stopped over for a night in Honolulu. A year later he went to Los Angeles to join his father, who was working for Dr. G. S. Chan in his herb business. Although inducted into the army during World War I, George never saw active duty. In 1919 when Uncle Yim died, he took his father's remains to China for burial, first stopping over at First Paternal Uncle's home in Hong Kong where his mother was waiting for him. This was during the time my father was there, ill with tuberculosis.\n\nGeorge finally gave in to Aunt Yim's continual pressure and married Sai King Auyoung of Ma Tse Village in 1919. She was a young bride (born in 1904) when I visited them that year. In 1922, after the birth of their daughter, Gladys Yung Hoy, on 8 June 1922, George left his family for Honolulu. His wife then entrusted the care of Gladys to Aunt Yim and went to work. In 1931 when Aunt Yim died, George sent for his daughter. It was not an easy adjustment for a girl of ten, but a good relationship with her stepmother developed and after some schooling, she went into restaurant work where she met her husband, Lam Kwai #, born in 1906, by whom she had a daughter and a son, Claudia Ngit Oi A and a son, Calvin Yuen Tim K.\n\nBefore Gladys joined her father, he had married Josephine Kekai Fung Kyau Liu, who was born on 30 September 1910. From this union came Kwock Wah, born on 7 January 1930. He is a pharmacologist on the staff of Purdue University. They subsequently adopted one of Josephine's nieces, Lorna Siu Lan. Josephine's father was a Chinese from See Yup and her mother was a Chinese-Hawaii-Caucasian woman. From this multi-ethnic background, she learned to speak Chinese fluently as well as to cook authentic Chinese, Hawaiian and Western dishes. These skills enabled her to work as a cook for many years before she had to retire because of a bad knee.\n\nGeorge found employment in the Navy Yard after working as an auto mechanic for several private shops. After his retirement, he made a visit to China to see his ailing first wife before her death in 1968 at the age of 64. He had a great deal of warm feelings for his Chan relatives, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211430, "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-1988", "page_number": 146, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "122\n\nof Chung made a good marriage, for her husband, Leong Ting Bau of How Village, was the holder of the highest military degree, which gave him honour and status. He, however, had turned out to be an unfaithful husband and a ne'er-do-well, and Aunt Leong did not have an easy life. She had two children but they both died very young. I regret that I did not ask Father to tell me more about her.\n\nThird Paternal Aunt\n\nThird Paternal Aunt, the youngest of Father's three sisters, was Chan Yung Yick, born on 27 January 1872, and married to Auyoung Chew Chong ‡, a native of Ma Tse Village. He was born on 9 December 1871. Their children, all sons, were:\n\nSuk Jun born 8 August 1889\n\nSuk Nam born 22 September 1905\n\nSuk Chiu born 26 June 1909\n\nUncle Auyoung settled in Reno, Nevada, when he went to the United States, where he worked as a tailor. In 1921 Suk Jun followed his father to the United States to study in San Francisco, sailing on the S.S. China. He remembers Father taking food to him when the ship docked in Honolulu because as an alien, he was not permitted to go ashore. It was a happy meeting, their first, and the beginning of a long friendship between him and us. Suk Jun said his mother often missed her siblings and would show him my Father's photograph.\n\nIn 1912, when his mother was ill, his father told him to go back to take care of her. On 24 December that year, he married Ching Lai So, a native of On Dung Village. She was born on 6 March 1906. They settled in Hong Kong, where he worked as a bank clerk. They had four sons and three daughters.\n\nUncle Auyoung returned to China in 1926 with his wife and youngest son when he was 55 years old to retire in his native village. After Aunt Auyoung died on 24 November 1948 and the takeover of China by the Communists, he went to live with Suk Jun in Kowloon, where he died on 19 April 1957 at the age of 86. It was then that Suk Jun felt that he had fulfilled his responsibility to his parents and that he would now seek a new life for himself. Thus, in 1962, he returned alone to the United States, first to Chicago, and later in 1973 to California where his wife", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211433, "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-1988", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "125\n\nOne of Grandfather's ancestors was a petty official, a position which afforded him an opportunity to grant favours and to receive gifts of appreciation in return. The gifts included an eye agate, a cockroach of black jade, and a woman of white jade which were handed down as heirlooms in the family. Uncle Jong Tin Yau was given the cockroach, but it could not be located after his death. Uncle Jong Tin Suk inherited the eye agate. Mother was given the piece of white jade—a carved reclining female figure with bound feet, undraped except for an apron. Her head rests on a block pillow and in her hands is a palm fan. Mother was the 5th or 6th generation to own it.\n\nWhile working in Sam Heong, a suburb of Shekki, Grandfather met and married Grandmother, who was surnamed Chang. Little is known of her background, although she did confide in Mother that she had been married previously. I do not know whether she was widowed or she had merely deserted her first husband. In any event, it was reported that she had had children. Re-marriage for women was not acceptable, especially in cases where the men had been bachelors. This might have been the source of conflict between Grandmother and Grandfather's family.\n\nA son, Tin Yau Kišlí, was born to them on 17 August 1878. According to Mother, he was nine years older than she. When he was seven, Grandmother brought him to join Grandfather in Hawaii. She had to pawn her jewellery to pay for the passage. When they arrived in Honolulu on the 15th day of the 8th month, the day of the Moon Festival, she learned that Grandfather had already left for China. Having fulfilled his contract, he was now ready to repair his ancestral home and to bring his wife and child back to Honolulu. Because it took sailboats several months to cross the Pacific in those days, communication between him and Grandmother had been inadequate. As a result, Grandmother had to live in the home of a friend, Lau Tim, to await Grandfather's return.\n\nUpon arrival at Shekki, Grandfather was greeted with tales of Grandmother's infidelity. More likely than not the source of this gossip had been Seventh Aunt. It took Grandfather some time to get over his anger, but eventually he returned to Honolulu, and two more children were born to my grandparents. My mother, Jong Hung, was born on 23 April 1887, in a small community known as Jow Tim Yard HJ,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211440, "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-1988", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "132\n\n-\n\nAnna,\n\nshe took along the children of good friends with her as well Bessie, Clara, Dora and Laura Chung, and Alice Ping Lam. In spite of the primitive surroundings, it was a treat for city children to enjoy the freedom of the outdoors. How nostalgic is the smell of sweet ripening rice in the fields. The memory of early morning breakfasts of steaming rice, hot tasty dishes and strong tea. The smell of smoking guava wood under the big wok! The feel of crispy rice from the bottom of the wok! The clear, cool, invigorating mountain air! The soft dawn suddenly bright from the glow of the rising sun seen through the wide, paneless windows of the large kitchen where we ate! And the never satisfied appetites for anything edible around the farm! We did not have a care.\n\nBetween chores we would wander into the dense guava bushes growing wild in the uncultivated areas, and would pick, taste, discard or eat only the sweetest fruits. The white-seeded ones were the best. There were mangoes and bananas, all for the picking. We got our vitamins the joyful way. Or we would wade in the deep cold stream or in the drained rice fields to catch snails, opelu and catfish that were left in the puddles after the harvest. While the older children kept an eye on the younger ones, without supervision from the busy adults, we always found something to occupy our time and were never bored.\n\nUncle decided to make a change in 1916. He moved to a small leasehold, located off Lilipuna Road not far from Kamehameha Highway, owned by Joseph Whittle, a sign painter. The neighbours were John William Grote and Henry Cobb-Adams. The former was the postmaster and the latter the tax collector in Kaneohe. Uncle increased the amount of vegetables he produced and replaced the buggy with a large horse-drawn wagon to take his produce to the Honolulu market. When the lease expired in 1918, he moved to a property owned by the widow of William Henry, who had been a gaoler at the Oahu Prison. This farm was on the Maikai side of Kamehameha Highway, separated from the Cobb-Adams property by a narrow stream. Aunt had a green thumb and from selected seeds sent by Step-Grandmother from Shekki, she was able to raise high quality vegetables that brought a good price and profit.\n\nAs business increased, Uncle invested in a Reo truck and started the first truck farming business in that community, acting as agent for other farmers on a commission basis. Although Cousin Mary learned to drive", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211441, "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-1988", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "133\n\nthe truck, Uncle hired drivers to take the produce to Honolulu. I had many rides on the truck to pick up bananas which Okinawa immigrants grew on what used to be pineapple fields. Uncle prospered and was dubbed *Mayor of Kaneohe*. When it was time for him to retire from farming, he bought a piece of Cobb-Adam's land on Kamehameha Highway, one lot removed from Lilipuna Road. Uncle was extended credit from C. K. Ai, who was a friend of my parents, so that he could buy lumber from City Mill Company to build a simple but spacious home and a large garage for his trucking business.\n\nWhen Uncle was struggling to make ends meet, Father would try to help with small loans. During the First World War, when the price of guano was rising fast, Father bought a ton of the fertilizer and stored it under our School Street home. Uncle would pay the current price for each bag he took, and when the ton was used up, the profit was divided between Father and Uncle. Because the price of animal feed was also rising, Mother would wake Ruth, Helen and me at early dawn, competing with a neighbour, to gather algaroba beans from a back lot for Uncle at one dollar a bag.\n\nThere was little social life in those days. Uncle was a member of a fraternal society in Heeia, namely, the Bow Yee Tong, established in 1903. Mother told me that this was a Triad society, where members were initiated and sworn in as 'blood brothers' by secret rituals, so secret that they were not revealed even to their wives. In later years, after the death of Aunt, Uncle became a devout Buddhist and frequently visited a temple in Honolulu.