[ { "id": 205797, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "KING MONGKUT AND THE KINGDOM OF SIAM\n\n97\n\nceremonies, audiences and banquets. A white elephant had been captured the previous year, the most auspicious of auguries for the new reign and now its presence seemed to be bringing the expected good fortune. Mongkut seemed to enjoy the company of the Englishmen, particularly Bowring whom he called “my friend”. As a parting gift he offered Sir John two elephants, but they were gracefully declined owing to transport difficulties. But Bowring did accept two tufts of hair from the white elephant's tail, which he later presented to Queen Victoria.\n\nThe gates were open. Within a year the Americans and the French had signed their own versions of the treaty with King Mongkut. In the next three years half a dozen European nations had similar agreements with the Siamese. By April, 1856, Harry Parkes returned with the Queen's instrument of ratification and a personal letter from Her Majesty. King Mongkut was delighted with this royal favour from mighty Britain and ordered a procession for formal delivery of the letter. In fact these ceremonies infuriated Townshend Harris, the newly-arrived American envoy, as he had to wait many days before he could begin discussions on his own treaty.\n\nThe effect of Mongkut's treaties with the West were far-reaching. Trade increased rapidly and had more than doubled by the time of the King's death in 1868. The character of the trade changed. There was virtually no export of rice before 1855, and by the end of the century rice accounted for nearly seventy per cent of Siam's exports. Bangkok grew rapidly, foreign merchants set up offices in the capital and there was an increase in the number of Chinese entering the country. The King's fiscal system had to change. Instead of royal monopolies of imports, taxes were charged at an agreed level.\n\nThe political effects were even more important. Foreign consuls lived in the capital and Siam sent embassies to Europe for the first time. The King took the initiative in employing foreign experts in his civil service. This practice was greatly extended in the next reign, that of his son, King Chulalongkorn. British officers were employed in the police force. A Belgian advised on legal reform. Germans were invited to plan the building of railways. Americans and Danes were appointed to civil and military duties. Most notorious of these appointments was that of Anna", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206266, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n77\n\n(10) Relation of land ownership to élite status can be judged by a list of the twenty highest rate-payers in 1876 and 1881, published in the Government Gazette. The list includes both Europeans and Chinese. In 1876 European ownership outranks Chinese twelve to eight; but in 1881 ownership had shifted so that there were seventeen Chinese among the twenty highest rate-payers. In the 1881 list seven of the top twenty were of compradore families, six were merchants, one contractor, and the widow of Rev. Ho Fuk Tong, ordained minister of the London Missionary Society's Chinese congregation.\n\nThe terminal date for this study is the opening of Tung Wah Hospital in 1872. After this date, the names of the Directors of the Hospital published in the Development of the Tung Wah Hospital 1870-1960 are an excellent criteria for determining élite status. After 1872 there is also an ever increasing number of subscriptions, memorials, committees, delegations, etc., which serve as counter-checks to the Tung Wah Directorships.\n\nFor a study of élite based on such lists, it is necessary to give identity to the names by a biographical sketch. These sketches indicate the manner by which the individual arrived at élite status. To reconstruct the biographies of these early residents of Hong Kong is not easy. Only documentary sources have been used for this reconstruction. No information has been sought from present day descendants of these individuals. I have relied upon such material as newspapers, Land Registry Office records, the Police and Lighting Rates for 1860, 1868 and 1872, the Government Gazettes and Blue Books, the published Calendar of Probates and Administrations, the Colonial Office Records in the Public Records Office, London, and the archives of several Missionary Societies. The Chinese practice of using various aliases complicates identification. In one instance, for example, an individual used at various times and in various relationships ten different aliases. The varying Romanization for Chinese names constitutes another problem for the researcher who uses western sources. The contemporary English, Portuguese, Germans and French each had a different system for Romanizing Chinese characters. For instance on page 101 there is a reference to Tso Aon's brother, Chow Yik Cheong. The Chinese character", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206362, "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": 179, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "HISTORY OF MILITARY VOLUNTEERS IN H.K.\n\n163\n\nfor defence and internal security purposes. This Ordinance was similar to that introduced in Britain in the early post-war years, and was equally unpopular. It was suspended in 1961, having outlasted the British one by two years. Thereafter the Force reverted to Volunteers. Apart from retaining one infantry company and a Home Guard Company, the former infantry organisation was discontinued and the Hong Kong Regiment was reorganised as a reconnaissance unit with internal security duties, companies converting to squadrons, one of them later equipped with armoured cars.\n\nVOLUNTEER PERSONNEL\n\nWho were the Volunteers during this hundred years and more of service? Generally speaking they were mostly Europeans up to the establishment of Chinese companies in 1937-38, since when Chinese have played an increasingly important part in the manning of the Volunteer Force. The names of the famous Ninety-Nine who signed the Colonial Secretary's circular on 30th May 1854 show a predominantly British group with some Portuguese, Germans and Scandinavians.\nBy 21st June following their number had risen to 127 comprising 92 British, 4 Danes and Swedes, 8 Germans, 16 Portuguese, 1 Italian, 1 Frenchman and individuals from 5 other countries. This mixture was representative of the polyglot foreign population of the time. It has been a feature of Volunteer life in the early and later periods, though not in the middle years from 1893. The Ordinance of 1862 made it easy for persons who were not British subjects to join. Volunteers needed only to be \"such and so many of the Inhabitants of Hongkong as shall volunteer and offer themselves, and as His Excellency the Governor shall approve of\" (Clause 1). Neither did the Rules and Regulations approved on 14th May 1862 make any stipulations about nationality. Christians and non-Christians alike were acceptable and could make either an oath or declaration of allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria and of faithful service during the term of enrolment (Clause VIII). There then came a change. Whilst the 1893 Ordinance, though being more specific in many things, still said nothing to exclude\n\n37 Vol, 1954, p. 21\n\n38 Vol, 1954, p. 20.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206473, "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": 21, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "CHINESE MEDICINE\n\n15\n\nweakness, etc., may be too far fetched, but the basic idea of endocrinology exists. In recent years a great variety of glandular substance has been used in medicine. Of these the thyroid, pituitary, suprarenals, pancreas, liver and the placenta, have been found to be of therapeutic value. It is remarkable that many of them have been used and incorporated in Chinese pharmacopoeia for ages past.\n\nThe Ming dynasty is the most glorious in the history of the pharmacopoeia of China. The most important contribution is the Pen Tsao Kang Mu (†1), the National Pharmacopoeia of China, compiled by Li Shi-chen. This is one of the most popular works on Chinese medicine, and is considered a great classic. It consists of some 52 comprehensive volumes divided into the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, the mineral kingdom and others, with a description of 1,892 kinds of different substances.\n\nIt contains many drugs which are common in both the East and the West. It took Li Shi-chen, the city magistrate, almost thirty years of hard work to complete this commendable piece of good work. This book is extremely rich in remedies, especially those of the vegetable origin, and offers a rich field for scientific research. Considerable attention has been directed to it by foreign writers, notably Du Halde who translated part of it into French in 1735 and Porter Smith in 1871.\n\nIn 1911, Stuart extensively revised Smith's work and published the Chinese Materia Medica, the vegetable kingdom. Works on the mineral kingdom and the avian kingdom were published by Bernard Read in recent years. An attempt was started by the Chinese Government to carry out scientific research on the drugs contained in the Chinese Materia Medica, but the war with Japan aborted the work.\n\nPerhaps, the earliest Chinese drug that has won its way abroad is China root, the so-called Chinese sarsaparilla, once reputed as a remedy for syphilis. Its fame spread as far as to India, Persia and Turkestan in the 16th century, and in Indian literature it was mentioned that syphilis came from Europe but China root could cure it. Eumenol, a liquid extract of tang kuei (†14), was introduced into Europe by the Germans in 1899, and is said to be effective in menstrual disorders.\n\nMacanin, a preparation from a Chinese seaweed, has been put on the market by the Japanese and vigorously advertised as a sub-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206989, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "54\n\nH. J. LETHBRIDGE\n\nin André Malraux, Antimémoires. Paris, 1967, pp. 375-473. There is a short biography in Roman d'Amat and R. Limouzin-Lamothe, eds., Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, Paris, 1965.\n\n17 Souvenirs de Cochinchine par Ch. David de Mayréna, Capitaine d'État-Major, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur... Toulon, J. Laurent, 1871.\n\n18 See Marcel Ner, 'Marie Ier Roi des Sedangs', Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient (Hanoi), Vol. 27, 1927, p. 316.\n\n19 Ibid., p. 333.\n\n20 Ahnaja, Mayréna's consort, died of tuberculosis in late 1888. She had followed Mayréna from Saigon but they were never legally married.\n\n21 There are many studies of Morès, but most are written from a French nationalist point of view: see, for example, Baron Charles de Donos, Morès: Sa vie, sa mort, Paris, 1899; Auguste Pavy, L'Expédition de Morès, Paris 1897; Félicien Pascal, L'Assassinat de Morès, un crime d'État, Paris, 1902; Jules Delahaye, Les Assassins et les vengeurs de Morès, 3 vols., Paris, 1905-1907; Pierre Frondaie, L'Assassinat du marquis de Morès, Paris, 1934. Of great interest are chapters on Morès in Maurice Barrès, Scènes et doctrines du nationalisme, Paris, 1902, and in Georges Bernanos, La Grande peur des bien-pensants, Paris, 1931. For details on the family see Almanach de Gotha, Gotha, 1890, pp. 390-91. Robert F. Byrnes, Antisemitism in Modern France, vol. 1, New Brunswick, NJ., 1950, contains many illuminating insights into Morès' political career. The most modern study is Donald Dresden's The Marquis de Morès: Emperor of the Bad Lands, 1970, which is particularly good on Morès's adventures in the Far West.\n\n22 One of his fellow cadets was Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), who later became the head of the Vichy Government. Another was the saintly Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), a missionary in the Sahara.\n\n23 His full name is given in the New York Times Obituary Index as Louis A. von Baron Hoffmann. He died in 1909. His daughter's name, Medora, was probably taken from Byron's poem 'The Corsair'.\n\n24 See Russell Reid, 'The De Morès Historical Site', North Dakota Historical Quarterly, vol. 8, 1941, pp. 272-83. In 1963 Louis Vallombrosa, the Marquis' eldest son, presented the château and the surrounding grounds to the State of North Dakota.\n\n25 See Maurice Soulié, Marie Ier, roi des Sédangs, 1888-1890, Paris, 1927, pp. 122-6. Mlle Dahlberg was supposed to be studying Siamese monuments in Bangkok but she was probably in the pay of the Germans who had recently discovered an interest in the region. Her brother was ostensibly a trader at Haiphong but really engaged in the smuggling of contraband goods.\n\n26 A tour of the East was often a risky venture. Many companies went broke and singers and actresses left penniless and hence vulnerable as a consequence. See, for example, Conrad's novel Victory and Somerset Maugham's story 'Flotsam and Jetsam' for fictional but accurate accounts of the lives of distressed European actresses in the East.\n\n27 Robert Fraser-Smith founded the Hong Kong Telegraph in 1881. He was also its editor and publisher until his death in 1895. The paper was edited from 6 Pedder's Hill and Fraser-Smith employed a staff of about four Europeans, usually Scotsmen, as reporters. As J. S. Thomson in The Chinese (London, 1909) writes: \"The newspapers of the Treaty Ports are generally set up by the Macaense (sic) and edited by Scotchmen\". Fraser-Smith was constantly involved in libel actions and in 1890 was sentenced to six months imprisonment for libelling J. Minhinett, a foreman in the Public Works Department, by suggesting he had committed rape. He did\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208112, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW - LONG ISLAND\n\n135\n\nburned or sunbaked. There are many mean huts of wood and wattle, and except in the main street where the Public Works Department of Hong Kong has insisted on drainage and paving, the streets are full of wallows, and the wallows full of pigs. As often as not the sleeping pig is being carefully searched by a fowl or so.