[
    {
        "id": 205413,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 175,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "168\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nble for financing and managing these arrangements, and its leaders were not allowed to canvas outside their own Fong to obtain funds. The Hung Shing Temple, being the larger and older of the island's two temples, was the hub of these activities.26\n\nIV. ABERDEEN DOCKS\n\nWhilst passing through Aberdeen you should note the old Dry Docks a little to the west of the Post Office. One was built in 1863 but two years later (to quote from the Centenary Brochure of the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Co., Ltd.):\n\n\"In 1865, the Company concluded negotiations with Mr. John Lamont for the purchase of his property at Aberdeen, comprising the Lamont Dock then in working order, and the Hope Dock then in course of construction, together with the Workshops, Machines, etc.\n\nThe Hope Dock was opened in June, 1867, by the then Governor of Hong Kong, Sir R. G. MacDonnell, and for a number of years was largely used for docking ships of Her Majesty's Navy and other large vessels.\n\nV. SHEK WAN POTTERY FIGURES AT THE TIN HAU TEMPLE, ABERDEEN.\n\nOn your way from the Ap Lei Chau ferry pier to the Resettlement Department Office in the Shek Pai Wan Estate (for tea), you should note the Tin Hau Temple on the left at the foot of Aberdeen Reservoir Road. This is an old temple which was given its last major repair in 1873. Any members who attended Professor Skinsnes' recent illustrated talk on Shek Wan Pottery should have a look at the roof decoration on the way. It gives the name of the firm who made it and is dated the equivalent of 1873.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205782,
        "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": 88,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "82\n\nKING MONGKUT OF SIAM AND HIS TREATY WITH BRITAIN\n\nROBERT BRUCE*\n\nWhen Sir John Bowring sailed up the river to Bangkok in March 1855 he was asked by King Mongkut not to fire a salute lest the citizens be alarmed. Sir John, Governor of Hong Kong and Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary in the Far East, reluctantly agreed to postpone the ceremonial explosion from the Rattler's guns until the anxious citizens had been given one day's warning.\n\nThe Siamese had cause for concern. The Burmese, their traditional enemies, had been conquered by the British; and a dozen years before the Bowring mission the great Chinese Empire had been defeated by the British navy. On their eastern frontier, the Siamese watched with alarm the French encroachment on Cochin-China and their own dominion of Cambodia. To the south of the Isthmus of Kra British power was spreading into the Malay States, including Kedah, a feudatory of Siam. But their fears were to prove unfounded. The Bowring mission to Bangkok was completely successful for both British and Siamese. On April 18th, 1855, a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce was signed, an agreement which was to secure for Siam, alone in south-east Asia, independence from colonial rule and which set her on the long, painful road of modernisation.\n\nForce had been used to 'open' China. In the same year as Bowring's peaceful mission to Bangkok Commodore Perry's American warships were demanding commerce and navigation rights of the Japanese. Even after the Treaty of Nanking had\n\n* This article, entitled \"King Mongkut of Siam\", appeared in History Today for October 1968. The original text, slightly extended, is reprinted here by permission of the Editor. Mr. Bruce lectured to the Hong Kong Branch on this subject in February 1968.\n\nMr. Bruce is at present a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science at Eastern Kentucky University, U.S.A. He served eight years as Representative of the British Council in Thailand and later filled the same post in Hong Kong where he was a member of Council of the Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society. Mr. Bruce was also one time Director of the Government School of Chinese Language at Kuala Lumpur, Malaya.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d",
        "rank": 0
    }
]