\n\nUncle registered seven of his ten children with the Board of Health on 15 October 1918. At that time, he gave his name as Cheung Yau and Aunt's as Wong Fung, and his age at 38 and hers 33. Their children are:\n\nAnnie Ah Hoon (21 Apr 1902-1936) married Henry Auyoung\n\nMary Ah Moy Hiki (9 Oct 1904-) married Joseph Liu\n\nHelen Ah Sam (11 Dec 1906-) married Robert Zane\n\nAlice Ah Lin (15 Dec 1909-) married Frank Carpino (died 1982) 1927\n\nReuben Ah Kau (17 Jun 1911-) married Eunice Ching\n\nAaron Ah Mung (13 Oct 1913-8 Oct 1985)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211442, "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-1988", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "134\n\nEsther Ah Lun EA (9 Jun 1916-) married Raymond Ho (died 1981) Amy Ah Mee (11 Dec 1918-1967)\n\nElla Ah How 55F (10 Sept 1921-) married Holbin Akiona (died 1981) Raymond Gai Sum (5 Nov 1927-) married Nellie Fong\n\nRaymond, the youngest, was a difficult infant as he cried constantly. Uncle felt that his deceased brother, wanting a descendant to provide him with offerings, had been responsible for the baby's behaviour. Therefore, Raymond was given to the brother with appropriate ceremony, and his name was changed from Ah Chai to Gai Sum, the first character of the new name meaning 'adopted'.\n\nI always looked forward to visiting my cousins. When I was older and transportation was easier, I visited them more often. I was treated as a regular member of the family, disciplined by Uncle when needed, eating freely, going on hikes with them to the foot of the mountain, picking wild white and yellow ginger blossoms for leis, sampling guavas, mangoes or mountain apples, or plunging into cold streams after carefully picking our way on bare feet over rough and sometimes thorny terrain. On holiday one summer, I joined my cousins in working for a small pineapple cannery nearby, earning thirteen cents an hour on the night shift. During midnight breaks, the older Hawaiian women would entertain us with ukulele music, hula and song. The atmosphere was relaxed and the work was easy. Although I worked only two weeks, I was very happy to receive my first pay when I was only 15 years old.\n\nMy memories of Uncle and his family are very warm, for the relationship was close. Concern for one another was not verbalized but was shown by what we did for each other. The affection between Mother and Aunt was not demonstrative but genuine, and I have never heard any harsh word between the two. Since telephones were not yet common, Uncle would drop in on us regularly to see that all was well. On the other hand, whenever Uncle or Aunt needed new Chinese dresses, Mother would make them. If there were any business matters to be attended to, Father, and later Mother, would find Uncle whatever help he needed.\n\nUncle was truly the head of the house. He was dominating, quick-tempered but honest and hard-working, never complaining. When he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211443, "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-1988", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "135\n\nwas approached by a wealthy Honolulu merchant to be an opium agent in Kaneohe, he declined. He was a man of principle and honour; money could not tempt his integrity even when the going was rough. He was generous and a good provider. The family never lacked for food or snacks. After the children had had their dinner, Uncle would sit alone at the table, enjoying a peaceful interlude and slowly sipped a bowlful of Ng Ca Pei wine between mouthfuls of food. He seemed particularly fond of roast pork and could be heard chomping on the crisp skin. After dinner he would drink strong tea from a huge coffee-pot.\n\nIn contrast, Aunt, a short and plump woman, was easy-going and good-tempered. She seldom found it necessary to scold and discipline her children. She was a good cook and is especially remembered for her stuffed bitter melon and duck sautéed with pineapple slices. For Chinese New Year she would always send us a huge mochi pudding, about a foot in diameter and four to five inches thick. She would pound mochi rice in a large stone mortar with a huge stump of guava wood and use the flour for the pudding, which required a whole day of steaming. The mortar, a cow's horn that Uncle blew to summon the workers from the field at meal time, and a round whetstone operated by a foot pedal, were three pieces of equipment which fascinated me.\n\nUncle and Aunt retired to a life of peace and security, in a home free of encumbrances and with enough savings to be independent and to leave some to their children. Unfortunately, Aunt met an early death from a heart attack on 30 November 1941, at the age of 57. Uncle, on the other hand, lived to the ripe old age of 84, when he died from a stroke in 1962.\n\nGrandfather suffered from rectal bleeding and intense pain before he died. The date of his death is not known to me. Uncle used to send money to him regularly and continued to support Step-Grandmother after Grandfather's death. I met her for the first time in 1919 when Mother took Dora and me to the sick bedside of Father, who had been welcomed by Step-Grandmother into her house. She was then widowed, living alone with her son, Tin Suk, then about seven years old. Her daughter, Mrs. Pong, had already been married but frequently spent a few weeks visiting her. A good and enduring relationship developed between us and these family members during the six months we stayed in Shekki. Step-Grandmother extended herself in making us comfortable and in cooking\n\n!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211444, "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-1988", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "136\n\nenticing, wholesome meals to nurture Father back to health. Communication with her was interrupted by the Second World War and after 1949, and it was during these intervening years that she died, followed later by the death of Uncle Tin Suk, from injuries he had suffered falling down a well. Ging Heen, the only offspring of Uncle Tin Suk, is also now deceased. The details regarding his wife and children are not known to us.\n\nUncle Pong sent for Aunt Pong and their first child in 1922, and they lived with us temporarily until they bought a home on Lusitana Street. They sold this home in 1932, during the Depression, in order that Aunt Pong and the eight children could manage life easier in Shekki. They left the same time Mother, Dora and I did, on the Empress of Japan. Later, before the Second World War began, Aunt Pong sent the children back to Honolulu, two by two. Left with two of them, she was not able to return until the end of the war. The family settled in the neighbourhood store operated by Uncle Pong at the corner of Kaukini and Fort Streets, on property owned by us. This property was later condemned by the city to enlarge Kawananakoa School. Uncle Pong died from diabetes and Aunt Pong from cancer.\n\nThe Pong children are:\n\nHelen Wai Hing married Long Wa Lui\n\nViolet Wai Lin married Mun Git Chan\n\nElla Wai King married Joseph Loui\n\nErnest Dung Sun married Wai Quon Yee\n\nHerbert Cheong Fat married Dimmie Kam\n\nLily Wai Chiu married Stanley Chang\n\nClaron Ah Hoon married Pacita Tan\n\nRichard Kwock Hung married Kwei Fong Miu\n\nMy Jong grandparents and their children are all gone now. My Mother's health began to deteriorate following a bout of shingles and she passed away on 20 November 1974, after being incapacitated for about a month as a result of a stroke. Although I still feel the loss of those I love, I am comforted by, and hold on to, the many memories that are intertwined with their caring, nurturing, and warmth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211446, "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-1988", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "138\n\nin life, he would recount childish pranks. For instance, in order to remember English words, they would use Chinese words of similar sounds, as ga dang MÎ for G.D.... Or, they would sneak out to buy fresh bread. On one occasion, a student had to hurriedly hide a loaf of bread under his shirt when he saw the Rev. Damon approaching, even though it was burning hot. Another time, the boys set up the room of a friend in the old See Dai Doo Building on Smith Street to resemble a wake, with an effigy of a dead man stretched out amidst burning candles and incense. When their friend returned, he was so shocked that he became ill.\n\nWith two boys in private school, Grandfather could not afford to pay their full fees, so Father had to turn to his older brothers for help. In a letter dated 22 February 1897, First Uncle advised Father not to give up his schooling and asked what the tuition was. At that time, First Uncle was working in a bank and had been joined by his wife. Second Uncle had finished middle school and was looking for an office to start his practice in San Francisco. In June of that year, First Uncle was able to send 75 dollars towards Father's tuition, but the amount was not so much as Grandmother had expected. Second Uncle wrote on 29 July 1897 that he could not help, but encouraged Father to continue with his schooling. He felt that Father was more fortunate than he to be able to have help from Grandfather. In the autumn of 1897, Father was admitted to Grade II of the Punahou Preparatory School, located at 73 S. Beretania Street, and was registered as Chan Yin Yip,* after he had passed an entrance examination and was considered of good moral character. The principal was Samuel F. French. Two report cards, signed by F. W. Damon as 'guardian', indicated that in the full term Father had perfect attendance and received A's for Arithmetic, Language, History and Penmanship, with a general average of 94; that in the winter term, he added French and Rhetoric to his schedule but did less well, earning a general average of 90. Three receipts show tuition for the term ending 17 December 1897 to be seven dollars and fifty cents; for the term ending 8 April 1898 to be six dollars and fifty cents; and the term ending 21 July 1898 to be five dollars.\n\n* See Oahu College Pamphlets, 1893-1900, Public Archives, Honolulu.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211447, "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-1988", "page_number": 163, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "139\n\nAs reasonable as these amounts seem to us today, Father could not continue without financial help. Highly motivated, he again turned to his brothers for assistance, because he felt that men without an education were like 'dumb cattle driven by others.' First Uncle replied on 6 July 1898 that he felt 'miserable' because he could not help. He compared himself to a well, drawn dry and needing time to be refilled, because his responsibilities had increased with so many relatives dependent upon him. However, he promised to do what he could. Second Uncle, who had gone to Shanghai, wrote on 29 August 1898 that he was in no position to assist and added that he was glad Father was earning money by teaching and that Father should go on to college and study law, medicine or dentistry.\n\nThe next year, on 3 May 1899, First Uncle again wrote, urging Father not to discontinue his schooling until the end of the year unless he had the consent of Grandfather, even though the job offer he received from a local newspaper might be tempting. Father must have finished the school year, for on 7 July 1899, First Uncle wrote to congratulate him on his graduation, noting that he had accepted a position with the Honolulu Chinese Times Bar as translator and reporter, and regretted that he was unable to advise him about going into business because conditions were not the same in different places. Second Uncle also wrote on 19 July 1899, commending Father for choosing a 'good' subject to deliver at the graduation exercises and encouraging him to continue to study while working.