\n\nOf the foreign buildings the most conspicuous are the Meeting Hall of the European residents situated in the midst of their rather scattered bungalows, and in the village, the red brick Police Station and the new School. All through Hong Kong the territory the Police Stations occupy the strategic positions, looking like a strange modern variant of the frowning castle which overhangs so many ancient settlements in Europe. And the analogy is not far-fetched, for there are raiding kidnappers and pirates to be repulsed, and Cheung Chow Police Station has itself been besieged, and successfully too, by pirates. The present building is surrounded by barbed wire, and garrisoned by Sikh police, and could stand siege long enough to enable it to summon a swift and powerful police launch by wireless from Hong Kong. The new school was opened only last year, and while the Police Station holds itself aloof on the ridge just outside the village, the school nestles more intimately among the good people, some of whose children pursue learning within those cheerful walls.\n\nThe Europeans are the Highlanders of Cheung Chow. Like the Hebrews in Canaan, they leave the plains to the original inhabitants and occupy patches of the bare hills. The Chinese use these little hills only to pasture a few tiny cattle, to supply fuel, and to afford a last resting place for their dead. Among the grass and the graves the missionaries have built small stone huts in the strangest of styles. Some are reminiscent of little Bethels and Bethesdas which drew their original inspiration from the stone barns where sectaries used to meet. Others are refuges among the great clusters of rocks, to which and between which they cling and clamber like the nests of some strange and gigantic insect. Amongst these there are some half-dozen more comfortable bungalows of permanent residents. All these Europeans live in amity with one another. There are British, Americans, and now and then some Germans. They elect a little committee and officers for their Association to deal with the Colonial Government, and with the Kaifong which governs the village. A tiny fund is expended with admirable results.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208711, "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-1979", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n141\n\nonly a handful of British representatives, among them the Colonial Secretary who went out into the city from the Internment Camp, until the British Forces arrived to take over.\n\n\"At Stanley a crowd of people were all set to loot the Maryknoll House of doors, windows, floors, sinks and so forth, but Bishop Valtorta came out as soon as the surrender became known and asked the Carmelite Sisters to send someone up to the house and remain there to protect our property. A couple of extern Sisters accordingly went up and took possession of the house. The Japanese had taken the hard wood flooring on the top floor and had carried it to the nearby valley north of the Stanley reservoir, in order to build a last stand field headquarters, which, however, they never did use. After we got to the house I gave some Stanley people work carrying the material back down again and Father Mark Tennien had the flooring relaid when he later on took over as Procurator.\n\n\"Practically all the equipment and furniture that was not fastened down had disappeared, such as sinks and kitchen stove. The hardwood chapel pews apparently could not be used for anything, and were too hard to split, so they were found piled up intact in the sacristy. All the books in our library had either been burned or carried away and the furniture moved out for use elsewhere by the Japanese.\n\n\"Upon arrival I at once wrote to Father George Daly and he sent out a full supply of china, cutlery, kitchenware and linens. Father Tennien had new furniture made after he took over.\n\n\"Shortly after internment I went to live with Bishop Valtorta, while Father Hessler remained at Stanley where he acted as chaplain to the Carmelite Sisters, and also did some work among the Japanese interned at Stanley Fort. It was while in Hong Kong with the Bishop that Father Maestrini and I got some quarters, formerly leased to the Germans, in the King's Building, for the Catholic Center and St. Nicholas Catholic Club. We had to scrounge furniture for the latter and carry it up 5 flights of stairs, as the lifts were not yet in working order. Captain O'Connell of the British Navy and Father Chatterton, Navy Chaplain, arranged all the official details and permissions for the Club. Father Chatterton even went with us to scrounge furniture and the Captain provided a lorry for transportation. They also arranged for us to get from the Navy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209413, "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": 70, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "48 \n\nJ. H. HAAN \n\nIn practice this meant that only the big commercial houses and other business interests came to be represented on the Municipal Council as virtually no private person paid enough taxes to qualify for membership: if only ten percent were qualified to vote, it may be imagined that the percentage qualified for membership of the Council was even smaller. \n\nIn the period up to 1865 only one instance has been found of a Municipal Council member who did not originate from a commercial firm, namely Dr. Medhurst of the London Missionary Society, who was on the Council for 1854-55. Otherwise all members belonged to some China house, and it is remarkable that the American firm of Russell & Co. was at the top of the list, being represented seven times during the period 1849-1866, whereas the renowned British firm Jardine, Matheson & Co., very early established in Shanghai, had only one member on the Council and that as late as 1865-66. Later there would hardly be a Municipal Council without Jardines. \n\n40 \n\nAs befitted an International Settlement, the composition of the Municipal Council was mixed according to nationality. The number of members fluctuated rather wildly in the early years (2 in 1849-50; 3 in 1850-54; then it jumped to 7 for the Municipal Council of 1854-55, to be reduced to 5 the next year and to 3 as from 1856-57; it was increased again to 5 in 1862-63 and to 7 the following year). These changes and enlargements were principally caused by the numerous problems which the Settlement faced at one time or another. \n\nIn the 1869 Land Regulations it was provided that the Municipal Council would consist of 9 members. In 1927, 3 Chinese members increased it to 12 and another 2 to 14 in 1930. \n\nThe British and Americans were first in the field at Shanghai and throughout its history they retained their majority on the Municipal Council (until 1930 when they became on a par with other nationalities). \n\nThe first non-Anglo-Saxon member was a German in the Municipal Council for 1863-64 due to the growing German commercial interests in China. The Germans retained their seat until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. After 1915, their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209588, "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": 245, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "223\n\nseamen's boarding houses and did not welcome pious competition, Rather than lease it to the Bishop he preferred to turn it into a sail-loft. However, the meeting at the City Hotel to revive interest in drama raised enough money by subscription to lease the building for another season.\n\nThe building was to be used not only as a theatre, but as a venue for Balls, meetings and other public purposes, but further funds were needed for refurbishing the building which had fallen into disrepair through infrequent use and the natural effect of time. The newly formed Theatrical Committee reported that “the interior will require repainting, and considerable alteration in seats. The roof ought to be lined with wood. This would improve appearance and acoustics. The stage should be lengthened by carrying it back some twelve or fourteen feet\". The Committee also reported that they had been successful in securing a group of amateurs who agreed to perform on the condition that tickets be issued gratis, \"so as to secure attendance alone of the respectable portion of the community\". This stipulation suggests that the earlier efforts of amateurs may have failed because rowdies had taken over and driven away audiences.\n\nAlthough the season got off to a good start, there was not sufficient financial support to sustain it. No more performances are reported in the Theatre. The last notice I have found of the building is in 1859 when an auction was advertised at the “Old Theatre next to the Oriental Hotel\".\n\nPORTUGUESE AND GERMANS\n\nThrough the years notices of performances by Portuguese amateurs appear. The first mention is in 1847 for a production at the \"Theatro da Sociedade\" at which music was provided by the visiting Macao Band. In 1852 the \"Theatrino Particular\" on Wellington Street announced a performance of Portuguese amateurs. One of the pieces presented was by young boys aged between eight and fifteen. The next year the boys performed in the Victoria Theatre under the direction of the schoolmaster, Mr. J.J. da Silva e Souza. As an entre-act four young girls performed a Spanish dance, the \"Guarrache”.\n\n!\n\n:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209589, "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": 246, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "224\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nWith children performing there was no question of respectability. It was announced some weeks after the first performance that \"several ladies having expressed regret at not witnessing the late performance of the Portuguese children, Mr. Souza, with the consent of the parents, and at the request of the Committee, has consented to repeat the performance at an early date\".\n\nIn 1866 the Portuguese community built a club house at Shelley and Elgin Streets. Attached to it was a small theatre. It was used not only by Portuguese amateurs but, before the opening of the Theatre Royal in the City Hall in 1869, it was the venue for the productions of the Amateur Dramatic Club. The Theatre portion of Club Lusitano was demolished in 1873,\n\nThe Germans built a club house on Wyndham Street in 1872. It contained a small auditorium. German amateur groups used it for plays and operettas. More appreciated by the non-German speaking community were the concerts and the appearance of Liedertafel singing groups.\n\nTHE A.D.C—BORN IN A MATSHED\n\nAn Amateur Theatrical Society was formed in 1860. Its membership was made up of both civilians and military officers.\n\nFor the 1860-61 season they erected a new matshed. It was said that in its internal arrangements there was \"no lack of comfort, indeed elegance has received its share of attention\". It included a continental innovation the prompter's box was placed in the centre in front of the curtain \"according to the French custom”.\n\nThe Committee of the Society came under attack for alleged misuse of funds. At the second performance of the 1861 season it was deemed necessary to make a public statement refuting accusations which had appeared in the local press. The Committee had been charged \"with spending the profits in cold fowl and sherry behind the scenes.\" Two professional ladies of the stage also figured in the accusations. The newspaper account of the public explanation concluded with the sentiment that \"Hong Kong thanks the Amateurs and has fullest confidence in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211067, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 128, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "103\n\n5.55 acres) for a Cemetery for Protestant foreigners and the right to construct a Cemetery was confirmed by the Spanish Government by a further Superior Decreto of August 30th, 1864. The lease was for a period of 90 years from May 2nd, 1863 at an annual rental of one hundred Philippine pesos (P), (presently Stg. 2.50).\n\nIn 1907 the area of the Cemetery was reduced to allow for the construction of an electric street car line from Pasig to Manila and the rent for the remaining 16,811 sq metres (4.15 acres) was reduced to P85.00. Road widening took another 469 sq metres in June 1941, shortly before the Japanese occupation during which the destruction of the boundary wall added to the inevitable neglect. Nevertheless, P429.30 back rental for the period of the war had to be paid in January 1946. In 1947 the lease was extended until December 31st, 1987.\n\nThe five hundred odd burials give an interesting insight into the variety of life amongst foreigners who took up living halfway across the world in these lovely islands.\n\nMostly British, with Germans the second largest national group, they included master mariners from Liverpool and Plymouth, seamen from Nova Scotia, Belfast and Hamburg; businessmen from London and Lancashire, a Parisian shopkeeper, an operatic impressario from Milan, engineers on the British owned Manila Railroad, a diplomat who had served in the American Consular Service for forty-five years, and many children. Jews were also buried in the Cemetery, as were Japanese, although all these remains were removed to Japan during the occupation in 1942. Perhaps the most interesting burial was Prince Ludwig Zu Lowenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg who went to Manila as a military observer during the revolution against American occupation and was killed by a stray bullet during fighting in Battangas in March 1899.\n\nThere were 93 recorded British deaths in the Philippines during the Second World War, mostly priests and civilians, from natural causes, privation, enemy action and execution by Japanese and by Filipino collaborators. These people were buried in many different places including Baguio Cathedral, Cebu, Davao, La Loma,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211256, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 317, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "292\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nPamela Atwell, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers: the British Administration of Weihaiwei (1898-1930) and the Territory's Return to Chinese Rule, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. 302 + xxiii pp. Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Glossary (with Chinese characters), Index.