[ { "id": 204423, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "46\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\ngetting certificates in several sects. Only the more serious monks had dharma certificates,\n\nThe difficulty of finding people willing to serve meant that many an abbot had to go on serving for decades. He had corresponding difficulties in finding officers to work under him. He appointed all the department heads himself, while they might appoint the personnel of their respective departments. But everyone was at liberty to refuse to serve, and many did. They too wanted to devote themselves to religious exercises and not to be bothered with the work of the monastery. So, when the abbot asked someone to be head of a department, he would do so with a deep bow, to show that he was making a plea and not giving a command. I have often heard it said that the right spirit, the true monastic spirit, was to serve when and where needed, because if competent people refused to do so, the monastery would fall apart. I know of a monk, for instance, who was the abbot of one well-known institution and then went elsewhere as a mere tang-chia, or Manager. I have heard of another who was the shou-tsoo Senior Instructor in a big monastery—a most exalted position—and then became its cook. This happened because the monk who had been supervising the kitchen had no talent for it, and the Senior Instructor was the only person competent to bring about a real improvement.\n\nIn the course of the years, while a monk was ascending the monastery hierarchy, he probably acquired a small temple, either from his own master or from a fellow disciple. Whereas a big public monastery could not, according to the rules, be handed on to the tonsure disciple of the retiring abbot, the head of a small temple, who usually owned it personally, almost always handed it on to one of his \"tonsure disciples,\" who might by that time be an officer of a big monastery. Thus many monks led two careers in parallel, one in a small temple and one in a big monastery. There were thousands of small temples in China—about 270,000 according to a survey made in 1930. Each had a few monks, sometimes two or three, sometimes as many as ten. Their life was very relaxed. There was no organised meditation, no morning and evening chanting of scriptures.*\n\nThe monks who lived there could come and go as they pleased\n\n* Except on the first and the fifteenth of the lunar month and throughout the last lunar month.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204638, "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-1963", "page_number": 119, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "106\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\n30 The Tung Kwun association note book says that there was a Po On Wui Sor ★ ★ ƒ in the Ch'ing dynasty, but since this had always led to confusion their association (the Po On Shuc Shat) was renamed the Tung Kwun Wui Sor in the 12th year of the Chinese Republic (1923).\n\n31 A tablet (1953) in the Free School says that this institution dates back to 1921 and local leaders say that the kung sor was rebuilt at this time. The old kung sor was also known as the hon kaam lau ★ ★# or watchmen's building.\n\n** On the other hand it is unlikely that it predates the defence bureau (1863-70) as this would have been a suitable subject for the Kaifong to organise (there is no mention of it on the tablet).\n\n33 Mr. LEUNG Yau recalls that there were two Kaifong junks operating a daily service between Cheung Chau and Hong Kong before the lease (1898). One left Hong Kong (Sai Ying Pun) at 11 a.m., whilst the other left Cheung Chau at the same time. Both were sailing junks and took three hours to make the journey under good conditions and the whole day if otherwise. They were subscribed and run by a number of local gentlemen for public use. A steam Kaifong vessel was bought with public subscriptions in 1910. Administrative Reports, District Officer, New Territories, 1910.\n\n&\n\n34 There are now eight district associations on the island for natives of the districts of Po On; Tung Kwun; Wai-Chiu combined ✰✰ *#; Sei Yap (\"The Four Towns') i.e. Toi Shan 4, Sun Wui. Hoi Ping, Yan Ping; Ng Yap ♣ (“The Five Towns\") i.e. Hok Shan plus the towns of Sei Yap, Shun Tak: Chung Shan ✈ and Chiu Chau (separate), the four last named formed since 1945, all offering a variety of social, educational and charitable services to members.\n\n35 HSIAO, in his interesting and lengthy study of rural China in the 19th Century, does not deal specifically with the internal organisation of the market towns. The market town of Tai O at the south west end of Lantau island (land population 2248 in 1911) would provide an interesting local comparison, though material is not so readily available as for Cheung Chau. I hope to write a similar outline account at a later date.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204730, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 33, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "24\n\nApril 9\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nAt times in passing up our neighbors' Factories we find the merchants occupied in all sorts of domestic matters, some in the kitchen boiling rice, another milking a cow, one setting the table or cleaning it off, another washing plates or sweeping the room and in other offices of a like nature. I must say, however, that the foreigners deserve great credit for their patience, and their cheerfulness and courage under all the trying circumstances in which we are placed merit every commendation. The Chinese stationed to guard us seem surprised at our indifference to the restraint imposed upon us and wonder that our spirits and courage have not been long since subdued, but if ever matters are carried to worse extremities than they now are, I think they will find us unflinching.\n\nI do not pretend to say but that we are all in a state of great uncertainty and even somewhat in dread as to the termination of this business but we endeavor to conceal all such feelings from the soldiers and coolies surrounding us.\n\nToday we had a supply of spring water brought in and a quantity of grass for the cows. Gave two bottles of port wine to the mandarin at the Hoppo House.\n\nWednesday, 10 April\n\nNight before last the Kwang Chow Foo27, the Kam (Nam?) Hay Hue28, the Pwan Yu Hue29 and a special messenger from the Commissioner came to the Consoo House and an interview took place between them and the Dutch and American Consuls, Messrs Wetmore, Forbes, Delano, and King, and Fearon30 as interpreter. Their business was relative to a bond that was required from all foreigners to the effect that any opium arriving here within six months must be given up and, with the vessel, confiscated to government, and that after that period any person or persons who brought it for sale, or to deal in, must willingly surrender himself or themselves to the laws and be beheaded. The Kwang Chow Foo at first was determined to have it at all risks and threatened to detain the whole party unless it was given at once as he dared not go inside the city and see the Commissioner without it. All, however, persisted in not giving the bond for the best of reasons, that it might be made use of hereafter and acted upon if mere suspicion was attached to any person, besides", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204732, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "26\n\nW. C. HUNTER\n\nFriday 12th\n\n1* at\n\nAt nine this morning received a letter from Macao dated the 8th, in answer to mine of the 5th; all quiet there but everyone ready to be off the moment any trouble was at hand. Delano received, enclosed in mine, a chit from Russell Sturgis which contained much news. The Hercules and Austen left for the Bogue on Tuesday last to deliver their opium and were to be followed by the Jane and Aeriel. The Chinese would only let two vessels come up at a time. The Good Success left Macao on the 9th for Madras, with despatches to the British admiral on the India Station, and the Rob Roy was to leave today for Calcutta. The Exchange sailed for Manila on the 8th; the Nar† Naples, Roza and Benuo Successo and Poppy had also sailed for Manila but the letter does not say if they took opium or not.\n\nMr. Inness was on board the Hercules with Alex. Matthews and Chay. Beal36. The Hercules and Austen had in all over 5,000 chests.\n\nGave two bottles of beer to the Se-Ying37 or lieutenants on guard in the second line of boats in front of the Factories. Had a long chat with several of the officers belonging to Name Hoe's guard relative to matters in dispute. They appear exceedingly friendly but take no interest whatever in what is going on,\n\nSaturday, 13, 1839\n\nLast night at 12 o'clock Captain Elliot received a communication from the Commissioner, dated in the morning from the Bogue, in which he requests that the opium ships might be ordered to come up and anchor close to Chinn-up to deliver the opium, instead of Lankeel where there was much inconvenience owing to rough water. He also said that the compradores and cooks were ordered to return but they have not come yet. However it will take some time for the order to be generally promulgated.\n\nMidnight I have just returned from a chat of three hours duration held at the Hoppo House or \"Custom-House Station\" at the water's edge opposite our Factory between two officers, one equal to a captain and the other to a lieutenant, the Custom-House Officer and myself. The Captain, who wore a crystal button, was\n\n*Two words illegible.\n\n† Part of ship's name illegible.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204750, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "42\n\nHONG KONG BEFORE THE CHINESE THE FRAME, THE PUZZLE AND THE MISSING PIECES\n\nA lecture delivered on 18th November 1963\n\nIntroduction\n\nK. M. A. Barnett\n\nHong Kong and the Chinese. The speakers who address this society usually do so to communicate a small part of what they know. My purpose is the reverse of this: to deal with many aspects of a subject about which much should be, and little is, known. Certain evidence which I have gathered in the course of the past few years, at first quite accidentally, clearly presents a picture and poses a problem. This problem can perhaps be solved and the picture completed if all the sources of knowledge to which the learned members of this learned society have access can be brought together.\n\nThere is also a personal consideration. Over the past eighteen years, I have collected a mountain of what I am tempted to call “field notes”, all in an untidy mess and accessible largely by the use of memory. But my opportunities for gathering information are getting less, and the time is approaching when I shall have to arrange the notes, edit them, and write up what is worth writing up: all of which means that I shall have to stop collecting fresh data. This then is my reason for doing what goes against all my instincts, and exposing to the critical gaze of an audience what are but half-digested or undigested facts, half-proven or unproven hypotheses, and one or two conjectures. I hope to suggest to you that the solution of the problem \"Who was here before the Chinese arrived?\" is one that demands team work, that demands the collaboration of different disciplines and the exchange of specialised knowledge. Unfortunately this is a field in which the amateur, being free from preconceived ideas, may be more successful than the professional in gathering raw data: if he perseveres, which as an amateur he is unlikely to do. Yet for the interpretation of the data he requires the assistance of the professional's accumulated knowledge and skill, which the professional will be reluctant to place at the disposal of the amateur. Today", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204780, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "72 \n\nJ. W. HAYES \n\nbe shown for inspection to prove ownership at the land settlement which followed the British lease and, though opinions differ on this point, many old villagers have said that their deeds were handed in to the Government and not returned. This would, in part, account for their being in very short supply today, at any rate throughout the area with which I am familiar; that is the islands and the Sai Kung and Clear Water Bay districts. Following widespread enquiry over a number of years, I am convinced that another factor of great importance in explaining their scarcity is the Japanese occupation of the Colony in 1941-45. Many villagers say that their papers were destroyed at that time, in many cases by themselves, since they feared the questions which might result if the Japanese authorities got their hands on them. The less they knew the better, was the prevailing view, and therefore many families destroyed their papers, to our present loss.