\n\nFather probably was looking for a job and business opportunities at the same time. He corresponded with friends in Kauai, in Hilo, and as far as Australia. A friend, Au Goon Bick, who had gone to Kapaa, Kauai, wrote in July that he was working for Lum Keed and that Yim Goon Siu of Honolulu was visiting him then. (Yim was the uncle of Cousin George Yim and was also working for the Honolulu Chinese Times. He later went to Shanghai where he ran a printing business.) Yim also wrote several times to Father about this Kauai trip - how he became seasick as soon as the boat passed Waianae and how he forgot his discomfort as soon as he met a number of young ladies with whom he had much fun singing. He expressed surprise that one of them, a sister of Wong Fat and a student at Kamehameha School, could speak English as well as both the Heong Shan and Nam Long dialects. (I suspect that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211448, "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-1988", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "140\n\nthis lady was Mollie Wong Yap, a Chinese-Hawaiian, who became a teacher and later lived on Vineyard Street near the Foster Gardens.) He described his landing at Nawiliwili, his visits to Kapaa, Lihue and Hanapepe where he met Wong Fat, Au Wai Bun and Fong Chock Kee. He enjoyed the sight of a river winding through Waimea and concluded that the land, not yet cultivated, would be good for farming. He was overwhelmed with the warmth and hospitality of the Chinese there, because they offered him food and lodging as soon as they learned who he was, and he felt that one's reputation was very important. Another friend of Father's at Hop Kee ✩ in Kolon wrote that his business was poor and his expenses were great.\n\nFather must have consulted First Uncle about joining friends in Sydney, because First Uncle wrote advising against the move. In a letter dated 22 August 1899, First Uncle said that Grandfather and Aunt Yim were not in favour of this move. Moreover, he felt that one could not become rich on a salary and thought that Hawaii was good for the Chinese and for their investments. Several letters written in 1903 and 1904 brought news from friends in Australia. A newspaper article from them revealed that the Australians were feeling threatened by the Chinese, who undercut wages, sent their savings back to China, and did not assimilate. So Shai Lum, a friend in Tamworth, New South Wales, wrote that he had invested in a business selling groceries, furniture and dry goods, and that it was doing well. Another friend, Ng Yook Tong, ran a fruit store in Sydney but was only able to make a living. A third, Go Bing Mun wrote he was with Sam Kee in Tingha not far from Tamworth.\n\nFather also communicated with friends in Hilo. On 8 September 1899, he received a letter from the Rev. Yee Tin Kui about a job opening with Man Sing Company in Hilo, should Father decide to discontinue his schooling. The salary would be 17 dollars a month and he would take care of invoices, billing and other bookkeeping chores. Furthermore, he would have an opportunity to become a partner. Thereupon, Father wrote Chee Fong, the owner, to ask about the likelihood of employment, explaining that he had already given up his position with the Honolulu Chinese Times and the one following with the Hawaii Hardware Company, because he had been hired without any consideration of his lack of experience. No doubt his application was accepted, for in his undated letter to Au Goon Bick in Kauai Father wrote that he was leaving", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211450, "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-1988", "page_number": 166, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "142\n\nThe plague continued in the city and the Board of Health was advised by the medical profession to burn all buildings that might harbour plague-carrying rats, a measure Hong Kong had successfully taken to prevent its spread. C. K. Ai gives the following account of what happened in his autobiography. On 20 January 1900, the Board of Health ordered the Fire Department to burn a building on Beretania Street between Nuuanu and Maunakea Streets, with two engines on guard to contain the fire. Unfortunately the wind direction shifted, sending sparks onto two wooden stables belonging to the Kaumakapili Church which was located on Beretania near Maunakea, spreading the fire through Chinatown in spite of help from volunteers to douse the fire. The police drove the residents out of the danger zone, down Kekaulike Street, along Queen Street, to Kakaako where emergency camps were set up. By two o'clock that afternoon, all Chinatown was in flames. Fortunately no lives were lost, but it was a pitiful sight.\n\nFather learned from Grandfather that 300 stores, both wooden and brick, were destroyed. Luckily, the conflagration just missed Wong On Tai, Yuen Chong and Kwong Li Yuan, but they were forced to relocate nevertheless. Father, Aunt Yim and her husband were sent away to a camp in Kalihi, where my Mother and her family were also confined. In his letter dated 20 February 1900, Ping Lim gave graphic description of the insensitive way in which the Chinese were evacuated and of their strong feelings of degradation. Further news to Father came from Yim Goon Siu who voiced his resentment against the 'white bandits' who 'chased' all 'foreigners', Japanese and natives, young and old, male and female, to the camps in Kalihi and Kakaako. When the block in which Mills School was located was quarantined following the death of several Chinese working for the Pantheon Stables nearby, the Rev. Damon had already moved his students to an island owned by Samuel Damon near the 3-mile pumping station in Moanalua. Ping Lim was thus free to visit and take food to the family when they were first interned in Kawaiahao Church in Kakaako, and to send mail to them when they were moved to Kalihi. During this period, according to First Uncle, the 'white bandits' took similar action in San Francisco by sending the Chinese away from Chinatown, and he was not permitted to send to Hawaii medical supplies which Father had ordered for a friend, although the supplies had been purchased from 'white' people.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211451, "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-1988", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "143\n\nThere was great suffering among the Chinese. Unemployment was high because no one could leave the camps to go to work. The Chung Wah Society came to their relief with rice. Because they did not know when the quarantine would be lifted or where they could find living accommodations, the Chinese were worried and depressed. They felt that they had been handled inhumanely with overtones of racial discrimination. Consequently, the Chinese New Year went by quietly. Although 220,000 dollars was later allotted by the government to reimburse victims, only half of all the claims were settled, and my family was never compensated. A number of homeless Chinese were relocated in a government camp off Vineyard Street, between Liliha and River Streets, while others moved to areas around Liliha, Palama, Nuuanu, and Pauoa.\n\nThere was much correspondence between Grandfather and Father, who did not feel comfortable as bookkeeper for Man Sing. When he wanted to give up, Aunt Yim sent word for him to stay on because the Rev. Yee felt Hilo was more favourable for Father's future, and Grandfather explained bookkeeping procedures to him in many of his letters, meanwhile urging him to be patient and to learn more about the business. When Man Sing decided to sell shares, Father became interested and consulted Grandfather, who wanted to know more about it before giving an opinion. It was not until Chee Fong took a trip to Honolulu that Grandfather obtained enough information to advise Father that the investment would not be very profitable. By April, Man Sing was for sale, and Grandfather asked Father in a letter dated 15 April 1900 to be sure to send his new address and details of what he would be doing after leaving Man Sing.\n\nMeanwhile, Grandfather kept Father informed of the progress of the Iwilei Rice Mill, which was expected to begin operation in December 1899. The milled rice would be sold by Wing On Tai. Father and First Uncle thought of doing business together and wondered about importing rice from China by way of San Francisco. At first, Grandfather thought it would not be wise since the prevailing price of local rice was six dollars for a 100-pound bag that had cost his patrons $6.25. They were forced to reduce each bag by 75 cents to one dollar, and even at a loss, 200 bags of the 500 had remained unsold. He figured that people were not eating much rice and did not care for rice from China. However, a week", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211452, "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-1988", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "144\n\nlater he told Father that quarantine was over and the demand for rice was now greater than the supply and that it was a good opportunity to make some money. He suggested that First Uncle send 200 bags of rice to Honolulu if, in his judgment, the prices seemed right. Father also thought of dealing in cars and tobacco, but Grandfather learned the quarantine was extended to these products so that it would be impossible to send them into or out of the islands.\n\nAs early as 7 December 1899 Father had begun to look for other employment and thought of applying to Bishop Bank which Samuel Damon had bought from Bishop. On 12 December 1899, Grandfather promised to get in touch with Ho Fan and the Rev. Damon about contacting Samuel Damon about it. Ho Fan was a receiving teller at the bank and was empowered to make loans. He was therefore considered a person of some influence. Samuel Damon happened to be away at that time, but when he returned on the 20th, Grandfather suggested on 26 December that it would be better if Father wrote to Ho Fan and the Rev. Damon himself. On 26 March 1900, Grandfather informed Father that business was so slow with the bank that it was not hiring. Soon afterwards, on 9 April, Father was notified that Ho Fan had been to Wong On Tai to urge Father to return to Honolulu to work at the bank. There is no record of when Father went back to Honolulu, but it must have been after 19 April 1900, when Man Sing was for sale. The starting salary at the bank for Father was 25 dollars a month. For the next nineteen years he served the bank faithfully, under George Carter, an irascible 'boss' who might have been well-meaning but who gave Father many miserable moments. We were more than surprised, yet touched, when he attended Father's funeral.\n\nFather's next important step was to choose a suitable wife. Outstanding among the usual considerations for selecting one, an important feature was that his wife would have unbound feet, a decision which Second Uncle heartily approved of in his letter of 21 October 1900. Mrs. Leong Yau, a good friend of Mother's, was the matchmaker. She arranged not only to be photographed with Mother, but also to walk with her by a designated place so that Father could be there to have a good look at her, unknown to Mother, of course. I understand that Father was too shy to take a good and long look. Mother was considered fortunate to be chosen by the son of a merchant and by someone working for a 'haole' firm. My parents", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211453, "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-1988", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "145\n\nwere married on 16 March 1903, in appropriate Chinese fashion and in a Christian ceremony. This was followed by an elegant dinner given by Grandfather for relatives, friends, and Father's colleagues and superiors at the bank. There were many compliments on the beauty of the bride and the exceptional choice of dishes.\n\nMy sister Ruth McLan was born on 4 April 1904. I, Violet MeBigT, was born on 20 January 1906; MeYukE on 21 September 1907; and Dora MeSunX4 on 7 October 1917. Because Me means 'beautiful' and because we were born in the United States, called the 'Beautiful Country' by the Chinese, Grandfather chose that character as a part of our names.