[ { "id": 204467, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "88 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\n36 \n\nDisturbances apart, the common people preferred to be left to themselves. They rarely had anything to do with the magistrate and his followers and preferred it that way. The magistrate, in his turn, was glad to leave routine affairs to the local tribunals. The price paid for these attitudes was the prevalence of crime. Poor communications were no help. The magistrate was often rendered powerless by unrest and disturbances of all kinds. Robberies and descents on shore by pirate gangs could take place with impunity since, even if help came, it invariably arrived far too late. Crime might eventually be punished but it was seldom prevented. No one would inform on disturbers of the peace for fear of reprisals or being entangled in the meshes of the law. Commenting on coastal piracy in 1897 Consul Brenan wrote, \"The boat people never attempt to effect an arrest; there would probably be bloodshed and they would then be involved in judicial proceedings almost as unpleasant for themselves as for the pirates. They are thankful enough if they can get rid of their dangerous passengers, and persuade them to go off and try their fortune elsewhere\"** \n\nHowever, it is only fair to state that the people of the district were also apt to create trouble among themselves, especially when circumstances conspired to make life difficult as in the dry season. This was especially true of the more closely populated agricultural areas, with villages in close proximity to each other, often sharing the same water supply for their fields and personal needs. The volatile Cantonese temperament is not suited to a cautious settlement of complicated personal problems: it is easier by far to fly off the handle and strike an attitude than to sit down and think. Hence difficult situations often were made intolerable by proximity and a quick temper, and clan fights were not uncommon, especially in the Yuen Long area. Hostilities between southern villages were well known at the time.** A tablet in the Tin Hau temple at Miu Kong, Tsuen Wan, refers to the death of seventeen male villagers by armed conflict between this village and Shing Mun Pat Heung in three years of intermit-tent strife which began in 1861. To these disturbances between the Punti villagers can be added a general antipathy between Hakka and Punti which sometimes erupted into violence and was still smouldering after the Hakka rebellion thirty years before.\"\" \n\n38", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204816, "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": 119, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "HONG KONG BUTTERFLIES\n\n99\n\nA white, suffused dorsal patch, or smear, is on the fifth and sixth segments, extending down the sides. Half grown the creature is bright moss green and the processes become obsolete. The protective armament of all Papilio larvae is known as the osmeterium. From this gland it can protrude two forked filaments emitting an odour which is highly pungent, resembling certain dried fruits. In the case of P. paris the filaments are orange and it extends them when disturbed or annoyed. The pupa is subangular, the general colour bright green, the dorsal and wing ridges light yellow. The head is cleft very obtusely, forming two projections. It is attached to a twig by a cremestral pad at the tail, and a silk girdle. Its coloration makes it extremely hard to detect, and the pupa is rarely found until the imago has emerged, when the empty case, the shade of skimmed milk, renders it conspicuous.\n\nPractically all the Papilio larvae feed on the upper side of the leaf, and are consequently much easier to find than those of other families. Chilasa clytia, whose caterpillars are dark brown with vivid primrose streaks, is a case in point. The food plant is Litsea sebifera, and it seems to affect seedlings so that half a dozen larvae in various stages of growth, vie with each other to attract the human eye.\n\nMODEL AND MIMIC\n\nAnything in motion attracts the human eye, and butterflies on the wing are conspicuous objects. In nearly every case the upper sides of the insects would make concealment difficult, even at rest were the wings to remain spread. Whereas a moth on alighting chooses a background to suit the coloration, and pattern of its forewings which cover the often more brilliantly marked hind, the butterfly rests with folded members cocked up, and merely exhibiting the under pattern. This is usually marvellously broken up to suit the insect's normal surroundings and confers upon it a cloak of invisibility.\n\nIn flight the butterfly relies on speed to evade its main enemies the birds, and those species which have a weaker movement such as the Pieridae rely on its irregularity to dodge their foes. If one of these is met by a collector in a ride it will practically always slip over or under the net, and the only assured way of capture is to strike when the insect is past, with a following sweep.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204821, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "104\n\nV. R. BURKHARDT\n\nIts speed gives the butterfly immunity from the collector except when feeding, or, in the case of the female ovipositing. The commonest food plant is Cretaeva religiosa, a deciduous tree with large clumps of white and yellow flowers. The larva, when irritated, draws in its legs and elevates its head and the forepart of the body. Its laterally swollen anterior segments and small head give it the aspect of a snake, the illusion being enhanced by a darting movement towards the intruder as if about to strike like a cobra.\n\nIn propagating its species the butterfly is very improvident for the females continue laying their eggs right up to December, when the leaves fall. Pupae and larvae in all stages consequently perish. There was a great dearth of this species in the autumn of 1962 as Typhoon Wanda, which struck the Colony on 1st September, stripped a large number of the Cretaeva trees. Though they were again in full leaf three weeks later the rhythm of reproduction was broken, and the same applied to the food plant. On the anniversary of the typhoon it again shed its leaves, and flowered a month later. In Stanley, at any rate, the females of H. glaucippe did not begin to frequent the tree till late summer, and the general scarcity continued throughout the autumn of 1963.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205724, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "24 \n\nT. C. CHENG \n\nfounded a company named after himself. He was also General Manager of Chinese Estate, Ltd., and adviser to the Hong Kong and Yaumati Ferry Company. He was Honorary Adviser to the Chinese Government as well as the Kwangtung Provincial Government. In 1924, he turned down a Chinese offer to be ambassador to England. He was a member of the Legislative Council for 13 years, from 1923 to 1936, and a member of the Executive Council for 5 years from 1936 to 1941. He was created a knight bachelor in 1938.\n\nThe big strike of 1925 was followed by a boycott of British goods and shipping in China until 10 October 1926, resulting in a serious economic depression in Hong Kong. Mainly through the persuasiveness of Robert Kotewall a special loan of £1,600,000 with an interest rate of 5½%, was arranged from the British Government to assist the merchants of the Colony until normal trading was resumed. Because of this, the Chinese gave him the nickname of \"Silver Tongue\". Sir Robert Kotewall died after the war in 1949,27\n\nIn 1929, the Legislative Council was enlarged through the initiative of the Governor, Sir Cecil Clementi, who was a noted Chinese scholar. The number of officials was increased from eight to ten, including the Governor, and the number of unofficials was increased from six to eight. Of the two additional unofficial members, one was to be a Chinese and the other a Portuguese. Thus the number of Chinese unofficials was increased from two to three and the Portuguese community was represented for the first time on the Council by Mr. Jose Pedro Braga.\n\nIn addition to Sir Shouson Chow and Robert Kotewall, Dr. Tso Seen-wan became the third Chinese member of the Legislative Council in 1929. Dr. Tso, born in 1868, studied law in England. In 1896 he started his practice as a solicitor in Hong Kong together with a partner named Hodgson. In 1902, he, Dr. Ho Kai and some other Chinese leaders were responsible for the founding of St. Stephen's Boys College. He served on the Sanitary Board in 1918 and was appointed a J.P. the same year. As early as 1916, he was awarded the honorary degree of LL.D. by the University of Hong Kong, and in 1928 and 1935 was awarded the O.B.E. and C.B.E. respectively. He served on the Legislative Council from 1929 to 1937 when he resigned.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206320, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "The District Watch Committee \n\n131 \n\ntoo sharply between them all. High government officials, such as the Secretary for Chinese Affairs and the Colonial Secretary, were likely to meet this cluster of Chinese constantly, if not at formal meetings, then socially, ceremonially, ritually. It follows that before the war Hong Kong had an oligarchical political structure in that a small number of entrenched and established Chinese shared political control over a largely immigrant and migratory population together with a small number of officials and taipans.\n\nThe pre-war European community in Hong Kong had no official committees of its own, although Europeans tended to predominate on certain committees such as the Labour Advisory Board and the Licensing Board60. Thus Europeans lacked the equivalent of the eleven officially recognised all-Chinese committees, the names of which were enshrined annually in the Civil Service List. The government felt no need either to sponsor or promote a system of counter-balancing European committees because of course the administration was controlled at the top by European colonial civil servants and only a few thousand Europeans were resident in Hong Kong.\n\nBut it is of some significance that in the face of growing Chinese working-class intransigence in the 1920s, illustrated by the spate of strikes, beginning with the mechanics' strike of 1920 (the first major industrial strike in Hong Kong) and culminating with the great strike and boycott of 1925-26, Europeans set up their own 'district' associations. The Kowloon Residents' Association was formed in 1922 and the Peak dwellers, the leading European residents, formed theirs a little later in the same year like the European residents on Cheung Chau, a favourite summer station with missionaries; and in 1925 the Mid Levels residents also formed an association. None, understandably, was given statutory or official recognition by government. Such associations were unnecessary for the District Watch Committee was hyper-active during these turbulent years and as keen to protect the European minority and thus help sustain the economy as were Europeans themselves. The Committee worked hard to bring the general strike and boycott to an end by mediation with strike leaders and holding talks with interested parties in Hong Kong and Canton, the strikers' base; and the District Watchmen were active in preventing intimidation of shopkeepers, fokis, artisans", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206321, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "132 \n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE \n\nand workers. In one case, a District Watch Inspector arrested a member of the Secret Strike Party (the so-called Labour Commission) carrying illegal dispatches to union members, a fact duly noted in the Secretary for Chinese Affairs' report for 1925. \n\nIt is difficult to see how the Hong Kong government could have coped as well as it did with periods of economic recession after 1918, with years of labour unrest, with the rising tide of nationalism emanating from Nationalist China, without the strong support of the Committee, whose members between them sat on most of the ten other official Chinese committees and boards. The members of the District Watch Committee were strongly entrenched in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Chinese Clubs and they played a significant role in the Chinese Manufacturers' Association. They also occupied important positions in district associations, benevolent societies, guilds of employers and business associations. The power and influence of the Committee ramified down through such associations, so that the few were able to exercise political control over the many62. Thus the power of the Committee was diffused through many associations, helping to maintain what no doubt the government would call 'sensible attitudes' among the Hong Kong-born Chinese, the group that formed the vertebra of the Colony. \n\nThe District Watch Committee was re-established after the return of the British administration in 1945, the Committee containing the same names as in 1941. No further nominations were ever made. A hundred and one District Watchmen reported for duty in 1945-6 and carried on with their normal duties: patrolling streets, conducting enquiries in connection with boarding houses, guilds, and the protection of women and girls, and making general investigations on behalf of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. In addition, the force assisted the rice controller in checking black marketing in government supplies; they were also put on static guard duties at various premises requisitioned by government. But the pre-war system of soliciting private subscriptions for the upkeep of the force was abandoned in 1945: henceforth it was financed entirely by the government; and government soon decided that the strength of the force should gradually be reduced to about fifty men, which would be sufficient to deal with the special requirements of the Secretariat for Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206328, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE DISTRICT WATCH COMMITTEE\n\n139\n\n36 In 1917 there were 31 guilds for employers only (in trades such as silk, sandalwood, wicker furniture and copper), 35 skilled craftsmen guilds (sandalwood workers, masons, tinsmiths, etc.) and 5 guilds with mixed membership (employers and workers). There were also 17 district societies, such as the Heung Shan (Hsiang-shan) resident merchants association and the General Commercial Association of the Tung Kun (Tung-kuan) merchants resident in Hong Kong. See the list of exempted and registered societies in the Gazette, 27 April 1917.