[ { "id": 205604, "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-1968", "page_number": 146, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n141 \n\nbe noted below that one of the halls visited was established in the period 1912-13 (No. 3) and another about 1910 (see under No. 2).\n\nThe expansion of vegetarian halls in the second decade of this century is referred to, though with specific reference to the New Territories, in the Administrative Report for 1920 of the District Officer, North. He wrote:\n\nOne of the most remarkable features of the year has been the rapid growth of \"chai t'ong\"* or “vegetarian halls\". Five years ago these religious or quasi-religious establishments had practically no foothold in this district: now they are everywhere in parts within reasonable reach of the railway and main roads, Sha Tin, Tai Po, Fan Ling and Pat Heung, each have several and are asking for more. Their promoters or managers are extremely secretive as to the objects of these enterprises, but it is sufficiently clear that they are designed chiefly to attract the well-to-do of Hongkong, particularly the womenfolk and that the believer is not expected to come empty-handed. Pending a straightforward explanation of the sudden \"boom\" in these \"halls\" permission is being refused for all new establishments as well as for extensions to existing ones.\n\nThere is another entry in his 1921 Report:\n\nThe embargo on “chai t'ong\" continues in force. The revelations in a \"fung shui” case coupled with certain vague statements from the \"T'ongs\" regarding funerals of members seem to indicate that one of the objects of these institutions is to find good \"fung shui's\" for their supporters.\n\nThe same District Officer commented to his superiors:\n\nNominally they are places of retreat where the earnest-minded withdraw from their fellowmen and living on the simplest of food can meditate upon ‘the most Excellent “Way”.' But in practice they come nearer to a Thames-side hotel.\n\nAn unfavourable opinion was also expressed by the District Watch Committee, a statutory body of leading Chinese citizens in Hong Kong to whom the matter was referred for advice. It was also asserted that the then Government of Kwangtung had an equally unfavourable opinion and had in fact expelled them from its territory \"which, if true, would at once account for their phenomenal growth in ours\" he wrote.\n\n* Cantonese romanisation.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206383, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "174\n\nREV. JAMES LEGGE\n\nthe Central Market was formed; and on the other side were some foreign Stores, and a tavern or two. Looking up Aberdeen Street, you saw a few indications of building, and a house on the south of Gage Street, forming the headquarters of a Madras Regiment; and looking up Pottinger Street, you could see the Magistracy and Gaol of the day, where the dreaded Major Caine presided, and below them were two or three other buildings. On from Pottinger Street, a few English merchants had established themselves, and the house which long continued to be known as the Commercial Inn was a place of great resort. On the west of D'Aguilar Street, not then so named, building was going on, and just opposite to it, was a small house called the Bird Cage, out of which was hatched the Hongkong Dispensary. All the space between Wyndham Street and Wellington Street was garden ground, with an imposing flat-roofed house in it, built by Mr. Brain, of the firm of Dent & Co. That great firm had its quarters where the Hongkong Hotel is now, and further on was Lindsay & Co.'s house. All else on the north side of the street was blank, on to the Artillery Barracks, which were building. On the south of the street was the Harbour Master's establishment on Pedder's Hill; and as conspicuous as are now Messrs. Heard & Co.'s Offices, which have been manufactured from it, rose the house of Mr. Johnstone, who had been administrator of the island on its first occupancy. On the Parade Ground was a small mat building, which was the Colonial Church, and above it, about where the Cathedral and Government Offices now stand, were the unpretending Government Offices of that early time and the Post-Office. Far up, if I recollect aright, might be seen a range of barracks, out of which have been fashioned the present Albany residences, and beyond the site of the present Government House was a small bungalow where Sir Henry Pottinger and Sir John Davis after him held their court. Crossing the bridge from the Artillery Barracks, there were some poor buildings for military purposes where the Naval Yard now is, and the houses of Gemmell & Co. and Fletcher & Co., the former of which has since been metamorphosed into the Commissariat Offices. On the right was the General's House, looking much as it does now, and below it was the Canton Bazaar, mainly occupied by troops.\n\nFollowing the bend of the road, one met with a few Chinese houses on the bluff opposite the present Military Hospital, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207196, "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": 267, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "LIST OF MEMBERS\n\nORDINARY MEMBERS:\n\nSAPSTEAD, G.