\n\nAfter MeYuk was sent to First Uncle in her infancy, and when Helen was still very young, I was babied longer than customary, often on Father's lap. One night, shortly after we moved to Broad Road, he beckoned me to sit on his lap. For some unexplained reason, I demurred shyly, whereupon my mother supported me by saying, 'You are a big girl now'. For a while I shared a bed with Father, while Mother slept with Helen, the baby. During that time two incidents made a deep impression on me. The first was the cracking sound of frightened chickens emanating from under our house, where they roosted, that roused us one night. I was very much afraid and Father felt it was the better part of valour not to go out to investigate. Loose chicken feathers we saw the next morning told us that someone must have tried successfully to steal our chickens. An even more frightening experience which left me trembling in bed late one night was hearing a woman next door whimpering each time her husband beat her. I swear I could hear the swish of the rattan. Not one adult in that extended household interceded. We concluded that the man, a gambler, must have vented his anger on his wife when he lost money that night.\n\nFather showed more affection for his children than most Chinese men did in those days. He enjoyed teaching Ruth because she learned easily and did so well in school; he enjoyed Helen because she was a very sweet child and a cute performer; he enjoyed Dora because she was the baby. He liked me because I provided personal service, such as massaging his face, brushing and combing his hair, trimming his toe and finger nails. He would take us walking with the youngest child in his arms and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211454, "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-1988", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "146\n\nolder ones tagging behind. Happy was the welcome we gave him when we ran down the street to greet him as he returned from work, relieving him of parcels (usually food) he carried and vying to tell him of the day's happenings. This was before automobiles took over our streets. When in good spirits, he would sing Chinese opera or English songs or hymns, among which were 'Way Down Upon the Swanee River', 'Home, Sweet Home', 'My Old Kentucky Home', and 'In the Sweet, Bye and Bye', his favourite hymn. We learned these songs but did not thoroughly understand or correctly pronounce a number of the words.\n\nYet, in the other aspects, Father was a timid person. He was afraid of thunder and lightning. If a storm arose in the night, he would get up, cook a simple meal and awaken Ruth and me to eat and keep him company. He was not adept at manual work and he was afraid of heights. He usually got me to climb a ladder to do a necessary chore because I was the tom-boy in the family. He often felt the pressure of Mr. Carter's bad temper and would be silent and moody for a while when he returned from work. We the children sensed enough to keep quiet while he worked out his frustrations, although eventually he developed a duodenal ulcer. I will always remember Father as a warm, witty and loving father, whose sense of humour gave us cheers and laughter. However, he could be stern and strict, but not often, when he expected good behaviour.\n\nTwo themes ran through his early childhood in the village: a harsh teacher and inadequate food. He related how he and First Uncle's wife would commiserate with each other when they could afford ‘only one salted bean with each mouthful of rice. I am quite sure that Grandfather and First Uncle had sent adequate support and were not aware of their plight. In those days, it was the practice to send money to families through male relatives who often appropriated part of the money. Because of this deprivation during his childhood, Father was a frugal man, very careful and conservative with his money.\n\nExposed to the Christian influence of the Damons and others, Father became a member of the Fort Street Church in Honolulu, after being baptized in Hilo by the Rev. Yee Kui. A person of integrity and morality, he tried to bring us up to be respectful, honest and industrious. He once gave me a verbal dressing down when I said to him, 'Are you crazy?' Another time he gave me a terrible switching because I had wandered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211457, "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-1988", "page_number": 173, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "149\n\nUpon receiving word of the unexpected death of Second Paternal Aunt, Father decided to take a trip to China to see his remaining brothers and sisters. Passage by boat after the First World War was difficult to secure, but reluctant to change his schedule and to inconvenience the bank, he accepted steerage accommodation and left in April 1919 on the Shinyo Maru. Before the ship arrived in Japan some ten days later, he had seen 19 passengers die from influenza and he had himself fallen ill. He debarked in Japan to seek medical care, but as he had difficulty communicating with the Japanese doctor, he proceeded to Shanghai so that Second Paternal Uncle could take care of him. The weather in Shanghai proved to be too cold, so he decided to go to Hong Kong to stay with First Paternal Uncle. There a doctor Koch diagnosed Father as suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. When his fingers began to swell, relatives believed the sulphur content of the water in Hong Kong was not beneficial and arranged to move him to my maternal grandfather's home in Shekki, occupied then by his widow and son. It was then that Father sent for Mother. With the help of C. K. Ai, Mother was able to obtain passage, again steerage, on the S. S. Nanking for herself, Dora, and me. Ruth and Helen were left in the care of the Ais. It must have been difficult for them, especially for Helen, to be separated from Mother under such stressful circumstances.\n\nOn shipboard we were one of three families in a large cabin, sharing one bath. There was much noise and activity in and outside of this cabin, but we kept much to ourselves because Mother was very much worried about Father and left Dora, who cried a good deal, probably from seasickness, to my care. One day Mother suffered such severe gastric pain that she thought she would die and gave me instructions as to what to do. The ship's doctor was able to ease her pain. It was a frightening experience and the trip was a traumatic one for all three of us. Years later, Dr. Samuel Yee found that Mother had had a healed perforated gastric ulcer and I wondered if it had occurred then.\n\nSince we were total strangers in a different world, First Paternal Uncle thoughtfully accompanied us from Hong Kong to join Father in Shekki. We travelled over the ocean and up river to our destination on a crowded junk or \"doo\", to be greeted joyfully by Father. Chinese herbs and good food, however, had not been able to restore Father to good health. So my parents decided to return to Honolulu, hoping that a stay at the Leahi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211458, "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-1988", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "150\n\nHome would be beneficial. It was a harrowing experience when the sedan chair carrying Father did not reach the junk on time, and Mother had me run back to the wharf to wait for him, just in time to help him up the junk as it was edging out. If I had fallen off the narrow plank which served as the passageway between land and boat, no one would have wanted to take my place to appease the water spirits.\n\nWe left Hong Kong on the S.S. Nile, this time first class, in December 1919. The passengers were required to line up on deck on that very cold New Year's Day at Kobe (?) to pass inspection by Japanese officers. As a result, Father became seriously ill and died the next day, 2 January 1920, reportedly of double pneumonia. Mother was extremely grief-stricken and I was too stunned to be of support to her then. A telegraph to Mr. C. K. Ai paved the way for Father's remains to be admitted into Hawaii without difficulty, because Father had been originally admitted under the status 'labourer' which gave him no right of re-entry in those days of strict immigration regulations for the Chinese. Father was laid to rest in the Pauoa Chinese Christian Cemetery that had just been organized in 1919. Because he had often expressed his distaste for an elaborate funeral that included a noisy Hawaii band, Father's services at the church were simple and dignified. In 1932, Mother had his remains cremated and reburied in a beautiful porcelain urn beside the cremated remains of Ruth and Me Yuk in the Pokfulam Chinese Christian Cemetery in Hong Kong, since Father had often expressed a longing for the land of his birth. And he, like his father, never saw his native village again once he had left it.\n\nIn his letter of recommendation dated 14 September 1899, F. W. Damon described Father as 'faithful, industrious, and of good and reliable character'. Father was more than that. His love for his family is revealed in his frequent letters to his father and his brothers. His gift of Me Yuk to First Paternal Uncle and the gift of Ting Cheong to Second Paternal Uncle to Father's memory are manifestations of their closeness and love for each other. Whenever I recall Father reading to us \"The Children's Hour\" by Longfellow, I feel his tremendous love for his children and sense the happiness we gave him. Always striving to increase his knowledge and to better himself and his family, he often quoted his favourite poet, 'Let us be up and doing, with a heart for any fate, still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labour and to wait'. For, from his own past experience,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211463, "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-1988", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "155\n\nI remember crying in pain and rage because adults and children gathered around me to watch.\n\nMother also used some of the ointments that Grandfather Jong brewed for us. One white jar contained a blackish, gummy substance, a bit of which in warm tea was for gastro-intestinal discomfort, and which I later learned contained a little opium. A jar of pink ointment was for drawing influence to a head after it had been warmed over a small flame and applied as a poultice. Mother was so pleased when Uncle Yim sent us a dried gall bladder of a bear because of its \"cooling\" effect on an infected area. Once she dissolved some of it in water and applied it to me. When I fell and cut my head, what Mother did was to press some tobacco, which Grandmother Jong used for her water-pipe, on the wound to stop the bleeding.\n\nAs we grew older and Mother began to learn more Western practices from some of her new-found friends, in particular Mrs. Lam Quan, a neighbour who had studied at Kawaiahao Seminary, castor oil was the first order of treatment when any of us got sick, followed by a dose of Chinese herbal tea to “cool” our system. According to Dr. Joseph Lam, the herbs served as a diuretic. Diet for the sick would always be congee, or sweet potatoes boiled in water and sweetened with cakes of brown sugar from China, or a thin sweetened gruel of white-flowered sweet potato flour, also imported from China. For a congested chest, she would rub the area with warm peanut oil and the feel of her soft, warm hand would give me comfort and reassurance.\n\nMother's health was always fragile, but she took very good care of herself. I do not know what her early ailments were, but she used to buy \"Vivai\" from a Mrs. McAllister upon the advice of Mrs. Lam Quan. Mother would drink the liquid and have either Ruth or me massage her back with the ointment at bedtime. Young and tired, I would often doze off while trying to do the boring task. Fortunately, this did not last long. In addition, Mother would use all kinds of Chinese medicines, often referring to a handbook of medicine. Soon after Helen was born, she suffered such severe gastric pains that a herbalist was called in to treat her. When I was in high school, it seemed that every time I planned to go to a football game, she would get so sick that I would have to be home with her. Later, after Father's death, when women were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211464, "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-1988", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "156\n\nmore emancipated, she underwent surgery several times for a uterine tumor, for hemorrhoids, for a gastric ulcer and gallstones, and finally for intestinal obstruction at the age of 79. She was fortunate to come under the care of excellent surgeons Dr. Wah Kwai Chang, Dr. Samuel Yee, and Dr. Livingston Wong. And Dr. Richard Chun treated her for many years for hypertension and a bad heart.