\n\n37 Wei Yuk was appointed in 1891 and served until his death in 1929. He resigned several times in order to allow a newcomer to join the Committee but was soon re-appointed. Lau Chu-pak was appointed in 1902 and served until his death in 1922. Sir Shouson Chow was appointed in 1917 and was still a member in 1949, the year of the demise of the Committee.\n\n38 During the years 1929 to 1931 and in 1936 the Committee met four times a year at Government House. Lennox Mills states that members had the right to a guard of the District Watch Force on the occasion of weddings and other festivities'. The Secretary for Chinese Affairs tells us in his report for 1936 that through the kindness of His Excellency the Committee was able to meet the members of the Mui Tsai Commission on the occasion of their first visit to the Colony, 'All members attended and there was a valuable discussion with frank interchange of views'. When the Governor, Sir Henry Blake, left the Colony in 1903 on the day of his departure he inspected the District Watchmen. Clearly, everything was done by the government to give prestige and éclat to the Committee and the force.\n\n19 T. C. Cheng, op. cit., p. 18.\n\n40 Of the Chinese land population in the 1901 census 227,615 returned themselves as natives of Kwangtung Province, 179,296 of this number belonging to the Kwong Chau Prefecture, 28,844 came from Tung-kuan hsien, 28,587 from P'an-yü hsien, and 27,221 from Nan-hai hsien. The situation was substantially the same in the censuses of 1911, 1921 and 1931. In 1911, for example, 311,992 out of 350,418 Chinese in Hong Kong, exclusive of the New Territories, spoke Cantonese,\n\n41 Op. cit., pp. 399-400.\n\n42 Heung Shan, present-day Chung Shan, is the arid county on the west side of the Pearl River, stretching down to Macau. It was the Heung Ha, the Cantonese term for the province, district or village from which each person derives his ancestry, of many prominent Chinese, including Ng Choy (Wu Ting-fang), Yung Wing (Yung Hung), Wong Shing (Huang Shêng), and Sun Yat-sen. Many Chinese merchants in Hong Kong came from this county; for example, Wei Yuk, Ma Ying-piu (founder of the Sincere Company), M. Y. San (before 1941 the largest biscuit manufacturer in China), Tsang Foo, Look Poong-shan (founder of the Bank of Canton). Su Chao-cheng, organiser and leader of the Seamen' Strike in 1922, came from this county; in 1928 Su was elected to the Central Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party. The anarchist, Liu Ssu-fu, was also born there. In 1938 the Chung Shan Commercial Association had a membership of over 4,000 in Hong Kong.\n\n43 In 1905, for example, at least seven members of the Committee were compradores to important western firms; one was manager of a native bank; another of a prosperous pawnshop; a third ran a large export firm. Ho Kai was primarily a financier rather than an entrepreneur. See on this point the Chinese speculator Marie-Claire Bergère, \"The Role of the Bourgeoisie' in M. C. Wright, ed., China in Revolution: The First Phase 1900-1913, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968, p. 236.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206358, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "HISTORY OF MILITARY VOLUNTEERS IN H.K.\n\n159\n\npay certain sums into the Corps Funds. These variations to the old Ordinance are important as no fixed period under penalty had been enjoined in it, and no special duties other than active military service had been envisaged for the force.\n\nThe reasons for these changes must again be sought in the changing nature of the times. The educated youth and the industrial labour of China had entered into a period of unrest and discontent brought about by their country's weakness. China had entered the war as an ally of the Western powers in 1917 but despite this they refused to give up tariff privileges and treaty ports (the European concessions) or to make their other Eastern ally, Japan, relinquish her territorial encroachments on China. The 1920s were a time of growing internal strife in China coupled with increased resentment of the West. Hong Kong was not excluded from the impact of ideological struggle. The Seaman's Strike of 1922 and the General Strike of 1925-26 crippled the port and damaged the economy of the Colony. An emergency situation existed, and thus a fresh impetus was given to the Volunteer Corps whose services were again needed for humdrum but essential work. Colonel H. Owen Hughes recalls being called out for six weeks in 1925, and combining office work by day with duty by night patrolling the streets and guarding hospitals and vulnerable points.20 Whoever decided that a new Ordinance was needed in 1920 was a man of prescience and discernment. Other amendments were made to the Volunteer Ordinance in 1926 and 1927 (No. 15 of 1926 and No. 27 of 1927) in the light of contemporary requirements.\n\nBy the late thirties hostilities were again threatening in Western Europe and Japan's gradual encroachments in China led to actual war in 1937 and the occupation of Canton the following year. The danger which these events might bring to Hong Kong had already been anticipated. The Corps grew in size during this period and the Year Books between 1934 and 1940 make interesting reading. In the first issues we see that, following the Ordinance of 1933, the Volunteer Defence Corps consisted of one battery of artillery, a machine gun battalion that included three machine gun companies, corps infantry (largely Portuguese) and corps engineers and signals and armoured cars with a reserve company.\n\n20 Vol, 1964, p. 42.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206364, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "HISTORY OF MILITARY VOLUNTEERS IN H.K.\n\n165\n\nkam Lo (1893-1959) as a private.40 He was Oxford-educated and a prominent barrister, related through marriage to the Ho Tung family, and thus could fit in. He was no doubt persuaded to join because of the emergency created by the General Strike of 1925-26; that is, if he had not joined earlier. It would be interesting to know whether he was the first, or among the first, Hong Kong Chinese to join the Corps.41\n\nBecause of the empire-wide Volunteer Movement and because of or perhaps despite two World Wars, the British volunteers have often been ex-Regulars, ex-Militia or, mostly, ex-Volunteers either at home or in other places. A few examples will show this general tendency over the years. H. H. Read, who sent a letter and photograph of the 1882 Volunteers for the 1937 Year-book, mentions that he had come out from England in 1882 “and having served in the 2nd Norfolk Rifle Volunteers (Windsor Review 1881) I joined the Hong Kong Volunteer Artillery which was commanded by Col. Crawford, R. A.”.42 Sir John Carrington, Chief Justice of Hong Kong, who was Commandant of the Corps 1896-1901, had served with the British Guiana Militia before coming to Hong Kong.43 Arthur Chapman, Commandant from 1907, had come to Hong Kong in 1889 as Assessor of Rates and had served in his native Yorkshire for some years as a member of the 1st East Riding of Yorkshire Royal Garrison Artillery (Volunteers).44 Many other examples could be quoted, including His Excellency Sir Thomas Southorn, Colonial Secretary and Officer Administering the Government in 1935 who, in his address to the Corps printed in the 1935-36 Year Book, was described as \"a Volunteer in Ceylon for many years\".45\n\nIn the later period, because of two world wars, the amount of previous military experience met with in the Volunteers has been considerable, particularly in the period between the wars when there were many persons in the Colony who had seen much service in 1914-18. When the Volunteers got going in earnest\n\n40 Vol, 1954, p. 240.\n\n41 But see note 28 above.\n\n42 Y.B., 1937, p. 28.\n\n43 J. W. Norton-Kyshe, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2 Vols, 1898): see index.\n\n44 Twentieth Century Impressions, p. 277.\n\n45 Y.B., 1935-36, p. 4.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206632, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "174\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nA legend in another book, the Shen I Ching (*) says that Chin Ch'ong (†) the son of Pan Ku the Creator of the World, who lived in the mountains of Shantung province, was canonised T'ai Sui for his many good deeds and was made responsible to Heaven for supervising the activities of all spirits (shen‡) and demons (kuei§). Few present-day Chinese with whom I have spoken appear to know of this story.\n\nT'ai sui was first worshipped during the Sung Dynasty in the eleventh century A.D. and was first offered official sacrifices during the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. Only after The Deification of the Gods popularised the idea was T'ai Sui identified with Yin Ch'iao.\n\nReason for the worship of Yin Ch'iao\n\nYin Ch'iao, or T'ai Sui as he will be referred to from now on, is a stellar deity who in many parts of China is believed to have flood, famine and all good and bad fortune under his jurisdiction. He is worshipped by the general populace to avert calamities, and has to be placated before any enterprise or journey is embarked upon. He was also worshipped by the imperial officials at the beginning of Spring. He is known to control the dates and times of births and deaths, and each one of his sixty images often displayed in rows in temples is dedicated to one specific year in the sixty year cycle of Chinese dating. Chinese place their offerings on the altar before the T'ai Sui bearing the cyclic year date of their birth. Father Doré in his Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine calls him the \"Patron of the Harvests\".\n\nT'ai Sui is the great Father Time who, presiding over the year, is the arbiter of the destiny of all men. He is very much feared as he destroys those whom he dislikes and those who offend him. He is said to strike when least expected and can injure and destroy the highest and the lowest, at home or on the high roads, but is believed never to injure anyone in the vicinity of his, T'ai Sui's, own person. Therefore it is essential to know where he is at any given moment, and if he is nearby but not immediately present, he is at his most dangerous and precautions against his evil influence must be taken at once. This is done by hanging the appropriate talisman or stellar charm near the front door or facing the entrance. To find where T'ai sui will be during the forthcoming year he is believed to move annually—a device similar to a compass is used by a fêng shui\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206757, "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-1973", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG, \n\n1903-1915* \n\nA. J. S. LACK \n\nThere are many things in the port of Hong Kong which are taken for granted. One example which is quite remarkable in its own right is the typhoon shelter at Yaumatei, Kowloon. This shelter has provided refuge for local craft in any number of typhoons since it was completed; but it is not its present use on which I intend to speak to you today, but rather to give an account of the events which led to its construction as these are to be traced in the records of the proceedings of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong†.