\n\nThe year was 1898 and the sun was setting on the Ch'ing dynasty which had ruled the Chinese Empire since 1644. China's defeat by Japan in 1895 had revealed its weaknesses once more to the world. Foreign powers sought to take advantage of the vulnerability of the Ch'ing government to intensify their demands for territorial and economic concessions. The Powers rushed, or \"scrambled\", to attain their objectives before others could get to them first.\n\nIn one respect, the Powers had the support of Chinese officials, who, implementing traditional Chinese policy of using barbarians to control barbarians, sought to achieve a balance of power in China. By 1898, the Russians built a naval base at Port Arthur while the Germans established their presence over the province of Shantung. In April 1898, the Chinese government leased Weihaiwei to Britain. Weihaiwei, at the tip of the Kiaochow Peninsula in northern Shantung, was then occupied by the Japanese. It was hoped that, from this vantage, the British would be able to counter Russian and German strength in North China, and all of them would keep out the Japanese.\n\nThe British stayed at Weihaiwei until 1930, when it was returned to Chinese administration. During the interim, the Kaiser and the Tsar had collapsed and China had gone through the Boxers uprising, a series of reforms, a revolution that toppled the Ch'ing dynasty, a period of disunity and warlord rule, and, finally, the establishment of the National Government at Nanking led by Chiang Kai-shek in 1927. The rise of Chinese nationalism increased demand for rendition of all foreign concessions in China, including Weihaiwei.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211781, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 196, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "171\n\nLocal amateur musicians\n\nThe resident amateurs, about whom \"Philharmonic\" was so full of praise, generally performed in combination with a professional artist — although there were exceptions. Thus, there was the amateur concert in aid of the Lancashire Relief Fund, mentioned earlier, on April 17, 1863, at which among others Beethoven's \"Egmont\" and Weber's \"Freischütz\" overtures were played on the pianoforte; furthermore, glees and songs were sung by a small choir of gentlemen. In November 1864, another charity concert was given, this time in aid of the repairs fund of the \"Hongque Free Episcopal Church\", organised by the \"Shanghai Vocal Quartette Club\".\n\nBut it was far more usual that a professional artist sought the assistance of some local amateurs in order to diversify the evening somewhat. Otherwise the chance was great that the public would be bored — despite the alleged love of Shanghailanders for music witness the remark in the Herald of October 1, 1864: \"people here hardly care to sit for two hours to listen to a performance on the violin, however well the instrument is handled; some variety is required\". So the instrumental recitals were alternated with vocal exertions by the amateurs, as e.g. on February 22, 1859, when the critic was dissatisfied with the main interpreter, Prof. Shonbrun, but on which occasion the amateur tenor solos were thought to be given \"with taste and feeling\". At a following performance of the same pianist he was again surrounded by singers one of whom even ventured to tackle the great tenor aria from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.\n\n62\n\nThe Germans, despite their small number (about 200 in 1865), were generally active in the cultural field. Even before they had their own Club, a Singverein \"Germania\" had been established as early as before 1859 although the regularity of the organisation may be doubted for, at one time, there was not even a conductor, resulting in an \"evident want of confidence and decision by which the general effect was much impaired\". Little was heard of it in subsequent years, but it may have been the fore-runners of the German \"Liedertafel\" which existed in the early seventies and which was then led by Mr. Hogquist.65\n\nGarrison music\n\nThe concerts that were given by the bands of the several military forces", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212023, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 438, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "413\n\nMind Landscapes has been laid out with great beauty and intelligence. It would have been impossible to produce such an outstanding volume without financial support. This was provided through grants from the Henry Art Gallery Association, PONCHO, the University of Washington Press and the J. Paul Getty Trust. Yet it is rare to have such a thoughtful and handsome product even if one has the resources. Kudos is also due to the designer, Douglas Wadden.\n\nThe publication of Mind Landscapes coincides with a major retrospective of C.C. Wang's work and serves as a catalogue to it. This book is a fitting climax to Mr. Wang's career and sets a standard of excellence in its field. Let us hope that young scholars in Asia and the West will take note.\n\nJOAN LEBOLD COHEN\nTufts University\n\nPamela Atwell, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers: the British Administration of Weihaiwei (1898-1930) and the Territory's Return to Chinese Rule, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. 302 + xxiii pp. Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Glossary (with Chinese characters), Index.\n\nThe year was 1898 and the sun was setting on the Ch'ing dynasty which had ruled the Chinese Empire since 1644. China's defeat by Japan in 1895 had revealed its weaknesses once more to the world. Foreign powers sought to take advantage of the vulnerability of the Ch'ing government to intensify their demands for territorial and economic concessions. The powers rushed, or \"scrambled\", to attain their objectives before others could get to them first.\n\nIn one respect, they had the support of Chinese officials, who, implementing traditional Chinese policy of using barbarians to control barbarians, sought to achieve a balance of power in China. By 1898, the Russians had built a naval base at Port Arthur while the Germans had established their presence over the province of Shantung. In April 1898, the Chinese government leased Weihaiwei to Britain. Weihaiwei, at the tip of the Kiaochow Peninsula in northern Shantung, was then occupied by the Japanese. It was hoped that, from this vantage, the British would be able to counter Russian and German strength in North China, and all of them would keep out the Japanese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212172, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 114, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "91\n\nswallow are quite unalike, as also are the utensils with which they eat. The Chinese like to play mah-jong or poker for high stakes; the foreigners cannot afford it. The wealthy Chinese gentleman as often as not transacts his business in the public bath house; the Club is a foreign institution. As the foreigner everywhere is so outnumbered, to avoid being swamped he has kept his clubs to himself. The Chinese resent this. And, of course, there is the almost insuperable language difficulty; fluency in Chinese requires years of study, years which few foreigners can spare.\n\nIn Nanking these difficulties could be overcome: on the foreign side the community included many officials who had spent a lifetime in China and could speak the language; and on the Chinese side there were many who had studied abroad and got used to foreign ways. Consequently, whereas elsewhere in China entertainment between Chinese and foreigners was generally confined to feasting in Chinese restaurants, here it took place quite often in the intimacy of the home. The advantage to international association was priceless.\n\nThe members of a large German military mission lived in Nanking, helping to train and equip the Chinese armies. Their departure from Europe had pre-dated the extreme Nazi phase, and they were not averse to mixing with the other foreigners. General von Falkenhausen, who commanded the mission, was later to be appointed by Hitler as Governor of occupied Holland. The mission did much to improve the quality of the Chinese troops, though it was often thwarted by the sort of obstruction to which one grows so accustomed in China.\n\nThe German mission, which under Japanese pressure was ordered out of China by Hitler in the autumn of 1938, left an excellent impression. Some officers of the mission were with the Chinese troops who fought against the Japanese at Shanghai, and the later Chinese success at Taierchwang is generally attributed to German advice. To this day the Chinese officers who were associated with the mission or who were taught in its schools, remain Germanophile.\n\nOn the advice of the Germans large areas of the extensive fortified zone round Nanking were placed out of bounds. The restriction, alas, interfered with shooting. On several occasions, when I went out with my dogs, I was politely stopped by a perspiring patrol who, having spotted me from a distant hill or heard my shots, had chased after me", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212213, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "132\n\nrates and land taxes which work out at only 7.50 dollars per capita, compared with an average assessment in Great Britain of over 17 dollars.\n\n\"The work of the Council, and especially of the Foreign Members thereof, has been largely political, as well as administrative. Since the development of Nationalism in China, it has had to wage an incessant struggle to maintain, and to prevent encroachments upon, its privileges, especially in such matters as taxation, and interference with the administration of justice and the police. In the last resort, of course, controversial issues have to be adjusted between the Chinese authorities and the Consular Body, and the success of the Council in upholding the status of the Settlement depends upon the support accorded to it by the Foreign Consuls. But unless the Council had taken the initiative and watched very jealously over its privileges, the administration would have taken a very different form from what we see today. It must be considered remarkable, when you come to think of it, that from the early eighteen-sixties a succession of men — mostly merchants with little or no municipal experience, should have administered the Settlement in an honorary capacity, in such a manner as to develop a huge, well-governed, and normally peaceful city out of an area of marshy ground. Although for political reasons the Council has not been popular with Chinese officialdom, the presence within its boundaries today of nearly three million Chinese is evidence of the confidence reposed in it by the ordinary Chinese.\n\n\"Anglo-American interests still predominate in the Settlement. Ever since the amalgamation of the American and British areas in 1863 there has been the closest co-operation between the American and British communities. An American has on several occasions been Chairman of the Council. An American citizen has for the past ten years occupied the highest executive post in the Council, that of Secretary-General. Until comparatively recently the Foreign Councillors were invariably Europeans or Americans. In addition to Americans or Britons, Germans, Russians, Scandinavians, and others have at various times served upon the Council. The growth of the Japanese population, which increased from 736 in 1900 to 7169 in 1915, made it only reasonable that there should be a Japanese representative on the Council, and the first Japanese Councillor, Mr. Ishii, took his seat in the latter year. As the Japanese population continued to increase it was well over 20,000, compared with 6,700 British in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212217, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "136\n\nAmerican films were flown over quickly from Hollywood, and pictures would often be released earlier in Shanghai than in London. When the newsreels of the war began to come along, they led to disturbances; the Germans got nasty and wanted to break things up. Cinema owners did not wish to see their cinemas wrecked and in the end the showing of newsreels was discontinued. Unfortunately, they also did not dare show pictures, like \"The Great Dictator\", which were critical of Fascist methods. The French were, however, determined to see \"The Confessions of a Nazi Spy\", an anti-Nazi picture which was doing much in the States to open the eyes of the population to the methods of the German 'Bund'. They stationed two armoured cars outside the cinema, while inside armed police, with drawn automatics, stood along the gangways. The picture had a very popular run for two weeks, without incident.\n\nSince the disturbances of 1927 the leading Treaty Powers had maintained garrisons at Shanghai. The Japanese forces were quartered in the section of the International Settlement north of the Soochow creek, where the majority of the Japanese population lived; the British, American, and Italian contingents guarded sectors of the perimeter south of the creek; and the French garrisoned their own Concession. There was a local understanding of live and let live, and even after the Italians came into the war, the Grenadiers of Savoy, decked out in patches of red on collar and sleeve, and the baggiest of plus-fours, continued to man their sector: but to avoid argument with Thomas Atkins and Jack Tar they were confined to their own particular taverns. Blood Alley remained an Anglo-Saxon preserve, where Johnnie Doughboy sometimes threw his weight about.\n\nIt was in January, 1940, that the Royal Navy stopped the Asama Maru, within a few hours steaming of the Japanese Coast, and removed 21 Germans from on board. The Japanese, of course, went up in the air at this alleged insult to the Imperial flag, and the British community in Shanghai questioned the expediency of the action. The incident was settled by negotiation, 9 of the captives being returned, and the Japanese undertaking not to convey in their ships military personnel of the belligerents. It is interesting to remember that, when the S.S. \"President Hoover\" ran aground on the East Coast of Formosa, in Japanese territorial water, closed to foreign shipping, the Japanese refused to allow the Americans to salvage her, but insisted on the work being done by Japanese firms. Soon after, the Asama", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212233, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "152\n\nnot do for a house to be very isolated, or it would be continually attacked by robbers. The Roman Catholic Cathedral is a fine building, and also the Governor's house. Just behind the College are some fine buildings.