\n\nI do not think that Mother had ever worked through her feelings of repeated separations and losses. At the tender age of 16, she became separated from her family by marriage, only visiting once or twice a year, although Kaneohe was only about 12 miles from Honolulu. The death of Grandmother Jong in 1907, the departure of Grandfather for China in 1909, never to return, the gift of Me Yuk to First Paternal Uncle Chan before she could walk, her death at five years of age, and Grandfather Jong's rejection of Mother when he learned that she had embraced Christianity and wrote that he had lost his daughter — all these increased Mother's feelings of loss. When I was growing up, I would sometimes come upon her with tears in her eyes. Although it troubled me, I never thought to ask her the reason and I was too young to understand and to give her comfort. These experiences no doubt coloured her outlook on life, for whenever any of us left home, she would cry and worry unnecessarily. Oddly her fears were often confirmed.\n\nMother was never pressured by Father to become a Christian. An elderly Chinese Bible woman, whom we addressed as \"Fourth Aunt\", would visit us in Iwilei, talk with Mother, and teach Ruth and me to sing \"Jesus Loves Me, this I know\" in Chinese. At Christmas \"American\" ladies would come by and give us cornucopias filled with candy. We still have a booklet from them, pasted with pictures of Bible stories and a photograph of Central Union Church on its cover. I used to look at the pictures over and over again, and was particularly struck by a picture of a boy lying on the ground and a woman sitting beside him in a prayerful attitude with her face turned towards Heaven. I later learned that it was Ishmael and his mother in the desert after Abraham sent them away.\n\nIn 1911 when we moved to our home on Board Road, Mother became acquainted with two staunch Christians, Mrs. C. K. Ai and Mrs. Edwin Cooper, under whose influence she became more enlightened and\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211475, "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-1988", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "167\n\ngrades, graduating in June, 1932. In August of that year, she and mother accompanied me to China. Because Aunt Pong felt she could manage better in Shekki with the money from the sale of their home, she and the children left Honolulu on the Empress of Japan as we did. Uncle Pong remained in Honolulu. This was during the Depression when the exchange rate was favourable for United States currency.\n\nDora enrolled in the True Light Middle School, where I had accepted a teaching position, but when she found her inadequate knowledge of Chinese quite frustrating, she left after the first semester for Hong Kong, where Mother was living in First Paternal Uncle's Kennedy Road home. There she was tutored in Chinese by a Chinese teacher. In July, 1933, after a short visit to Shanghai and Hangchow, Mother and Dora returned to Honolulu on the President Hoover, to welcome Mother's first grandchild, Edmund Tong.\n\nFor the next three years, Dora studied at McKinley High School and after her graduation in June, 1936, she matriculated at the University of Hawaii, and received a B.A. degree in liberal arts. Then she went to the University of Chicago to do postgraduate social work. At the International House where she resided, she met Tso-chien Shen, a Vice-consul from China, and married him on 19 September, 1941. He was a native of Pi Hu Chen, Li Shui County, Chekiang Province, and a graduate of the University of Peking. An article, \"What Chinese Exclusion Really Means\" by him was published in 1942 by the China Institute in America. Dora soon became pregnant and became so ill that she could not finish her last quarter of study to earn a Master's degree. Their sons, both born in Chicago, are:\n\nEugene Tsu-wang I, born 7/5/42\n\nGilbert Tsu-shang I, born 2/3/46\n\nIn 1946 when Tso-chien was promoted to Second Secretary of the Chinese Legation in Manila, he had to leave his family behind, because his salary was too low. After 1949, Tso-chien started a chicken farm, with Paul Sim as his financial backer. However, in 1950 when he was found to be suffering from cancer, he sent for Dora, but by this time he was already in a terminal stage. Whereupon Dora returned to Mother's home and arranged to have him flown to Honolulu in December 1950", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211485, "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-1988", "page_number": 201, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "177\n\nof the most tragic periods of my life. The students were bright and eager to learn. They were tolerant of my inadequate command of Chinese and were helpful in teaching me a more refined use of the language. Among them was Sally Sun, the adopted daughter of Sun Yat-sen. She followed me to Honolulu and lived with us while she attended the University of Hawaii until she left after her freshman year for Pomona College. To this day I am in touch with many of my former students.\n\nI was glad for the opportunity to meet many relatives, some for the second time, and to know them better. I felt welcomed in the homes of First Paternal Uncle and Cousin Toby. The former lived in a traditional compound on the bank of a small river in the Lai Chee Wan district\n\nin Canton, an area where the elite of the old regime resided. He also maintained a home on Kennedy Road, in Wanchai, Hong Kong, a sturdy building of British design. About once a month, on pay day, I would invite Bertha Young, Sarah Mao, and Miriam Simpson, teachers at True Light, to spend a weekend at Uncle's Kennedy Road home. This gave us a chance to savour foreign food, perhaps to see an American film, or to attend a tea-dance at the Hong Kong Hotel.\n\nCousin Toby and his wife Louise lived in the Tung Shan I section of Canton where many westernized Chinese congregated. Staying with them on occasions was a pleasant change. Sometimes I would go with them to the Euro-American Club for a night of dancing.\n\nBecause my salary was only 120 Mex. dollars a month (about 20 U.S. dollars), I could not see as much of China as I would have liked. I was able to visit Father's birthplace and our Chan relatives a second time, and to pay respects to the graves of my grandparents and great grandparents during the Ching Ming Festival. I also paid a short visit to the home of my maternal grandmother in Shekki where we had lived in 1919, and to the new home of Aunt Pong nearby. In the summer of 1934, with Bertha Pang, Tiu Kei and Suk Kei Chan, and Ethel Au, I set out to see Peking by rail from Shanghai. I found Peking a charming old city and was thrilled to visit the Great Wall and the Imperial City and other attractions, so rich in history. People here seemed more refined, more cultivated; even the salesmen were very polite. On the way back, we stopped at several well-known places. We met and were joined at times by Daniel Yee, William Leong, Deborah Kau and Elizabeth Ching.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211920, "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": 335, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "310\n\nin Guangxi, Documents preserved in genealogies testify to his involvement in clan matters. He was credited with having compiled a genealogy. He and his son headed the short name list on the new grave stone for the wong-gu prepared in 1471. A preface he wrote in 1472 for a genealogy written by a certain “clan uncle” can be found in many existing genealogies. They also record accounts of the wong-gu and her husband written in 1489 by a jeun-si of the surname Lau from Dongguan at Ting-Jing's request.\n\nThe Xin'an gazetteer of 1688 named Hung Yi as the tax-payer for two local ferries. The two ferries had most probably provided income to an ancestral fund in his honour. But it was unlikely that his trust had any significant income. Present-day elders remember that in earlier days the expenses for the worship for Hung-Yi had to be shared among the villages of Kam Tin.\n\nIn terms of ancestral trusts and ancestral halls, however, the lower level ancestors in whose names the segments of the lineage below the branches were organised were probably even more important. Besides the annual worship at the ancestral halls and graves, such segments had various ways of reinforcing their solidarity and maintaining their network of information. In the case of Ching-Lok jou it used to be the case that the managers, heads of the main branches (ga, or \"family\") and the accountant were invited to a banquet on the day before each of the major festivals of the year. A member of Ji-Ga Tong, another lineage segment, mentioned to me a customary get-together of all the male members on one day at the New Year. I have heard of a similar practice in another segment, Gwong-Yu Tong. They hold a get-together on the first day of the New Year at their ancestral hall from early in the morning, and again worshipped at the Daai-Wong Temple, a temple the founding ancestor had started, on the seventh day of the First Month.\n\nC. Wan Guk and the Ching Lok Ancestral Hall\n\nThe senior branch (descended from Yam) was the most successful until late in the seventeenth century. Hung-Yi's eldest son Yam had three sons. Yam had the second, now known as Naam-Kai jou, adopted to be heir of his (Yam's) youngest brother Gyun. The two remaining sons of Yam were Ching-Lok and Loi-Sing (alias Gwong-Yu, but not to be confused with the Gwong-Yu of Gwong-Yu Tong). Ching-Lok had four sons, the eldest of whom was Wan-Guk. According to oral tradition", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211924, "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": 339, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "314 \n\n10 \n\nthe Dangs of Kam-Tin in the dispute with the Dangs of Ping Shan over the grave of the gwan-ma several decades before 1737. The descendants of Man Wai and his brothers (i.e. the members of the Gwong Yu Tong and the Lei Ging Tong) are all also members of the Sung-Kok jou segment which derives its name from the \"pen name\" of Man Wai's father.\n\nE. Loi-Sing Tong \n\nTo avoid confusion with Gwong-Yu Tong (i.e. the descendants of Man-wai) I shall call the Gwong-Yu jou segment (Le, the descendants of Gwong-Yu) by the name of their ancestral hall, the Loi-Sing Tong. The first datable event relating to this segment was the building of the ancestral hall in 1701 by Jeung-Luk, a sixth generation descendant of Gwong-Yu. Probably the best known of the Loi-Sing Tong ancestors was Si-Daan. The details of Si-Daan's descent are obscure. He was probably a descendant, perhaps a grandson, of Jeung-Luk. Sung (1973:63-65) records a story that upon his birth there was an unmistakable sign that he was destined to be a rich man. According to Sung (1974:164) he “built himself a very big house called Naam Teng, the remains of which can still be seen on the South side of Kat Hing Wai\". In 1755 when Si-Daan's uncle presented a bell to Ling-Wan Ji his name was included as one of the donors. The family probably had become rich before his father's generation. That uncle of his, Dang Yu-Jung, had purchased a minor official title. The donation list for the rebuilding of a temple in 1744 recorded a single sum donated by four Yus that included Yu-Jung and Si-Daan's father Yu-Man. Among the four, Yu-Ji had purchased a gung-sang degree in the Yongzheng period (1723-1735), and two others had degrees of gaam-sang. Si-Daan himself had purchased an official title of jau-tung.