[ { "id": 206268, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n79\n\nauthority and its geographical location made it a base for pirates. One of the stories about the origin of the name of the Tai Ping Shan District on Hong Kong Island is that a pirate named Cheung Po-chai used it as his headquarters. He finally went over to the authorities and left the island. In relief the local population named the mountain side on which he had dwelt \"Great Peace Mountain\". Since it was easy to slip away by boat if government officials came to check on inhabitants, the islands on the edge of San On District were popular haunts for outlaws and the criminal element.\n\nAt the time of the establishment of the British claim to the island, The Canton Register under date of 23 February, 1841, predicted that under British jurisdiction the island would become even more popular with these classes: \"Hongkong will be the resort and rendezvous of all the Chinese smugglers. Opium smoking shops and gambling-houses will soon spread; to those haunts will flock all the discontented and bad spirits of the empire.\" Future developments substantiated this forecast.\n\nFACTORS WHICH IMPEDED THE EMERGENCE OF RESPONSIBLE LEADERS IN THE CHINESE COMMUNITY.\n\nSamuel Fearon, the Census and Registration Officer, in his report dated 24 June 1845, describes the origin of the first settlers of Hong Kong.\n\nThe arrival of the British fleet in the harbour speedily attracted a considerable boat population, and the profits accruing from the supply of provisions and necessaries at once raised many from poverty and infamy to considerable wealth. The shelter and protection afforded by the presence of the fleet soon made our shores the resort of outlaws, opium smugglers, and indeed, of all persons who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Chinese laws, and had the means of escaping hither. In course of time the demands for labour, for the public and other works, drew some thousands to the island, the majority of whom were Hakkas or gypsies; people whose habits, character and language mark them as a distinct race. Careless of the ties of home and of those moral obligations, the observance of which is deemed absolutely necessary", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211153, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "189\n\nspeedily attracted a considerable boat population and the profits accruing from the supply of provisions and necessaries at once raised many from poverty and infamy to considerable wealth. The shelter and protection afforded by the presence of the fleet soon made our shores the resort of outlaws, opium smugglers, and indeed of all persons, who having rendered themselves obnoxious to the Chinese laws, had the means of escaping hither.\n\nIt was not to be expected that Hongkong would attract at that time the best elements of the Chinese people. Hongkong was occupied by the British at a time it was at war with China.\n\nThe Chinese, who flocked to Hongkong to take advantage of opportunities to trade, sell produce, construct roads, level sites, erect buildings or find employment in foreign residences and business firms, were regarded as collaborators and traitors by Chinese with a national pride.\n\nThe majority were people who had no established place within the approved Chinese social system. Many were boat people who were traditionally regarded as an inferior class.\n\nOthers were those who could find no employment in their native place. Still others were renegades escaping from Chinese justice.\n\nThere were, of course, also the honest shopkeeper, tradesman and labourer, but the community was dominated by the less respectable class.\n\nThe chief personage in the Chinese community during the years immediately after the British occupation of the island was a man known familiarly as A-king, or more formally as Loo King. He came into possession of a substantial section of the Chinese part of town known as the Lower Bazaar (Sheung Wan).\n\nAlong with other business interests, he operated a gambling establishment, a theatre and brothels. Beside the wharf adjoining his main business premises he had erected a small temple.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211310, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 26, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "worlds’ at sea. Each was as specifically demarcated by its own rhythms, customs, and dialects as its counterpart on the shore and so different were the language, social customs, and sailing patterns of the pirates in Chekiang and Fukien from those of Kwangtung that, in the end, it seemed logical to divide the topic and focus my endeavors solely upon piracy within “the Cantonese Water World”. To what was its spectacular growth of piracy owing? Can it be attributed to ecological or environmental factors?\n\nThe growth of piracy in the Cantonese water world\n\nCertainly, the geography of the Sino-Vietnamese border was ideal for piracy. The region’s plethora of wide, navigable rivers ensured that most of its commerce would be conducted by boat while its long broken coast with its myriad of coves and bays, held out plenty of shelter to any would-be pirate.\n\nIn terms of political geography the region was also well-suited to piracy, for the Sino-Vietnamese border was a region to which the arm of the law scarcely reached. The Chinese government’s writ of authority gradually expired in proportion to the distance one moved west along the coast from Canton to Vietnam while that of the Vietnamese expired as one moved east along the coast from Hue and Hanoi, and the authority of both faded quickly as one moved seaward from the shore. Adding to the administrative complexity was the fact that this region, unified in so many ways by patterns of livelihood and local affinity, was split politically by the international boundary that transected it. Early on, wily outlaws had learned how to survive by crossing back and forth between its differing jurisdictions which served mainly to hinder pursuit.