\n\nSCHWARZ, W. H.\n\nSCOBELL, C. L.\n\nSELWYN, J. B.\n\nSHAW, Dr. & Mrs. B. C.\n\nSHOEMAKER, J. F.\n\nSHU, Dr. H. T.\n\nSIEGEL, H. W.\n\nSIU, Miss A. V.\n\nSLEVIN, Brian\n\nSMITH, Rev. Carl T,\n\nSO, Dr. Chak Lam\n\nSOLOMON, Mrs. Miriam\n\nSPAIN, Mr. & Mrs. E. J.\n\nSTAFFORD, Peter\n\nSTEINER, Henry\n\nSTEMPEL, A.\n\nSTEWART, Miss J. M. C.\n\nSTRANGER-JONES, A. J.\n\nSTRICKLAND, John E.\n\nSTUMPF, K. L., O.B.E.\n\nSU, Ming-Hsuan\n\nSU, Samson\n\nTAYLOR, Mrs. V.\n\nTHOMA, Dr. Richard\n\nTHOMAS, Rik\n\nTHOMAS, Mrs. S. E.\n\nHighways Office, Public Works Dept., Murray Building, H.K.\n\nc/o Achelis (HK) Ltd., Kowloon City P.O. Box 9334, Kowloon City, Kowloon.\n\nPolice Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K.\n\n2404 Connaught Centre, H.K.\n\n72, Middleton Towers, 140, Pokfulam Rd., H.K.\n\n73, Kadoorie Avenue, Kowloon.\n\n70, Mt. Davis Road, H.K.\n\nc/o Bayer China Co. Ltd., 1916 Union House, H.K.\n\nFlat A, Hing Mee Bldg., 13th floor, 25-31 Leighton Road, H.K.\n\nPolice Headquarters, Arsenal Street, H.K.\n\nChung Chi College, Shatin, N.T.\n\nDept. of Geography & Geology, University of Hong Kong, H.K.\n\n2 Wongneichong Gap Road, F5, Woodland Heights, H.K.\n\nD28 Burnside Estate, Repulse Bay, H.K.\n\nc/o The Mandarin Hotel, Connaught Road, C., H.K.\n\nGraphic Communication Ltd., Printing House, 6 Duddell Street, H.K.\n\nc/o Gilman Office Machines, 41st floor, Connaught Centre, H.K.\n\n28, Lancashire Road, Kowloon.\n\n12E, Cliffview Mansions, 25, Conduit Rd., H.K.\n\nc/o The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp., G.P.O. Box 64, H.K.\n\nLutheran World Federation, Dept. of World Service, 33 Granville Road, Kowloon.\n\n28 Broadway, 10-B Mei Foo Sun Chuen, Kowloon.\n\nc/o Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd., 12 Queen's Road, C., H.K.\n\n6A Pekao House, 30 Conduit Road, H.K.\n\n44, Mt. Kellet Road, 3A, Mountain Lodge, H.K.\n\n31 Conduit Road, 9th floor, H.K.\n\nC-3, Clearwater Bay Apts, Clearwater Bay Road, Kowloon.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207399, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n159\n\nthe Military Hospital in Bowen Road, which I scarcely left until we moved to Kowloon in March 1945.\n\n8-25 DECEMBER, 1941\n\nDuring hostilities eleven hospitals on the Island received casualties. These were:\n\nMilitary Hospital, Bowen Road.\n\nSt. Albert's Convent\n\nSt. Stephen's College, Stanley.\n\nStanley Prison Hospital\n\nHongkong Hotel.\n\nMatilda Hospital,\n\nThe Peak.\n\nIndian Military Hospital, Tung Wah East.\n\nRoyal Naval Hospital.\n\nQueen Mary Hospital, Pokfulam.\n\nUniversity Hospital, University Buildings.\n\nWar Memorial Hospital, The Peak.\n\nThe Indian Hospital was responsible mainly for Indian casualties, but like all other hospitals, service and civil alike, admitted any casualties which occurred nearby. The hospital in Bowen Road acted as a Casualty Clearing Station during hostilities, a role which though foreseen was forced upon us very early by shell fire and aerial bomb hits which caused casualties among the staff, destroyed the kitchen and damaged the structure to such an extent that it became unsafe to use the two top floors as wards. After surgical treatment patients, when fit to move, were transferred to other hospitals thought to be a little safer, and to emergency accommodation opened elsewhere such as the Hong Kong Hotel where they were nursed on mattresses laid on the ballroom floor. The main approach road to Bowen Road, Borrett Road, was soon damaged by shell fire and for a time ambulance cars could not reach the hospital at all. Casualties then had to be carried on stretchers by our staff over long stretches of slippery, wet, and steep slopes of mud.\n\nThe basement operating theatres and X-ray room in the hospital proved to be a great success, and early and effective surgery was carried out successfully. The occupation of Kowloon by the Japanese, complete by 18 December, cut off our sources of supply of anaesthetic gases, mains water, and electricity. We then used our generators to supply light and power and drew water from our reservoir. One of our wards had been made gas-proof but neither", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208007, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "BEHIND JAPANESE BARBED WIRE: STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG\n\n1942-1945\n\nGEOFFREY CHARLES EMERSON*\n\nOn Monday morning, December 8th 1941, a few minutes after 8 a.m. and a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, bombs dropped on Kai Tak airport and the battle of Hong Kong had begun. 17 days later, on Christmas Day 1941, Hong Kong surrendered. At that time there were approximately 3000 non-Chinese civilians of the Allied powers in Hong Kong. Until early January 1942, these people were on the whole left alone, most of them remaining at home because it was very dangerous to go out due to the breakdown of law and order which occurred with the surrender on Christmas Day.