\n\nThe story goes back to 1900 when a very severe typhoon caused a great deal of damage in the Colony. Following that storm and in the years 1901 and 1902, many demands were made that the Government should do something to afford greater protection to the boat people in Hong Kong during the typhoon season. There were then none of the sophisticated means whereby the course of a typhoon could be accurately plotted several days before striking the Colony. Indeed the nature of these storms was simply not understood at that time, and in the early days of the century and before typhoons would strike without warning and frequently caused extensive damage and loss of life. There were, however, within the harbour some relatively sheltered anchorages and unreclaimed bays in which the fishing people and the boat population in general could take refuge during storms. But there was only one artificial typhoon shelter at that time. This was a small shelter at Causeway Bay, constructed in 1883.\n\n* An Address given to Kowloon Rotary Club on 26th December, 1972. * Mr. Lack is the Principal Marine Officer in the Marine Department, Hong Kong Government, and has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 1953.\n\n† In 1913 when a new edition of the Laws of Hong Kong was published, the Legislative Council of the Colony consisted of the Governor, the Senior Military Officer, the Colonial Secretary, Attorney General and Treasurer, plus up to three other Official Members and up to six Unofficial Members. The work and proceedings of the Council are set out in Instructions (1888) and Additional Instructions (1896) contained in pp. 14-23 of Vol. 3 of the Alabaster Edition of the Laws of Hong Kong, 1913. An up to date account of the work of the Legislative Council and its senior partner, the Executive Council, is given in Hong Kong 1973, Report for the Year 1972, (H.K. Govt. Press, 1973), pp. 200-201. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207160, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n225 \n\nand half-caste parentage, and to board, clothe and instruct them with a view to industrial life and the Christian faith according to the Church of England'. (Resolutions of Jan. 18, 1870) \n\nAfter the reorganisation, the Committee came under male domination; local firms were liberal supporters. Some members of Jardine, Matheson and Company were on the Committee from 1869 to 1901, William Keswick serving the longest from 1869 to 1888, except for his absences from the Colony. Sir Catchick Paul Chater served from 1874 to 1925. \n\nThe school was particularly useful in meeting the educational needs of the increasing Eurasian element in Hong Kong and the China Coast. It educated many of the future leading members of these communities. In 1869, it was decided not to admit any more girls as boarders, though they could continue as day students. In 1892, the girls then in attendance were transferred to a Boarding School 'Fairlea' conducted by Miss Margaret Johnstone. \n\nBefore occupying a building especially erected for the school on a lot on Bonham Road at Eastern Street in 1863, the school had been at the Albany, a building loaned to them by the Government. The Bonham Road building was enlarged and improved over the years. In time, however, it became inadequate for the needs of the school, especially as a growing emphasis on the role of sports in the life of the school was frustrated by a lack of proper playing fields. In 1917, a definite decision was made that a new site be secured. The firm of Messrs. Little, Adams and Wood drew up plans for a new school in 1920, but negotiations with the Government for a site were not completed until 1923. Site formation began in 1924. The general strike of 1925 and the resulting financial recession slowed down the construction and necessitated the elimination of certain parts of the original plans. An imposing tower, a feature of the original plan, was never erected. \n\nThe buildings were occupied in 1926, but in 1927, the school somewhat reluctantly released the premises to the Army for a hospital for the Shanghai Defence Force. The school took up temporary quarters in a recently built block of buildings on Nathan Road near Prince Edward Road. In January 1928, the premises were returned to the school. The school faced another crisis in 1932 when suggestions were made that the Government resume the property in default of payments on the debt the School owed and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207861, "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": 249, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "234\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\ntance was put up by the Administration to geomantic objections to plans for development. Reporting on the first phase of British rule Orme wrote that fung shui objections had been made to the proposed routes of the railway and roads, 'but it is characteristic of the Chinese folk that their superstitious fears have always yielded ultimately to the needs of a progressive age.' (Report on the New Territories, 1899-1912, p. 47). But as long as the Administration wishes to honour its undertaking to respect local beliefs and customs the formula it has arrived at seems to be the most sensible that could be devised. It appears to strike the right compromise between intransigence and complete passivity.\n\n69. I come now to the price the Administration must pay. If fung shui is detrimentally disturbed not only may compensation be demanded but a ritual remedy may be sought which often takes the form of a tun fu, a series of rites to prevent misfortune. Fung shui, as I have argued, is a kind of 'science', its principles working automatically and without the agency of anthropomorphic supernatural entities. But some fung shui, even undisturbed, give off a malign influence, a Killing Breath (shaat hei) for which the remedy cannot be sought within fung shui itself. Rites become necessary. They call upon supernatural beings (as opposed to forces) and, characteristically, require the services of men who, being 'priests' and not, so to say, scientific technicians, stand in contrast to geomancers. In reality, the contrast is imperfect, for some geomancers do apparently undertake to perform tun fu, but the 'pure' fung shui sin shaang will not meddle with such things, saying that a Deadly Breath will never emanate from a properly constructed fung shui and that the remedy for a disturbed one is the province of religious practitioners from whom he is careful to dissociate himself. Tun fu are typically performed by maam moh lo, although other kinds of ritual specialists may also be involved; there is a spirit-medium in the Tai Po area who has performed these rites. Tun fu (or tan fu, as it is called in some places; there are some linguistic and ethnographic questions I cannot discuss here) invokes a range of deities, general and local, to counteract the malignancy and ensure peace. Among these deities some will decide that the work falls within their province and take appropriate action. Tun fu by one rite imposes a special religious embargo on the action of the evil influences and by another removes the embargo when peace and security seems to have been assured. The Administration and others", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208130, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH \n\n153 \n\nOccasionally the D.O. was called on to do special jobs outside his district. One such job I did at the Land Officer's request in 1930 or 1931 was to enquire into the holdings in Stanley village, to discover who the various lot owners were; this meant a good deal of domiciliary visitation in searching for lot boundaries, and looking for owners who might turn out to be in Macao, Australia, or Panama, and were not infrequently in their graves. This was necessary because the Land Office had no demarcators, and the Land Officer knew law but not Chinese: and the village was to be replanned and modernised. I hope the right people got the compensation, whether in land or cash: I never heard anything over the arrangements.\n\nThe collection of revenue from the District, excluding lots held directly from the Government as Inland Lots granted through the Land Office, was always a most important duty of the District Officer. The Crown rent was collected both at the District Office and at various outstations, chiefly Tai O, Cheung Chau, Tsun Wan, and the small police quarters at Yung Shue Wan on Lamma. The outstation collections were done by a shroff accompanied by an Indian constable, and in the remotest places the Water Police gave their assistance. As a rule I believe the Water Police brought back the shroff and the money, though I think the ordinary ferry conveyed him to the scene of action. The collecting was done at the local police stations. It always began about the end of July, after the first rice crop, and went on at full blast till about October: defaulters were dealt with early the next year. Licence fees for forestry, squatters' fees, and pineapple plantation licence fees were usually paid before midsummer at the District Office.\n\nIn 1925, the year of the big Communist-inspired Nationalist general strike, the office shroff was transferred on promotion. His substitute was a young fellow fresh from the Treasury, who took advantage of the disturbance and the preoccupations of his superiors to embezzle part of the receipts, and finally absconded three months after the strike began. A former District Officer South remarked to me later that he had always been worried by the possibility of this kind of thing happening to him, and the almost total impossibility of keeping a tight check on shroffs when frequent absence from the office, sometimes all day, is part of the D.O's duty. Luckily his security just covered his defalcations: and another shroff in the same racket was caught out by me and part of his loot recovered.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208379, "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-1978", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "POLITICIZATION OF CHINESE CRAFT ORGANIZATION\n\n87\n\nImplicit in the actions of the nationalist group was the desire to prove the superiority of its political stripe by winning greater gains for its constituents. Capital may indeed have been receptive to nationalist attempts to upstage the Communist rival.\n\nDespite its divisions, organized labor had signalled the end of what had been an era of relative industrial peace during the 1950's. Not to be caught unawares in the future, the art carved furniture shop and factory proprietors organized the Art Carved Furniture and Camphorwood Chests Merchants Association as the bargaining agent for capital within the year. When the next strike occurred in the industry in 1964, the merchants were prepared to take full advantage of both the traditional as well as political divisions within the ranks of their workers. As the strike of 1964 dragged into its second month, the Merchants' Association succeeded in wooing a group of painters away from the main body of striking workers and concluded an agreement with them which successfully broke the back of the strike. Next, they were able to isolate the Communist Woodwork Carvers' Union by continuing negotiations with the nationalist unions after their workers had returned to work. The Woodwork Carvers' Union never came to formal terms in 1964, claiming in the local press that it had succeeded in exacting more favorable terms for its members from individual employers.\n\nThe center stage of the 1964 dispute was clearly occupied by the Merchants' Association in its manoeuverings and dealings with separate groups of its divided labor force. The merchants were waxing strong as power-driven machinery had by that time been introduced into production, increasing the capital required to operate competitively in the industry, widening the income gulf between worker and boss and increasingly alienating the workers from the tools of their trade. Labor's position was still being undermined by the persistence of a labor force divided along craft occupational lines, although politics had by now been established as the dominant divisive factor.\n\nAnother work stoppage occurred in 1967 when communist workers answered the call for a general strike put forward by the communist Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, the umbrella labor organization charged with implementing the Maoist political line radiating from Peking at the local Hong Kong level. The call for a general strike and the large-scale rioting which precipitated", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208930, "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-1980", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "60\n\nLEWIS M. CHERE\n\never nationality. It was this action which the Tsungli Yamen blamed for the troubles in Hong Kong when they refused to order Chang Chih-tung to republish the decree of censure. By October 3 trade was at a standstill and serious damage to the Colony's economy was feared. Newspaper accounts of the strike were at pains to point out that the boatmen really wanted to work but were being prevented by threats made against their family members still living in Kwangtung. A report of October 1 stated that there were three or four wei-yuen from Canton then in Hong Kong to support the boycott.15 The boatmen were supposedly even ready to return to work without a guarantee of their right to boycott French ships, but dared not do so. The theme of the unknown, but influential outside agitator is very common in the official and unofficial accounts of the troubles, just as it is in similar situations around the world in more modern times. It would be surprising if the officials and reporters of 1884 had not believed something of that nature to be true.