\n\nAnd now, after a glance at the island, I will go on to describe the inhabitants. Of course they are mostly Chinese; next come English, Parsees, Portuguese, Americans, Germans, French, and Arabs. Spaniards might also be mentioned. The Chinese are the working part of the population. Generally they are industrious and active. The lower classes however are dirty and degraded. The middle class are generally well informed and intellectual. Some hold very important situations. One striking feature in Chinese character is their don't care sort of feeling. If they can get out of doing anything they will, unless they see a chance of being well paid for it. Anything they do not want to understand, they pretend great ignorance of. In fact unless money is in the way, one would take them for a race of idiots. Never can you tell if they are pleased or angry. They are the most cold-hearted race that can be imagined. The men agree well together; never do I hear any quarrelling among them. They do not take wine or beer, and a drunken Chinese is as uncommon a thing here as a really honest one. One needs be very sharp to deal with them.\n\nI went to buy some earthenware, and it was as much as I could do to keep the fellows civil. A crowd always collects in a shop when they see an Englishman. I should have lost my watch, purse and umbrella twenty times over if I had not kept my eyes open. As pickpockets they beat London all to nothing. I had to keep my eye on the whole lot of them. They will even cut off the tail of one's coat and quietly walk off with it; and a few coat tails makes them a suit of clothes.\" One has to be all bluster, and to keep a walking stick or umbrella continually in motion, to keep pace with them. I being a stranger, perhaps they wanted to try my patience over what I was buying. It seems a favour for them to let you buy of them. In fact they never speak of the English but as fan-kwai, i.e. foreign devils. They are very hypocritical. There is no knowing their thoughts or intentions. In fact a Chinaman in Hongkong is quite a riddle.\n\nThey generally dress in white. All wear a sort of coat, and very full knee breeches and gaiters. Their shoes always look very neat, although the soles are above an inch thick. They are slippers in appearance rather than shoes. They never wear a hat except when they wish to keep off the sun, when they use one as big as an umbrella. A Chinaman ordinarily dressed, with his long pig-tail hanging down behind, does not look so bad after one is used to it. Some of the wealthy ones stalk about in the evening with all the dignity imaginable.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212237, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "156\n\nThe Portuguese are in considerable numbers here, since they can generally stand the climate better than the English: Many of them have come from the neighbouring island of Macao which is Portuguese. They are a swarthy indolent looking set. They have a strong Roman Catholic College, which is not far from ours.\" Their undermining influence is very strong. The students, priests and friars, etc., wander about of an evening in their long black dresses. The Catholics are very active.\n\nThe Americans are mostly men of business. The Germans are mostly Lutheran missionaries, and capital fellows they are. The French and Arabs are comparatively few in number. There is an English jail, generally full of sailors: Two of the men from the \"Prince Alfred\" I suppose were put in there. I am going regularly to visit the prisoners, Mr Irwin having wished me to do so to assist him. Then there is the Chinese jail; a wretched place. Every hour or two as I sit here, I hear a long heavy clanking of chains as a great gang of them go past in the road, carrying heavy burdens. They make them work hard on the roads, and the continual sight of them has a salutary effect on the Chinese mind. Yet crime is very common.\n\n14\n\nI come in the next place to speak of the college, and of my domestic arrangements. In my former letter\" I gave a brief description of it, which I will amplify a little. I have just made a miserable sketch, or rather ground plan of the college, just to show within a little the relative positions of each of the parts. I will now ask you to accompany me through the establishment. We enter the gateway, as you see in the plan, and go through the shrubbery. We notice it is thickly planted with trees, and here and there on the grass is a small bed with flowers. There are some gigantic specimens of cactus and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212324, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 266, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "243\n\nand persons of Portuguese descent.\n\nTo a degree banks symbolise power, and the People's Republic gained in prestige when its 17-storey Bank of China slightly overtopped the Hong Kong Bank in 1950. The latter then erected a flagpole, so it is said, which gave it a few extra feet. In 1959, however, the then new Chartered Bank rose about three metres above the old Bank of China. With the new 42-storey standard Chartered Bank, completed in 1990, looking down on the Hong Kong Bank claimed to be the most cost-efficient bank building in the world it seems that, to some degree, history is repeating itself. Nevertheless, this is well short of the 70-floor new Bank of China (also completed in 1990) which, for a few years, was the tallest building in Asia.\n\nHong Kong Bank\n\n▬\n\nUnlike the Chartered Bank which is essentially British, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, which is today the largest bank headquartered in Asia outside Japan, has always prided itself on being international. Nevertheless, the original prospectus of the 'Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Company Limited' stated the aim was: \"for an institution to be operated on sound Scottish banking principles.\"\n\nMost of its senior staff have, from the outset, thus been British.\n\nThe Hong Kong Bank was founded in 1864, on co-operative lines. Business commenced in 1865 (by which time six banks were already established in Hong Kong), and nearly all the principal firms in the Colony were represented. The purpose of Wayfoong (?) (meaning 'Abundance of Remittances' which first appeared, in Chinese, on bank notes in 1881) was to serve the needs of merchants of the China coast and to finance the growing trade between China, Europe and North America. The traders of old felt their needs would be served better if they had a bank (in Hong Kong it is often spoken of as The Bank) which was owned, managed and operated locally.\n\nAlthough the provisional committee was chaired by the British firm Dent and Company its members were far from being exclusively British. They included Americans, Germans, Scandinavians and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212756, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "50\n\nHis experience when assaulted by Chinese soldiers in Wu-chang during his holiday outing.\n\n10 Mesny's Chinese Miscellany: Volume 2: 10 September 1896: page 449\n\nIn 1992 Miss Lucie Mesny in Jersey explained that as a child she had never encountered any elderly lady, a member of family, called Lydia, who had been only two years younger than William Mesny and therefore would have been only in her mid-sixties when Miss Lucie was a child, if of course Lydia had still been alive\n\n12 Mesny was referring to what had been a very recent incident when the Germans had sent a few hundred soldiers to I-chou in Shantung province 'to bring the local populace to their senses.'\n\n13\n\nPresumably the good Doctor Dudgeon was John Dudgeon, who lived in Tientsin towards the end of the nineteenth century, the author of Chinese Arts of Healing, a series in the Chinese Recorder in 1869/70; The Great Medical College at Peking (in the Chinese Recorder February 1870); The Disgusting Nature of Chinese Medicines (also in the Chinese Recorder in March 1870); The Worship of the Moon (Chinese Recorder in Mar/Apr 1882), \"The Beverages of the Chinese: and finally Kung-fu or Taoist Medical Gymnastics (Tientsin: 1895).\n\n14\n\nIt is strange that Mesny should have been unaware of the legend of the powerful and ubiquitous Northern Emperor, 玄天上帝 a deity whose aides are a turtle and snake, frequently portrayed wrapped around each other at the feet of the image of the deity in Taoist and folk religion temples, and referred to as Generals.\n\n15 Yun-yü, the Clouds and Rain, is a common euphemism for sexual intercourse\n\n16\n\nThis was recorded in his Miscellanies in 1896 as Tsung-ping: translated as 'Regional Commander', rank 2a in the Chinese military forces of the Green Standards [lu-ying], subordinate to the Provincial Military Commander and Province Governors. [Hucker C.O., A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China: Stanford University Press: 1985]\n\n11 Colquhoun A R: China in Transformation: Harper and Bros: New York and London. 1898 (and other books)\n\nScidmore E R. China - The Long-lived Empire: MacMillan & Co. London: 1900\n\nAppendix A\n\nMesny's Chinese Miscellany\n\nEach weekly issue of the Miscellany, edited and printed in Shanghai during 1896, 1899 and 1905, with a run of one thousand copies, began with Notes on China and Chinese Subjects later renamed Anglo-Chinese Notes, an arbitrary, catholic and unstructured collection of items ranging from natural subjects such as the names in English and Chinese of trees, plants etc with a short description presumably culled from a major tome on the subject, to historical and mythological items, geographical descriptions mostly in western China, and a long section", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213201, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "2\n\nThe name apparently derives from a city in Germany, but records indicated they had for a time lived in Egypt or Turkey before arriving at the China coast.\n\nThis study is one-dimensional. I do not have sufficient knowledge nor have I undertaken the necessary research to put the story of the Germans in Hong Kong in a proper international setting or to relate it to the complexities of the internal and external developments of the German states and, subsequently, the German nation. This study is based on Hong Kong sources and hence is seen only from the Hong Kong view. The story could be greatly enlarged and enriched by a scholar with broader knowledge than the present author.\n\nSources for the study\n\nDocumentation of sources is usually of little interest to the average reader but they are important to the scholar who might want to check the facts or further develop aspects of the subject. I am not aware that there has yet been published so detailed a history of the German-speaking community in Hong Kong as the present study. Even so, I have not dealt with the subject in a thoroughly exhaustive way. I have confined myself to data found in Hong Kong and I have not included every detail or fact I have in my files.\n\nReaders who check the notes will find that most of my information is from a limited number of sources: Hong Kong newspapers; the Hong Kong section of directors for China and the Far East; the Hong Kong Government Gazette contains jury lists, annual probate calendars, the medical register, notices of changes in the partnership of firms and authorisation to sign; reports of the Spirit Licensing Board; the China Repository lists of residents on the China coast 1833-1851; Colonial Office records, especially for the World War I period; selected Series in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong, especially those from wills, rates and valuations, and surrendered deeds; and the memorials in the Land Office. With so many references, there may have been some mistakes in transcribing dates and names. I hope these errors are at a minimum.\n\nI should like to express my appreciation to the staff of the Public Records Office, the Secretariat Library, the Special Collections Room at Hong Kong University Library, and to the Registrar General for permission", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213202, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 24, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "to search the Memorials in the Land Office \n\nAbbreviations used in the notes:\n\nCM China Mail\n\nDP Daily Press\n\nFC Friend of China\n\nGG Hong Kong Government Gazette\n\nHKT Hong Kong Telegraph\n\nPRO Public Records Office of Hong Kong\n\nSCMP South China Morning Post\n\nCO129/ Series 129 of the Colonial Office, microfilms at the Public Record Office of Hong Kong.\n\nNumber of German residents in Hong Kong 1871-1931\n\nThe following figures are from the periodic Hong Kong census returns:-\n\n \n Year\n Males\n Females\n Total\n \n \n 1871\n 152\n 18\n 170\n \n \n 1881\n 138\n 50\n 188\n \n \n 1891\n 149\n 59\n 208\n \n \n 1896\n 203\n 89\n 292\n \n \n 1901\n 232\n 105\n 337\n \n \n 1906\n 237\n 122\n 359\n \n \n 1911\n 214\n 128\n 342\n \n \n 1921\n 3\n ...\n 3\n \n \n 1931\n 95\n 61\n 156\n \n\nThere was a steady increase in German residents until 1906. The 1911 figures show an increase of six males but a decrease of seventeen females, a decrease for the total population of seventeen.\n\nThe report of the Provost Marshall in 1914 of Germans placed under parole provides a profile of the German community in Hong Kong at that time. There were eighty-two merchants and their employees and eighteen wives in this category. Shopkeepers, missionaries, ship's offices, doctors, etc. numbered fifty. There were six wives of missionaries and thirteen wives of others in the non-merchant group. Thirteen missionary sisters were connected with charitable institutions and two other unmarried women. Thus the total was 132 men and sixty women. Children were not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213203, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 25, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "4\n\nincluded (CO129/414, p. 177).