\n\nOn 4th January 1942, a notice appeared in the Hongkong News (the only English-language newspaper published during the occupation) for all enemy nationals to assemble at Murray Parade Grounds (today the site of the Hilton Hotel). Many people, especially those on the Peak and in the University area, did not see this notice, but eventually about 1000 gathered at the Parade Grounds, and after registration they were marched through the centre of Hong Kong and interned in a number of hotel-brothels located on the waterfront (near the present Macau Ferry Pier).\n\nThe American journalist Joseph Alsop, who was one of those caught in Hong Kong in 1941, wrote the following in The Saturday Evening Post:\n\nAfter trudging a mile and a half, we turned abruptly into a narrow alley and were halted before the grilled door of an ancient, dilapidated and very dirty building. Painted on the peeling plaster was an announcement in Chinese that it was the Stag Hotel, offering comfortable rooms at cheap rates. In reality, it was a Chinese brothel of the third class.†\n\n* Text of a paper read at a meeting of the Society on 13 April 1977. Mr. Emerson, M.Phil. (Hong Kong) is Vice Principal of St. Paul's College, Hong Kong, and President of the Hong Kong History Society.\n\n†The Stag Hotel was situated in Queen's Road Central to the west of the Central Market.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209657, "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": 314, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "292\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe difficulty dragged on into the following year, as we know from the two letters dated 12th March 1879 which prompted this study. In his intelligence report dated 2nd July 1879, Consul Stronach stated, \"I have already reported the refusal of Transit Passes by the Governor of Kwangsi: a rumour has reached this that he has been superseded\" (F.O.228, v.631, p.131). In his next quarterly report, however, he was able to say \"The difficulties in the issue of Transit Passes made by the Governor of Kwangsi have been surmounted, and the actual issue of one has taken place to cover the Cassia Lignea contracted for by Mr. Welsh. The bark is expected shortly.\" He goes on, \"An opening has at last been made of trade with Hongkong, by a small Steamer, the 'Hainan', under the American flag, and Mr. Herton, of Herton, Ebell & Co., a part owner, proposes to settle here and push the venture.\" (F.O.228, v.631, p.158). The main owners of the Hainan were Russell & Co.\n\nThis, however, is not quite the end of the matter. In his Trade Report for 1879, Thomas Piry, Customs Assistant-in-Charge at Pakhoi, reports as follows:\n\n\"The attention of merchants was a little excited in the beginning of the year by the information they received of the issue of Transit Passes. Some determined to try them for the conveyance of Cassia Lignea to this port, an article hitherto prohibited on its market. A contract was in consequence passed with a Foreign merchant. On further consideration, however, the Foreigner backed out, somewhat disgracefully, and left the port. This regrettable affair, enough by itself to ruin the Foreign name in the new place, was fortunately remedied by the kind agency of a Foreign firm, to which not a little credit is due for the action. The contract was confirmed by them, a Pass immediately taken, and the Cassia Lignea was satisfactorily brought down from Kwangsi to Pakhoi. Hence, firstly, the coming of the Hainan to fetch this Cassia.\"\n\nIt seems that Welsh lived up to his name, and perhaps he was the former hotel keeper in Canton who had come to Pakhoi without any definite plans: this would also account for the omission of his name from the 1884 China coast directory.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212192, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "transferred their activities elsewhere: the evil reputation of Bias Bay nearby is well known. But British influence made itself felt in other ways, too. The \"foreign devils\" not only brought security; they built houses, roads and dockyards, so that a very large number of Chinese found Hongkong preferable to their native districts and came there to live. By 1938 the population was over two millions, including twenty-four thousand foreigners. It is true, of the Chinese no less than one million were only transient inhabitants, refugees from the Japanese wrath which was spreading over China. To these wretched thousands, Hongkong, for a time, was a sanctuary: as later in another part of the world, was England to the French, Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian refugees, who were to escape from German occupied territory.\n\nBehind Victoria, the cramped commercial hub of the island, a funicular Peak Tramway rises steeply to serve the numerous mansions, erected at varying levels, for taipans, who hope vainly to avoid the moist clinging heat of the long Hongkong summer. Some of the mansions look out over Victoria at the twin city of Kowloon on the mainland across the harbour: others, on the reverse slope, look out to sea, to Lantao island, still barren, to Lamma, in the foreground, and to Cheung Chau in the middle distance.