\n\nOn October 3 the boatmen were ready to return to work. Though their reasons were probably economic, the newspapers do not support the claim made later by Charles Norman that the strike was broken by an offer to pay the Chinese double for working the French ships.16 No such offer was recorded, and the accounts quite plainly indicate that the boatmen were not prepared to return to work for the French.\n\nThough the boatmen were ready to return to work, opinion among their fellow Chinese ashore was against anything of the sort. Groups of cargo coolies tried to prevent the boatmen from returning to work. They also spread the strike to the chair-carriers and ricksha men. Violence broke out when the police attempted to stop the cargo coolies from harassing the boatmen. It was at this point that foreigners in general, rather than just Frenchmen, came under attack. A few traditional-style placards were seen denouncing foreigners in general. A very few appeared calling for the torching of the town. Most of the foreigners who were in jeopardy happened to have been unfortunate enough, or ignorant enough, to have gotten themselves into the wrong place at the wrong time and were swept up in the general disturbance,17\n\nIn an attempt to prevent further outbreaks the colonial administration banned the annual procession of the Feast of the Lanterns,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208933, "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-1980", "page_number": 95, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "HONG KONG RIOTS OF OCTOBER 1884\n\n63\n\nmajor factor in the affair. On October 24 the Hong Kong Chinese population was reported to have been very agitated by the appearance in the city of a man who claimed to have captured a French standard and was on his way to Canton to collect the reward being offered there for such items. The description of the stir he caused among the local population cannot but lead one to believe that a great deal of national pride was involved in the demonstration. National pride is one of the first signs of true nationalism.\n\nOne other piece of evidence may be cited along the same lines as the above incident. On August 29 the North China Herald reported great excitement among the Chinese population of Shanghai at the news of the battles at Foochow. The editor felt it necessary in commenting to state that he should withdraw everything he had ever said about the lack of public opinion or interest in political events among the Chinese. He, like his colleague in Hong Kong two months later, was trying to come to grips with the realization that the old ideas about the lack of national feeling among the Chinese were no longer valid.\n\nHow much of what happened in Hong Kong during September and October of 1884 can be traced to influences from the mainland, and how much was due to genuine national feeling among the Chinese population? We do know that one of the small number of Chinese banished under the Peace Preservation Ordinance was accused of being a paid agitator from Canton, but how many others like him were there and how much influence did they have? We also know that many of the strikers during the troubles claimed coercion from Canton in defense of their action, but in the general strike that followed they claimed to be striking for the right to boycott the French. Were they claiming coercion because they believed that that was what the Europeans wanted to believe?\n\nAnother aspect of this problem is the fact that we have here a very early example of the labor boycott and strike among a local Chinese population. Thus, in addition to the question of how much nationalism was involved in these events, we also have the question of how modern a labor movement was it? The demand for the right to boycott the French would seem to indicate some kind of developing labor consciousness which would gladden the heart of a Marxist historian if it could be proven true.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209430, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "# THE STRIKE AND RIOT OF 1884\n\n# A HONG KONG PERSPECTIVE\n\nELIZABETH SINN*\n\nIn the autumn of 1884, Chinese dock workers in Hong Kong staged a strike against French ships. The strike spread, bringing trade to a standstill and creating much animosity. After a few days, a riot broke out in the Central and Western districts. This caused great excitement; the military was called out, the fleet was put on the alert, and the government passed new legislation for preserving the peace. The local press became almost hysterical. It became a diplomatic issue between Peking and London, and questions about it were raised in the House of Commons.\n\nYet, despite the uproar these events created, relatively few historians, including historians of Hong Kong, have paid attention to them. This paper is an attempt to reconstruct this dramatic episode, and to examine its significance.\n\nIn 1884, the war between China and France over Annam dominated the horizon of East and Southeast Asia. The year before, the Chinese had despatched regular troops quietly into Tongking. As negotiations broke off, the Chinese court feared a French attack on China itself, and important officials were sent south to consolidate the front. P'eng Yu-lin,** a president of the Board of War was appointed Commissioner for the Coastal Defence of Kwangtung, and in the following year, 1884, the conspicuously pro-war Chang Chih-tung became Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. Officials and people both of Canton and the surrounding region responded excitedly to every move the French made.\n\nOn 5th August, 1884, French warships bombarded Keelung,\n\n* Miss Sinn is a Ph.D. candidate of the University of Hong Kong, currently working as Resources Officer in the History Department of that University.\n\n** All Chinese names/words will be Romanized according to the Wade-Giles system except where there are other transliterated forms in common usage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209432, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "67\n\nalready scraped her bottom. Members of the crew were forced to finish painting her themselves.\n\nA few days later, Sino-French hostility manifested itself in Hong Kong in another way. A French steamer, the Atalante, had stopped and searched Chinese junks near Hong Kong, and thrown overboard the guns of one of them. At a meeting of the General Chamber of Commerce, E. R. Belilios, a prominent Indian merchant, expressed the opinion that such action would cause consternation among the junk people of Hong Kong. Ho Hsien-chih 何獻鄰, better known as Ho Amei 何亞美, condemned the French more vehemently. He pointed out, not without some exaggeration, that such interference would cut off supplies to Hong Kong, and, since war between China and France had not been officially declared, he roundly announced, “I consider it an act of piracy.” In Ho's stand we have a demonstration of anti-French feelings at the other end of the social spectrum from that of the Dock workers.\n\nOn the 17th, the proclamation by the Canton authorities issued on the 5th calling on Hong Kong workers to strike, was published in the four Chinese-language papers in Hong Kong. On the following day, the crew of the French man-of-war at the Dock heard rumours that the Chinese planned to destroy it. The French admiral Léspès wrote at once to W. H. Marsh, the Acting Governor, asking for protection. There was also fear that the dock workers would riot. Police were despatched to the dock, but they arrived to find everything quiet. A guard was nevertheless left behind, and nothing untoward occurred but the tension was not dispelled.\n\n8\n\nAnti-French actions continued. In the meantime, the Chinese provisions store Yu-hsing-hsiang refused to sell themselves in arms to the French, But the French found an even more embarrassing situation on the 22nd. That morning, about twenty-five head of cattle were herded to the Praya Central,\n\n* Governor Bowen's departure from Hong Kong on 15th September caused a series of shuffles in the administration: the Colonial Secretary W. H. Marsh became Acting Governor; F. Stewart, the Registrar-General became Acting Colonial Secretary and James Stewart Lockhart Acting Registrar-General.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209434, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "69\n\nance, where the former French consul at Shanghai, M. Lemaire, on his way to become Resident in Hue, was in residence, waiters refused to serve him. Moreover, the crew of the hotel launch also refused to take him to his ship, and he had to be taken by a government launch instead.1\n\nWhen the strike first became general, there was a consensus in the English newspapers that the fines imposed were the cause. There were doubts as to the legality of the fines, the Daily Press reported,18 and it expressed sympathy for boatmen who had been blackmailed into staging a strike against the French, and then had been fined by the local government for this.19 The strikers themselves protested against the fines. A proclamation posted at Queen's Road by boat people made this clear. It explained that the strike was in consequence of their having been fined by the British authorities for refusing to convey cargo for the French. It went on to implore \"eminent and intelligent gentlemen of your firms [to] be good enough to assist us with the strength of one arm in order that we may not be laughed at by the French.\"20\n\n21\n\nThe Government must also have realized the fatal part the fines played. The Attorney-General himself expressed doubts about their legality. Section XVII of Ordinance 8 of 1858 under which the cargo boats were fined applied only to workers who refused to work unless they were paid more than the stated scale, and not to workers who refused to work at all.22 It is not difficult to see why the Attorney-General should have had doubts.\n\nThe Government, however, chose not to do anything about the fines. At an Executive Council meeting on the 1st October, this issue was discussed, but it resolved not to interfere with the magistrate's decision to fine. The reason given was that, while the strike lasted, the Government should not give the impression that it was yielding to pressure.23\n\nThe English newspapers' attitude to the strike hardened from about this same stage. Withdrawing whatever earlier sympathy it had had for the strikers, the Daily Press suggested on the 3rd that they should be replaced by workers hired from other places even if only to alert the boat people to the possibility that their livelihood was threatened. It sounded the alarm that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209435, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "70\n\nELIZABETH SINN\n\neconomy of the Colony could be crippled by the whims of coolies and boatmen,24\n\nIn an effort to break the strike James Stewart Lockhart, the Acting Registrar-General, had several interviews with the boat people and their sureties. He believed he had succeeded in persuading them to resume work on the 3rd.25\n\nOn the morning of the 3rd, the police were on the alert, anticipating that the resumption of work would not be trouble free. Extra police were placed on the Praya. Boats did return to the British side of the harbour. As they approached Praya West, they were, as expected, attacked by a group of cargo coolies with stones and bricks, and they promptly moved off again. One of the stone throwers was arrested.\n\nThe stone-throwing stopped when the boats were gone, and the cargo coolies then appeared to turn their wrath upon the rickshaw and chair coolies, wanting them to stop work as well. They started to turn over chairs and rickshaws, pelting coolies as well as passengers with stones. Interestingly enough, the chair coolies resisted being forced into the strike, fighting back at the cargo coolies as did several of the European passengers.