\n\nThe three German females in the 1921 census are mentioned in a report Canon Bannister sent to the Church Missionary Society in 1914. The Berlin Foundling House had 150 children and the two Blind Homes had 120 children. \"The Government has allowed three German ladies to remain in each home and the writer was asked to take general oversight”, (Archives of the Church Missionary Society, University of Birmingham, England, CH1/P/4 No. 149, Bannister, 5 Nov. 1914).\n\nThe German community gradually reestablished itself in Hong Kong, but in 1931 it was less than half of what it had been in 1911.\n\nHong Kong being a British colony, the British were the largest non-Chinese community. Next was the Macanese-Portuguese. The third were the Germans. They were followed by the Americans,\n\nGermans in the Canton trade\n\nGerman-speaking merchants participated in the China trade in the eighteenth century. The trade was confined to Canton. In 1729, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Emperor of Austria, chartered the Imperial East India Company to trade in the East using the port of Ostend in the Netherlands as its home base. At that time Netherlands was a part of the Austrian Empire. This company did not use German ships, but chartered British vessels which were principally manned by British crews. This was a stratagem to get around the efforts of the British chartered East India Company to control the European trade with China. Over the years there were usually two or three ships each season from Bremen or Hamburg arriving at Canton.\n\nBritish free traders used the protection of the office of Consul for foreign states to acquire the privilege of permanent residence in China. These free traders were large importers of opium of India, a trade the British East India Company ships did not engage in as it was prescribed by Chinese Imperial Edict and the company wished to maintain a good relation with the Dragon Throne. It feared that if it was too closely identified with the opium trade the Chinese authorities would curtail the company's lucrative and traditional trade in tea.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213207, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "8\n\n00\n\nuntil the outbreak of war in 1914. During the period when the congregation met in the Union Church Hall, the community also conducted a school there. The group meeting there was called the Deutsche Kirchen und Schulegemeinde (Rev. Albert Plag, \"Bethesda and the Berliner Frauenverein Für China”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1969, v. 9: 149-150, Carl T. Smith, “The German Congregation in Hong Kong until 1914\", ibid, 1975. v. 15: 292-295).\n\nIn the 1896/97 the Hildesheim Mission opened the Ebenezer Home for the Blind. There were two homes, one on Hong Kong Island and one in Kowloon. During the First World War they were placed under the supervision of the Church Missionary Society, though the Sisters in charge were allowed to continue to care for the children. Among the first Germans to return to Hong Kong after the end of the war were several deaconesses of the Hildesheim Society. The Ebenezer Home and School for the Blind is now located on Pokfulam Road.\n\nTwo German missionaries became Inspectors of Schools in Hong Kong. Rev. Wilhelm Lobscheid was sent to China in 1848 by the Rhenish Missionary Society, but in 1857 he changed his allegiance to the British-based Chinese Evangelization Society, yet another of the groups inspired by Gutzlaff. He was Inspector of Schools in Hong Kong from 1855 to 1859. He published in 1859 a valuable historical account entitled A Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education, and the Government Schools of Hong Kong; with remarks on the history and religious notions of the inhabitants of this island. From 1861 to 1866 he acted as an emigration agent, recruiting labour for British colonies in the West Indies. His labours in this endeavour again produced a book which contains much of interest as its title suggests, Chinese Emigration to the West Indies: A Trip through British Guiana undertaken for the purpose of ascertaining the condition of the Chinese who have emigrated under Government Contract With Supplementary Papers Relating to Contract Labour and the Slave Trade.\n\nAnother German, Rev. Ernest J. Eitel was Inspector of Schools from 1878 to 1896. He was influential in setting policies for the development of education in Hong Kong. He was sent to China in 1862 by the Basel Missionary Society. Three years later he transferred to the London Missionary Society. He married Miss Eaton, an agent of the Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East. She was head-mistress of the Diocesan School for Girls. Mr. Eitel became a naturalised British", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213208, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "subject when Governor John Pope Hennessy planned to appoint him as His Excellency's personal secretary in charge of affairs relating to the Chinese. The British merchants were opposed to the Governor creating an office where he would have more direct communication with the Chinese. Due to their opposition, Eitel never occupied such a position. In 1895, he published Europe in China, a detailed history of Hong Kong up to that date.\n\nClub Germania\n\nA club for Germans was started in 1859 in Wanchai in an unpretentious building. The German-speaking population at the time would have been very small. There were three German firms and two stores conducted by Germans. Within two years, the community almost doubled. It was small, but still large enough to provide a social centre for the community. In 1865, George Michelmore advertised the opening of a hotel in premises \"which were formerly known as the German Club\". It was below the Headquarters House, now Flagstaff House, off the present Cotton Tree Drive. This may have been the second location of the Club, as an article written in 1909 states that the first building was in \"an outlying section of Wanchai\", a description which does not fit a location on what is now Cotton Tree Drive (DP, 17 May, 1865).\n\nThe club moved in 1865 to a new building erected by Gustav Overbeck at the top of Wyndham Street, just south of D'Aguilar Street. But the German population was increasing, and the Germania Club decided to build a more commodious building. This was on the east side of Wyndham Street off Queen's Road. The new building was opened in 1872. It was a brick building in the Gothic style. The architects were Messrs Wilson and Salway. The cost was $21,000. Thirteen granite steps led to the entrance, and the main hall. On either side of the hall was a billiard room and a reading room. On the same level was a library room and a bar. The Concert Hall was approached by a flight of seven-foot-wide stairs. The Hall accommodated 275 persons; on either side was a drawing room and a dining room. There were accommodations for sixty in the dining room. Four bowling alleys were in the rear of the building (HKT, 27 Nov. 1909). The building served the community well until again it became too small, and another building was erected on Kennedy Road. This building became enemy alien property in 1914 and passed into the hands of St. Joseph's College. The College is still located in the building.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213217, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "18\n\nbegan her long association as the wife of Mr. Petersen, the proprietor of the German Tavern.\n\nAfter his death she was left with several small children and by the year 1904 was married to R.A. Matthaey. He became bankrupt in February 1907, having operated the Occidental Hotel in Kowloon since 1904. His wife in October 1907 opened the Oriental Hotel on Queen's Road in the building formerly occupied by Thomas' Hotel. By November 1909 she had become Mrs. Uschmann.\n\nMr. Reichmann must have lost his case against Mrs. Uschmann as from 1911 to 1914 R.A. Uschmann was the licensee of the Station Hotel at Nos. 11 and 13 Nathan Road. The hotel was closed during the war but in November 1919 Mrs. Louisa Jane Stewart Brown applied for a spirit licence. In 1921 her name is replaced by Mrs. A.B. Sanderson Smith. A summary of the history of the Station Hotel was published in the South China Morning Post at the time of its closure in 1931. The proprietors Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson Smith closed it at the end of March after it had been in existence some twenty years.\n\nTwo houses on Nathan Road were occupied as residences when purchased by the Procurator of the Dominican Mission in 1908. In the following year Mrs. Uschmann established a boarding house. Then an annex in the rear facing Hankow Road was purchased by the Dominicans. Mr. J. Sanderson Smith arrived in Hong Kong in 1921 and married Mrs. Uschmann. In my opinion, the account is incorrect in stating he married Mrs. Uschmann. I conclude from the evidence presented above that he married Miss Petersen, the daughter of Mrs. Uschmann.\n\nMr. Reichmann, though he lost in his attempt to stop competition in the German hotel trade, continued offering hospitality to them until the outbreak of the First World War. Before that, he had applied for British nationality but he had not yet received it. In considering the treatment to be given to enemy aliens, the Provost Marshall recommended that special consideration be given to Mr. Reichmann. He had been a valuable source of information to the British military authorities and was considered to be of value in keeping tabs on what was happening in the German community. However, events overtook the recommendation as soon after, almost all the Germans in the colony were either interned or deported. (CO129/413 - information from Provost Marshall regarding Germans on List, 8 Oct. 1914) The list of spirit licensees for November 1914 states that Mr.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213218, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "19\n\nReichmann's application for the Grand Hotel was not granted as he was a German national. He applied again in 1915 but to no avail. Though he was unsuccessful, the application suggests he was not interned with his fellow countrymen. After peace returned, he again sought a decision on his application for naturalisation (CO129/455, p37, 11 July 1919).\n\nI have presented this material in what some might consider excessive detail because it relates a connected history of accommodation for travelling and resident Germans from 1859, when Petersen's German Tavern was opened, to 1931, when his daughter retired from the management of the Station Hotel in Kowloon and closed its doors.\n\nCafe Weissmann\n\nThe Cafe Weissmann opened in 1904. In 1914/15 the name was changed to Wiseman, a less Germanic spelling. Lane, Crawford and Co. had acquired a controlling interest in Weissmann Ltd, so its Cafe was not considered to be alien enemy property. The licence for spirits was transferred from Rembold Ekhardt, who had held it from 1909, to Ellen H.K. King,\n\nAccording to Jarrett, the author of the column \"Old Hong Kong\" in the South China Morning Post (23 Sept. 1933), Hans Weissmann was a ship's baker who began business near the Bowrington Canal. If this is accurate, he must have begun his Hong Kong career at the Hong Kong and China Bakery Co. It was a limited company with the controlling interest being held by Lane, Crawford and Co. Mr. Weissmann opened a restaurant in a small room in the Beaconsfield Arcade in 1904, but he soon moved to the south-east corner of Queen's Road and Wyndham Street. Here, in addition to his \"Refreshment Room\", he had a \"Tiffin Room\" at No. 1 Wyndham Street. At the same time, the business became a limited company (DP20, 27 Apr 1905). The management of the restaurant was taken over by Carl Fiedler in 1908. A year later, the business was moved to No. 14 Des Voeux Road Central. Mr. Fiedler was not long after replaced by Rembold Ekhardt, who conducted the business under various names until 1914.\n\nCafe Weissman became Cafe Wiseman in 1914. No. 14 Queen's Road was redeveloped in 1926 as the Exchange Building. Lane, Crawford and Co. had its store there and for several years Cafe Wiseman became the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213219, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "20\n\nLane, Crawford Restaurant and for several years in the 1930s it was known as the Exchange Restaurant, but in 1935 the name reverted again to Cafe Wisseman (details of management, location and name are from notices of the Spirit Licensing Board published in the Hong Kong Government Gazette).\n\nAn incident took place at the Cafe in September 1914, just after war was declared, which placed three German nationals under suspicion. They were observed throwing down a copy of the China Mail and stamping on it because it contained a report that the British had compulsorily bought two battleships then being built for the Turkish Government (CO129/413, Information from Provost Marshall regarding Germans on list, 8 Oct. 1914).\n\nFirms\n\nI have tried to reconstruct the history of these firms from the records available in Hong Kong. The average reader may not be interested in the detailed account of change of partnership, location and other minutia, but as most of this material has not been published previously, I presume to do so now in the hope that there may be some who have an interest in the firms may learn more about them. The information and references may provide a starting place for those who might wish to write a fuller history of particular firms.\n\nThough Germany was not a colonial power in Asia, its merchants carried on an active trade there. Throughout the nineteenth century German firms became increasingly competitive with those of other western countries. In the opening decades of the century Canton was the centre for trade, but it declined in importance when the ports at Hong Kong and Shanghai developed.