\n\nHongkong was crowded. The hotels were full and so when we arrived, some weeks after leaving Nanking, my wife and I took rooms at the small hotel which an enterprising English couple had opened on Cheung Chau island. A special ferry from Victoria did the trip several times a day in about half an hour. There was quite a large fishing village, the rendezvous for many of the junks that frequent these waters. We lived on fish and strolled amongst the stunted pines and the empty bungalows of the summer visitors waiting until we could find more convenient accommodation. It was a pleasant change from the vicissitudes of Nanking.\n\nEventually we were able to get rooms in the Repulse Bay Hotel, famous as a honeymoon resort. It is on the side of Hongkong facing the open sea, near what is perhaps the best known bathing beach. A winding road over the hill through the Wong Nei Chong gap leads to Victoria, and in Deepwater Bay round the point there is a small nine-hole golf course.\n\nI remember one day we took the bus up to the Gap and got out", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212194, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "113\n\nthe walla-walla men are\n\nwould be an argument about the fare surely descended from the original Hongkong pirates and, that settled, a slow journey across the harbour, followed by a walk home. Such conditions are discouraging to social intercourse. They tend to break the community up into cliques; into the circle who live on the Peak, the crowd down in Victoria, and the mob over in Kowloon.\n\nHow deep-seated was the snobbery amongst the few could be seen at a later date, when the remnants of the British community were interned by the Japanese. Many of the women still thought themselves too superior to keep company with their sisters in misfortune, and continued to carry their noses in the air, while living under the most dismal conditions, crowded cheek by jowl seven and eight to a small room.\n\nTo avoid overheating during the Hongkong summer called for a special technique. The idea was never to move rapidly in any direction; a slow steady advance got you there. If the advance took you past the stately building erected by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, so much the better. It was air-conditioned. You could look in on your friends, who had the good fortune to rent offices there, and while passing the time of day your body refreshed itself in the cool dry atmosphere.\n\nOwing to the discomfort of movement and the geographic complexities, on leaving office at noon most people did not return home to lunch. They either went to the Club, where the cuisine, it is unreliably claimed, compared with that of the Shanghai Club, or to the Hongkong or Gloucester Hotels. These rival but contiguous establishments were a local institution. What Shepherd's Hotel was in Cairo fifty years ago, the Hongkong Hotel was in the late 1930s; a place where wanderers met. You seldom entered the hotel lobby without running into someone you had not seen for years. It might be an official of Imperial Airways who had just flown in from India, via Rangoon and Bangkok, or an American news reporter leaving by Pan-American clipper for Manila. Both hotels provided excellent fare. Some favoured the one, some the other. At the Gloucester the dining room was eight floors up on the roof, with a view over the harbour; in the Hongkong Hotel it was at ground level with a view of the \"Grips\", the arena where the cosmopolitan crowd foxtrotted to the music of a Filipino orchestra.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212196, "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "115\n\npromotion and increases of pay. Brilliance and initiative are not requisite. In fact, unless well controlled they are a definite handicap. It is fatal to the career of the young official if events prove he was right where his senior was wrong. He will soon be stowed away on some remote shelf. All that is required of him is that he shall answer \"Yes\" at proper intervals; and not advance new ideas, or disturb the even tenor of the way of his superiors.\n\nAnother unhappy manifestation of colonial administration was seen in 1940, when the Japanese menace caused the authorities to issue an order to British women to leave the colony. You would have thought that the wives of colonial officials would have been proud to set an example. But not at all. The majority of the female relatives of Hongkong administrators used their influence to have themselves declared indispensable in order that they might stay in the colony. They wangled jobs as nurses, secretaries, and so on, while the less fortunate — as it then appeared — wives of the commercial community, who were not in a position to pull strings, were shipped out to Australia and other places. It naturally produced a lot of ill-feeling, but not, so far as I am aware, any Colonial Office enquiry.\n\nThe police force in Hongkong consisted of 14 British officers, 255 British other ranks, and 803 Sikh and 1022 Chinese constables. Despite its heterogeneous composition the force was quite efficient. The wealth of Hongkong attracts evil-doers from China, which has its full share of the criminal element. After decades of civil war they are usually well enough armed; but in Hongkong the statistics of serious crime, and particularly of malefactors brought to book, compare quite favourably with, for instance, those for Kentucky.