\n\nTo an already superb geography, the economies of the water world added another prerequisite for piracy: waterways abounding with traffic on which to prey. Over the sea lanes moved a continuous progression of merchandise and passengers moving hither and thither from port to port. The wealth of the region was legendary. Commerce was its lifeblood, and fortunes could be made by fitting out ships, purchasing cargoes, or servicing those engaged in such pursuits.\n\nYet, for all the legitimate commerce that took place across its waters", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "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": 212200, "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": 142, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "119\n\nLiuchow where one of Colonel Chennault's schools for training Chinese pilots was at that time established. I arrived just in time to observe the results of a Japanese air-raid on the field, when they succeeded in shooting up two of the latest type of Curtis Hawk fighters, the only two at that time in China, concealed in some trees on the edge of the field. Training under such conditions was not easy and the school soon had to move west again into Yunnan province.\n\nThree hundred kilometres a day is good going on these lightly metalled roads. I reached Kweilin on the evening of the third day after leaving Wuchow, and put up at the government hostel. From time immemorial the idea of travel has filled Chinese with apprehension, induced not only by fear of the ubiquitous bandit, but also by the abomination of the fetid roadside inn. With the advent of the motor car, the need for better hotel accommodation became evident, and the various provincial governments opened official hostelries at key points. While these left much to be desired by western standards, they were a prodigious improvement on the old-style inn.\n\nKwangsi is one of the more progressive provinces, for long controlled by Generals Li Tsung Jen and Pai Chung Hsi, who rank next to the Generalissimo himself. The hostel at Kweilin was better than average. There was a wireless in the lounge, and a small crowd of us sat and listened to the news as it came in. It was the period before Munich. A young German amongst us, flushed with arrogance, gloated over Hitler's successes. My first contact with the aboriginal Nazi spirit left me angry and dismayed.\n\nChinese buildings are flimsy. The rooms are small and dark, and not clean. When you have made allowance for this idiosyncrasy, Kweilin appears a delightful little town. The city wall circumambulates from shrine-crowned hill to hill; the river is full of junks that sail down to Wuchow; the roads are wide and straight, and shop arcades cover the pavements on either side. The little separate hills rise steeply from the plain, in those fantastic shapes seen in Chinese paintings. Their rocky tree-fringed summits staggered drunkenly beneath the sky. The hills are full of natural caves, most convenient for storing war supplies, or to act as shelters in the event of raids. But Kweilin was still far from the war. The Kweilin merchants believed that the Japanese planes would have difficulty in locating their little city snuggling amongst the hills. The excitement was all about the new railway,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212202, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "121\n\nday to Changsha. The capital of Hunan, the province with a long history of anti-foreign fanaticism, is situated on the Siang river, which flows down to the Yangtze above Hankow. In summer the middle-river steamers come up as far as Changsha, but in winter the level over the sand flats where the river passes through the Tung Ting lake, near its mouth, is so shallow that even the specially designed river gunboats cannot pass. One British gunboat generally wintered at Changsha.\n\nThere was no concession, and in the course of time the foreign community had congregated on a long sand bar, which made an island in the river, opposite the city. The few bungalows were grouped round the Club. It was a simple life with tennis and walks for relaxation. Normally Changsha connected with the outer world by ship through Shanghai, but now for over a year that channel had been closed by the war and the number of the foreign community, usually not more than a couple of dozen, was reduced. It did, however, include two British tank officers, loaned to the Chinese army, whom I had last seen in Nanking. They now depended for their supplies on the new railway to Hongkong. I left my car here and went on to Hankow by train.\n\nIt was nearly twenty years since I had last been in Hankow, years crowded with change, not only material but also intellectual. Hither junks from the far north-west of China, in Shensi Province, came down the Han river. From here they could sail a leg up the Yangtze, and proceed along the Siang river, until their mast-tops showed a view towards Kweilin. To the west, through the famous gorges, the small steamers fought the current to Chungking 700 miles distant; and 600 miles downriver, past Kiu Kiang, Wuhu, and Nanking, lay Shanghai and the sea. The railway in normal times ran north-east to Peking and south to Canton and Hongkong. On the opposite bank, a kilometre away, the provincial capital, Wuchang, showed; larger than Hankow and, across the Han, where that river made an angle with the Yangtze, the industrial town of Hanyang belched its smoke. Of the Concessions along the water front, only the French retained its status. The British Concession had been returned at the time of the Chen-O'Malley negotiations ten years previously; the German and Russian Concessions had reverted to China after the Great War, and the Japanese Concession had been evacuated soon after the Lukouchiao (Marco Polo Bridge) incident.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212204, "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": 146, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "cannibalisation. Until the Japanese advance, in the autumn of 1944, flowed over Hengyang you could see a harlequinade of locomotives there in various states of disintegration. Without these reserves, saved through the foresight of the railway personnel, the Chinese would have found it impossible to maintain the service between Kukong, Hengyang, Kweilin and the west as long as they did.