\n\nWhen war was declared between Britain and Germany in August 1914 citizens of enemy countries were placed under parole but in October new laws were enacted enabling the Hong Kong Government to place German nationals who held reserve status in the military to be interned. Representatives of German businesses in Hong Kong sent a letter dated 30 October to the American Consul General there asking him to submit it to the British authorities. The merchants appealed for a reversal of the orders on the grounds that they had contributed through the years to the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213251, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "52\n\nestablish a branch there of the new Deutsch Bank. Mr. Mammelsdorf to take charge in Yokohama. A special branch will be opened in Hong Kong. Both of these gentlemen were formerly in the Comptoir as was also Mr. Wallach who will take charge at Berlin. Mr. Probst, formerly of Pustau and Co. takes the branch at Hamburg. At Bremen will be Mr. Van der Heyde, formerly of Behre, Meyer and Co Singapore.\"\n\nAt the same time as the Deutsch Bank was in the process of opening offices in China, the Deutsche National Bank of Bremen was organised and appointed Melchers and Co. their agent in Hong Kong and Siemssen and Co. their agent in Shanghai (DP 29 June 1872).\n\nThe Deutsch-Asiatische Bank was registered at the Imperial German Consulate in Shanghai on 15 May 1889. In 1905, M. Hemann, the manager of the Hong Kong branch of the Bank was succeeded by Hugo Suter (DP 17 July 1905). The Bank redeveloped in 1913 the property on Queen's Road which it had occupied since 1901. The building, of modern renaissance style \"on chaste and simple lines\", was occupied for only a few months before it had to shut its doors with the outbreak of hostilities between England and Germany (SCMP 14 Aug. 1913, HKT 6 Jan. 1914). The building was purchased from the liquidators in 1917 by Sir Paul Chater for $355,000 (SCMP 14 Aug. 1917).\n\nFrom the time of the organization of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1864 to 1914 there were Germans on the Board of the Bank. Woldemar Nissen of Siemssen and Co. was on the Provisional Committee. Another member of the Provisional Committee was Waldemar Schmidt, whose name sounds German, a partner in the English firm of Fletcher and Co. In May 1868 Julius Menke of William Pustau and Co. joined the Board. With the failure of William Pustau and Co. in 1877 the firm was no longer represented. But in the meantime Hermann Melchers of Melchers and Co. was elected to a seat on the Board in 1872. The bank was watchful that the British interests should not be swamped by German and American, Arnhold, Karbegg and Co. had a representative on the board from 1888 and Carlowitz and Co. from 1875. In 1914 all the firms mentioned, but William Pustau and Co., had a partner on the Bank (Dr. King's detailed history of the bank has lists of the directors for each year).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213252, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "53\n\nGerman Firms and Insurance Agents\n\nNine German firms subscribed to the Ross Testimonial Fund in 1880. Mr. William Ross was the head of the Volunteer Fire Brigade and had suffered severe injuries in December 1879 in fighting a fire. Upon his release from hospital some ten months later the insurance companies of Hong Kong raised a fund for him to show their appreciation. Among the subscribers were Arnhold, Karberg and Co., agents for Lancashire Insurance Co.; Garlowitz and Co. agents for Hamburg Bremen Fire Co.; Melchers and Co. agents for North German Fire Insurance Co. and Royal Insurance Co.; Meyer and Co. agents for Prussian National Insurance Co. in Stettin; Pustau and Co. agents for Fire Insurance Co. of 1887 of Hamburg and the General Life and Fire Assurance Co.; Sander and Co., agents for Hamburg-Magdeburg Fire Insurance Co.; Scheele and Co. agent for Lubeck Fire Insurance Co.; Eduard Schellhass and Co. agents for Hanseatic Fire Insurance Co.; and Siemssen and Co. agent for Transatlantic Fire Insurance Co. (HKT 3 Oct. 1880)\n\nSteamship Lines\n\nWilliam Pustau and Co. was appointed in 1848 an agent of the Austrian Lloyd Steam Navigation Co. The route was from Trieste to Alexandria, then by land to Aden on the Red Sea where the traveller could connect with the P. and O. Line to Galle in Ceylon (FC 5 Dec. 1848). In 1886 the German Lloyd Steamship Co. opened an office in Hong Kong. In 1914 it and the Hamburg Amerika Line had Hong Kong offices.\n\nInternment of Germans in 1914\n\nWar declared between Britain and Germany on 5 August 1914. A few days later the Hong Kong Government placed enemy aliens under parole. They were restricted to certain areas and had to report to the police at stated times. This arrangement was not sufficiently tight to satisfy Major George F.H. Kelly, the Officer Commanding British Forces in Hong Kong. He saw the German residents of Hong Kong as a distinct threat to the speedy end to the war. He conveyed this opinion to the Governor of Hong Kong.\n\n\"I look upon every German, man or woman, at large in the Colony, as a potential factor for evil, and possibly for prolonging the war", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213253, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "54 \n\nThere is little doubt they spread rumours and not unnaturally do what they can to incite the Chinese and Indians against us. The proximity of Macao, Canton and Coast ports make it easy for them to get information out of the Colony and home to Germany. Money remittances can be made with very little arrangement from Shanghai and Manila. They go on taking the trade which the present war gives an opportunity of British firms to take hold of. Their presence renders it necessary to take more elaborate precautions in guarding all important places.\n\nPersonally, I should not be sorry to see all fit for service made prisoners of war” (CO129/413, Kelly to May 5 Oct 1914)\n\nHe had not long to wait for an order for internment was issued the last week of October. This action was taken when Germany issued a call-up of their military and naval reserves.\n\nAll Germans in Hong Kong on the reserve list were sent to Stonecutters Island. Soon after they were moved to Hung Hom Bay.\n\nThis move was made before the Hung Hom site was fully ready to receive the internees. The mat huts had dirt floors and were open to the elements. The presence of mosquitoes posed the threat of malaria. The internees were put to work sweeping streets and performing other manual tasks. Word seeped back to Germany that the internees were being treated badly. Through official channels the Germans contacted the Americans, the American Consul in turn contacted the British to ask if the representations made by the Germans were accurate. The Consul was taken to the Camp for an escorted inspection and found conditions satisfactory. One can appreciate the situation of the internees, mostly well-fed, well-cared-for, comfortably-situated merchants before they were caught up in the tides of global politics and swept into the crude conditions of a hastily-built camp for enemy aliens. The contrast between their large well-staffed homes and abundant meals prepared for their individual tastes and the primitive shelters and an institutional British-style mess must have been difficult to adapt to overnight. After two years the internees were moved to Australia.\n\nThose above military service age, wives and children were deported to Shanghai or Manila, the former under international control, the latter under American administration.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213254, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1994", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "55\n\nThere were two attempts to escape from the Hung Hom Bay Camp. The first try was made by five prisoners. They were assigned to build a platform for concerts. The platform was near the barbed wire fence. It provided a shelter for them to tunnel to freedom and a storage place for the earth removed during their digging. Under cover of darkness, five crept through the tunnel; however, the last of the group was spotted by a sentry, who shouted the usual \"Halt or I shoot\". The escapee kept on going, and the sentry shot. The bullet hit the bag the prisoner was carrying, containing some of his gear, so he escaped injury, but he was overtaken and captured. Shortly after, another of the escaped internees was found in the hills of the New Territories. Several days later, the remaining three were rounded up near Sai Kung.\n\nSome time after this incident, another man arranged to accompany two other prisoners on a visit to a dentist in the Hong Kong Hotel. The dentist was only expecting two patients. He took these two into his surgery; one was to serve as an interpreter for the other. The third man, who had somehow arranged to come along, was left in the waiting room with a guard. He informed the guard he must go to the toilet. The guard accompanied him there; however, he did not go into the toilet as he wished to keep his eye on both the door of the dentist and the door of the toilet to ensure that none of his three prisoners escaped. The man in the toilet was able to escape through a window, but he was caught the same night and returned to the camp.\n\nThe patriotism aroused by war stirred up in a British colony much doubt, distrust of old friends, ill will, and harsh words. The clubs passed resolutions excluding enemy aliens; the ties of former friendship were severely strained and, in many cases, broken. Many in the Colony who frequently passed the former premises of the Deutsche Asiatische Bank on Queens Road, not far from the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, were irritated by the continuing presence of the Prussian double-eagled ensign, an architectural feature of the building. Many indignant letters appeared in the correspondence column of the newspapers before the emblem was finally removed.\n\nSince my delivery of the talk upon which this paper is based, Anne Selby has published a well-researched article in the South China Morning Post on 25 June, 1988, entitled \"When Germans were unwelcome in HK\". She used many of the same sources as I have used in the Public Records Office. I would refer interested readers to her article for information I have not included in my account.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213442, "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-1995", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "CHOK HUNG vs. LI FUI CHOI\n\n\"No enquiry has ever been made to ascertain what Chinese law is. It is an extraordinary fact that the Court of this Colony, in which the Chinese live and trade as freely as Englishmen and citizens of other countries, should do with regard to the Chinese what it would never dream of doing with regard to Frenchmen or Germans or Americans; and not only that, but that it should be entirely in ignorance of Chinese law on any subject which concerns the family life and family law of those who form the bulk of its inhabitants, which is so often before the Courts—its marriage law, and the rights of property it gives; its law applicable to children. We are in the dark as to the law of majority, as to the customary law of China generally, and above all as to its law of succession. The attitude of the Court has been to let the troublesome question wait until it is definitely raised by the parties. I myself have been guilty of this, though I have rebelled more than once or twice.\n\nPage 20\n\nDuring the last half century, there have been three such enquiries, of which the results have been published. I refer, of course, to the Report of the Committee appointed in 1948,1 Greenfield's article on marriage,2 and the report and recommendations on the same subject by the Attorney General and Secretary for Chinese Affairs in 1960.2 The latter two publications do not deal with any Chinese customary law of marriage particularly obtaining in the New Territories, but the first does deal with certain aspects of Chinese customary law peculiar to the New Territories.\n\nIf a search is made of the law reports, only two cases will be found where the particular Chinese customary law obtaining in the New Territories was considered. Prima facie, that is a remarkably small number for 57 years of law reporting, and it is worthwhile probing the reasons for this dearth of case law.\n\nFirstly, the Chinese much prefer to compose their disputes or to refer them to extra-judicial arbitration than to a court of law.**\n\nSecondly, in deference to this general desire of the litigants, the District Officers arranged for the bulk of the disputes which came before them, in their Small Debts Courts or when they sat as Assistant Land Officers to decide summary land cases, to be settled out of court, most", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214209, "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": 67, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "30\n\nThe author, as a soldier himself, recalls a 'lecturette,' in Britain, while expecting the country to be invaded by Germans in 1940. His army squad was being instructed how to set booby traps. A thin wire was stretched from tree to tree, across a country road at the appropriate height, so that it could slice off the head of a motorcycle despatch rider. This was effectively demonstrated by a mock-up on film and just about everyone present, who were all generally good-hearted, genuine people, laughed. They were acting 'out of character.' But, after all, there was a war on.\n\nThe author recalls during the invasion at Salerno, in Italy, when there was a possibility that the British and American forces would be pushed off the beachhead, British soldier comrades told how they had gone on patrol and how in order to keep two German soldiers from shouting out, knifed them as they slept in their trucks. A Gurkha who was listening to the conversation immediately piped up. 'That's not fair! You should at least wake them up before you kill them!' Everyone thought it a huge joke. Today, looking back under peacetime conditions, it all seems terribly macabre and gruesome.\n\nLin Yutang is quoted as saying, 'Humour is the product of contentment and leisure.' Yet the British tommy was able to crack jokes even when faced with abysmal conditions. It is recorded that, in the defence of Hong Kong in December 1941, the men of the Middlesex Regiment 'never lost their sense of humour' (Lindsay, 1978; 136). Probably the Chinese Communist soldiers, on the 10,000 kilometre Long March, which lasted over a year in 1934-35, did not either, although their sense of humour was, no doubt, different. For instance, the Chinese soldiers used to sing, 'Don't fall behind, don't get wounded, don't get the eight silver dollars' (Lee, 1999). This can be likened to the English World War Two song, 'Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag ....'