\n\nFortunately, to set against this background of loss and decay, there are the valuable records of the land settlement carried out within a few years of the lease of the New Territories to Britain in 1898. These consist of records of a ground survey, carried out mainly to a scale of thirty-two inches to the mile, in which individual lots are set down and numbered, and their ownership listed in an accompanying schedule certified as correct by an officer of the Land Court.2 These constitute a modern \"Domesday\" of all titles to land in the leased territory. Their usefulness to the historian is obvious and apart from their intrinsic value as a contemporary record they provide many clues to the past and enable detailed checks to be made on some of the persons and organisations whose names appear on commemorative tablets and others dated items such as furniture and fittings, which are to be found in the many temples which dot the countryside.\n\nThere are also the recollections of elders, particularly those over eighty years of age, who were young men at the time the territory changed hands. The memories of the oldest men are sometimes good and when this is the case they can do a great deal to fill in the bare bones of the land records and the genealogical trees. Since certain changes overtook the region within the first decade of British rule,3 their testimony is of the greatest importance to a realisation of manners and attitudes and an understanding of the system of civil and military administration which obtained", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204961, "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-1965", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "62\n\nJ. MCCOY\n\ncontrasts in meaning when compared with all other such sound groups in the given language, ie, hat as contrasted with bar, cat, rat, etc. By convention, phonetic notations are enclosed in brackets, as [ylt2] ‘leaf’, while phonemic notations are enclosed in slant lines, /it2/ 'leaf'. I will follow this convention whenever it is necessary to record the distinction.5 For typographical reasons ad hoc symbolization will be used in this paper to express phonetic and phonemic notation represented elsewhere by special type. These are:\n\na. [ng] will be used for the velar nasal. As with the aspirate stops, two symbols here represent a unit phoneme.\n\nb. [*], the apostrophe will be used to represent the glottal stop.\n\nc. (ê), a circumflex 'e' will represent the mid central vowel elsewhere written with the inverted 'e' or schwa.\n\nd. [ô] a circumflex 'o' will represent the low back rounded vowel elsewhere written with the reversed 'c'.\n\n* For good descriptions of SC consonants see Chao (1947, pp.18-21) and Wong (1963, Part I, pp. xi-xii),\n\n7 These and other examples may not all be minimal pairs in the strictest sense because of tones differences. However, I found no instances of change in the segmental phonemic structure of a syllable which was correlatable with tone change and I have ignored tone in order to select more familiar examples.\n\n8 The chief reason for setting up the phoneme /kw/ in SC seems to be the fact that this permits a neater distribution pattern when all possible syllable types are recorded. If only /k/ is postulated, the total number of syllable types beginning with /k/ will be about double the average for other initials. If both /k/ and /kw/ are set up, the syllable types for these two initials are about equal in number to each other and to those for other initials. Here again, the arguments seem equally strong for either interpretation but I personally opt in favor of dropping the /kw,kwh/ from the SC analysis. My reasons are to some extent arbitrary and stem first from a desire to make the original phonemic selections on purely phonemic grounds and second from a desire to simplify comparative work with other subdialects which do not have /kw/ under any phonemic approach.\n\n9 In spite of a general preference for postulating a phoneme of length in analyses of SC, there is equally good argument for eliminating length and adding one segmental phoneme. For my work I prefer the second alternative and include a mid central vowel /ê/; again my reasons for choosing this method are based on the resulting convenience in terms of comparing SC with other Kwangtung Province dialects which do not have length phonemes. If we dismiss the interpretations of Wong and Yuan, assuming the former to be purposely overdone for practical or pedagogical reasons and the latter to be more phonetic than phonemic, we find no real economy in a choice between Chao's five vowels plus length or my proposed six vowels without length. In either of these two latter systems roughly the same amount of explanation will do to fit the phonetic facts to the phonemicization. In any case SC length is significant only in the contrasts which Chao writes -aai versus ai, aau versus au. In other occurrences -aa- is described as differing from a in vowel quality, a very clear [a] as opposed to [ê]. When using /ê/ throughout instead of short /a/ the description must read that /a/ and /e/ have their cardinal values in all occurrences except /-au, -ai/ versus /-êu, -ei/ where the difference is essentially one of length; thus /-au/ would be [-a:u], /-êu/ would be [-au], etc.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205060, "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-1966", "page_number": 16, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY\n\n11\n\nThirdly, historians have tended to think of recent Chinese history largely in terms of the \"impact of the West\", forgetting that for most Chinese the foreigner and his activities were of little real importance. They may have been important to Peking and to some members of the bureaucracy in certain areas of the empire, but the barbarian and his doings could not have loomed large in the day-to-day life of the average Chinese villager or even the average Chinese official. Yet most studies of nineteenth-century Chinese history have been concerned with the Opium Wars, the \"scramble for concessions\", the Boxer Uprising, the impact of Western thought on Chinese intellectual history. Even the Taiping Rebellion has been thought of largely in terms of its Christian origins and its impact on Sino-Western relations and little has been done, until recently, to treat it as a Chinese phenomenon, which ultimately it was. But what relevance did all this have for the fisherman in his junk off Lantau or the peasant farmer in Szechuan?\n\nIf there is any validity to the above comments about distortions in Chinese history, it may be that a useful corrective device would be a regional approach to Chinese history. We might be able to gain a better insight into the life and times of nineteenth-century China, for example, by limiting the scope of our studies to cohesive geographic and cultural areas. This would tend to neutralize the all-China, or north-China bias. It would put the impact of the West in its proper perspective. Above all, it might provide answers to the questions raised at the very beginning of this paper: for the person living at a given place and at a given time, what was really “going on”?\n\nAs an experiment, I have chosen the Hong Kong-Macao-Canton area of south China. This has the advantage of being comparatively small and relatively homogeneous in terms of language, culture, and economic base. Its people were aware of their regional cohesiveness, especially in comparison to outside-province people, though even within this area there were racial and linguistic differences. I have limited my study, more or less, to the first half of the nineteenth century.\n\nPolitically, the area approximated the territory included in the hsien,3 or districts, which occupied both sides of the Canton River estuary. The districts constituted about two-thirds of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205146, "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-1966", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n97\n\n38 I have heard this from many informants. See also Reichelt, The Transformed Abbot, London, 1954, p. 156, and J. B. Pratt The Pilgrimage of Buddhism, New York, 1928, p. 311. A Buddhist monk once explained to me that although it was true that Jesus had risen after three days, no one should think he had done this \"just by becoming a Christian\". He had performed religious exercises (hsiu-hsing) and that was how he had achieved resurrection. There was no attempt on the part of this monk to deny the miracle of resurrection, only to fit it into the Buddhist scheme.\n\n39 Rev. Joseph Edkins, The Religious Condition of China, London, 1859, p. 75. In 1875 Timothy Richard, when he was baptising converts in Shantung, found that there was no building convenient to the river where they could change their clothes before and after. He explained his problem to the monk in charge of the Buddhist temple there who \"readily consented\" to lend some of its rooms for this purpose. See Richard, Forty-five Years in China, New York, 1916, p. 95. In 1879 the largest lama temple in Peking allowed a colporteur of the National Bible Society of Scotland to run a bookstore within the temple, where on several days a week Christian books were sold. See C. F. Gordon Cumming, Wanderings in China, London, 1888, pp. 4-9.\n\n40 Harry A. Franck, Roving Through Southern China, New York, 1925, pp. 575-576.\n\n41 In the early 1890's De Groot reported: \"It has often happened to the author of these lines that when he was taking his meal in one of the monasteries where he was staying, he was visited by monks who were curious to see how he ate and what he ate: but it was enough for them to smell the odour of his roast of pork or his leg of mutton and they would be forced to make a hasty exit from the room: they felt overcome by nausea. Such strict vegetarianism, it goes without saying that when non-vegetarian lay people came to stay sometimes in a monastery they are not allowed to have their food prepared in the monks' kitchen. There are small separate kitchens for them, where their own servants can stew things up for them.\" (Le Code du Mahayana en Chine, Amsterdam, 1893, p. 103). In 1908, when Boerschmann stayed on P'u-to Shan, he grew tired of the vegetarian fare and sent his cook to smuggle in some chickens (Pu-t'o Shan, Berlin, 1911, p. 166). In these and other instances the monks are portrayed as tacitly or even gleefully cooperating in getting meat onto the foreigner's bill of fare. It seems more likely that their cooperation, when it was forthcoming (and often it was refused), was reluctant and indignant. There was a compelling practical reason for this. If Chinese pilgrims saw meat being eaten on the premises of a monastery, many of them would take their patronage elsewhere. This was understood by early Western travellers like A. J. Little (Mount Omi and Beyond, London, 1901, pp. 75, 81, and 83). Little also provides an example of the Westerner's tendency to haggle (pp. 68, 83). The meanest bit of haggling was probably perpetrated by Mrs. C. F. Gordon Cumming. In 1879 she visited the Tien-t'ung Ssu, one of the model monasteries of China. After she and her party had enjoyed an \"excellent dinner,\" they were asked to give the equivalent of English tenpence, Mrs. Cumming offered eight pence. When the offer was accepted, she tipped the waiter tuppence halfpenny, and noted that he \"grinned with delight. Can I give you a better proof that we have reached a spot where foreigners are almost unknown?