\n\nOf the ancestors whose tablets were housed in the hall Puk-Chai, gung-sang degree holder, is remembered by his descendants, who still keep an embroidery presented to the father of this degree holder on the occasion of a birthday.\" He was probably one of Jeung-Luk's brothers.\n\nF. Mau Ging Tong \n\nThe period of the late Ming and the early Qing was an eventful period for the people of the Xin'an county. The Kam Tin jiu festival itself had started as a response to experiences in this period, especially the serious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212305, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 247, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "224\n\ntwelve o'clock gun firing is due to the liberality of Mr Magniac (a partner) of Messrs. Jardine Matheson and Company, who, when the Home Government ceased to provide this small return for the heavy Military Contribution forwarded annually from this Colony, purchased a gun, etc. and had it fixed up at Messrs. Jardine's, where it is fired daily.\n\nAlthough their gun is still at East Point, not far from where Jardine's started trading in 1841, their head office moved to Central District as long ago as 1864. It has been said there is not one field of commerce in which it does not hold a prominent position and its 'tentacles' extend to interests in many other firms.\n\nHong Kong Land\n\nThe Colony's leading businessmen have usually had considerable interests in land, and it was thus fitting that two of them, Paul Chater (later Sir Paul) and James Johnstone Keswick, should be prime movers in the Hong Kong Land Investment and Agency Company which was incorporated in 1889. The latter, as Taipan of Jardine's, following in the footsteps of his great-uncle William Jardine, was also founding chairman of Hong Kong Land. James was the first of six Keswicks, spanning five generations, to hold the position.\n\nThe company soon began buying sites and erecting office buildings. Between June 1904 and December 1905 it erected Hong Kong's first 'skyscrapers', five major buildings each of five or six storeys, which dwarfed the two and three-storey structures surrounding them.\n\nHong Kong Land acquired Humphrey's Estate and Finance Company, which owns residential property in Mid-Levels, in 1972, and for 14 years 'Land' had a controlling interest in the Dairy Farm, Ice and Cold Storage Company. Today, the latter is once again an independent public company. In its centenary year Hong Kong Land owned some six-million square feet of commercial space of which five-million is in the so-called 'Core Central' area. The firm has been described as \"... perhaps the most valuable property company in the world and certainly in the region ....\" Whether this is true is not known. Certainly, today, some Japanese companies hold considerable interests in real estate on a global scale.\n\nL", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212332, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 274, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "251\n\nbeing until this century. In the last decade of the 20th century, however, it provides three-quarters of the electricity consumed in Hong Kong. Not long after the Company placed what was reported to be the largest ever single order with British industry, in 1980, six members of the board were made Commanders of the British Empire. There have also been two Knighthoods in the Kadoorie family.\n\nTransport\n\nMotor transport was mainly introduced into Hong Kong in the present century, and, by 1909, the Colony boasted five private cars. Steam power was, however, used at sea before it was employed on land, and by 1876 there were nine steam launches operating in the harbour, and the first regular cross-harbour ferry, employing steam launches, commenced in 1880. In 1898, the Star Ferry was incorporated and took over from Dorabjee Nowrojee the previous ferry owner.\n\nBritish firms were, nonetheless, involved with transport, and a proposal was made by Jardine's, in 1881, for a system of trams on Hong Kong Island. The same year another proposal was made for a tramway to Victoria Gap, and in 1885 the original promoters sold their rights to Phineas Ryrie and Alexander Findlay Smith (Findlay Path on the Peak is named after him) for $2,000. The latter, a merchant who arrived in Hong Kong in the 1860s and who had been an employee of Scotland's Highland Railway, was the driving force. In 1881, it was he who requested approval from Sir John Pope-Hennessy, for this innovative scheme.\n\nAccording to Mrs Maud Grant-Smith, the Governor told her late husband's uncle, Findlay Smith:\n\n\"My dear chap, you are simply throwing your money down the drain. Do you imagine anyone wants to go to the top of the Peak?\"\n\nBecause His Excellency would not help, Smith brought his own engineers from Scotland. As early as the 1840s Doctor William Morrison, the Colonial Surgeon (1847 to 1859), recommended spending the summer on the Peak. He also suggested a sanatorium be built there to alleviate the effects of heat and humidity. This was constructed but by 1868 it had fallen into disrepair, and had been rebuilt as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212489, "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-1991", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "23\n\nCloth Mill in 1879. They were regarded as merchants willing to take risks in adventurous undertakings, however, some of them lost money from pouring capital in modern enterprises and some even went bankrupt by speculating.\n\nXu Run (1838-1911)\n\nXu was the earliest, before Tang and Zheng, to come to Shanghai for business and trade as a comprador. In 1852, at the age of 15 Xu left his hometown Zhongshan, trade as a comprador. In 1852, at the age of 15 Xu left his hometown Zhongshan, transited through Macau and Hong Kong to Shanghai where he lived with his uncle Xu Yuting who was working at the Dent & Company in Shanghai (the first Western firm to open a branch in Shanghai) as a comprador. Xu entered Dent & Co. through his uncle's connection. Four years later Xu was promoted from a trainee (as Xu himself stated, he first learnt the tea and silk trade when entering the Company) to an assistant comprador and finally in 1861, he succeeded his uncle as the comprador. His diligent performance was greatly admired by the manager of Dent & Co., E. Webb. From Xu's autobiography, we are able to assess the wealth of a Cantonese comprador in Shanghai accumulated during his compradorial years and also as an independent merchant in which his business investment included various modern enterprises. Furthermore, his autobiography also tells of his complicated relations with Sheng Xuanhuai and Yuan Shikai as well as a part of his personal family history.\n\n30\n\nIn 1868, Xu Run left Dent & Co. and started his own business. He opened the Baoyuanxiang Tea House. The name itself manifested a tea trade business. By 1883, Xu had accumulated a personal wealth of 3,409,423.3 taels.\n\nItem\n\nTable 4\n\nAssets Owned by Xu Run in 1883\n\n \n Item\n Amount (taels)\n %\n \n \n Landed property in Shanghai\n 2,236,940.0\n 65.61\n \n \n Miscellaneous stocks\n 426,912.0\n 12.52\n \n \n Capital in pawnshops\n 348,571.3\n 10.22\n \n \n Shares in custody\n 397,000.0\n 11.64\n \n \n Total\n 3,409,423.3\n 99.90\n \n\nSource: Ku Run, Qing Xu Yuzhi Kiansheng Run Zixu Nianpu, pp 67-8", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212492, "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-1991", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "26\n\nRun, it is difficult to assess Tang's personal wealth accumulated during his compradorial years due to the absence of sources. However, it is not impossible to have an idea of his business activities through his connections with other Cantonese merchants and compradors.\n\nTang Tingshu left Jardines in 1873 when he was appointed General Manager (Zongban) of the recently organised China Merchants' Steam Navigation Co. The reason why he was appointed to the post was first his political patronage from Li Hongzhang; and second, his experience in organising steamship business. Tang put capital in Jardine's associate companies such as the Canton Insurance Office in 1868 and China Coast Steam Navigation Co. in which he had 40% of shares at 40,000 taels. Tang was mostly interested in this modern steamship business; he invested in and became one of the directors of the Union Steam Navigation Co. and also North China Steamer Co. established in 1867 and 1868 respectively. In 1870, Tang with his friends, purchased the steamer Nanzing and sold it to Jardines in which he had a personal investment of not more than fifteen thousand taels. At that time, Tang also put his capital into the steamer Suwonada of Augustine Heard & Co. and ships of two small steamship companies, Morris Lewis & Co. and H. Muller & Co. Although no evidence shows why the foreign owners of these companies invited Tang to join in partnership other than the motive of raising capital, it is certain that Tang was not inexperienced, for he was, as expressed by Liu Kwang-ching, \"in some cases actually performing full managerial functions\" in the modern steamship enterprises. More interesting is that Tang brought with him Cantonese capital as well as managerial staff to the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Co. Tang and Xu had entered with many management officers. Starting from Shanghai, these Cantonese spread to other treaty-ports such as Tianjin or Hankou.\n\nTang frequently joined with Xu Run and another Cantonese comprador at Shanghai, Zheng Guanying, in coordinating business investment. For example, with Xu Run, he invested in Anhui Guichi mines in 1877; Pingchuan Copper Mines in 1887 and Qian'an Iron Works in 1888. With Zheng Guanying, he invested sixty-five thousand taels in Tianjin Tanggu Cultivation Co. in 1881, and ten years later, they planned to build a paper manufactory. Tang and Zheng united to open two wharf companies, one at Foshan in 1882 and one at Canton in 1890. And last but not least, Tang and Xu as well as Xu's uncle, contributed a thousand taels each in founding, in 1872, the first Cantonese Chamber of Commerce in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212493, "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-1991", "page_number": 47, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "27\n\nShanghai, named the Guang Zhao Gongsuo,\n\nNeedless to say, Tang was famous amongst Cantonese merchants. In 1876, when Tang was organizing the telegraph office in Fuzhou, he was invited by Ding Richang to set up a Chinese bank with branches in Tokyo and London. The venture was supported by a group of Cantonese merchants to set up a modern bank with a paid-up capital of three hundred thousand taels to meet the increasing need of a financial institution to accelerate Chinese trade in foreign countries. Tang was also active in business circles in Hong Kong. He joined in partnership with his brother Tang Maozhi in the first sugar refinery in Hong Kong. Tang contributed three thousand taels while William McGregor Smith contributed the largest share of sixteen thousand taels. They planned to export sugar to Jiujiang, but probably due to Tang's transfer to Shanghai, export of refined sugar was changed to connect with Shanghai where they operated successfully until 1864. Afterwards Tang sold his share to his brother Tang Maozhi. The refinery was set up at East Point, Hong Kong, under the name of Smith, Wahee & Co. However, it eventually went bankrupt and was taken over by Jardine, Matheson & Co.