\n\nBut jokes can offend and one needs to be careful, in some countries especially, not to give the wrong slant to sexist jokes which can ruffle feathers. When talking to a Chinese, whose traditions value filial piety, you do not in the main tell mother-in-law jokes — although there are a few jokes about mothers and their relationships with sons-in-law. Again, in Chinese society, you do not say, where death is more or less a taboo subject, 'You're too slow for your own funeral', or 'He's got", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214219, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "40\n\nAppendix B\n\nHumour\n\nPresent Meaning\n\nSome believe the only nation that had the word 'humour' in its language, where the word was associated with the meaning of 'being funny,' were the English.\n\nThe French, for example, have such words as the equivalents of 'comedy,' 'wit' and 'buffoonery,' but their word, 'humeur,' means 'disposition' or 'mood.'\n\nSimilarly the Chinese characters for 'humour' are believed merely to imitate the sound of the English word. The term is said to have been introduced into the Chinese language in 1924 by the eminent Overseas Chinese scholar Lin Yutang.\n\nAlthough the Germans, the Italians and the French enjoyed upper-class wit and proletariat clowning, but, so it is claimed (Muir, 1990; XXIX), only the English took pleasure in the middle area: which included the recording of small significant human traits. Muir maintains in Humorous Prose that:\n\nWit is concerned with ideas,\n\nBuffoonery is concerned with deeds, and\n\nHumour is concerned with people\n\nAlthough it appears somewhat of an exaggeration, Sir William Temple, diplomat and essayist (1628-99), claimed the English (not the Scots, Irish or Welsh) gave the world humour (Muir, 1990; XXIX). It was, he believed, a product of the 'richness of the English soil.'\n\nThe human, stubborn behaviour of the English, so he said, needed a free society and a temperate climate before it could flourish.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214508, "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": 366, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "335\n\nhand in hand, being photographed left, right and centre. It was, after all, Saturday - a popular day for weddings - but the sight was somewhat surreal. Especially as perhaps none of them realised the more sombre use to which the ground they were walking on had once been put. The presence of so many beautiful brides and their dashing grooms explained another sight that greeted us in the road outside the park, that of dozens of taxis decked out with flowers, Mr and Mrs Mickey Mouse dolls, cabbage patch couples, and all manner of wedding paraphernalia. Our guide explained that wedding motorcades can only use taxis - no private cars are allowed to take part - and only a maximum of four vehicles can be used per wedding, otherwise traffic jams become too problematical.\n\nWhat happened next was the only time that we had a serious difference of opinion with our guide. We were taken to a temple of sorts that had an “antiques and works of art\" shop attached to it - and there we were left for an hour. As our time was so tight none of us were pleased at being given this normal tourist treatment. Did our guide not realise that we were far from being normal tourists? Quiet words were had with him, and to be fair there were no further such occurrences during the remainder of the trip. I have a picture of him at a fort in Port Arthur, sitting with his head in his hands. The caption must be something like: \"Why did I have to end up with this lot?\" To put the record straight, I was so pleased with how he had looked after us that, when we parted at Dalian airport, I gave him my copy of \"Far from Home\"; he was clearly delighted and touched by this.\n\nTo the southwest of the hill, along Fu Shan Road, is what is now the Ocean University of Qingdao. The university is housed in buildings that once constituted the enormous Bismarck Barracks. In full view of the Governor's residence, these barracks once housed upwards of 4,000 military personnel. The buildings have been preserved well. The former military parade ground is now a series of sports fields.\n\nFrom the barracks it was onwards to the sea to Badaguan, formerly a popular residential area for the Germans, and apparently still a popular residential area, but for whom? Party officers? There seemed to be an air of privilege about the area still.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214965, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "PROUDFOOT, W.J.: Notes from Biographical Memoir of James Dinwiddie, LL.D, embracing his account of travels in China as a member of Macartney's Embassy, Edward Howell, Liverpool, 1886.\n\nWALEY, A.: The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes, Allen and Unwin, London, 1958.\n\nWONG, J.Y.: Deadly Dreams: Opium and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, 1998.\n\nWOODWARD, N.H.: Teas of the World, Collier Macmillan, London, 1980.\n\nThis paper was presented at the \"International Conference on Lin Zexu, the Opium War and Hong Kong,” held at the Hong Kong Museum of History in December 1998.\n\nAmong his many other accomplishments, Dr. S. M. Bard, OBE, ED, is also a historian.\n\nHis published works include the following: In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (Urban Council Hong Kong 1988); Traders of Hong Kong: Some Foreign Merchant Houses, 1841-1899 (Urban Council Hong Kong 1993); and Garrison Memorials in Hong Kong: Some Graves and Monuments at Happy Valley (Antiquities and Monuments Office, Hong Kong: Occasional Paper No. 4, 1997).\n\nSome scholars prefer to divide the Wars into the Opium War, 1839-1842, and the Arrow War, 1856-1860.\n\n* A Dutchman, Dr Cornelius Decker, advocated 40-50 cups a day.\n\nPortuguese Princess Catherine is credited with introducing tea to Britain when she married King Charles II.\n\nA story is told of German Radio, during the 2nd World War, which announced that due to shortage of tea in Britain, the British were ready to sue for peace, not having access to their 5-o'clock tea. It only served to amuse the British, for the Germans got the time wrong!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214988, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "40\n\nAmongst the equipment issued to each coolie in France were boots, ankle and puttees, two pairs of socks, one towel and one piece of soap, one groundsheet and one blanket in the summer and three in the winter, and an enamelled mug instead of a tin mug.\n\nTransportation to France\n\n31\n\nThe Chinese Labour Corps was officially formed on 21 February 1917 with Lt. Col. B.C. Fairfax appointed as the officer-in-charge as early as 15th November 1916. In the meantime, the first labourers left China in January 1917 and the first to leave France to return to China left in November 1918. Some of those sent from China died en route to France on the sea voyages. These ships travelled either via South Africa or Suez to England via the Panama Canal or sailed to Canada, the labourers being transported across Canada by train and then sailing on to England. These routes were chosen so as to confuse German intelligence and to avoid the submarine menace. None was lost in this way despite a German presence still in northern China at that time. Thence both groups were shipped to France.\n\nThose travelling via Canada landed at William Head, Vancouver Island, the old quarantine station and, following authorisation, travelled by train to Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were guarded, to prevent escape, and consequently the usual poll tax of Can$500, levied by the Canadian Immigration Department, was waived. Over a thirteen-month period, over 84,000 were so transported. From Canada, they would be shipped to the UK to Liverpool or Plymouth, then from Folkestone to Noyelles-sur-Mer in France.\n\nG.E. Cormack, who acted as an escorting officer to five hundred labourers, was stationed at the collecting depot, a German silk factory near Qingdao. This town had earlier in the War been captured from the Germans by the Japanese, assisted by a small British force. On a monolith at one of the forts was a Prussian eagle with an inscription in German stating that this town had been captured by the Germans from the Chinese. Over this, there was a Japanese inscription stating that Qingdao had been captured from the Germans by the Japanese! China had declared war on Germany on 14th March 1917.\n\nAgain, to quote from G.E. Cormack's memoirs, he sailed, with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214995, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "47\n\ntherefore separated into their own camps, for their own protection and also so that they could not mix with the British troops in general. They were supervised by their own British officers and NCOs. In death Chinese members of the CLC were buried in separate cemeteries or, if buried in cemeteries with Commonwealth dead, in separate areas apart from them. However, deceased British officers and NCOs serving with or transferred to the CLC were buried amongst other Commonwealth fallen. In life and in death the Chinese were isolated [reflecting the attitude of Europeans towards Asians in general and non-Christians in particular]\n\nIn mid-September 1917, Alec Paton, stationed at Zillebeke, Ypres, and serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery, obtained permission to visit Reninghelst to meet Claude Betts, a friend who had been promoted to company commander in the CLC. Before leaving Paton was in conversation with one of his officers who commented that he thought 'it would be a good idea to use Chinese as infantry, there being so many of them.' Adding that he wondered what the Germans would do if they saw ten thousand Chinamen coming over the top? In reply a wag said 'Run and bring their washing, I should think.'\n\nClaud Betts had learnt a few Chinese phrases as his labourers could speak no English and they were cunning enough to pretend they could not understand sign language if such meant work. As Alec Paton was passing through Reninghelst he noticed a sign, erected by HQ for the troops, which read ‘DO NOT SPEAK TO THE CHINESE.' Underneath, also in large letters, a wit had written, 'WHO THE HELL CAN?’.\n\nOnce again, to quote from the Directorate of Labour's Notes:\n\nComplaints. The Chinese, in China, are accustomed to seek redress of grievances by means of written petitions: locked petition boxes should be provided.\n\nThe Notes also included the following facts regarding the Chinese:\n\na] The Chinese coolie has an inherent contempt for foreigners\n\nb] He comes here purely and simply for money, with no interest in the war.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215493, "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": 270, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "219 \n\nsaying: 'Hey! We booked Bhutan this week. What are you lot doing here?') What we were about to see must have been on the itinerary of every other tour group in the country. I was lucky enough to squeeze up to the front, and stand facing sideways in the general squash but with a reasonably good view of the floor below. After a while, two of the shorter horns (akin to oboes) started up and the general air of expectancy increased tangibly. Then two of the long bass horns started blowing their deep notes; each horn had to be held by two monks. They were blown for about five minutes, and then they were joined by the oboes. By now there was an enormous sense of anticipation, rather like at the beginning of a concert listening to orchestra tuning up but never quite getting there.\n\nThen came the officials, looking resplendent and led by a pair of horn players (the oboe variety). One official had a large and lethal-looking cat-o'-nine-tails, which was this time, thankfully, being used to thrash the floor in front of the other dignitaries. However, judging from the conspiratorial grin he flashed at me when he passed by, he would probably be happy to thrash anything (or anyone - even me).\n\nThe official procession having passed, some of the dignitaries returned with their families - and we realised that we had committed something of a faux pas. When trying to get to the best vantage point at the railing, I had noticed that some brightly coloured mats had been placed on the floor. It did cross my mind that it was a pity to have them trampled under foot by the assembled multitude, and then I thought nothing more of it. Until, that is, that I saw one of the official-looking gentlemen, clearly disappointed, motioning to his wife to the area near my feet. Like the proverbial Germans at the hotel swimming pool, it seems that these good people had reserved their spot at dawn, only to have it snaffled. Ho hum. I do not know what he did, but it was clearly impossible for him to claim his spot. I was squashed sideways onto the rail itself; at my waist was a child's head, and underneath her were two more wriggling youngsters.\n\nMeanwhile, back on the stage, there was some activity. One orange-robed monk led out a team of 15 red-robed brethren and stood with them in a little huddle, talking sotto voce. He was like the coach at the beginning of a rugger match. ('Now, lads. I want a good clean puja.')\n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215691, "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": 468, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "421\n\nbeing starved. The complainant was later severely beaten by the Japanese. This prisoner could well have been HKBRAS member the late KMA Barnett although the book does not say so.\n\nWhen I have talked to ex-POWs I have seldom heard mention of acts of kindness by Japanese guards. As an ex-POW Dr Solomon Bard, who is well known to many HKBRAS Members, holds views which many regard as exceptional. He maintains there was 'no unprovoked cruelty within his experience. There are also instances quoted, in Long Night's Journey into Day, where individual Japanese were considerate to prisoners. This was more likely if a prisoner spoke Japanese.