\n\nChinese of the lower classes generally wear a short jacket, while Chinese of the gentle class wear a long gown buttoning up the side and reaching down to the ankles. Chinese gun-men also invariably wear long gowns, I suppose, the easier to hide their weapons. They are often of sleek appearance, but there seems to be a look about them which makes them easy to recognise. When I was staying at the Gloucester Hotel I noticed there were usually one or two long-gowned Chinese in the hallway outside my room. I asked my Chinese boy who these men were and he told me that in the bedroom on one side of me I had Mr. Tu Yuen Seng, and on the other side Mr. Wang Shao Lai. They were the chiefs of the Green and Red \"Tongs\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212198, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "117\n\nHotel, was Japanese. So were the majority of the photographers' shops. It was known that a proportion of the workers in the Royal Naval Dockyard were Japanese, passing themselves off as Chinese. Even the Chinese could not distinguish between one of their own countrymen and a Japanese after he had lived amongst them sufficiently long to speak the language fluently. There was a police regulation under which all persons entering the Colony of nationality other than British or Chinese must register. But Koreans were classed as Chinese, and so Japanese, who wished to avoid observation, described themselves as Koreans. To overcome the difficulty it would have been necessary to make registration of Chinese compulsory, and that was a task beyond the capacity of the existing police personnel; moreover, the Chinese might have resented such a regulation as a slight on their dignity.\n\nThe Hongkong weekend continued much as usual. You could run your car onto the vehicular ferry, take it over to Kowloon, and drive the 17 miles to the border of the New Territory, either by the road which wound in and out amongst the bays along the coast, or by the road which followed the railway gap through the Kowloon hills; and play golf at the Royal Fanling Golf Club where there were two eighteen hole, and one nine hole, courses. Or you could bathe from one of the numerous beaches, or go on a launch picnic. These last were popular. On Sunday morning the time would be spent taking turns on a surfboard towed behind the launch, or sunbathing on top of the awning; in the afternoon a heavy lunch would offer the lazy an excuse to sleep.\n\nThe Japanese were bombing the railway line between Hongkong and Hankow. In those days the confidence of air enthusiasts in regard to the results which could be achieved by desultory bombing had not yet been discounted by the hard test of experience. Moreover, we were yet to learn of the devotion and sacrifice, the skill and efficiency, of the Chinese railway repair gangs. With a minimum of equipment they performed wonders, and through traffic was seldom interrupted for more than a few hours. I was instructed to reconnoitre an alternative route for the despatch of supplies from Hongkong to Central China against the time when the railway might be finally disrupted. It was a thankless task because opinion in Shanghai continued to assume that the Chinese government would soon collapse under Japanese pressure.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212223, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "142 \n\nnumber of bicycles, and despite having to dismount frequently to cross ditches, alleged to be anti-tank but too narrow to be effective for the purpose, made forty miles in a day along the footpaths amongst the hills. \n\nTens of thousands of coolies were carrying loads over the track from Mirs Bay to the East River: it shewed what a large flow of supplies still entered China from Hongkong despite the Japanese blockade. I even saw the parts of wholly dismantled lorries being carried along, four coolies to each pole on the heavier loads, such as the frame. Unfortunately a cholera epidemic was raging, and the Chinese government appeared to have made no effort to provide medical and sanitary supervision, on what was one of the few remaining routes of entry into China. A plague of flies hovered over the human excreta which defiled the edges of the road along its whole length. Coolies were dying by the dozen. They would collapse by the side of the road and crawl off to expire in the scrub. In places the stench was so strong as to make you retch. On arrival next day at Mirs Bay we were offered tea at the little Chinese customs house, while waiting for the launch. As the bay was entirely inside Hongkong territorial waters, Japanese ships could not enter, and the launches ran twice a day with impunity. \n\nI stepped ashore at Taipo, a village in the New Territory, in time to catch the evening train from Fanling, but I was now feeling ill myself and half wondering whether I too had not caught cholera. I was unable to join the golfing fraternity in the saloon car to listen to the highlights of the day's sport, or to partake of refreshment, and on arrival at the Gloucester I retired to my bed. \n\nThe luxury, however, of a modern hotel soon put me on my legs, and I was further fortified by the comfort of a passage to