\" (Wanderings in China, London, 1888, p. 291). Mrs. Cumming was quite mistaken, of course, about foreigners being unknown: probably more had stayed at T'ien-t'ung than at any other monastery.\n\nEven today Westerners with plenty of dollars in their pocket take pride in doing the poor Chinese shopkeeper out of a few cents, partly to show their savoir faire and partly out of fear of being cheated themselves. But the monastery was not a shop, and this sort of behaviour was regarded as most inappropriate there.\n\n42 W. E. Soothill, Timothy Richard of China (London, 1924), pp. 162-163.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205175, "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-1966", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "126\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nin Chinese territory. The village elders retained much of their authority, though I am not yet in a position to assess the degree to which they were recognised, and to that extent supported, by the British administration.27 Two of my informants recall that stealing crops in their villages was a matter for the village elders. If the offender was an outsider the elders would take him back to his own village and expect his own leaders to deal with him. Failing an agreeable settlement the offender would be taken to the nearest police station. For a long time, it seems, the realities of local power lay with the elders. It is significant that as late as 1895 Eitel was able to write:28\n\n\"The Chinese people in town are at the present day under the sway of their own head men (the Tungwa), and the people in the villages are ruled by their elders as much as ever\".\n\nThe same degree of local autonomy existed above the village level where the village organisation was augmented by small regional groupings which were usually based on a temple.29 For example, Mong Kok, Ho Man Tin and adjoining smaller settlements patronised the Kwun Yam [Kuan Yin] Temple (†) at Tai Shek Kwu near Ho Man Tin village. Their fore-bears had apparently built this temple soon after their arrival in the area. It was removed to make way for development in 1926,30 and as the preamble to the commemoration tablet in the new building has it:31\n\n44\n\n\"The Shui Yuet Kung Temple was first built at Tai Shek Kwu over a hundred years ago. It was famed for the exact prophesy of its gods and had many worshippers\". My informants confirm that it was a very popular temple and consequently well-supported. It was given a major repair about 1908 when all the local villagers and the Yau Ma Ti shop-keepers contributed money towards the project.\n\nThe temple building stood on top of a rocky feature to which access and egress was by two flights of granite steps each with thirty steps. Local people referred to it as the Tai Shek Kwu Miu (★☎★A). At the beginning of the 20th century the temple was looked after by four managers, (f) as they were styled. One of them was a prosperous villager called WONG Lan-sang (*) a self-made man from Mong Kok village of whom more", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205490, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\nSectarian Religion and the Rural Area\n\n27\n\nSome of the organizations referred to as sects in the literature were in fact religions in their own right. Their ideas were taken from both Buddhism and Taoism certainly, and they also used cosmological notions accepted by the State and the more scholarly members of society; but they often combined such elements in a way forming a distinct ideology of their own. Many were strongly messianic, looked forward to a millenium, and sometimes had secular, even political aims, connected with their ultimate religious goals.\n\nThe literature on such organizations suggests they had a regional distribution, although the evidence is not entirely clear because various names were used by one and the same body at different times or in different places, and some of them themselves ramified into sects.\n\nSpeaking generally, they appear to have been most active in the poorer parts of the rural area especially in regions with large dislocated populations. Szechuan was birth-place to several and was not only an area of scattered settlement but the land of much of the province was poor (perhaps a factor contributing to absence of nucleated settlement). They also operated a great deal in Anhwei, and on the borders of Honan, Shantung and Hopei. Exile appears sometimes to have been a factor in their extension to new areas. Some groups I studied in Singapore in the 1950's were brought down to village areas in Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Fukien leaders exiled from Honan in the mid-nineteenth century.\n\nBut when trying to visualize their operations at the rural level one realizes how thin information in the literature is on their activities in relation to communities of different type and size. Where were their lodges, what did they look like? Were their bases in villages, towns or the open country-side? If one of the more militant, the Nien, said to be an off-shoot of the White Lotus is any example, it appears they might change their base. At one phase in its development it operated from nests in the mountains and at another based itself on earthwall communities in Anhwei for strategic reasons.34 The Nien, however, might in fact have been a secret society type organization and not a religious sect. I will return to the question of secret societies presently.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205567, "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": 109, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "104\n\nMORRIS I. BERKOWITZ\n\nwhile 21 said that they chatted \"very often.” Thirteen indicated they also talk very often with new neighbors and tenants. Early in the research project we had done a great deal of intensive non-participant observation and had noted that it was a rare thing to see a woman, or a man for that matter, walking alone towards the market. In addition to the frequent social interaction on the streets, in the market and around the resettlement area, there is a lot of informal visiting in apartments, but most of it only if the people involved knew one another prior to resettlement. Table III summarizes this data, but it is incomplete in that it fails to show that twice as many (24) villagers see their former intimate friends in their homes than out of them (12).\n\nTABLE III\n\nWHERE CHAT WITH NEW NEIGHBORS AND TENANTS*\n\nBY KNOWLEDGE OF PRESENT NEIGHBORS BEFORE REMOVAL\n\n \n \n Inside flat\n Outside flat\n \n \n Knew present neighbors before removal?\n \n \n \n \n Did know\n 16\n 10\n \n \n Didn't know\n 3\n 4\n \n\nVillage Power Structure\n\nEvidence from these villages tends to indicate that, before removal, decisions by individual families were taken by the father of the family, when he was present, with occasional reference to elder male members of the village in a rather loose but nevertheless effective decision-making process. The villages each had village heads who were not elected, but nominated to their positions by consensus of the family heads. The source of their power seems to have been wealth and age. The dissemination of information in the villages verified this --- 21 villagers asserted that \"gossip\" was their sole source of news about important happenings in the village or the world. Nine said that more formal village contacts (village representative or village meetings) were involved\n\n* Where respondent replied that visiting took place both inside and outside, the reply was scored in the Inside category.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205583, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "120 \n\nH. G. H. NELSON \n\n2) the parallel process by which the wider market has penetrated the village economy; Potter here provides a detailed analysis of family finances. \n\nIn each of these two sections, one chapter is devoted to an historical analysis, and another to a description of the modern situation. \n\n3) a single chapter on the ownership and management of property, which describes the structure of the local lineage in terms of the distribution of its landholdings. This is, both descriptively and analytically, the best section of the book: the treatment of conflicts within the lineage and its prospects for change and survival, is worth a review in itself. \n\nThere is then an all too brief chapter on the social and cultural effects of economic change, before the concluding essay. \n\nAll this goes to make up a wealth of material for the general anthropologist, the China specialist, and the interested Hong Kong reader. I have nothing but admiration for the field-work which lies behind this book, and hope that by selecting only a few points for comment, I shall not do any injustice to the quality of the data and the thoroughness of its presentation. \n\nPotter gives a lucid exposition of the changes in a peasant economy which result from its adaptation to the modern world, observing that in a traditional society the economic is not fully differentiated from the social, political and ritual spheres of activity. It is unfortunate, however, that he makes little more of this crucial point. The body of the book is concerned with the increasing differentiation of the various spheres of peasant life; but one could have wished for a fuller analysis of their previous integration. For background data on the traditional economy, the quotations from the reports of Colonial Secretary Lockhart and Governor Blake, about 1900, might have been supplemented by information contained in the Chinese gazetteer for San On county, if not by the \"historical data available in out of the way places\" (p 32 fn), which, one hopes, will soon be located and researched. \n\nAt a more theoretical level, I feel that Potter might have attempted to place the social structure of peasant China in a wider context: he does not, for example, cite Leach's work on the balancing of the \"total social exchange account\". It may well be that the differentiation of spheres of activity has gone a good deal", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205613, "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": 155, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "150 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\ncanal which would give access to warehouses and so on built in the Valley (a plan which A. T. Gordon, the Land Officer, endorsed in the 'dream' of the future City of Victoria which he communicated to Pottinger in 1843).4 But if Pottinger's description is accurate, it would have taken a good deal of imagination to see it that way. \n\nThe East Point site was purchased, at the first Land Sale on 14 June 1841, in the name of Captain William Morgan, a ship's captain who may have been Jardine's Hong Kong manager, and the actual area purchased was not specified then or when Pottinger's Second Land Committee was attempting to settle the Land Question in Hong Kong. We learn, from a later source, that it amounted to almost 170,000 square feet (about 3.4 acres). It is, however, often overlooked that the firm also purchased three other marine lots at the same sale: numbers 26, 27 and 28 and it is here that they had already commenced building by the time of the sale. This contention is upheld by a number of contemporary accounts of the sale. The Canton Register (predecessor of the Hong Kong Register) intimates that one purchaser had commenced building before the sale,6 \n\nWe are told in an unpublished history of the early years of Jardine, Matheson & Co. that in February 1841, within a month of the naval forces taking possession of the island, that they had erected a large matshed godown above the foreshore. An anonymous correspondent of the China Mail, writing 8 years after the event, but who attended the first sale in 1841, states that Matheson, in order to avoid the expenses involved in landing goods at Macao for transhipment, resolved to land a consignment of cotton at Hong Kong. To make this possible, he sent from Macao materials for the erection of a godown. This building, he avers, was four feet above the ground at the date of the sale and was sited on what later became known as the Commissariat Stores. The fact that they were building and had ground cleared, he continues, gave additional value to adjoining lots. As will be seen, Marine Lots 26, 27 and 28 were shortly to become the Commissariat stores. If further support is needed, I may quote from Tarrant's History of Hong Kong, published in 1861 or 1862: he states that \"some months before the sale......Messrs Jardine, Matheson & Co, erected those godowns which now form part of the Naval Yard, near the Canton Bazaar.” \n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205759, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE\n\n59\n\npart of further studies of militia, both within Kwangtung Province and elsewhere in China. It is possible that the approach to militia used in this article could be applied to other, more significant, military organizations as they existed in nineteenth century China. For example, recent studies of the regional armies of Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang indicate that they were, initially, amalgamations of local militia forces.78 A more detailed analysis of these militia could contribute to a greater understanding of the particularistic relationships which appear to have been important in maintaining regional armies as viable organizations over relatively long periods of time.