\n\nTo counterbalance instances of kindness there was the case of the American prisoner who requested permission to urinate. Permission was refused. Eventually, in agony, he broke ranks and urinated nearby. Afterwards he was made to lick his urine off the wall.\n\nThere is no doubt that, by and large, prisoners were severely treated. We have to remember, however, there was a war on and, in many cases, Japanese guards were little better off than their prisoners. Generally, when the war turned against them, both Japanese service personnel and civilians readily tightened their belt the extra notch. Japanese soldiers were brutalised from the day they entered service. Life in the Hong Kong camps, however, was not as bad as being a prisoner in Manchuria (Unit 731 and others) where inmates were subjected to inhumane medical experiments. In some camps in German-occupied Europe there was state-sponsored genocide, among the Jews for example, the full details of which did not come to light until the end of the War [Hon. Editor - As an aside, I recently paid a visit to Auschwitz, an experience which will haunt me for the rest of my life].\n\nMost prisoners in Hong Kong could envisage the war continuing for several years more and, when the Allies started to fight back and for the Japanese the going became even tougher, Allied prisoners were under the impression they would eventually be killed off in batches. The atom bomb saved the day. Although I fought against the Germans and the Italians, and not the Japanese, I remember no one at the time shedding tears at the dropping of the bomb on Japan.\n\nAlthough bushido and chivalry are in some respects similar this is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215928, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 227, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "161\n\nTHE MYTH OF UNPREPAREDNESS: THE ORIGINS OF ANTI-JAPANESE RESISTANCE IN PREWAR HONG KONG\n\nANNE OZORIO\n\n[Hon. Ed. - I was initially hesitant to sanction this article because it seemed to me to be significantly under-referenced, even to the extent of \"personal communications.\" It draws significantly upon Hong Kong Eclipse (Endacott and Birch, 1978), which is not acknowledged. Ms Ozorio contends that the referencing is adequate and assures me that, to the best of her knowledge and belief, the article is an accurate resumé of events. In accordance with the general principles of free expression I have left untouched Ms Ozorio's editorial comments on 'colonials,' 'the British,' colonial administration and society, and (Sir) Lindsay Ride.]\n\nHong Kong fell to the Japanese in eighteen days: the wonder was that it took so long. [Hon. Ed. - The doggedness of the resistance and the bravery of the defenders, perhaps? See Lawrence Lai's article in Vol. 39 of the Journal, pp.115-136.] In the cosy, cocooned world of colonial society, the invincibility of Empire was taken for granted. Despite all that was happening in China, many Europeans in Hong Kong just couldn't conceive that any Asiatic might challenge their superiority. There were anecdotes that the Japanese planes bombing China were secretly manned by Germans, since Japanese were night blind. As the colonials sat comfortably mocking them, Japanese waiters, barbers, and menials were listening. Many would appear later, no longer servile, in full dress uniform, revealing their true status as high-ranking intelligence agents. The overwhelming Japanese victory was a shock to those who believed that Empire was unassailable. They assumed automatically, that if they had been caught off balance, then the authorities too must have been unprepared. This, however, is a myth.\n\ni\n\nIn January, 1941, General Ismay declared that there was 'not the slightest chance of holding Hong Kong or relieving it. It is most unwise to increase the loss we shall suffer there. Instead of augmenting the garrison it should be reduced to a symbolic scale.' Defending a city crowded with a million civilians, little air cover, long supply lines and nowhere to retreat but the sea was a logistics nightmare. What may have been unimaginable for the average colonial civilian was clear", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215930, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 229, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "163\n\na new breed of intelligence officer. Grimsdale recalled his admiration with the ease with which Boxer could gain the trust of the Japanese.\n\nWhen the Japanese conquered Guangdong in 1938, Boxer arranged an invitation for himself and Grimsdale to visit the Commander of Japanese Forces, General Ando, whom he had known socially in London. To Grimsdale's amazement, Ando showed them round Japanese installations in his own staff car. They were able to inspect troop positions, aerodromes and see the power of the Japanese army at first hand. Perhaps that was Ando's subtle point, but it benefited both parties. At one stage, the general joked to Boxer that the British should stop supporting the Chinese 'then we could finish off this bloody war and all go home.' In the same jesting vein, Boxer answered that the Japanese should stop supporting the Germans.\n\nBoxer and his colleagues made a point of travelling and meeting people. Through personal contacts they were able to extract more information, and get an understanding of context. Boxer and his colleagues were articulate and fluent in Chinese or Japanese, and above all sensitive to the cultures, aware of the place of Hong Kong in the overall Chinese scheme of things. They illustrated the concept that \"well informed is well armed.\" Nor were they the only ones. In 1937/8, the Japanese Army in central China had agreed to take a young Japanese speaking British officer \"on attachment\" for nine months. Although his detailed report was misinterpreted (the atrocities in China were deemed a 'temporary lapse') is the then Military Attache and Foreign Office agreed that a non confrontational approach was more effective in getting information and defusing potential incidents.\n\niv\n\nAlert to the nuances of Japanese politics, Boxer sensed in July 1939, a sharp deterioration in Japanese attitudes towards the British. He interpreted this as a move by the Japanese Army to find a scapegoat for their lack of progress in the China campaign. He reported 'at present there can be no greater error than to assume as is so often done that Japan's military machine is too bogged down in China to prevent it being turned towards us...the only thing likely to restrain the Japanese Army....is the fear of possible complications with the United States of America.\" His warnings however went unheeded: Europe was itself just about to plunge into war, and to the Foreign Office, Hong Kong seemed very far away. Indeed, the note covering Boxer's letter", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215947, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 246, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "180\n\nthemselves and slip outside into town, claiming neutral or non-combatant status. Many Europeans were able to stay out of internment or leave if they could: Professor Gordon King escaped with sufficient materials to try and restart a medical school in Free China. There were even escapes from Stanley Internment Camp, including of women civilians. Within the Prisoner of War Camps, there were very strong feelings that, while individuals might choose to escape, it was the duty of senior officers to remain with their men at a time of crisis. Escapes were of extremely limited military or strategic value. Even men like Col Newnham, Major Boxer, Lt Bush (who was a MTB officer) and others, whose sensitive work gave them more reason than most to need to get away, remained as prisoners. It was no failure of courage to choose to remain behind and help others. Newnham was later executed [Hon. Ed. - I think I prefer the term murdered.] and both Boxer and Bush imprisoned. Senior officers in camp expressed grave offence at the tone of the messages sent into camp. Nonetheless, the need to escape is a human trait, and the right of an individual to decide whether he was more useful in or out of camp was acknowledged. At least four parties of European servicemen escaped from POW camps in the first few weeks of internment.\n\nPerhaps the most publicised escape occurred on 9th January 1942 when three university officials left Sham Shui Po camp. Lindsay Ride, a physiologist, said he had planned the escape very early on and realised he needed a Chinese to facilitate it. Fortunately in camp he found Francis Lee Yan Piu, a resourceful clerk who had worked for him as a clerk. Lee arranged for the three Europeans to get Chinese clothing and to cross into the New Territories, where they laid low during the day, planning to explain to any Chinese who found them that they were Germans, as they feared the Chinese might be hostile. How being German made a difference is unclear. To their surprise, when they did encounter Chinese, the Chinese were not only delighted to help but appeared to know exactly what to do. These were guerrillas who had previously been in contact with someone with British connections, for they knew just where to bring the strangers. When the party arrived in Shaukwan (Kukong) over the border in China, they were met by MacEwan and Talan, members of ‘a mysterious Hong Kong organisation known colloquially as the Cloak and Dagger Boys, who had received what appeared to be some sort of guerrilla training formerly in Hong Kong,’xxiii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215973, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 272, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "206\n\non the doctrines\" written in the books. Kot himself visited Ch’ea twice more in the latter's home, sharing again in worship and conversation. Sometime later, he claimed, \"I was six tenths of a believer.\"\n\nRather than base his methods on a strict adherence to intellectually understood doctrines, Ch'ëa took a more traditional Chinese approach in inviting \"seekers\" to join him in an experience of prayerful worship. Understanding doctrines might come only after a concrete experience of \"worshipping in spirit\" had opened new religious vistas for the seekers. Kot admits that he was “still kept back by the influence of worldly custom,\" probably threatened by neighbours who told him that if he followed Ch'ea's radical departure from traditions, he and the village would suffer a spiritual blight from higher powers. Gradually convinced by Ch'ea's \"great earnestness and reverence,\" Kot himself in the end chose to risk further incriminations by joining Ch’ëa in travelling to Hong Kong. There he was notably impressed not by the doctrines expounded but by \"such pious worship, and such excellent rites, surpassing even what Mr. Ch'ëa himself said and did.\" Though it is not clear that Kot represents the only kind of positive response to Ch'ea's evangelistic methods, it is significant that his approach to Christian doctrine came through a complex interaction of experiences including private worship, friendly discussion, earnest exhortations, and extensive reading. What seemed to impress him most was the form of life expressed in Christian Sabbath culture more than the \"essential doctrines\" of the Christian religion, though these were undeniably expressed and discussed as well.\n\n63\n\nAnother picture is offered later in 1859 by two German missionaries who passed through Poklo. Recognizing them as Christians, Ch'ea became their intermediary among the local people and the \"mandarins,\" suggesting that Ch'ea's boldness was increasing over time.64 (Germans at this time were given some special privileges since their nation was not involved in the prolonged military problems centred on Canton. At this time there was still an official state of war being actively pursued by groups of Qing and Cantonese militia using \"guerrilla warfare tactics\" against British and French troops stationed in the area of Canton.) The European travellers noted that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216217, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 516, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "450\n\nwas not possible to erect a replacement plaque in the cathedral. The authorities concerned would not permit it.\n\nAnother interesting case was that of a clock made by Douglas Lapraik in Hong Kong in the mid 19th century. This story has been written up by the enquirer, Dr Peter Hansell, and an account is published in this volume of JHKBRAS,\n\n*\n\nOther enquiries have included a request from a family member about Thomas Child Hayllar who was Attorney General in Hong Kong in the middle of the 19th century. On similar lines, Francis Howell was also enquiring about family members named Eckford who worked in China and Hong Kong during the past two centuries.\n\nOn another occasion we received an enquiry from a HKBRAS overseas member for information about what appear to be bullet marks on the low boundary wall which runs along the east side of lower Stubbs Road. Although they were probably caused by machine gun fire during the attack by the Japanese, in December 1941, we have not been able to glean any detailed information about the actual incident.\n\nAnother enquirer, an academic living in New Zealand, wanted to know whether there were any roads, buildings or any monuments at all in Hong Kong in memory of Nurse Edith Cavell. She was executed by the Germans in Brussels, on 12 October 1915, for assisting Allied prisoners escape. As far as we know there is nothing erected in her memory in Hong Kong.\n\nA gentleman from Britain wanted to learn more about his maternal grandfather who joined the colonial service in 1910, whereupon he was posted to Hong Kong and subsequently to Canton to learn Cantonese. During the run-up leading to the Sun Yat Sen Revolution, probably in May or June of 1911, the group of Hong Kong cadets was accosted by over-zealous Chinese officials. One of the cadets then drew his revolver and shot an official. The British gentleman has said that, according to family lore, his grandfather, Samuel Burnside Boyd McElderry, was able to calm the situation and talk the group out of the encounter. In spite of searches at the Hong Kong Public Records Office (who were extremely helpful) and elsewhere, no information has been gleaned about this incident.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]