\n\nTang left his work at China Merchants' Steam Navigation Co. in 1884 to manage the Kaiping Mines in Tianjin in which he had a personal investment of three hundred thousand taels. It has to be mentioned that with the appointment of Tang as the Kaiping's general manager, a large number of Cantonese workers were recruited for Tianjin. By 1891, the number of Cantonese workers had grown to five hundred of which some had returned from California and Australia. Though these Cantonese miners were more skilled and experienced than local workers, they did not get along with the local people and refused to teach their skills to the northerners, as they were called. In 1883 a group of a hundred men from Swatow had to be discharged because of conflicts between them and their headmen.\n\nZhang Guanying (1842-1922)\n\nZheng was born in Zhongshan. It is unclear when he moved from Zhongshan to Macau but it was certain that he had received his traditional education in Canton. After Zheng had failed in the public examination, he decided to become a merchant. In 1858, he was sent to his uncle Zheng Tingjiang in Shanghai, who had been a comprador to Overweg & Co. Zheng soon entered into the Anglo-Chinese School organized by a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213375, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "184\n\nIn its strict forms, fung shui does not involve the presence of a deity but in the rural villages in the New Territories, especially in the Hakka villages, a belief in fung shui is intimately interwoven with an older animistic belief in earth gods and tree spirits. Fung shui is intimately interwoven with the Tao and is an aspect of popular Chinese belief systems,\n\nThe comments and examples given in this account are taken from a doctoral thesis in social forestry carried out by the author on fung shui woods in the New Territories from 1990 to 1994 (Webb, 1995b). The study identified 337 fung shui woods in the New Territories from air photographs, examined the botanical composition of 60 woods, and carried out in-depth interviews with village representatives in 20 villages to determine how villagers used and perceived their woods today.\n\nOf great importance to the fung shui of a village are the shrines to the village spirits and earth gods. The earth gods have the generic name poo sat (good spirit), but may also have their own local names. For example, the earth god's name at the Tai Wong shrine of Ma Mat Wai near Fanling is 'Hin Tan'. The earth gods are territorial because they are thought of as spirits of the locality (genii loci) in which their shrine is situated. They are typically located by a large boulder or venerable banyan tree. The earth god, in its various forms, is seen as the presiding deity of the village, its protector and arbiter of disputes. Villagers will make offerings to them in return for favours at specific times (Burkhardt, 1958)\n\nThe earth gods may also be known generically as Tai Wong (great king) and Paak Kung (paternal great uncle), and are associated with shrines also bearing these names. At first sight and without local knowledge, it is often difficult to distinguish the two, but generally the former type of shrine is the more elaborate. The wealthier the village the more elaborate is the shrine, but no study has yet been done on styles of shrine in the New Territories. Just as village houses were constructed by travelling groups of masons (Hase, 1992), so village shrines may also have been built in the same manner, so that within any one district the shrines may display the same style of design.\n\nA Tai Wong shrine may have its own stone or cement platform with a similar \"armchair\" shape to that seen in the layout of traditional graves. On the altar, the focus of the shrine, often a special stone or inscribed plaque, may be provided with a roof. To one side of the shrine there may", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213854, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 206, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "179\n\nStewart II Lockhart. Report on the New Territory during the First Year of British Administration, Hong Kong Sessional Papers, 1900, p. 251\n\nBrum, op cit. p.94\n\n12 David Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 100\n\nInterviews: \"Uncle Lau\" (age: 73), Lam Che, Jun 18, 1991; Cheng Man Yim, op cit.; the Tung Chung Public School, Jan 24, 1991; K'ung Chuo-Yim (age 56), Ma Wan Chung, Jul 11, 1991; Headmaster Mui Wen Hsi (age 50), the Tung Chung Public School, Jun 6, 1991; Tseng Jung Wu (age 53), Ngat Au, Jun 28, 1991\n\n14 Interview of Lo Ch'uan Mei (age 82), Shaek Mun Kap, Jun 22, 1991\n\n15. Ha Wan Yee, \"Tung-chung-hsiang te min-chien tsung-chiao hsin-yang chi ch'i han-tung,\" Unpublished Graduation Thesis, History, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991, p. 4\n\nSessional Paper, 1911 (Hong Kong: The Government Printer), p. 103 (38)\n\n17 Interview of Teng Ch'iao (age 66), Ha Mei, Jun 26, 1991\n\n18 Interview of Teng P'ei (age 61), Ha Mei, Jun 18, 1991. According to her story, the Teng's ancestral hall was damaged by the Japanese, and since then the lineage has failed to raise money for its reconstruction. San Tau's Hsiehs also lost their genealogy as well as medical books to the Japanese, according to the interview of Hsieh Ch'i, op. cit., Jun 21, 1991\n\n19 Interview of Huang Wu (age 80+), Village Head of Tai Po, Aug 12, 1991\n\n20 Interview of Cheng P'o, op cit.\n\n21 Faure, op. cit., pp. 70-71; Marjone Topley, \"Chinese Religion and Rural Cohesion in the Nineteenth Century,” HKBRAS, Vol. 18 (1978), pp. 9-43\n\n22 Interview of Tseng Jung, op cit.\n\n23 Ho, op cit., p. 5\n\n24 For details of the ceremony, see Faure, op cit., p. 71\n\n25 C.K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society. A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of Their Historical Factors (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), pp. 11-12, 99\n\n26 For details of the chan festival, see Faure, op cit., pp. 84-86; David Faure, \"Hong Kong and China in the Village World,” HKBRAS, Vol. 24 (1981), pp. 76-79; Tanaka", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214312, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "134\n\nhave therefore added it here for the record.\n\nThe Sowerbys were an old family of Saxon stock that can be traced back to the time of Edward the Confessor, and possibly earlier to the first kings of Kent in the fifth century AD.\n\nArthur de Carle Sowerby was the great grandson of James Sowerby, who died in 1822, the botanist who wrote English Botany and was one of the founder members of the Geological Society. His son in turn continued his work and helped organise the Royal Botanic Society and Gardens in Regent's Park.\n\nOn his mother's side Arthur was descended from Pierre Séguier, the Chancellor of France in the reign of Louis XIII; he was also the great grandson of Anthony Stuart, the miniature and portrait painter of the early Victorian period. Arthur's uncle was part-founder and first Keeper of the National Gallery of Portraits in Trafalgar Square.\n\nAt the end of his schooling he began his training to be an artist but soon left it for that of a scientist, working for his BSc. at Bristol. He returned to China having dropped out of College and after his arrival back in China he was appointed in 1906 in the double capacity of lecturer and curator on the staff of the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin.\n\nHe served in France during World War 1 as Technical Officer in the Chinese Labour Corps, and on his return to China made his headquarters in Shanghai where he remained until the end of the Second World War.\n\nHe developed an interest in Chinese Art and was impressed by the accuracy of ancient Chinese craftsmen in modelling pottery animals for the tomb, an accuracy that enabled him as a naturalist to identify the breeds of various domestic animals in use in ancient China. He wrote a series of articles for the China Journal on Birds in Chinese Art; the Owl in Chinese Art; The Flora in Chinese Art; Rocks, Mountains and Water in Chinese Art; Animals in Chinese Art; as well as Animals in the Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales of China. His interest in craftsmanship also led him to write a series of articles on Chinese arts and crafts, including four papers on the Chinese ivory industry.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214352, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "175\n\nthe Zhou dynasty and became the emperor of the new dynasty, the Zhou, and is known by his reign title of Wu Wang. The Book of History suggests that his army consisted in part or in the main of a central Asian race, the Western Yi. Zhou Xin is vilified as a moral degenerate under the spell of a wicked concubine, Dan Ji. The Shang were attacked and replaced as the dominant force in northern China by the Zhou just before the first millennium BC, having come from the west. They established their capital near present-day Xi'an.\n\n6\n\nThe victor, Wu Wang [King Wu], passed on the title of Zhou Gong [Duke Zhou] to his brother, Dan, and also conferred the imperial title on his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who had only been dukes when still alive. Zhou Gong was the paragon of literary China for some three thousand years, and it was he rather than his imperial brother who was the author of the Constitution of Zhou. When his brother, the emperor, died leaving a young son, court officials and the vassals assumed that Duke Zhou would usurp the throne and kill his nephew. He did nothing of the sort, and instead, it was the young king who at the age of nineteen stripped his uncle of his powers and forced him to live in exile in Shandong where he died a few years later.\n\nThe deities described in traditional vernacular fiction, and in particular in the immensely popular novel the Fengshen Yanyi, are known to most Chinese, whereas the majority of those left out of the Fengshen Yanyi, apart from the major cult deities, have to all intents and purposes gone into limbo and are only known within small pockets of China or have been lost in the mists of time. Versions of the legend passed on orally often in local dialect, which frequently does not extend further than the extent of the dialect group, have numerous minor and occasionally major variations, whereas the written version was read China-wide in its 'established' state.\n\nSo many heroes and worthies make their appearance at one stage or another that it is impossible to name them all. Some appear momentarily during one of the battles, others are recorded in several chapters, occasionally with different names or titles, such as the Northern Emperor [Bei Di] who is also known by his titles, Xuantian Shang Di, The Supreme Lord of the Dark Heavens, and Zhen Wu, The True Warrior. And in temples today, in all probability, he will be known by only one of these titles, with local devotees vigorously denying that an identical...\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214653, "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": 68, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "32\n\nThe Tse clan had clearly bought into the village at a slightly earlier period - probably the grandfather of the household-heads recorded in 1902 had been the first to settle here. The family owned a complete subsistence estate - three houses within the walls, and one outside, and a total of 4.21 acres of arable land. They had probably bought out one or more of the Chan households. The Tse households had their landholdings arranged in a very closely interlinked fashion - the family was still, in 1902, clearly functioning very much as a single economic unit. There seem to have been four households, but only two were recorded as owning houses (in total, they owned four houses). 3.49 acres of the family agricultural land, however, were recorded as being owned by those two households not recorded as owning houses.