Shanghai in one of the Canadian-Pacific Company's liners. \n\nIt was November. Many of the younger men had left to join up, either in Malaya or in India, where it was thought their services might prove more useful than in England. Nevertheless with the addition of the people who had been brought in from the outports, there was no shortage of staff in the offices; and the Clubs, if anything, appeared rather crowded. Owing to the stagnation in trade, people had not much to do. Yet managers seemed reluctant to release their young men, too many of whom, as it appeared to me, seemed quite content to stay; while, surprisingly, older middle-aged men were being allowed \n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212475, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "ports. He received a lot of honours from many countries including a baronetcy and other decorations from Britain and China. He was said to have been a “leading expert in insurance, shipping and the import and export business,” and also \"director of eighteen of the leading companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai, chairman and largest shareholder of a number of them.\" We know little of the details of his investments in the modern business in Hong Kong, Canton, or Shanghai, but we understand that he had an investment in some guandu-shangban enterprises and had close relations with Chinese officials. He was probably a multimillionaire by the turn of the century. It was known that when he worked in Jardines, he had been the manager of Jardine's affiliates, the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. and the Canton Insurance Co., Ltd. He had invested in refined and raw sugar in Shanghai and most of the Yangzi and northern ports of China. He owned a lot of landed properties in Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Tsingtao (Qingdao), and London. He was a director of Humphreys Estate and Finance Co. Ltd., Hong Kong Reclamation Co., Ltd., and Hong Kong Hotel Co., Ltd. at the end of the nineteenth century.\n\nLaw Pak Sheung was the first comprador to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank when it opened in 1865, and remained the chief comprador until his death in 1877. Law came from the port of Whampoa in Canton. His life in Hong Kong proved very successful. He was an organising director of the Tung Wah Hospital from 1869 to 1871. It became the leading Chinese charitable institution in Hong Kong.\n\nPage 10\n\nLaw died in 1877. He had interests in at least five businesses as mentioned in his will. He might also have had other business interests which were in the name of his sons or other relatives. The five firms mentioned in the will were a ship chartering office, a store, a gold dealer's shop, a native bank, and a general trading company. These he left to his third son Lo Hok Pang (Luo Hepeng), who succeeded him as comprador. In 1879, two years after the death of Law Pak Sheung, his son was said to have had connections with Chinese banks and had invested in a number of firms. He was regarded as one of the leading businessmen in the Chinese community; this was in addition to his position as a comprador. Law might also have had business interests in Canton or elsewhere which were not mentioned in his Hong Kong will. The testator's shares in insurance companies and a Chinese newspaper are signs of one who has moved away from strictly Chinese business enterprises, though the insurance shares were not large, but these were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212601, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "Maymyo 1941 \n\nGUERILLA TRAINING* \n\nP. H. MUNRO-FAURE \n\n135 \n\nThe shortage of British shipping along the China coast became more marked during 1940 and 1941. The vessels built for this traffic, generally between three and four thousand tons in measurement, with comparatively shallow draft, were particularly suitable for use in the Persian Gulf and along the shores of North Africa. Many had been taken to serve as transports in those seas. Moreover, the Admiralty, sensitive to the dangers threatening the peace of the Far East, had directed such larger ocean-going vessels as still were available not to proceed west of Singapore. Consequently there was pressure on the remaining cabin space, and I was fortunate to obtain a berth in a small coaster, which took seven days to reach Hongkong from Shanghai, as against the usual four.\n\nHongkong was very quiet, a state of affairs not to be attributed to an entire absence of females. It was remarkable how many had succeeded in avoiding the order to leave the Colony. I had to wait a whole week for a passage to Singapore, where formerly berths on a dozen different ships would have been offered in the time. This gave me an opportunity to look around. Friends took me out to Deep Water Bay, where we sunbathed on the beach, and drank our tea on the club verandah, looking out over the little golf course. High up on the hill towards Wong Nei Chong Gap I could see the green tiled roof of the house where my wife and I, only three years previously, had been caught in the rain. I wondered whether the lady of the mansion was one of those who had contrived to remain behind. In the evening we drove round to the next bay and bathed from the Lido, a steel and concrete building of pleasing design housing a restaurant, and bathing booths. The hot weather had set in, but here a cool breeze blew down a gully on the hillside into the windows. I had always liked the place because of its informality. You could eat your dinner, and dance and talk, in shorts, and so keep cool, as compared with the stricter etiquette of the Gloucester and Hongkong Hotels, or the Repulse Bay Hotel, or even the Peninsular Hotel across the harbour, where several nights a week you were required to don “black ties”.