\n\nIn the midst of the scuffle, Sikh policemen arrived, and the mob stoned them too. The Sikhs, who were heavily armed with carbines and a good supply of ammunition, got into action at once. They fired into the crowd and cut their way into the crowd with their swords.20\n\nThe Acting Captain Superintendent, having called out all the available men at the Central Police station, sent a request to the Military Barracks for support. One hundred men of the East Kent Regiment, the \"Buffs\", were marched to the scene of the disturbance with fixed bayonets. Their presence seems to have restored order and it was not necessary for them to interfere actively.27\n\nOn hearing of the disturbances, Marsh immediately called the Executive Council, and it met at 11 o'clock on the 3rd. After hearing the account given by Colonel Barton, the Assistant Military Secretary who had just returned from the scene of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209436, "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": 93, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "71\n\nriot, the Council passed several resolutions. Among them were the following:\n\n(1) That an order be given to the police to bring up the rioters arrested by them, that afternoon if possible, and that the Police Magistrate be requested to deal with them at once,\n\n(2) That the sentences passed on the rioters be placarded\n\nin Taipingshan and the Chinese parts of town, and,\n\n(3) That His Excellency the Major-General Commanding the Forces be requested to send a picket of one hundred men to be available for the assistance of the police, and to remain until the police reported that they were no longer required.2\n\nIt is obvious that the Government felt itself under siege.\n\nIn accordance with the resolutions, twenty-eight rioters were brought before the Magistrate at 4 that afternoon. Of these, eight were immediately found guilty. The sentences were harsh, even by the standards of the day. Six were given 12 months' prison, and two, who were boys of 15, were given six months each. There is little doubt that these sentences were imposed for their deterrent effect.29\n\nThe \"Buffs\" were called out and were given permission by the Committee of the Tung Wah Hospital to be picketed in the Hospital's hall.30\n\nYet, although order was apparently restored, the strike continued, and, indeed, intensified. The cargo boats did not return to work, and rice pounders, coolies, artisans and workmen of all descriptions joined the strike. Rumours that the city would be set on fire at night undermined confidence. Admiral Sir William Dowell even undertook to land a party of men from the Audacious in the event of a fire.31\n\nThe fact that it was the night of the mid-Autumn festival, and that a lantern procession previously planned had to be called off, added to the already tense atmosphere. In the end, a rather low-key procession did take place, without incident.\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209437, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "72 \n\nELIZABETH SINN \n\nThe following morning, the 4th October, the strike continued. Faced with impasse, several parties busied themselves throughout the day with various means of breaking the strike. First, Marsh attempted to stop the strike by discrediting Chang Chih-tung and other Canton officials, whose proclamations, as we have seen, Marsh was convinced had started all the troubles. The inflammatory nature of Chang's 15th September proclamation had prompted Harry Parkes, the British Minister at Peking, to protest to the Tsungli Yamen, and he succeeded in forcing the Chinese Court to issue an Imperial Decree censuring the Canton authorities for their excesses. When Marsh received news of this Decree on the night of the 3rd October, he felt vindicated. On the following morning, he had notices posted all over town telling of the Imperial Decree hoping to convince the populace that Chang's proclamations were no longer valid. He also issued proclamations calling on the people to resume work.\n\nAt the same time, a meeting was called at the Nam Pak Hong where Li Tak CheungA, Ho Amei, and about twenty other merchants persuaded the boat people and coolies to resume work. There were some reservations at first, but they seemed to have agreed to resume work on condition that attempts would be made to induce the authorities to forgive them and remit the fines. There was also some query as to why some of the people arrested during the riot were still in custody. Obviously the ill feeling and suspicions towards the Government had not yet been dispelled.\n\nFrederick Stewart, the Registrar-General, now Acting Colonial Secretary, had been asked to attend the meeting, but he declined. He felt that, since Stewart Lockhart had already met the boat people, there was no reason for another official to meet them at another meeting. However, as Stewart Lockhart had arranged a meeting that afternoon with Chinese Justices of the Peace, and present and former members of the Tung Wah Hospital Committee at which he would be present, he suggested that Li Tak Cheung and his friends should also attend.85 Both the Nam Pak Hong and the Tung Wah Hospital were Chinese institutions which the Government often consulted on matters affecting the Chinese population.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209439, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "74\n\nELIZABETH SINN\n\nThe meeting not appearing to have achieved any great breakthrough, the Government and the Chinese merchants went their separate ways to try to resolve the situation. Later that same afternoon, the 4th, Marsh himself met some of the sureties of the boatmen and assured them of police protection if the boatmen returned to work. They told him they feared violence despite this, but Marsh got the impression that this was merely an excuse to avoid returning to work. He came away with a feeling that they were waiting for some secret order on whether to resume work or not. He also sent word around through Stewart Lockhart that if the people would resume work, the Government would consider as an act of grace any appeal which might be made for a remittance of the fines. No appeals, however, came forward.88\n\nThe Chinese merchants, too, continued for the rest of the day exerting themselves in an effort to end the strike. There is no documentary evidence recording specifically what they did, but we shall return later to discuss what had probably been done.\n\nEarly the next morning, placards signed \"All the kaifongs of the Colony\" were posted all along the Praya. They claimed that a meeting of those pursuing various trades in the Colony had been held, and the resolution was that all the cargo boats and coolies should resume work on the morning of the 5th October.30\n\nAt about 10 o'clock on the 5th, cargo boats started coming over from the Chinese side of the harbour. A crowd gathered on shore and, to forestall violence, a picket of soldiers was moved from the Tung Wah Hospital to the Harbour Master's office. The police read a proclamation calling upon the people to disperse and they did so. Though there were a few isolated cases of attempted interference with those resuming work, the general strike may be said to have ended.10\n\nIn fact, there was no serious disturbance after the 3rd. Yet despite this and the resumption of work on the 5th, the Acting Governor remained anxious about the angry and excited feeling among the lower classes of coolies and the large number of triad members he believed to have assembled in Hong Kong. The city was rife with rumours about imminent troubles, and a large", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209445, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "80\n\nELIZABETH SINN\n\nChinese patriot. This complex mixture of material interests and ideals may in fact have been shared by many Chinese leaders in Hong Kong, and is an important element in our understanding of this group in their role in Hong Kong's history.\n\nWorkers were ready to strike, and social leaders were ready to encourage and abet them. It was this combination of fears, aspirations and national fervour which responded to Chang's call for anti-French actions, and caused the initial strike. And it is very important to note that even while the general strike ended on 5th October, as late as November no one would work for the French.\n\nThe fining of the cargo boats brought the confrontation to a new level, and being unanticipated it led to a new twist of events. Most contemporaries recognized the fines as the cause of the general strike. The notice by the boat people testifies to this. First of all, it represented a miscarriage of justice; we have seen the Ordinance did not apply to workers who refused employment for whatever pay. Moreover, as Marsh himself admitted afterwards, the fine of $5 was exceptionally high.*2 It is therefore likely that in Hong Kong there was among the Chinese population a feeling of being more sinned against than sinning. True, most Chinese would not have understood the fine points of English law, but it did not take that kind of legal knowledge to have a gut-feeling of being wronged.\n\nFining Chinese who refused to work for the French who were at war with China also gave the appearance that the British were being pro-French. Chang Chih-tung certainly thought so. A few days before the strike began, the French admirals had been received in Hong Kong with great pomp. Dissatisfaction was expressed against the Hong Kong Government for its inability and unwillingness to prevent French ships from stopping and searching junks around Hong Kong waters. Moreover, the Hong Kong Government, upon hearing of Chinese plans to burn French ships, immediately despatched patrol boats to prevent this. To Marsh, it might be the most natural thing to protect the ships of a friendly power from attack. To the Chinese, it probably seemed over-zealous. To them, at this moment of national crisis, it was much easier to be irritated by the Government's actions.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209446, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "81\n\nment's bias toward France than to try and understand that it would be an infringement of British sovereignty to blow up French ships in Hong Kong waters.\n\nEven the Colonial Office staff objected to the Hong Kong Government's apparently pro-French stance. Their impression was that the French would not be able to get any Chinese labour there if the Government did not put pressure on the Chinese. The conclusion was that \"It seems to me dangerous to British residents in China and to the peace of the Colony to help the French in this way.' 1905 How much more things would appear that way\n\nto the Chinese.\n\nThus the fines became a symbol of moral and legal injustice, of pro-French sympathies and disregard for the feelings of the predominant majority of the population. The fines were the last straw! It is significant that the Foreign Office strongly recommended that the fines be refunded.66\n\nThe strike apparently split the ranks of the labouring classes. If we assume that some had struck out of a sense of righteous indignation and nationalism, or out of fear of retaliation, there were perhaps just as many who did not share these feelings and would much rather have got on with their business. This split would aggravate the already excited atmosphere created by the war and by the strike itself.\n\nOn the 30th when the strike became general, there were already signs of trouble when those boats which continued working were stoned from the Praya, but things did not get out of hand. On the 3rd however, they did. The outbreak of the riot appears to me one of those historical events which \"just happened\". I believe it was not premeditated because the “rioters\" carried no real weapons, only stones and bricks they could pick up from the road. If there had been a conspiracy the men would have come better armed. The accounts in the newspapers and by Marsh in his despatches to the Colonial Office indicate the police over-reacted. The police rushed to the scene fully armed with carbines, which compared to the stones of the rioters, clearly suggests over-reaction. The police fired a large number of rounds of ammunition into the crowds. In fact there was so much firing that a newspaper expressed surprise that only one dead man", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209448, "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": 105, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "83\n\nrioters was identified as a triad member. Many of the stone throwers were mere boys, a fact which further supports the theory that the riot initially broke out spontaneously amid excitement and confusion, (even a desire for some naughty fun) and was finally accelerated by the provocation of the police.\n\nCould we not further suggest that Marsh had blamed \"bad elements\" for starting the riot in order to divert attention from the unjust imposition of fines which had triggered off the strike and subsequently the riot and from his own mishandling of the affair? This could be his motive for exaggerating the threat of the triads out of all proportion.\n\nWork was resumed on the 5th. What ended the strike? The English newspapers offered no explanation. The Acting Governor himself expressed uncertainty, writing, \"It seems to me very doubtful whether work has been resumed in consequence of order having been restored by the authorities or whether it has not been rather in consequence of secret instructions conveyed by those who had been the instigators of the disturbance.\"71 went no further.