\n\nThere was much activity in the airfields, the civil field over at Wuchang, and the military field near the Race Club behind Hankow. From the latter the Russians were operating light bombers, which would pass over in twos and threes on missions beyond Kiu Kiang; and Russian fighters laid in wait for Japanese raids. As I was riding down the Bund one day in a rickshaw - petrol was scarce and under control - a single Russian bomber flying overhead, for no apparent reason, blew up.\n\nThe foreign married women and children had long since left Hankow. The two faded cabaret dancing-halls prospered even more than usual. Artistes, who spoke Russian with a Harbin accent, so I am told, made lots of hay; but, as will happen when news and women both are short, it was chiefly at the clubs that the men foregathered. It was the fashion to go out to the Race Club of an evening. There on the lawn after sunset you would see the British, the Americans, and the French. Hitler had recently recalled the officers of von Falkenhausen's mission, so that the usual sprinkling of German officers was missing, but occasionally Russian air-force officers came to sit huddled in a group by themselves.\n\nI was able to book a berth on a ship of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company leaving for Kiu Kiang. It is an overnight journey. I do not propose to enlarge on the minor discomforts of travel in China. In the railway carriages, in the ships, and even in the cinemas, the bedbugs and fleas take a long rest during the winter from November to February. It was only June and so I was up on deck soon after dawn to watch the familiar banks go by. As we moved alongside the same old hulk I observed the Kiu Kiang Bund. It had grown shabbier. The process of degeneration, which appears to follow on the withdrawal of the foreigner, was evident. Flaking paint, dirty window panes, broken plaster, left their mark. The Chinese are not good at maintenance, whether it be of houses or machines.\n\nApart from Shanghai, Hankow, and Tientsin, where there were large\n\nIII", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214746, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "Luis osses \n\n[loss rate] \n\nPENYA BARU PE \n\n6.580 \n\n(6000 paratroopers) \n\n2.096 \n\n(Killed in action: 683) \n\n5.093 \n\n(killed in action: 1715) \n\n[30%] \n\n[15%] \n\n[15] \n\n[Battle of Malaya: 125 dead, 9.612 3.507 wounded, 6,105] \n\nRatio of British/Axis losses \n\n2.39 \n\n(Y) \n\n2.11 \n\n(killed in action: 31) \n\n0.73 \n\nBattle of Malaya: 14 431 \n\nRelative loss rate of defenders to invaders in combat \n\n4.60 \n\n0.68 \n\nweighted by relative strength of invaders to defenders \n\n1.74 \n\nBattle of Malaya: 28.861 \n\n(Y/N) \n\nThe British defenders of Crete and Singapore outnumbered their invaders. The German forces that invaded Crete had a strength that was only about 50% of the British garrison. The garrison in Singapore had a numerical superiority of more than 2 to 1. Yet, Crete yielded in 14 days and Singapore surrendered in one week. The outnumbered garrison in Hong Kong, however, was able to hold out for more than half a month.\n\nThe loss rates for the three invasions for both sides were high in the Battle of Crete. The Axis loss, including missing figures, was 30%, which also meant a hard blow on Hitler's paratroopers' strength. The British loss was 5% higher and was almost 40%. In the case of Hong Kong, the loss rate of the British forces measured in terms of killed and wounded alone amounted to 34% whereas the Japanese incurred just 5%. If we compare only these rates of Hong Kong with those of Singapore, it would seem that the Hong Kong garrison was less effective in inflicting casualties on the enemy. Both the Crete and Hong Kong garrisons had sustained a relative loss rate of more than 2 to 1. However, if we weigh the relative loss rate of the British garrison by its relative strength vis-à-vis the invaders for each battlefield, then we might come to the conclusion that the Hong Kong garrison was most effective in inflicting disproportionate casualties upon the invader. As", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214770, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 185, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "149\n\nwho bring them food. Japs get very strict about buying food at the wire and many Chinese get beaten up, women being stripped naked in full view of everyone. Indians are getting unruly. Several deaths from dysentry.\n\nEighth. Florrie and her amah arrive with more food. She tries to cross the road but I signal her back. No parcels get through as a General is expected to visit us. My boy also arrives. What a disappointment.\n\nNinth. Jap General arrives with an escort of twelve cars and troops manning machine guns in lorries. He drives to the gods hut, steps out, has his photograph taken, and drives off without a word. What a farce. Many wild rumours but as usual no truth in them.\n\nTenth. Bed collapses again during night. Our roof leaks from the effects of a bomb but so far the weather has been perfect. The flies swarm everywhere due to the filthy condition of the camp. All buying at the fence stopped, the Japs torturing any Chinese who come near the fence.\n\nEleventh. Florrie arrives again and I receive a parcel of bread, butter, milk, and tomatoes. What a treat and the six of us make short work of it. Rumours even wilder: Tokyo reported bombed, Japs suffer severe naval defeat. Hitler committed suicide, and Japs evacuate Malaya. Have grand supper of coffee, bread, butter, and jam.\n\nTwelfth. All buying definitely stopped, many Chinese beaten up.\n\nThirteenth. Many sick with tummy trouble. One feels fairly fit but completely lacking in energy. Twenty Scots arrive from Fan Ling, amongst them being Potato Jones, who commanded the company at the Shing Mun Redoubt, and Lieut Thompson, who was hit by a grenade and is practically blind. Japs refuse to take him to hospital which will probably cost him his sight. Florrie brings another parcel. I throw a message to her across the road screwed up in a cigarette holder.\n\nFourteenth. Everyone's stock of food running low. Rumours still wild but always good news and we think are going well.\n\nFifteenth. Florrie comes again but Japs won't allow parcels", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 } ]