\n\nNOTES\n\nThis article is based upon research in Hong Kong between 1963 and 1965. I am grateful for the financial support provided by the London-Cornell Project for East and South-East Asian Studies. A number of colleagues have commented upon the subject matter of the article during its various stages of preparation. I would particularly like to thank the following for their advice: Dr. Christopher Turner, Dr. George C. Bond, Mr. James Hayes, Professor Maurice Freedman, and Professor Göran Aijmer. A draft of the paper was read to the Sociology Seminar, School of Social Studies, University of East Anglia. I am grateful to my colleagues in this context for their comments. Place names will be rendered according to A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories, Hong Kong Government Printer, Hong Kong, n.d., but published 1960.\n\n2 Brine, Lindesay. The Taeping Rebellion in China: A Narrative of its Rise and Progress. London, 1862, pp. 11-12.\n\n3 Krone, [R]. “A Notice of the Sanon District\", Article V, Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, pt. VI, Hong Kong, 1859, p. 71.\n\n4 Freedman, Maurice. Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London, 1966, p. 115.\n\n5 The Governor of Hong Kong, commenting upon robbery and piracy during the year 1903, said: \"they are the most common offences in the Southern provinces ... the Provincial Authorities do not attempt to deal with such cases until some village is reported as being specially notorious as harbouring robbers, when, if the authorities do not consider them too strong, a force is sent out and as many as possible arrested or the village destroyed.\" Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1903, Hong Kong, 1904, pp. 348 ff.\n\nFreedman, op. cit., p. 112, quotes an account of such an expedition which took place in \"about 1870\" and resulted in the beheading of more than a thousand people.\n\n6 Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960, p. 503.\n\n7 For a detailed account of these events, see: Wakeman, Jr., Frederic, Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205876, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "176\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nthe modification of the position and attitudes of the British Mandarinate. This is a most valuable piece of research; it is to be hoped that Mr. Lethbridge will eventually be able to give us a fuller publication on the events and the effects of this period.\n\nOther contributions which explore the dynamics of Hong Kong society, rather than one of its disparate elements, are those of J. S. Cansdale and E. Kvan; both treat of students at Hong Kong University, a group whose significance as a focal point of East-West contact is out of all proportion to its numbers. One would like to see these enquiries, cultural and psychological, followed up in, for example, a study of Chinese government servants in Hong Kong; those, in other words, for whom the crisis of contact is subtly different. Having grasped the fruits of their education, traumatic though it may have been, they are now at the focus of political and administrative contact between East and West. What conflicts do they experience, and how are these resolved?\n\nConcerning a third paper which attempts to deal with the specific problem of East-West contact, that of the co-editors themselves -- I have considerable misgivings. I feel that they might have taken heed of the fact that few have dared to tread this ground, and thus been more wary of venturing into so intricate a subject as that of \"face\". They contend that Chinese concern for \"face\" is not only a barrier to trivial moments of daily interaction, but to the more vital (in their estimation) process of westernisation; they go so far as to ask how any society so burdened could have functioned in the past. I would emphasise the value of a more positive approach: if the traditional Chinese concept of status relations had been so unwieldy, the society would surely have failed to function at all. It would have been better to investigate, with the fullest reliance on Chinese sources, the role of \"face\" in the total social system of traditional China: was it in fact a barrier to, or a method of communication? The subject of \"face\" is at once sufficiently important to deserve a better informed and more sympathetic treatment than this, and is yet at the same time possibly less important than the authors lead us to suppose.\n\nThere is little need to stress the value of Dr. Marjorie Topley's essay, here reprinted, on Chinese attitudes to wealth. Scholars in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205980, "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-1970", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG CADETS, 1862 - 1941 \n\n55 \n\n19 Kenneth Myer Arthur Barnett (born 1911). Educated at Mill Hill School, London, and King's College, Cambridge, Hong Kong Civil Service 1934. Retired as Director of Census and Statistics 1970. \n\n40 Quoted in James Hope Hennessy's Verandah, London, 1964, p. 186. Hennessy is quoting, presumably, from Sir George Bowen's Thirty Years of Colonial Government, London, 1889, which I have not seen. \n\n41 Margery Perham, op. cit., p. 302. Lugard also liked and trusted A. W. Brewin, the Registrar General: \"if he once said, he was very 'pro-Chinese' this was really a compliment. He would allow Brewin to forbid his own delivery of a speech to a Chinese gathering. He could not always understand the reason ‘but I trust implicitly in him'.\" \n\n42 E. J. Eitel \"Chinese Studies and Official Interpretation\", p. 8. \n\n43 Alleyne Ireland, Far Eastern Tropics, London, 1905, p. 34. In 1901 Ireland was appointed Colonial Commissioner of the University of Chicago for the purpose of visiting the Far East. \n\n44 Ibid., p. 32. \n\n45 Norman Gilbert Mitchell-Innes (1860-1947). Educated at Repton and Edinburgh Academy, Hong Kong Civil Service 1881; Treasurer 1891; left Hong Kong Service in 1896 and transferred to the Home Prison Service. Des Voeux thought highly of Mitchell-Innes. See G. B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong 1841-1962, Hong Kong, 1964, p. 112. \n\n46 Report on Defalcations in the Treasury, Sessional Papers, Hong Kong, 1893, p. 546. \n\n47 Ibid., p. 546. \n\n48 Norton-Kyshe, vol. 2, p. 447. \n\n49 Ibid., p. 447. \n\n50 Sir Arthur George Murchison Fletcher (1878-1954). Educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1901; transferred to Ceylon 1927; Colonial Secretary, Ceylon, 1926-9; Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for Western Pacific 1929-36; Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Trinidad and Tobago, 1936-38. \n\n51 Geoffrey Norman Orme (1879-1966). Educated at Cheltenham College and Hertford College, Oxford, Hong Kong Civil Service 1902. Director of Education 1924-26. Left Hong Kong Service in 1926. \n\n52 The Report on the Land Court, 1900-1905, Sessional Papers, 1905, gives a list of the presidents and members of the Land Court in order of their appointment, most of whom were cadets. H. H. J. Gompertz was appointed in 1900 and resigned in 1904; Cecil Clementi in 1903; and C. M. Messer and J. R. Wood in 1904. The Registrars in order of appointment - all cadets were: J. H. Kemp, E. D. C. Wolfe, and S. B. C. Ross. The Land Court in 1905 consisted of three members: C. M. Messer, Cecil Clementi, and J. R. Wood. The New Territories became popular with cadets as a place to walk or shoot in on week-ends. Robert Oliphant Hutchison (1880-1920), the Superintendent of Imports and Exports, on his way to shoot snipe at Saikung fell off a launch in a squall and drowned. His body was never found. With him at the time was D. W. Tratman, the Colonial Treasurer. One imagines from the evidence that both had \"tiffined\" rather too well. \n\n53 \"At first British officials were limited in principle to two, dealing with police and land. In 1899 a police magistrate was appointed and also an assistant land officer to deal with land cases, and the police were placed \n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206022, "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-1970", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "J\n\nA NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES\n\n97\n\nand none at all of that cross-thread I mentioned, which all the time we are speaking one phrase is guiding us away from a score of similar phrases which are not what we mean. This constant unconscious avoidance of saying what we don't mean is the pattern we must all set up when we would speak a second, third or fourth language.\n\nI hope what I am about to say will help you in this task. For most of us, when children, were crippled by being brought up to talk only one language; to those whose minds have been thus crippled, like the girls of Manchu China whose feet used to be bound in childhood, the idea of \"thinking in a language\" is as natural as the unnatural tiptoe tottering gait seemed the \"natural\" way for women to walk. The unbinding of bound feet was, I am told, a very painful matter and after a certain age could not safely be done.\n\nSo come, if you dare, and let me unbind your linguistic feet.\n\nEnglish is a language of the Indo-European family: a family the branches of which extend from Sanskrit, Old Persian and their descendants in South-Central Asia, through the Slavonic languages of Eastern Europe, Lithuanian and the Celtic languages (originally of Asia Minor, but now found only on the Atlantic and Baltic shores), Ancient and Modern Greek, the languages of ancient Italy, through Latin to the modern Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Rumanian and Catalan, Old Norse and Icelandic down to modern Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, Gothic and Old High German down to the modern German dialects and Dutch; then again overseas with the Colonizers to North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa and as a second language of convenience in the shape of a special kind of English\n\n- back to India again where it may all have started.\n\nA great deal of work has been done on this family of languages, but it is well for us to remember that it is less than 200 years since the identity of such a family was observed and not much more than a century since Indo-European linguistic studies were firmly established.