\n\nHe\n\nIronically enough, it was Chang Chih-tung who seemed sure about what had brought the strike to an end. He claimed that work in Hong Kong was resumed because the Hong Kong Government had remitted the fines through the mediation of the Tung Wah Hospital. But, in fact, Chang was wrong. The Hong Kong Government had not remitted the fines.\n\n72\n\nWe may recall that the fines had been a major bone of contention, and possibly the primary cause for the strike becoming general. The boatmen and coolies had made representations to the Chinese leaders that the remittance of the fines must be a prerequisite for the resumption of work. We\n\nWe may also speculate that in their minds, if the fines could be remitted on the basis that they had been wrongly fined, workers would in future be free to refuse to work for the French.\n\nYet, strangely enough, when the Chinese leaders did meet with Hong Kong officials, no demand for a remission was made. We can only surmise that the tough stand of Frederick Stewart\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209450, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "85\n\nChinese leaders seemed determined to use this occasion to make their presence felt, though they had already been told in no uncertain terms that the Government did not want this impression to be given.\n\nBefore the strike ended, cargo boatmen and others had been anxious about those rioters who had been arrested and detained. They had not been sentenced on the 3rd because of insufficient evidence against them. They were tried on the 10th. On that day, the court was packed, and significantly, among the crowd was a \"certain past director of the Tung Wah Hospital.\"76 Significant also was Ho Kai's appearance as defence attorney. Some of the men he defended were reported to be unaware of the fact that they were being represented by a barrister.\" Who instructed Ho Kai? One possibility is that Chinese leaders had hired him to defend rioters as part of the deal to induce boatmen and coolies to resume work. Another possibility is that Ho had done so on his own, out of a mixture of the patriotic fervour which he was to demonstrate so freely in his later reformist writings, and self-interest in establishing himself as a Chinese leader. Whatever the case, we see attempts by Chinese to defend Chinese, and reverse what many believed to be patent injustice. And again, we see the possible combination of high principles and material interests within the Chinese leadership.\n\nThe fines were, therefore, repaid and work was resumed. For all practical purposes, the riot was over by the afternoon of the 3rd and the general strike was terminated by the 5th. In quantitative terms, the general strike lasted only five days and the riot a matter of hours. A month and a half later, Governor Bowen summed up the events by saying, \"It is now generally acknowledged on all sides that the riot of October 3rd had little, if any, permanent or political significance.”78 His attitude seems to be shared by historians of Hong Kong, including G. B. Endacott and Lin Yu-lan79 who have not devoted special attention to it in their works.\n\nIronically, the few historians who have focussed upon these events have done so beyond the context of Hong Kong history. Fang Han-ch'i wrote of them in 1957 in terms of an", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209451, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "86 \n\nELIZABETH SINN \n\nanti-Imperial struggle, and published fragments of the Shu pao he found to throw light on these events. \n\nA year later, Li Ming-jen claimed that it was the first large-scale strike in China with political overtones and so saw it in terms of the history of labour movements in China.80 These events have also been described by a Western historian to illustrate anti-foreignism in 19th Century China.81 \n\nMore recently, we have a work dealing with the 1884 events in relation to the development of Chinese nationalism. At the same time, its author, Chere, calls attention to the lack of scholarly interest in these events, and challenges the historian in Hong Kong to re-examine them by using more extensive source materials.82 \n\nIn fact, we should bring the strike and riot of 1884 back into a Hong Kong perspective since they do highlight important features of Hong Kong society and history. \n\nThey highlight the problems of a society composed of a native population governed by a foreign power; a society whose loyalty was, at the best of times, divided. The political and emotional orientation of the Chinese in 19th Century Hong Kong was toward Mainland China. Even while more and more Chinese households were being established in Hong Kong, nonetheless, in times of emergency the entire household could be transferred to Macao or Canton. It seems almost incidental that some families did settle in Hong Kong permanently at all. Family, business, property and political ties with China continued to be strong, with the result that events in China had very strong bearings upon those in Hong Kong. \n\nThis means that on the one hand, Chinese officials could bully residents in Hong Kong into carrying out orders or seduce them with rewards; sometimes this could be done simply by appealing to their patriotism. The result was a general feeling of suspicion between the Government and people of Hong Kong which explains why any local disturbance caused the Government to panic. Understandably, things became very complicated whenever China was at war with Britain. In 1857, during the Arrow War for instance, the deterioration of relations between", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209452, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "87\n\nGovernment and people in Hong Kong culminated in the E-Sing bread poisoning case which found the whole Colony in a state of siege. During the strike-boycott of 1925-26 which resulted from Anglo-Chinese hostilities, a large portion of the local Chinese identified themselves with China and left, leaving many aspects of life in Hong Kong paralysed.\n\nEven when China was not at war with Britain, Chinese hostilities with other countries could also lead to complications. The 1884 events are a fine example of this. The anti-American boycott in 1905 and anti-Japanese boycott in 1907 and anti-Japanese activities after 1937 are others. From the local Chinese point of view, the Hong Kong Government reaction to these events showed that it was insensitive to the feelings of the majority of the population, and showed favouritism to the enemy. From the British point of view, such activities were causing undue embarrassment with friendly nations, infringing upon British territorial rights and breaking International Law. As often as not, the blame was laid at the doorstep of the Chinese Government.\n\nIn 1884, we find Marsh rushing letters and telegrams off to Parkes in Peking, claiming the Chinese Government was responsible for all the troubles and demanding redress.84 Needless to say, it led to much correspondence, charges and counter-charges. One instance is particularly revealing. The Tsungli Yamen, faced with charges by Parkes, defended the rioters in Hong Kong, attributing, ironically and tongue-in-cheek, no doubt their reluctance to work on French ships to their desire to observe the British neutrality laws! It further attributed the riot to precipitate action on the part of the Hong Kong Government. It disclaimed any control over Chinese in Hong Kong as they had long been under the control of the British, and it was not possible for the Chinese Government to prohibit or prevent any action these people might take. The argument may not have been very convincing, but it did get the ball back into the British court. This reply, and the 1884 events in general, demonstrates some of the difficulties Hong Kong created in Sino-British relations.\n\nOn the other hand, the presence of a \"native\" population led to the emergence of Chinese leadership groups. The Hong Kong Government had from the beginning relied on native leaders", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209462, "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": 119, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "97\n\n* For Fang Han-ch'i, see Note 10. Li Ming-jen\n\n\"I-pa-ssu nien Hsiang-kang pa-kung yün-tung\" (\"The Strike in Hong Kong in 1884), Li-shih yen-chiu (Historical Studies), 1958:3 (March, 1958) 89-90.\n\nLloyd E. Eastman, \"The Kwangtung anti-foreign disturbances during the Sino-French War\", Papers on China, 13 (1959) 1-31,\n\nLewis M. Chere, \"The Hong Kong Riots of October 1884: Evidence for Chinese Nationalism\", JHKBRAS, Vol. 20 (1980), p. 54.\n\n* Chinese Prisoners, Papers respecting the confinement and trial of Chinese prisoners in Hong Kong 1857 (155, Sess. 2) XLIII, Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers (Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1971) Vol. 24: China, pp. 151-188. For a narration of the event see James Pope-Hennessy, Half Crown Colony: A Hong Kong Note Book (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), pp. 55-58.\n\nMarsh to Parkes, 4th October, 1884, enclosed in F.O. to C.O., 2nd February, 1885: CO129/224. Marsh to Parkes, 6th October, 1884, Telegram enclosed in F.O. to C.O., 9th December, 1884: CO129/219.\n\nTsungli Yamen to Parkes, 10th October, 1884, enclosed in F.O. to C.O., 13th December, 1884; ibid.\n\n**For Paou-chong, see Ordinance No. 13 of 1844; for Tepo, see Ordinance No. 3 of 1853; for the Registrar-General, see Ordinance No. 7 of 1846. The Registrar-General's duties were redefined by Ordinance No. 6 of 1857, and again by Ordinance No. 8 of 1858.\n\nFor the Chinese elite, see Carl Smith's works cited in Note No. 59. See also his \"An Early Hong Kong Success Story: Wei Akwong, the Beggar Boy\", Chung Chi Bulletin No. 45 (December 1968), pp. 9-14; \"English-educated Chinese Elites in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong\", Symposium Paper, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, (November 1972), pp. 65-96; and H.J. Lethbridge, \"A Chinese Association in Hong Kong: the Tung Wah\", \"The Evolution of a Chinese Voluntary Association in Hong Kong: The Po Leung Kuk\" and \"The District Watch Committee: The Chinese Executive Council of Hong Kong?\" in his Hong Kong: Stability and Change.\n\n**Marianne Bastid, \"The Social Context of Reform” in Paul A. Cohen and John E. Schrecker, ed., Reform in Nineteenth Century China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 117-127; 118.\n\nLi Tak Cheong was a director in 1872, chairman in 1883, and a hip-li in 1873 and 1884. Ho Amei was chairman in 1882 and a hip-li in 1883. Leong On was a founding chairman, and chairman again in 1877 and 1887, and was a hip-li in 1872, 1878 and 1888.\n\n**Ho Kai's father, Ho Fuk Tong and his brother-in-law Wu T'ing-fang were both founding chi-shi.\n\nSee Note No. 34.\n\nMarsh to Derby, 24th March, 1886, Despatch No. 91: CO129/225.\n\n**This refers to a meeting called by Europeans in Hong Kong to discuss the rise of crime which they believed resulted from the leniency of the new Governor Hennessy. Some of the Chinese leaders however supported him and the meeting developed into a confrontation between Europeans and Chinese residents in Hong Kong. See James Pope-Hennessy, Verandah (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.), pp. 203-205. This was also fully reported in the Daily Press and China Mail throughout October 1878.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209647, "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": 304, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "282\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nGeneral Post Office (where the World Wide Centre now stands). He slipped out into the road between the soldiers, who were presenting arms as the governor passed, and rushed to the governor's chair. He rested his elbow on the beam of the chair and fired a revolver at the governor at point-blank range. Just as he fired, one of the Sikh constables escorting the governor was able to strike his hand upward and deflect the bullet. At the same moment, the police sergeant leapt from behind and seized the gunman's right hand. Before he could be overpowered he attempted to recock the gun with his left hand, in order to fire again, but he was quickly pulled to the ground and arrested. There were cries from the crowd of ‘Lynch him', ‘Kill him', ‘Let us have him' as he was led away.\n\nThe action of the constable in knocking the revolver aside probably saved Sir Henry's life. He was sitting well back in the sedan chair and the bullet passed about a foot in front of him and then passed through to lodge in the woodwork of Lady May's chair on the other side. Sir Henry stood up in his chair, waved away the smoke from in front of his face and made sure that no-one was injured. He smiled to Lady May, who had given out a cry, and then ordered the procession to proceed according to plan. The rest of the morning's ceremonial then proceeded as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.