\n\n*This is the third part of the Memoirs of Col. P H. Munro-Faure. See Editor's Note, p 61, vol. 29, and Plate I", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212602, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "136\n\nThe charming English custom of dressing for dinner is ill adapted to the perspiring tropics.\n\nWhen the walla-walla boat took me out to the coaster anchored in the harbour, I found she was even smaller than the ship I had come on from Shanghai, and slower. The run to Singapore, which the larger ships cover in a little over three days, again took a week. It is true we had to make a considerable detour to avoid the extensive belt of mines laid round the Singapore harbour, and we were kept waiting outside pending permission to enter.\n\nWhile anchored there, I was astonished to observe a launch, flying the Japanese flag, and towing a string of fishing craft, steam in over the minefield. On enquiry I was told that Singapore could not do without fish. It later transpired that many of the fishermen were Japanese naval officers in disguise, and that there was little they did not know about the British minefields. Only a few months previously, while undergoing cross-examination in court, a Japanese consular official detained on a charge of espionage had swallowed poison to avoid having to give evidence; but, presumably in the interest of the breakfast table, the Japanese fishermen continued to receive the benefit of the doubt. The big talk of the moment was the scandal of the bribes which had been paid on large contracts for the construction of the new concrete pill-boxes, which were being erected around the island. It was alleged that the quality of the concrete supplied was sometimes little better than plaster, and that some of the leading British firms were implicated. It was all a trifle disturbing.\n\nThe further you got from Shanghai and the nearer to India the worse the plumbing. In Shanghai, American influence had overcome British conservatism with happy results. In the foreign home there was generally a bathroom to each bedroom, and the fixtures were as pleasing to the eye as in use. Stainless steel vied with coloured plastic and the right use of glass to gratify the visitor. In Hongkong the standard lagged a bit. In Singapore it was a long way behind. The bathroom floor might be mere wood, and the walls just homely white tiles. No incentive here to dawdle in delectable contemplation. Even in the famous Raffles Hotel, a barrack descended from earlier times, the bathroom, though no doubt sumptuous enough by English standards, left much to be desired. If I remember rightly it even contained a primeval article of furniture called a \"wash-hand stand”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213209, "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "10\n\nIt was not until 1931 that the Club was revived in rented premises on the fourth floor of No. 2 Connaught Road.\n\nThe club's concert hall was a popular venue for musicals. A singing group, the Liedertafel, was organised in 1873. A pianist, Franz Jachimeck made an eastern tour in 1867. He gave a private recital at the German Club and a public one at the hall of Club Lusitano. The concert included three German songs rendered by an amateur group. In the same year a lighter programme of entertainment was offered to the public in the following advertisement, \"Ein Cultur-Historisch und Social Humoristische Vertrag aber Californian mit einem Seitenblick nach Yokohama. Donnerstage abends 9 Uhr in dem kleinen Saale des Oriental Hotel vor Dr. B.B. Schwarzbach, gehalten werden. Billet a $2 sind bei den Herr Lane, Crawford and Co., Hochstetter, Gaup, Cremer\". The English speaking community were not deprived of Dr. Schwarzbach's lecture of culture, history and humour, for he repeated it in English a few nights later.\n\nOne of the highlights in the history of the old Club Germania was the visit of Prince Henry and Princess Irene of the Prussian royal family. Prince Henry was a grandson of Queen Victoria of England. Consequently the event was not confined to the German community. As a finale to the entertainment of the evening, a naval group from the British war ship \"Powerful\" presented three \"real life Tableaux\": Ready For Action, Battle Scene, and the Death of Nelson, all representative of British patriotism. Included was a patter song linking the guest of honour with his grandmother:\n\nOne word before I end my song\n\nTo welcome in far Hongkong\n\nThe grandson of our Gracious Queen\n\nThe Sailor Prince, of course, I mean;\n\nTo welcome him, may he always be\n\nFound playing on the side of the Royal Navy.