\n\nBefore that, and to some extent ever since, European scholars were taught to regard Latin and Greek as the only models of linguistic organization: therefore any language had to be studied", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206207, "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": 24, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "18\n\nSTEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.\n\nHope exclaimed that: \"Everything had been done to assist the Imperialists (i.e. the Ch'ing forces) in the defense of the town, except the use of force, in their favor.... His dismay led him to observe \"how utterly useless such measures prove, in consequence of the cowardice and imbecility of the Mandarins.\" The only real obstacle in the path of the Taiping approach was of a minor diplomatic character. Upon learning of the Taiping move toward Ningpo, representatives of the three countries of Great Britain, France and the United States decided to visit the two Taiping commanders, each of whom was approaching the city from a different direction. The representatives proclaimed their neutrality and announced their expectation that foreigners would not be injured or annoyed.2 They also tried to dissuade the commanders from taking the city. But the Taipings, who had already been similarly dissuaded months earlier, were now much more determined. While they had also several months earlier undertaken not to approach within 30 miles of Shanghai for the duration of the year, the agreement did not apply to Ningpo. The most the foreign representatives could get for their effort was an agreement that the Taipings would delay their attack, which had been scheduled for the following day, for a period of one week. The motive for the requested delay is not entirely clear, but it could have been for the purpose of buying sufficient time for naval support to arrive at the city. As things turned out, however, a British naval vessel failed to arrive until the afternoon of the day on which the Taipings finally moved into the city. The foreigners had simply underestimated the Ch'ing troops' timidity. But if the Taipings could not be kept out of Ningpo, the foreigners did receive adequate assurances that their persons and property would be respected and protected. Taiping General Huang Ch'eng-chung was explicit on this point, indicating that should any of his troops disobey his orders to this effect, the offender could be arrested by the foreigners and on being handed over the culprit would summarily be decapitated. Taiping General Fan Yu-tseng was equally accommodating. He said that he would issue strict orders forbidding his men from injuring foreign persons and property, and he furthermore assured the Western representatives that trade would be allowed to continue as usual, \"with the additional advantage of being conducted on a fairer footing.\"3", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206234, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE DEBATE ON NATIONAL SALVATION\n\n45\n\nHo Kai's judgment was keen indeed. China voluntarily and in an humiliating fashion concluded the Sino-Franco War on the verge of victory. The tragic end of the Foochow fleet, however, was due to the ill-judgment and incapacity of her commander-in-chief, Admiral Ho Ju-chang, which gave the French the chance to destroy the whole fleet in half-an-hour.14\n\nThe situation of the Chinese army, in the eyes of Ho Kai, was no better than that of the navy. He said:\n\nThe Chinese make fine soldiers if properly disciplined and armed, and placed under brave leaders. Let their salaries be paid regularly and adequately according to law, and not cut down and kept in arrears for months together, let their drills be conducted regularly. Does China wish to have an army worthy of the name? Let her then first reform her internal administration in this department. One point I wish to impress especially upon those who have the guidance of affairs is, that the efficiency of an army does not so much depend upon the number of soldiers composing it as on their collective and individual proficiency. I cannot leave the topic without recalling to mind the achievements of the Ever Victorious Army when under the distinguished leadership of that renowned chief, the late lamented General C. G. Gordon,\n\nAs to China's relations with foreign powers, Ho Kai admitted that she had much cause for complaint. China was bound down by treaties to do much that was incompatible with her rights and dignity as an independent sovereign state. She was often sharply pulled up and rebuked for the least semblance of a breach of an article in such treaties, while some foreign nations were not very careful in observing their part of the agreements and extremely tardy in rendering justice to her claims. The Chinese, as a matter of fact, had not always received the respect and consideration which they deserved, and in some places they were even treated as if they were more devils than men. The only way to save China from this injustice and maltreatment was to make immediate reforms. High officials must find the true cause of their country's degradation and then apply the proper remedy. The army and navy were not the key to the problem of China's weakness. The real weakness of China was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206235, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "46\n\nCHIU LING-YEONG\n\nher loose morality and evil habits, both social and political. A good government depended much on her stability and righteousness. This was the backbone of a nation's foundation of strength. Unfortunately, in the eyes of the Europeans who resided in China she was not a stable and righteous country.\n\nHo Kai cited an example to support his argument:\n\nWhat makes the several Foreign Powers insist upon the violation of the Sovereign rights of China to bring every foreign resident within her territory, except the various Ambassadors, and their suits, under their law, and to try such offenders in their own courts and mete out punishment in their own way? The Marquis Tseng would say that it is because China had not a formidable army and navy; but I would rather suggest that it was owing to the distrust with which Europeans universally regard the Chinese system of law and especially its administration. They hate the very idea of extorting evidence from prisoners and witnesses by infliction of corporal pain; they detest bribery and unfair dealings; they abhor the filthy prisons in which the condemned or even remanded are kept; they shudder at the sound of ling-chi and almost faint at the various tortures usually resorted to in a Chinese Court. Does anyone think that any Foreign, especially European Government will be insane and submissive enough to place their subjects at the mercy of China's Mandarins where such things exist? Never, were China twenty times as strong as she is or stronger. If China wishes to have diplomatic relations with other countries upon an equal footing, and desires foreign powers to respect her sovereignty and rights, she must do a great deal more than simply get strong.\n\nIn addition to the above criticism, Ho Kai questioned where China was to find funds to pay for increased armaments, to work her mines, to run the railways and to establish and maintain her factories. Ho Kai thought that China's credit was good on the foreign market, but that there was a limit and that limit would soon be reached. When the revenue derivable from the Imperial Customs became fully pledged, foreigners would not so", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206283, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "94\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nChinese society, were eager customers. Purchased degrees was an easy way to acquire a social status which had previously been reserved for the scholars, government officials and gentry. The account of the Governor's visit to Tung Wah Hospital in 1878 published in The Hongkong Government Gazette states that \"there were present nearly three hundred influential Chinese residents from all classes of the community. Of those present some fifty or sixty were in their mandarin costumes.\"\n\n**\n\nWhen the second Sino-British War broke out in the late 1850s, the foreign firms at Canton moved down to Hong Kong bringing with them their compradores. This influx was an impetus to the already significant role compradores were assuming as leaders in the Chinese community. The compradores of the old-established Hong Kong firms formed the core of this leadership.\n\nIn the early days of the Colony the two leading foreign firms were Jardine, Matheson and Company and Dent and Company. One would expect, of course, that their compradores would be among the elite of the Chinese community. The earliest compradore of Jardine's that I can definitely identify is Ng Chook alias Ng Choong Foong alias Sooi Tong. At the time of the opening of the Tung Wah Hospital the newspaper account states that he was the oldest man on the committee, although his name does not appear on the official list of committee members. He died some months after the opening. His estate was administered by his son Ng Seng Kee (A), who was living in Shanghai. The first date I find for Ng Chook in Hong Kong is his purchase of the lease of the Central Market in 1848. I do not know if he is connected with Ng Sow and Ng Lok, both compradores originating from Macao, who bought and sold a great deal of real estate from 1842 to 1847. Nor if Ng Wei alias Ng Wing Fui (**) alias Ng Ping Un (e), who was a compradore for Jardines at Foochow in the 1860s and subsequently at Hong Kong, was a near relative of Ng Chook. Ng Wei was a member of the Tung Wah Hospital Committee in 1883 and died in 1897 at Canton.\n\nIn 1861, two of the compradores of Dent and Company, the rival of Jardines, provided capital for a significant real estate development in Hong Kong. The large property where Dent and Company had their stables and residences for their Taipans was bought up by Chiu Wing Chuen and Yeong Lan Ko along with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206476, "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": 24, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "18\n\nDR. F. I. TSEUNG\n\nthe 7th century taught that the mouth should be cleansed with water several times after each meal so as to preserve the teeth.\n\nSir James Cantlie, teacher of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, once speaking before a medical congress in England said that the Chinese knew a great deal of fundamental hygiene. As illustrations, he mentioned the light, loose and comfortable Chinese dress, and the habit of drinking tea. This general adoption of tea as a beverage is a distinct step of progress. It saves people from many intestinal diseases caused by contaminated water such as typhoid, dysentery, cholera and diarrhoea, etc. The present day habit of taking cold drinks and ice creams is a common source of infection for these diseases. It seems that the ancients were wiser, in this respect, than we moderns. Now, a few words about Chinese medical education and administration in the early days.\n\nState medical examinations may be said to date from as early as the 10th century B.C. The Chou Rituals () state that at the end of the year the work of the doctors was examined and the salary of each fixed according to the results shown. If the statistics showed that out of ten patients treated, all got well, the results may be regarded as very satisfactory. If, however, one out of ten died, the results may be regarded as good; if two out of ten died, only fair; if three out of ten died, poor; and if four out of ten died, bad.\n\nRegular medical schools were organized in the Sung dynasty, about the 10th century, first in the capital and later in other parts of the country. In 1076 A.D. an Imperial Medical College was founded. At first it was put under the Tai Shang Szu (✯✯✦) (Imperial Court of Sacrificial Worship) but later transferred to the Kuo Tzu Chien (F) (Directorate of Education). Three hundred students were enrolled, with a staff of medical officers to teach them the three branches of medicine; namely, medicine, surgery and acupuncture. After examination, the candidates were classified into grades. The best ones were given official appointments or ordered to compile and write medical books, or engaged as teachers. The second grade ones were given a licence to practise. Those who were not satisfactory were required to study again; while those who failed were ordered to change their profession.