\n\nAs the prisoner was led away he was reported to have said: 'I am sorry I missed my aim; I do not care whether I die or not'. The revolver was found to be loaded in all the four remaining chambers which had not been fired. The assailant was identified as Li Hon Hing, and he was said to be the son of a man imprisoned fifteen years previously for bribery at the time when May was head of the police force.\"\n\nFour days later Li was brought before the magistrate and pleaded guilty to the charge of attempted murder. Police witnesses described the events in detail, but had been unable to uncover any evidence of accomplices or of any widespread conspiracy. The defendant made an incoherent rambling statement from the dock in which he accused May of ill-treating the Chinese in a high-handed way both in Hong Kong and in Fiji,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209927, "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-1983", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "164\n\nHong Kong workers are dexterous, and hard working. They are willing to work overtime. Our recent success in denim manufacture is an example. In the United States, large factories usually carry out the entire process of production. They cannot take on sudden increases in orders or special requests because everybody is an employee, and workers are not enthusiastic about overtime pay. In Hong Kong, there are numerous small owners. Therefore Hong Kong can take on special production. It is beneficial to existing spinners. We can make goods of uncommon specifications even for relatively small orders. Only Hong Kong can do this. After the yarn is spun, there are specialized factories to do the dyeing. Afterwards, we can take the dyed yarn to yet another factory to be knitted. The whole is divided into parts, and this increases our flexibility.'\n\nThe nub of his observation was that people in Hong Kong were prepared to try their best and put in extra effort when they were working for themselves or when it gave them the chance to accumulate future business capital. But for individual firms, this urge to strike out on one's own undermines team work. In Hong Kong business establishments, according to a Shanghainese management specialist,\n\n'The number 2s are impatient to be number 1s and number 1s are impatient to get out and start their own business, no matter how small. The result is the atrocious downgrading of standard and quality.'\n\nLocal employees, he says, 'curse the jobs they are paid for', (Pan 1974: 4-5). Entrepreneurs have to find some ways to cope with this low motivation among their subordinates and the threat posed by their desertion. Most spinners appeared to adopt a defensive strategy based on a distrust of their staff. The areas of executive initiative and responsibility were deliberately curtailed. The low degree of delegation of authority was unwittingly shown by the general manager of 'Hong Textiles, Ltd,' (Espy 1974: 279):\n\n'Since my father and I handle all the negotiations with our buyers, we don't need any sales or marketing departments. Our Export Manager handles all routine correspondence with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212905, "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-1992", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "199\n\nGROWING UP IN CHINA:\n\nLECTURE TO THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, HONG KONG BRANCH, 14 MAY, 1993\n\nDENIS BRAY\n\nIt is quite a challenge to compose a talk on the first 13 years of your life when there are practically no books to consult and friends from those days are scattered or gone. To the challenge is added an audience much more knowledgeable than I on the history of the area. I think I can only get away with it because nobody can check on much that I have to say. As I do not speak Putonghua or write Pinyin I am going to stick to spellings for place names used in the thirties and Cantonese for local names.\n\nThere are some references. There are three books of reference on the China Inland Mission School at Chefoo. Two are written by students who went there long before I did. They are Mrs Jean Moore and Dr. Gren Wedderburn. A full history of the school from start to finish has been written by Gordon Martin who was classics teacher when I was there and who was one of the longest serving teachers the school had. I am sure that the Methodist Missionary Society in London has copious records on the mission in Fatshan and South China.\n\nI Was Born\n\nI did not start life in China but in Hong Kong — at the Matilda Hospital in fact. My father was working in the Methodist Mission in Fatshan at the time, running Wah Ying School. This school was founded in 1913 near to a hospital, also run by the mission, which was founded in 1881. The hospital, now known officially as the Number One People's Hospital, but spoken of as the Chun Do Yi Yuen, or Methodist Hospital, celebrated its 111th anniversary last year. The school, now known as the Number One Middle School but spoken of still as Wah Ying, will celebrate its 90th anniversary in December this year.\n\nJanuary 1926 towards the end of the General Strike, when all Chinese were urged to boycott any form of service for foreigners, was accompanied by incidents of unrest in China and in Hong Kong itself. It was no time for a pregnant woman to remain in China unless it was...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213093, "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-1993", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "142\n\nimportance of an unexampled calamity. However in spite of difficulties in balancing the budget, many public works projects were completed during his term. He governed with a liberal-mind for he increased the number of unofficial seats in both the Legislative and the Executive Councils in response to a demand for reforming the government. He also agreed to have an unofficial majority on the Sanitary Board. Generally regarded as an able administrator he stayed for fully six years as Governor, the longest tenure held by any governor thus far. In the history of modern China, he would be remembered as the Governor of Hong Kong who imposed a five-year ban on Dr. Sun Yat Sen, who then went to London and was kidnapped but rescued by Sir James Cantlie but that is another story.\n\nSir James Stewart Lockhart, the main target of Lowson's attack, was Registrar General and acting Colonial Secretary in 1894. There is a biography of him written by Shiona Airlie entitled 'The Thistle and the Bamboo.' He emerged from it as a capable but ambitious man who was eager to seek promotion ahead of his time, and in spite of what Lowson said of him, he got on well with the Chinese. The function of a Registrar General in the early years was to deal with Chinese affairs, not legal matters as at present, in fact, the initial title was Protector of the Chinese. In this office, Lockhart maintained good relations with the directors of Tung Wah Hospital and Po Leung Kuk and the District Watch Committee, the three main representative bodies of the Chinese community. As to his character, he was said to possess 'humoured geniality which endeared him to his contemporaries' but 'occasionally his patience snapped and from a man considered in the main to be warm-hearted and genial, he became angry and stubborn.' He made at least one important contribution in connection with the Epidemic. After the Resumption of Tai Ping Shan Ordinance was passed, action had to be taken to demolish the old houses. Both landlords and tenants put up a spirited resistance as they both had to suffer financial loss, no rent to be collected by the landlords for sometime and no cheap lodgings for the tenants who were mostly coolies. The coolies threatened to go on strike which would paralyse the city in already very difficult circumstances. Lockhart, who was fluent in Chinese, having been a cadet in the Hong Kong Civil Service, was instrumental in solving the dispute which ended amicably. In 1895, at the age of thirty seven, he became Colonial Secretary when his acting appointment was substantiated. In addition, he was appointed as Special Commissioner for the New Territories in 1897 after the lease was settled. In 1902, he went to Weihaiwei as its first Civil Commissioner. On his departure the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213108, "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-1993", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "158\n\nKong waters. This petition was probably written because of fears as to the practical problems they would face if they lived in British territory, and their market was in Chinese territory. \"In the early years after the lease, grievances over the Customs remained at high heat. In the winter of 1906, the villagers from the New Territories went on strike, and refused to go to market. In 1907 there was a full-scale riot, triggered by a Customs official beating a villager for not paying duty. Later that same year, the elders of the Shap Yeuk petitioned to the authorities at Canton, begging that the Customs officials at Sha Tau Kok be restrained.4 Later, relations with the Customs improved a little, but the duty demanded from villagers remained a major irritant and grievance throughout the period from 1899 to 1951.\n\nAnother irritant, and brake on economic development, was the political chaos in the border area of China. As can be seen from the Calendar of Border Disturbances at Appendix 1, political trouble in this area began even before the Revolution of 1911. An abortive rebellion in the Wai Chau (Huizhou,H) area in 1900 saw the Ch'ing Government lose control of the wild lands east of Yim Tin. A second abortive rebellion was centred in these hills, at Sam Chau Tin (Sanzhoutian,E), in 1904-1905.\n\nA second period of disturbance came after the Revolution, during the years 1911-1928, when the area immediately north of the frontier was the plaything of various competing political groups and would-be warlords, passing from one to the other week by week - 'In those days, when we went to market, the soldiers would be wearing yellow, but the next week, they would be wearing brown'. This period was marked by large-scale banditry, piracy, and general turmoil. With the large garrison of Customs and military personnel at Sha Tau Kok, bandits never threatened the town itself, but the Yim Tin Customs post was sacked by bandits in 1913 and (three times) in 1916, Nam O (Nanao,) Customs post at the entrance to Mirs Bay, was sacked in 1913 and 1914, Chan Hang in 1915, and, a little east of Chan Hang, Kai Chung (Xichong,) Customs post was sacked in 1916 and 1917. The Customs post at Sha Yue Chung (Shayuchong,) was sacked in 1919 and 1920, while the Sha Yue Chung Ferry (the lifeline of the market to the east) was captured by pirates in both 1921 and twice in 1922. For nearly one and a half years in 1918-1919, indeed, all the Customs Stations in Mirs Bay east of Yim Tin were forced to close, so lawless had the area become. The irregular soldiers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213109, "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-1993", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "159\n\nposted in the market by various warlords and factions had an extremely bad reputation. They were not locals (they were mostly Mandarin speakers), indulged in looting the shops in the market, and were generally believed to be behind some at least of the bandit raids. The District Officer, New Territories, specifically accused Chinese irregular soldiers of mounting eight cross-border armed bandit raids in 1924. The Kuomintang forces eventually secured the area in 1925-1926, but the irregulars were only replaced by regular soldiers in 1928, when the irregulars at Sha Tau Kok were punished for some of their misdeeds.\n\nThe period of post-Revolutionary chaos along the border came to a peak in 1925, when the Kuomintang finally secured Sha Tau Kok, but immediately used it as a base for the General Strike boycott against Hong Kong. The 1925 Boycott caused serious problems for the villagers in the Sha Tau Kok area. If they loathed the Customs for insisting that their daily marketing was dutiable, they were even less enamoured of the view that their every-day shopping constituted \"trading with the enemy\", which should be stopped by whatever terrorising tactics could be brought to bear. The strikers seem to have taken over the Customs Station in Sha Tau Kok, and it is clear that local trade, and with it the villagers of the area, suffered greatly.\n\n17\n\nA third period of disturbance on the frontier was 1928-1937, in every year of which, except one, smuggling was noted as being a greater problem than in the previous year. During this period, further rebellions (by Communist-inspired guerrillas) in the area east of Yim Tin caused problems, which were then exacerbated with the attacks on the area by the Japanese from 1938. The closure of the Mirs Bay Customs stations in 1938 marks the date when the Kuomintang Government finally took control of the area - the Customs reopened the Sha Yue Chung station in 1939, but only following an \"agreement\" with the guerrillas, who were by then the only effective government there. 