\n\nThe warm feelings between Britain and Germany prevailing during the visit of His Royal Highness, were dissipated when war clouds increasingly piled up before August 1914.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214513, "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": 371, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "340\n\ncommander's residence. Indeed, its present use is a naval canteen. The sleepy staff were somewhat surprised to see an invasion by foreign tourists, but they allowed us to wander all over the house as if it were our own. Later research pinned this house down as being the governor's residence, as opposed to \"Government House\".\n\nFrom this vantage point it is possible to look into the naval base. There is not much of interest, except for one smart but small building towards the northern end of the base that looks as though it could have been the former customs house. It has a four-storey tower with a very tall flagpole and a large verandah overlooking the sea. My previous visit in 1996 afforded me a closer look at this well-preserved building, but only by gaining unauthorised entry to the naval base. The front gates were, naturally, guarded - but a door into one of the external walls had a sign that a canteen was doing business up the stairs. Up I went - and then down I went on the other side, but only very briefly. Much as I liked what I saw, I did not fancy spending a few years there.\n\nBack at the governor's residence, comparing notes and old photographs with a naval officer who had just strolled up the hill for lunch, we established that the actual Government House still exists, but that it is firmly inside a military compound. Nothing daunted, we found the place - inland and a mile or so to the west of where we were. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, no amount of pleading with the guards at the gate could get even a foot inside. But we could get a glimpse of the roof of the building in question - just through the gate and to the right - about 100 yards away, partially hidden by trees. The details that we could see confirmed it as being the former British governor's residence.\n\nDuring lunch, Jessie and a few others wandered off in search of the King's Hotel, the Hongkong Bank building and a few other places from her past. Unfortunately they did not find any.\n\nThe only other point of interest that we saw was an obelisk, in the middle of a traffic island near the seafront, commemorating \"the taking back of Wei Hai from the British after years of pain.\" Lucky, I suppose, that Wei Hai was not subjected to as much pain as Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216067, "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": 366, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "300\n\nSilver Island forts. I did not answer his letter, but noted the date thereon and the date on which I received it. I was requested to send an answer to someone in Zhenjiang. I gave the letter to Consul Mowat.35\n\nAs I did not answer Mason's letter he called early one morning and I asked who he was and what he wanted. He replied that he was the United States consular marshal at Hankou and had come down to see the machine gun I had offered to sell to the Municipal Council at Hankou and wished to know if my machine was a single action or double action gun. I showed him the gun and how to work it, and he decided to buy it. He then wished me to send it somewhere on the Yangzi, I said I could not let it go out of my house until it was paid for, and would not deliver anywhere outside the limits of a treaty port unless provided with a special passport or huzhao. Mason then said that he was going to Ningbo and would call for the gun on his return. He did not do so. He went to Hongkong engaged a lot of foreigners, instructed them to come and report themselves to me for duty, etc., etc.\n\nOn Mason's return to Shanghai he brought a lot of firearms he had bought in Hongkong. They were seized, and the men he had engaged were looked after. He himself was introduced by Mr R.E. Bredon, Shanghai Commissioner of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, to the Daotai of Shanghai who invited him to dinner and to witness a theatrical performance as if he, Mason, had been a popular hero.\n\nHe lived in the Central Hotel and was a frequent visitor at the Shanghai Club where he had been introduced by Mr Bredon.\n\nMeanwhile all sorts of tricks were being practised to inveigle me into a trap. Conch shells were blown at all hours of the night about my house under the direction of Mason. A host of extra police officers and detectives were placed on special duty on my property, at the switch-back railway. I suddenly remembered the letter that had been sent me. I thereupon called on Mr acting-consul Mowat and insisted on his reporting the matter to H.M.'s Minister at Beijing. Mowat pooh-poohed the whole thing as a farce and so it proved in reality though very costly and dangerous to me.\n\nInstructions were soon received from H.M.'s Minister at Beijing and Mason was removed from the Central Hotel on the Bund to H.M.'s", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]