\n\nOfficers and other medical staff were appointed to the prefectures and districts, the number depending on the size and importance of the places. These positions were often filled by men selected by...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206835, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 112, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "106\n\nCHUANG SHEN\n\nBesides, in the table of contents of chüan 4 of T’êng-hua-t'ing shu-hua-pa, the 126th item is recorded as a landscape executed by Fang Hsün-yüan. Although there were quite a large number of artists in the Ch'ing dynasty, there was no one whose surname was Fang19. However, during the period between the Yung Chêng era and the beginning of the Chien Lung era, there was an artist by the name of Fang Shih-shu ✯±✯ (1692-1751) who was a native of An Hui and yet lived in Yang Chou. The literary name of Fang Shih-shu is Hsün-yüan20 #✡. Since in T'êng-hua-t'ing shu-hua-pa, it was Liang T'ing-nan's practice to designate all artists by their literary names and not their real names, therefore this unidentifiable Fang Hsün-yüan is very likely a name mistaken for Fang Hsün-yüan. If this assumption is correct, then Liang T'ing-nan had not only recorded incorrectly the literary name of this An Hui artist, but also mistaken his real name. Such an inexcusable mistake is again due to carelessness in proof-reading.\n\nC. Chronological Mistakes\n\nI have not thoroughly investigated the number of chronological mistakes in the art catalogues of the Kwangtung collectors. However, this kind of error can at least be discovered in Wu Yung-kuang's Hsin-ch'ou hsiao-hsia-chi. It should be noted here that Wu Yung-kuang had left two most important documentary records. One was the Li-tai ming-jen nien-p'u in 10 chuan, compiled in the 23rd year of the Tao Kuang era (1843) which was the year of his death. The other was Hsin-ch'ou hsiao-hsia-chi in 5 chuan, which, though printed a little earlier than the Li-tai ming-jen nien-p'u (in the 21st year of the Tao Kuang era, 1841), was in fact completed two years before his death. In other words, the two most important works of Wu Yung-kuang were both completed during the last three years of his life. Unfortunately, there are certain mistakes in both works. As early as ten years ago, the chronological mistakes in the Li-tai ming-jen nien-p'u have already been pointed out by experts21. It is also regrettable that in his Hsin-ch'ou hsiao-hsia-chi, he had committed some other curious chronological mistakes. On page 4 of chüan 4, there is recorded Wu Yung-kuang's own colophon inscribed on Ch'ien Hsüan's Li-hua-chüan #4, which reads,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206909, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "180\n\n \nBOOK REVIEWS\n\n \nwrites for example 2 ku and ki to capture another possible complementation instead. This discussion is of some meaning to linguists but is uninteresting to the point of exasperation for almost everyone else in the field. Presumably we would all speak better in other dialects where such problems in complementary distribution do not affect the romanization.\n\n \nHowever, the real point here is that what is perfect for the militant linguist may in fact not be the most helpful for the beginning student, for the scholar in another discipline, or for the outsider who would like to make some reasonable approximation of the native word when he responds to a romanized form. There is no reason why we could not try to satisfy all these people; it is simply a matter of admitting that parts of every potential system will offend some and please others. Once we agree to agree almost any of the proposed systems would do. It is this initial agreement that seems to be difficult.\n\n \nAll this brings me to the book under review. Professor Anderson is primarily concerned with presenting a transcription system which he calls Simplified Wade. His purpose is to modify Wade-Giles so that it is still readily recognizable but now in a form written entirely without diacritical marks.\n\n \nOne of the major innovations of the Anderson system is to substitute -h- for the Wade-Giles apostrophe marking aspiration; e.g., Wade-Giles ch'i, t'u, p'u, and k'u become Anderson chhi, thu, phu, and khu. The circumflex is omitted, as indeed it is by many writers today since it is not distinctive in any occurrence. The umlaut is optional in the Anderson system; it is in fact non-distinctive in Wade-Giles except in WG yu and yü which Anderson suggests be written you and yu respectively if the umlaut is not convenient on one's typewriter. The apical vowels are written y; e.g., WG szu ‘four' is Anderson sy. WG initial j- is Anderson r-.\n\n \nA second major departure from Wade-Giles is that in which Anderson marks the tones with unpronounced letters following the syllable as below:\n\n \n1st tone       no letter\n\n \n2nd tone       -P\n\n \n3rd tone       -X\n\n \n4th tone       -Z\n\n \nma for WG ma1\n\n \nmav for WG ma2\n\n \nmax for WG ma3\n\n \nmaz for WG ma4", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206955, "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": 26, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "20 \n\nA. 1. DIAMOND \n\nIn modern countries the development of intermediate records repositories has already come to be accepted as one of the normal functions of a government archive service and their management is becoming one of the specialised fields in archives administration. \n\nBefore leaving the subject of archives in general I should like to say something about what archivists do with archives once they are in their care. I am often asked about this, How do we organise them? Do we arrange them by subject or theme or what? How do we retrieve information from them?—and so on. \n\nWell the first thing to point out is that archivists do not arrange archives at all, in the sense of reorganising them to suit some pre-conceived or ideal pattern. On the contrary, one of the archivist's chief concerns is to maintain them precisely in accordance with the scheme of classification which was imposed upon them by the office which created them. When a body of records is passed to an archive office one of the first things an archivist does is to examine it in order to discover how the records were classified and controlled by the office of origin. And having come to understand the system thoroughly the only re-arranging he may do will take the form of returning papers which are out of order to their proper places, and this he will do only after noting carefully, for the information of future users, that these items were found misplaced in such and such locations and have been returned to their correct positions. \n\nWhy this emphasis on original order? Well, you will recall that one of the attributes of archives which lends them their special evidential quality is the fact that they accumulated naturally. A body of archives acquires a kind of organic unity as it accumulates, rather like a growth of coral, and the relationships of papers in it can have significance in themselves and actually add meaning to each individual paper. This can be illustrated by considering an ordinary correspondence file. In its undisturbed entirety it may record the whole or part of some administrative transaction. It chronicles what happened, when and why; who said what to whom and for what reasons. In places it may be wrong in matters of fact or mistaken in the views it records. It may not say all that could have been said, and if it is like some government files it may say a good deal more than need have been said. But for all that it is the record; it is what passed among administrators themselves as an account of that particular piece of business and it served both to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207074, "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": 145, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "HONG KONG PLACE NAMES\n\n139\n\nor husbandry, tools and household articles, and above all in place-names. Now we have no evidence of the languages spoken by the boat-people before they learnt Chinese; we know something of the Yao179 language; and nothing at all is known of the Shan-lao165. But some glossaries of the languages of the south were compiled in the T'ang174, Sung168 and Yüan12 dynasties and there is a fairly good list131 in the Man-shu150, which however lumps them all together as 'Man'1147 without saying which of the many kinds of Man. The chance of our being able to establish beyond doubt any identification of the local hill-tribes or their language is therefore slender.\n\nThe list which follows contains 125 words found in local place-names, or in the daily speech of the people, which are not found in Chinese dictionaries or are found only with other meanings. It is in these words that clues must be found, if they are to be found. It will be seen that the Man glossaries do help in a few cases—the slender chance comes off!\n\nAt the end of the list I have included, with some trepidation, a note on words which may enshrine the names by which some of the aborigines called themselves. When speaking to the Rotary Club I presented this as pure speculation. Since then, however, I have read Mr. Ch'en Hsü-ching's135 book Tan-min-ti yen-chiu1, which confirms some of my surmises concerning the boat-people, some of whom were indeed known as Ma-jen146. There is, however, a great deal of spade-work to be done before these surmises can be called a theory, and whether anybody can be found with both the qualifications and the time to undertake such work before the spread of education erases the oral traditions is a question I cannot answer with any confidence.\n\nLIST OF PECULIAR WORDS\n\nThe words contained in this list comprise (i) those current in the local farmers' and fishermen's speech but not standard Cantonese or Hakka13, (ii) those which occur in local place-names and cannot be explained by their ordinary meanings in Cantonese or Hakka, (iii) those which, though explainable after a fashion, present variations in pronunciation which makes it unlikely that they are really the words in Cantonese or Hakka137 which they pretend to be, (iv) other words of special interest or perplexity in local place names. The names are shown in the official spelling (O.S.) and in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207102, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n167\n\nmore!\" Seeing that he would persist in his strange philosophy the village elders left him alone.\n\nAnother of his practices was to walk round the market in the evening to where his poorest relations would be hawking fish and pork. When he found any of them had something they couldn't sell he would note down in his pocket-book the price of the thing and ask to have it sent to his house. Quite a lot of food would accumulate in this way so Hei Sui would end up by asking the hawkers themselves to come and dine with him. At the end of the meal he would bring out his note-book and money and insist on paying each hawker for the things he had bought from him. His relations would be much embarrassed and did not like to take his money as besides eating their own produce Hei Sui had given them rice and wine. He would say \"Nothing could be happier than to have so many cousins to dinner every night! If I give a feast I must needs go to the market and buy things, then why should I not buy them from you? If I have guests, why should you not be my guests?\" If his cousins still demurred he would exclaim, \"Alas, I was only able to invite you, and not your families as well. Pray take this money home and buy a feast for them which I ought to have provided myself!