40 Although the western, Yuen Long, area of the frontier was the worst smuggling centre, major battles with smugglers/pirates took place in waters close to Sha Tau Kok in 1928, 1932, 1935, and 1939, and a major battle with smugglers in the Ta Kwu Ling area in 1932. Kai Chung Customs post was sacked by bandits - presumably a smuggler gang - in 1932 as well. From about 1937 smuggling of strategic goods to Sha Yue Chung, for the guerrilla rebels, and later of goods to be slipped through the Japanese lines, became a major business at Sha Tau Kok - this trade was centred on the Sha Yue", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213163, "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-1993", "page_number": 231, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "213\n\nme. 'She sacrificed to have me well educated,'\n\nLater the young Lee returned to China, to attend the Canton Christian College, later renamed 'Lingnan'. He came back to Hong Kong every year by tram or ship, on holiday, at Christmas and for the summer. In Canton, he mixed with his American missionary teachers. He did not meet Europeans much in Hong Kong. A photograph in Mr Lee's home shows him, as a teenager, in a Chinese tunic buttoned up at the neck. There is also a group photograph of him as an American Army Cadet, taken in 1921. 'We used to drill,' he explained.\n\nHe recalls that he saw Sun Yat Sen, dubbed the 'George Washington of China', once when he visited Lingnan.\n\n'While attending the college we played basketball, soccer, volleyball and tennis,' Mr. Lee told me. He did not care much for the Chinese game of tek in (kicking the shuttlecock).\n\nOn completion of his Lingnan course, in 1922, he sailed on the *President Grant* for the United States to further his studies. There he befriended several 'Boxer Scholars'.\n\nResulting from the Boxer Uprising, China had to pay reparations for the damage done to Western buildings and for the Europeans murdered. These amounted to nearly a thousand million taels, repaid over 39 years. Later, however, to repay partly this large sum, the Americans, and later the British government, established a 'Boxer Indemnity' fund. The money was used for Chinese to study overseas. Most Boxer Scholars were sons of Nationalist Government officials. Boxer Scholars received tuition fees, board and lodgings and other benefits free of charge. They even received free spectacles,' Mr Lee exclaimed.\n\nThe young Lee studied chemistry at the University of Washington. He enjoyed it there, where he was boarded out with the Jacobs family. He completed the four-year course in 1926. Once his mother went to the States, by ship, for a visit. 'She did not speak English. It was too difficult for her to come and see me,' Mr Lee told me.\n\nHe came back to Hong Kong in 1927, when things had returned to normal in the Colony after the General Strike of 1925.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213895, "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": 247, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "221\n\nThus, a new political language, clustered around the ideas of labour and trade unions soon overshadowed the existing political language, which was introduced in the late Qing and clustered around the ideas of merchants and chambers of commerce. To curb the political power of merchants, the Canton government dissolved all the existing merchant associations in Canton. The directorship of the Canton General Chamber of Commerce was abolished and the Canton government appointed their own supporters to the Chamber. Liao Zhongkai even went to the extreme of making legislation in 1925 to prohibit \"compradore merchants” from taking up government posts.\n\nPolitical regulations were changing fast during these years. Trade unions continued to expand and were politically active in Canton. This eventually led to the 1925 General Strike which in Hong Kong involved a total of 300,000 labourers. It was known as the greatest and largest strike which had ever occurred in China, and retrospectively, the Chinese Communist Party would time and time again herald its success.\n\nAs for the Cantonese merchants and the Communication Clique, they retreated from Canton to Hong Kong after 1924. I have tracked down a very beautiful piece of information from 1941 - on a Julao Hui (九老會), or the Nine Elders Club. The club was formed by the retired leaders of the regional Chambers of Commerce. These retreated Cantonese, despite their previous competition, joined together as a social club to celebrate the abundance of their offspring and their own longevity. These nine gentlemen enjoyed a total age amounting to 676 by 1941. On this occasion, Liang Shiyi sent them a couplet. It read:\n\nThe three of us in person congratulating the nine elders, altogether in one hall we celebrate our thousand years.\n\nAs far as this small circle is concerned, it sounds like a happy ending.\n\nBeyond this circle, all we can see is a Hong Kong society with its members, for a long period of time, showing little interest in the issue of constitutional reform, representative or self-government, as their Indian, African, or Malay counterparts did. Even during those noisy years after the Second World War while the issue of decolonization was very much talked about and the British Empire actually collapsed,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214391, "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": 249, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "215\n\nthy Murphy was seconded from the Police to take charge of the twenty-three detectives in the District Watch Force. The official report of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs for that year enthusiastically noted that 'His work at once had the effect of inspiring the men to greater energy and of fostering co-operation with the Regular detectives' and 'A marked improvement in this department may confidently be expected under the new system.' In 1919 Sergeant Murphy, a Cantonese speaker, had sixteen years experience in the Hong Kong Police. The following year Murphy was promoted to sub-Inspector but despite his promotion he remained with the District Watch Force until January 1922 by which time he had attained the rank of Inspector. Of course detectives had existed in the District Watch Force before 1918. As early as 1894 a single detective appeared in the Registrar General's Annual Report. In 1910 the annual bill for allowances to 'Chief District Watchmen and detectives' amounted to $514 but it was not until 1911 that detectives' wages were listed as a separate item amounting to $1,212.\n\nTroubled Times\n\nIn 1922 the colony reeled from the disruption caused by a massive seamen's strike which spread to involve Chinese men and women in other occupations including the Governor's own domestic servants. The Governor, Sir Reginald Stubbs, commissioned Mr A.G.M. Fletcher, CBE, to investigate the background of the strike and to determine why the intimidation tactics of the strikers had been so successful. The resulting report together with a long covering letter from the Governor were forwarded to the Secretary of State in mid-March 1922. Stubbs was highly critical of the leading members of the Chinese community including members of the District Watch Committee who, he claimed, had not been of the 'slightest use' in either 'calming the fears of the ignorant populace' or obtaining information which would have enabled the Government to deal with intimidation. It was Stubbs' opinion that the information departments of both the Police and the Secretary for Chinese Affairs should be 'drastically reorganized.'20 Fletcher had harsh words for the District Watchmen and considered them to be 'entirely useless' when it came to collecting information about the causes of intimidation since the Watchmen 'must have had the amplest evidence available.' Whilst agreeing with Fletcher in principle, Stubbs downplayed the deficiencies of the Watchmen citing their lowly status as a probable reason for their poor performance. Given the critical tone", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215064, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "117\n\nSoochow in 1885 noted that \"the image of the cycle god with arms protruding out of his eye-sockets, has eyes in the palms of his hands, looking downward to see secret things within the earth\". This apparently unique feature has also been seen on an entirely different deity in a mural in a temple at Kepala Batas near Butterworth in northern Malaysia. This is Feng Bo, the God of the Wind, with miniature arms emerging from his eye-sockets.\n\nIn a number of temples where images of the Twenty-four Celestial Generals [Ershi si Tianjun] are located down the inside of the temple main hall's side walls, a ferocious blue-faced demonic general, with a club in each hand and long vicious fangs, is labelled as the Taisui of the Months (Yue Taisui).\n\nThe Rôle of Taisui\n\nToday Taisui is a popular folk religion stellar deity, the 'ruler of time' and an arbiter of the destiny of mankind worshipped to avert calamities. He is known to some foreigners as the god of astrology. He rules the cycle of sixty years, of which each year is ruled by one of the subsidiary Taisui. Matching a human's birth date and times with the cycle provides auspicious and inauspicious years. Despite a Singapore god-carver's claim that Taisui is not a heavenly deity but a good example of an earthly deity, a \"half-spirit\" [banshen], the deity is viewed by the man-in-the-street, and the Pearl River boat people in particular, as an exceptionally powerful, wilful, and fierce god, popularly feared as one who must never be angered and needs to be placated to avoid disasters and sickness. He is said to strike when least expected and can injure and destroy the highest and the lowliest, at home or on the high road, but is believed never to injure anyone in the vicinity of his, Taisui's, own person. It is therefore essential to know where he is at any given moment, and if he is nearby and not immediately present, he is at his most dangerous; precautions have to be taken at once. This is done by hanging the appropriate talisman or stellar charm near the front door or facing the entrance. As Taisui can be so destructive, it is important to pinpoint his location at any given time to ensure that work on a project or building is not carried out during the actual time he is passing by. This is done by geomantic specialists who employ a specialist compass with a complicated diagram consisting of the twelve terrestrial stems or branches [horary characters - see below under Time and Calendars].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215629, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 406, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "357\n\nFRIENDS OF THE HKBRAS TRIP TO CORNWALL\n\nKIRSTY NORMAN\n\nIn April 2002, 25 members of the Friends of the RAS Hong Kong Branch took part in the group's first Monday-Friday organised tour, thanks to the excellent teamwork and organisation of Anita Wilson, Rosemary Lee and Penny Byrne.\n\nThe group visited six gardens in eastern Cornwall, in order to look specifically at oriental planting, and the connections between Cornwall and the early plant hunters. Given the county's place in the history of early oriental plant introductions, there are many gardens to choose from, but in this choice we were fortunate to have the help of the remarkable Maggie Campbell-Culver, author of the recently published and well received The Origin of Plants and previously in charge of the gardens at Mount Edgcumbe, and also her husband Michael Culver. Both had become close friends of Penny Byrne and her husband Tim Heald while neighbours in Fowey. Maggie's love of her subject, and her instinctive ability to strike a balance between educating us and allowing us to roam made her a very popular guide and companion.\n\nThe group met in Fowey on the Monday, visited two gardens a day for three days, and dispersed on the Friday. The trip also included that essential of a Friends outing, good Chinese food, in the form of two fine dinners organised by Penny. Gardens visited were Trewithen, Pine Lodge, Tregrehan, Heligan, Caerhays, and also the Eden Project, though Eden is perhaps more of a phenomenon than a garden.\n\nThe great Cornish gardens we now know were, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the testing grounds for what was to become a veritable torrent of newly discovered plant material, much of it being brought or sent back from China, Japan, Korea and the Himalayas. The way was paved by men like Major General Thomas Hardwicke (1755-1835) of the Bengal Artillery, who brought the first Himalayan rhododendron to Britain in the early 19th century. Discoveries were made by missionaries such as Père Armand David and Père Jean Delavay in the late 19th century, but it was in the early 20th century when professional explorer-collectors such as Ernest Wilson, George Forrest, Frank Kingdom Ward, and Reginald Farrer began systematic", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]