\n\nOf the households recorded from the Ng clan in 1902 there were, as is to be expected, considerable variations in wealth. Of those household heads who owned their property without any other joint owner, the arable land owned varied from 0.41 acres (Ng Un-po), 0.56 acres (Ng Kun-po) and then through 0.83 acres (Ng Yuk-sing), 0.90 acres (Ng Kwong-ip), 1.23 acres (Ng Man-hi), 1.49 acres (Ng Shui) to 1.58 acres (Ng Kwai-cheung), and 1.61 acres (Ng Tak-tat). Of the joint owners, Ng Cheung-sing and Ng Lam-yau (probably uncle and nephew jointly inheriting from the younger man's grandfather) held 0.68 acres, Ng Fo-sang and Ng Tin-yau (probably another uncle and nephew joint inheritance) held 1.05 acres, Ng Hing-tak and Ng Loi-fat held 0.47 acres, Ng Hop and Ng Tak-lap held 1.20 acres, Ng Kit-san and Ng Yuk-chan held 0.81 acres, Ng Shing-fu and Ng Shui-fat held 1.37 acres, while Ng Tseuk-hin and Ng Tso-fuk held no less than 4.93 acres. In many of these cases one or other of the joint owners are also recorded as owning small areas of land as individuals in addition to their joint estates, but in each case the joint estate provided the great bulk of the property owned.\n\nAll the estates listed above would have been enough for subsistence. Farms in this area of less than an acre (if used for rice cultivation) did not need more than a single adult's labour, except at the peak harvest periods. Most families, however, had more than one single pair of adult hands (there would be both a husband and a wife, and often teenage or married children, and frequently a married sibling). It was normal in the area for one person to work the farm, or perhaps two, while others would go off to earn cash income as labourers or", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214960, "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": 56, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "11\n\ncrisis, wrote in his diary: 'A fine day: wrote couplets on fans.'\n\nLin's letter drafted to Queen Victoria was a noble and convincing message. In it he points out that opium is forbidden in England and therefore the English know its harmful effects. 'As long as you do not take it yourselves but continue to make it and tempt the people of China to buy it, you will be showing yourselves careful of your own lives but careless of the lives of other people....such conduct is repugnant to human feeling and at variance with the Way of Heaven.' He further writes: 'Rather than waste your efforts on a hopeless endeavour, would it not be better to devise some other form of trade?' (author's italics); surely a hint that trade relations without opium could perhaps be established. Unfortunately the letter was never sent. One can only speculate what might have happened if the young Queen, barely two years on the throne, had received this letter.\n\nLin reminded the foreign traders that they were allowed to trade as a favour, because China was completely self-sufficient, while the foreigners, especially the British, could not live without tea and rhubarb. The belief was widely held in China that the English would die of constipation if they were deprived of rhubarb.' Lin later modified his statement omitting rhubarb but leaving tea as an absolute necessity' (author's italics). The existing opium stocks in the factories were surrendered and destroyed (in salt and lime; not burned as sometimes stated), and for a while it seemed as if Commissioner Lin might succeed in his task, but the confrontation led to an armed conflict, known as the First Opium War (1839-1842), in which the Chinese with their antiquated methods of warfare and ineffective weapons were defeated on land and at sea. It was ‘A conflict between ignorant weakness and conscious strength. It ended in the Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking), by which terms China opened to foreigners the five ports of Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou (Foochow), Ningbo (Ningpo), and Shanghai as Treaty Ports, where they might reside and trade; an indemnity of 21 million dollars was exacted, and the Island of Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity to Britain. For China the war was a disaster and humiliation, the last vestiges of which were erased only a short time ago when Hong Kong was returned, in 1997, to its homeland. By contrast, Queen Victoria referred to the war in flippant tones. Writing to her uncle, the King of Belgium, in 1841, she states:- 'The Chinese business vexes us much, and Palmerston is deeply mortified at it. All", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215210, "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": 306, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "270\n\nconnection, as my mother was a Yip from Chan Uk Village, also at Nam Tau. There were over ten families of Ng in Kowloon Tsai, but we had no ancestral hall there. There were two parts to the village, an upper and lower part - Sheung and Ha Wai. We lived in the Ha Wai. There was a Tin Hau temple at the village, and we had puppet shows on the goddess' birthday every year when I was young. We also had a Ta Chiu in the village every ten years.\n\n'I was married to a Li of Sheung Sha Po Village when I was 18. My husband was a revenue officer in the Customs service. We had three houses in the village, but they were all demolished for the airfield extension. We were sent first to a vacant tenement house in Cheung On Street [not identified in a modern street guide, but very likely to have been in nearby suburban Kowloon] whose owner had left. We were there for 4-6 months, before moving to Model Village.\n\n'I am Shing Sung, now 55, a Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau and came to Kowloon when I was 18 to join my uncle who owned a wooden house at Tsat Kan Uk [The Seven Houses], a place north of old Kowloon Tsai Village. I later built a wooden hut there for myself. I came to Model Village after the war. I remember that there were private fields in the general area, as well as government land. People named Fung, Hui and Tsang owned fields there before the war.\n\n'I am Madam Law Mui, aged 57, also Hakka. I was born at Nam Tau, and came to Kowloon when I was 20, to marry Shing Sung's elder brother - also to The Seven Houses. We farmed government land there, for which we had a permit and paid fees, both before and after the war. There were many people at Ap Tsai Wu (Duckling Pond), the name of the general area where we lived and farmed. They were scattered here and there, because we were all vegetable farmers and you built your own house beside your own plot of land. Like Shing Sung, we moved to Model Village after the war.\n\n'I am Madam Kwai-fung, aged 64. I am a Hakka, born at Sha Po Tsai, Kowloon, where my family had lived for several generations. My father kept a store in Lower Sha Po, near Blacksmiths' Street in the Kowloon City suburb. When I was 22, I was married to Ng Sam-hong, a Punti, of Old Kak Hang Village, next to Nga Tsin Wai, when we had gone to live in a newly repaired house. We had two houses of our own at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215970, "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": 269, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "203\n\npropagating the Christian message. Later in May, 1861, Legge joined Chalmers and six others, including two Chinese evangelists, meeting Ch'ea and then touring the area. During this period they examined and accepted 101 applicants for baptism, performing the rites oftentimes in the vicinity of the local temples where they also preached.56\n\nWhat deserves further attention, however, is the ways in which Ch'ea himself pursued these kind of \"Christian duties\" when left to work on his own during this period of Sino-British conflict.\n\n57\n\nAlready by the time he returned to Hong Kong in May 1857, Ch'ea had developed his own pattern of a Christian form of life. This was largely based on his own feel for how to proceed, even though he had previously been instructed for six weeks in Hong Kong (during the period from May to June, 1856). Consequently, he did choose not to respond to his Catholic maternal uncle who \"advised me to worship my ancestors,\" choosing instead to face \"men's reproach or persecution\" rather than follow \"the doctrines of the Papists.\" Here it is evident that the Scottish Dissenter Protestant leanings of Legge and Ho, who had adopted them, had influenced Ch'ea. Also, when some educated men, possibly other local gentry not in the civil service, urged Ch'ea to \"be revenged for [the] hostility on the part of the officials,\" Ch'ea refused, saying that \"the disciples of Jesus do not strive with men.\" Clearly this emanated from his reading of the Shengjing and the Dissenter attitudes Legge and Ho had taught him, but stood in stark contrast to the military intrusions of the British in the area of Canton. As might be expected, images of the early Christian apostles in the New Testament and probably stories from the colporteurs and missionaries who passed through Poklo moved Ch'ea to itinerate outside the Poklo city walls. As he described his tours in 1857, he first headed west, then north, and finally east, preaching the message of the Christian religion he had learned to anyone willing to hear.58\n\nUnder these situations Ch'ea seemed to move largely out of a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216034, "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": 333, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "267\n\nThe force despatched up the Yangzi in 1629 by Koxinga's father was led by Zheng Huigui, Koxinga's uncle. It arrived off Zhenjiang just as the Manchu army was crossing over to Jin Shan [Golden Island], causing the Manchus to pause, change their plans and move further upstream for their crossing. However, the Manchus, having taken Nanjing, upstream, they floated downstream on rafts and after coming under fire from Zheng's force, still went on to capture Zhenjiang. Zheng fled downstream and back down the coast to Fujian. It was just at that moment that Koxinga's father deserted to the Manchu side. With most of Fujian province within his power Zheng, despite his submission to the alien Manchus, welcomed the Ming emperor who was fleeing ahead of the southward advance of the Manchus as a means of augmenting his power. Despite his protestations of loyalty he failed to aid the emperor's restorationist cause by the simple expedient of inactivity.\n\nOur next episode begins fifteen years after the execution of Koxinga's father in Beijing where he had been held hostage, with Koxinga himself vigorously opposing the Manchus. In 1659, Koxinga hearing that the Manchu forces were preoccupied in Yunnan province sailed to the mouth of the Yangzi where he remained whilst a portion of his fleet commanded by Zhang Huangyan, sailed up the Great River, captured Zhenjiang before sailing on to Wuhu, far upstream beyond Nanjing. Koxinga, himself, landed on Congming island near the mouth of the Great River and having marched across country, he entered the old Ming capital of Nanjing in triumph, where he proclaimed the restoration of the Ming. However, he was promptly besieged in Nanjing for four long months before surrendering the city and being able to escape. The failure of the second raid up the Yangzi led the Manchus to install large garrisons within the major walled cities down the Yangzi, Zhenjiang being but one. In each city a special quarter was set aside for the Manchu garrison, members of which were forbidden to have too much intercourse with the native Chinese and quite categorically were forbidden to marry them. The Manchus at first were merely feared but as the years passed so they grew to be heartily disliked. And in their later years they were despised. There was a remnant of the Manchus still in Zhenjiang in the 1920s, whose poverty was a burden on local charities and the authorities and whose extensive burial grounds down the centuries of both the Manchu White and Yellow Banners were still standing in the city's south-west suburbs. It was claimed that Zhenjiang reflected typical Jiangbei culture with a dash of Peking from the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]