\" This sometimes made the more sensitive hawkers very uncomfortable and they would in future avoid Kam T'in and sell their goods in another village.\n\nWhen Hei Sui was fifty-six he died. Two years later a pedlar from Pok Loh (†) district came to Kam T'in one day with a strange story. He said that in his district city a Shing Wong (城隍) (the guardian god of a city wall) temple had been built about two years before and at the opening ceremony of the temple it was found that the characters Tang Lung Man (鄧龍文) had appeared miraculously painted on the bottom corner of the long gown of the idol. Thinking that some mischievous person had put them there, the people tried to rub them off, but the harder they rubbed the clearer the characters showed. Now Tang Lung Man was the \"friendship name\" of Hei Sui, and on asking the date of the opening ceremony his descendants learned that it was on the very day he had died in Kam T'in, so they decided that his spirit must have entered the guardian god of Pok Loh district city. After several years when the time came for his re-burial Hei Sui's heart was found to be quite intact. The people standing round were staring in amazement at this when a strange dog suddenly sprang into the grave and seizing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207392, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "152\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nWhen I started to write this account I intended to concentrate upon the experiences of staff and patients, and to restrict reference to myself to trying to cast a little light on situations which otherwise might seem obscure. My diary notes, though voluminous, were for the most part phrased in what I thought then discreet language in case they were discovered by the Japanese. I had a healthy respect for the Japanese capacity for dealing out punishment to anyone who failed to obey their orders to the letter. This discretion, allied to a tendency to refer in cryptic terms to events which filled my mind at the time but which have now faded from my memory, has left me with masses of statistics and information of a kind which I have found difficult to weave into a coherent story which will do justice to patients and staff. I have lost touch with nearly all my colleagues and friends whose own memories might have stimulated me, and in this account I am therefore relying far more on personal recollections and experiences to round off the story than I ever intended originally. I hope that those who shared these years with me will, if they read the story, forgive the change in emphasis which these considerations have made necessary. Looking back over my diaries now I am glad that I never had to explain some of the entries to the Japanese. I learned enough then to understand now that a quite truthful explanation of a simple description of an event might not be accepted. Practised interrogators were known to use methods against which the truth finds it hard to prevail. Fortunately I never had to submit to such an ordeal.\n\nThis then is the story of the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong. I did not see any prisoner of war camps until I lived in Sham Shui Po for a few days in March 1945 when conditions had, as they had also in the hospital, become much more stable. I am in no position to write the stories of the camps, and any references I may make to conditions there are based on hearsay only. Their medical and administrative problems were different from those we met in the hospital.\n\nAfter considering in a prelude the general situation in Hong Kong as I saw it, I refer briefly to the period of hostilities and then to the early months of captivity up to August 1942. I then deal in more detail with events from that date onwards fortified by the notes in my own diaries.\n\nThe story of the Army Medical Services in Hong Kong is contained in Volume 11 of the Official Medical History of the Second", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207448, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "208\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nIf I had known I would not have named him to the Japanese. They carried out their own searches and interrogations, accompanied by tying up to water pipes or other suitable tethering posts those they wanted to interview. All were well slapped but the thief was never discovered. Two of our orderlies and one R.A.M.C. man were removed to P.O.W. camp though.\n\nOn another note, soon after I took charge an electric bulb was stolen from the perimeter lighting system, no doubt by one of our people who needed one. The elementary error was made of not replacing the filched good bulb with a worn-out one. This was a useful lesson to me personally from which I profited, but on the occasion of which I am writing I was summoned and formally told that while a bulb was a small matter stealing it was an insult to the Imperial Army and I was warned that if I wanted trouble I could be sure of getting it by allowing such offences.\n\nThe best story about trading, a true one, concerned a patient who was negotiating a deal with a sentry. Much experience had shown that some sentries were less governed by strong principles of honesty in business dealings than others, and often enough no confidence whatsoever was shown between the parties concerned. On this occasion the sentry wanted to take the article away for valuing before making an offer, but our patient was not prepared to allow this. Eventually a compromise was reached and the sentry left his loaded rifle with the patient as a surety while he took the article away for valuation. The patient kept the rifle in his bed and in due course the sentry returned and a bargain was struck.\n\nIn the earlier days a number of sentries came to our nursing orderlies suffering from venereal disease being for some reason reluctant to report sick with such a complaint to their own people. They knew the value of the sulpha drugs and they knew that we possessed some of these. At first I was tempted to allow our men to treat them in the hope that we might thereby enjoy some advantages, in the form at least of their forbearance to be unduly zealous in their dealings with us. I soon came to see that we were likely to gain nothing from this practice and set my face firmly against it. Our small stocks of sulpha drugs were so extremely valuable to us that I myself controlled their issue to wards, a special case having to be made to me on each occasion by the doctor in charge. I would not however assert that some of our men did not supply", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207455, "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": 223, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n215\n\nmuch space as possible. The raiding plane on 26 October had therefore been seen by many of our population in the hospital. The sequel came on 3 November when, in the middle of afternoon, all up-patients and all staff were ordered to parade on the tennis court. Sentries had been posted overlooking the court and Lieutenant Saito and Mr. Hasegawa, an interpreter from Japanese Headquarters, were present. Two days earlier Sgt. Seino had told Major Charles Boxer that the Japanese navy had reported to the Japanese army that our men had been seen on the hospital verandahs during air raids. The intense rivalry between the two services was well known, and after Boxer's warning I saw to it that all staff and patients were ordered to keep off verandahs during air raids. The precaution came too late, however, and at the tennis court parade Saito made a speech interpreted by Hasegawa to the effect that many people in the hospital had laughed at and criticised the Japanese Military Authorities during and after the air raid. All on parade who had not laughed or criticised were ordered to hold up their hands and all did so. Hasegawa then said he did not believe this and I was called further forward from the head of the parade and asked if I knew who had laughed or criticised. On replying that I did not know I was dealt a buffet on each side of the face by Saito. His fist was not clenched but he was quite a powerful man and my cap was knocked askew and the inside of my cheek was cut though I suffered no real injury. Boxer was then called forward and asked why he had not signed an undertaking not to escape about which I shall have something to say later. Boxer replied that a Japanese officer would not have signed such a document and he then received two blows on the face from Saito. The parade was then dismissed and Saito went to No. 3 ward at the top of the building where up-patients were paraded on the verandah. These were mainly men recovering from diphtheria and any who had been on verandahs during raids were ordered to stand forward. When none did all were slapped. A new interpreter to the hospital, Takeyama, had just taken over and the latter told me formally that any further complaints of this nature would be followed by the closing of the hospital. We therefore arranged that verandahs on the harbour side would be policed by us during raids and that no one would even go on the verandah on the harbour side to get to lower floors where shelter was better. Shortly afterwards, on Japanese orders all beds were removed from verandahs on the harbour side of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207460, "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": 228, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "220\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\narrived in January dated from the United Kingdom in July 1942, though the first card I received from my wife arrived in April 1943. In return, officers were allowed to write one card each month of 50 words to the United Kingdom and 25 to other destinations. The frequency allowed was less in the case of other ranks but all cards had to be collected in my office and handed over by me. Naturally I paid no attention to any limitation on the ration allowed and I handed over all that I received. Our people were very cynical about the chances of our cards ever getting to their destinations though some undoubtedly did so. I have no idea what proportion of cards ever arrived home.\n\nIn July I published to the hospital a Japanese offer for 20 persons each month to prepare messages to relatives to be broadcast. Of 29 people who asked to use this opportunity, 20 eventually wrote out the messages they wanted sent. A month later 13 persons including one officer had messages accepted but I never found out if any message was in fact transmitted. I still have the original yellow poor quality sheet of paper on which the Japanese conditions as regards the offer were set out by them, and it reads as follows:-\n\n1. American\n\nCanadian Australian\n\nQualification in Broadcasting\n\n2. Faithful in task-High Officer and Prominent Man.\n\n3. Your self-condition Health only and\n\nMost worry on very important thing you want to know.\n\n4. 20 Persons monthly.\n\nMost people in hospital were reluctant to believe that messages of this kind would ever be despatched.\n\nEarly in 1943 we were required to place a card in a holder on each bed giving the name of the occupant, and a descriptive notice in Japanese was placed at the entrance to each ward. About this time, too, the Japanese put pressure on me to remove the concrete baffle walls protecting the ground floor wards on the harbour side, and we complied with their orders though we made the removal process a prolonged one. We thought that these protective walls might be as useful in protecting us against American bombs as they had been against Japanese attacks. In fact we suffered no real ill-effects from their removal, but all these moves fitted in with my conception of a general Japanese plan to make the hospital a show-piece for visitors.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207463, "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": 231, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n223\n\nonce to our hospital. At any rate we were prepared to try a method by which we might exercise influence on the procedure for admitting patients to hospital.\n\nWe had been preparing what we called yeast drinks for all in hospital. We interrupted the issue for a time because the fluid became very sour and was discovered to have eroded some of the zinc pails in which it had been prepared. This was an arresting thought for us who were trying to do good. We then adopted a new process for producing yeast for baking and for issue aided by an ingenious device made by Mr. Sims, our chief engineer, whose fertile brain produced many ideas for our benefit.\n\nA few of our patients were showing signs of obsessional mental disturbances, mostly harmless but we had a number of cases of real mental disorder which called for supervision. We had what used in peacetime to be called a mental ward in the hospital and we had nursing orderlies who had been trained in the nursing of mental cases. These patients however were mostly cared for in a small ward, in no way different to the other wards in the hospital and some of the supervision was often provided by convalescing patients. Only once did a mentally afflicted patient cause us real anxiety when he broke free and rushed out of the hospital toward the guard-room pursued by his attendant. The guards did not attempt to shoot and our patient was brought back quietly to the hospital. I considered that the conditions under which prisoners of war were confined did not in themselves cause mental disorder, though they may have accelerated a breakdown in men otherwise liable to be affected.\n\nIn March we received another 622 books from the Red Cross via the Japanese and a little later we installed our library in the peacetime operating room on the first floor. Some books and the musical instruments and indoor games were displayed effectively in the recreation room for the benefit of inspecting officers. The librarian did an excellent job repairing damaged books and used threads unpicked from a soldier's webbing belt to stitch back detached covers and folios.\n\nOn 3 May 1943 the Japanese asked for boxes of personal possessions which had been left behind by our nurses to be delivered to them, and within an hour Seino took away 14 trunks, boxes etc. belonging to 10 ladies. I never heard if these reached their owners in Stanley Camp.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207484, "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": 252, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "244\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nsive demonstration of American air power. I do not know if any Japanese planes took part in the defence. After the raid we picked up a great many jagged fragments of bombs and shells in our grounds though the hospital itself suffered no obvious damage. The history of the war shows that this raid came from Admiral Halsey's Sixth Fleet which had passed to the north of the Philippine Islands and approached the China coast searching for some remaining ships of the Japanese fleet. On this occasion the attackers failed to find the ships which at the time were lying up much further to the south but we got enormous encouragement from the successes we saw. The bombing was very accurate but during one raid on another occasion a fleet of large American bombers came in from the sea aiming from high altitude no doubt at dockyards and Japanese headquarters. Unfortunately their bombs fell short and damaged a large part of Wan Chai. As maybe imagined we had no newspapers for some days after these occasions.\n\nOn 21 January bombs from another raid fell very close to the hospital and we lost a good deal of glass and plaster and picked up many fragments of shells and bombs in the grounds. Our guards never overcame their excitement during air raids and added their own defence contribution by rapid fire from their rifles at the attacking aeroplanes. It would be interesting to learn how much ammunition the Japanese had left at the date of their surrender.\n\nFrom the end of January 140 men from Sham Shui Po camp were accommodated on the top floor of the hospital which was wired off from the rest of the building. They were marched off daily to prepare ground in Happy Valley to grow vegetables there and were accompanied each day by one of our nursing orderlies. The original orders to me were to house the working party in the now vacant barrack block from which the hospital was by now wired off, but when these orders were changed Seino quite courteously apologised for the alteration. We cooked for the newcomers and helped their own 10 maintenance men to draw and hoist water daily to their quarters. The work in Happy Valley was arduous at first and the weather was cold and wet. Later the conditions were easier and the hours of work were less. The ration scale allowed by the Japanese for the working party was on a substantially higher level than that in the hospital in rice, fish, vegetables, beans, oil and sugar. I pressed this precedent and I got our official rice ration raised by 30 grammes to 510 grammes; the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207511, "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": 279, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n271\n\nI can recall only three occasions on which the Japanese interfered with internal discipline in the hospital and I have given a short account of two of these earlier. On the third occasion our executive sergeant-major Mr. Bartley had crossed the Japanese in some way and for the only time in my three years' experience Sergeant Seino came to me, indicated displeasure with Bartley and asked if I wanted him removed from the hospital staff and sent to P.O.W. camp. Bartley's executive ability was of great value in the hospital and I had no hesitation in saying that I did not want him removed. He stayed with us until our release.\n\nPatients and staff were fairly often slapped by guards for some real or imagined disobedience or slight. These punishments were never serious, but I was always apprehensive that the person slapped might retaliate and so cause real trouble. I took up the cudgels on behalf of our people on every occasion, but I never obtained any real satisfaction and I wondered how much authority our hospital Japanese administrators had over sentries.\n\nWithin the hospital the routine discipline affecting patients and staff was in my hands. Control in wards was in the hands of medical officers in charge, assisted most effectively by the system whereby selected patients were placed in charge of internal ward affairs. These patients were of several nationalities and were not always senior in rank. Their characters and standing with patients seemed to give them more effective authority. I have referred earlier to petty thieving.\n\nOccasionally offenders had to be dealt with formally by me in my office. Usually a reprimand sufficed though occasionally a man would be confined in a small room in an outhouse with a wire stretcher as bed. This method was used rarely and a man's food was never cut in any circumstances, while he was closely observed during the term of his punishment in order to avoid adverse effects. At the end of the war no records of misconduct were handed over to any authority by me and no man was reported to any service authority for misbehaviour of any kind.\n\nMany of the problems I had to cope with arose from the antagonisms which spring up between individuals, particularly if they are called upon to work in conditions of close proximity. There was no relief from the physical presence, the personal habits, the method of working of others in the particular team so that it was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207512, "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": 280, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "272\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\neasy for a job or an individual to become intolerable. Most disputes were smoothed out by the patients in charge of wards, the chief wardmaster, or the executive sergeant-major. I used to make regular visits informally to wards after the evening check parade, and here I could chat to patients in charge and to other patients. I thus came to hear of many of the disputes I refer to above and much gossip reached me from these and other sources though nothing in any way approaching an information service ever operated within the hospital to relay news to me. Some disputes reached me officially and on many nights I lay awake for a while pondering over problems which were really insoluble. I developed the ability to comfort myself with the thought that I could do no more and I went to sleep. It was remarkable how many unpleasant situations involving our relations with Japanese and relations within the hospital did in fact solve themselves, possibly not on the next day but within a few days. Solutions came about usually by a change of attitude on the part of someone who had previously seemed immovable. I was extremely fortunate in having a small converted lavatory in which I had my bed and so could occasionally shut my door though I remained available to anybody at any time. In Kowloon again I slept in my own office and so in both places I cannot be too grateful for this boon.\n\nI rested in the afternoon only on some Sundays. All the other days I occupied myself gardening, cutting grass in the grounds, chopping wood or in some way in which I was involved physically. Over months I analysed the war casualties in a great deal of detail and so was able at the end to produce for the editors of the Official History a report which was valuable to them. Otherwise I played a bit of bridge.\n\nSEX\n\nNo account of any human activities is complete nowadays without some reference to sex. In the present case I do not need to give much space to this subject. Earlier I referred to the fact that some soldiers before hostilities broke out, were so alarmed by the near certainty of venereal infection if they consorted casually with the local women that they turned to their own sex in the hope of avoiding this disease. The hope was a vain one and many contracted venereal infections from homosexual relationships.\n\nIn the seven months during which 50 women were living in the hospital in captivity with us, almost every nook and cranny was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207749, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 137, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "CARL T. SMITH\n\n122\n\nKwun.\" In September there is an entry for \"Li Khi Sen, from Tseang ye\". This is probably the friend Khi-sem who was one of Tsin-kau's travelling companions.\n\nThe Hong Kong missionaries were delighted with the arrival of these refugees who were willing to receive Christian instruction and baptism. They seized upon their desire to join their relatives and friends in Nanking as a God-given opportunity to put the Taiping movement upon a more solid Christian foundation. There had been much discussion regarding the type of religious belief held by the Taiping leaders, and serious doubt had arisen regarding their interpretation of Christianity. The Rev. Hamberg hoped to raise sufficient funds through his publication of The Visions of Hung Siu-Tschuen to finance Hung Jen-kan's trip to Nanking. In reporting to the Mission Society he states:\n\nI have spent much on Fung [the Hakka version of the surname Hung] and his friends, and in order not to put a burden on the Mission have translated into English the account of the first [i.e. Hung Jen-kan] and written a small book which is now ready to be printed. Fung and his two friends left today for Shanghai. I have furnished them with the three different translations of the Old and New Testaments, Barth's Biblical History, Genahr's Catechism, a calendar and other writings, also a map in Chinese of the world, a map of China and one of Palestine, a model of a steel punch, copper matrices and the usual types, in order to show how Chinese characters can be printed in the European manner. In addition a few trifles, such as telescope, compass, thermometer, knives, etc. I am often asked if I will go to Nanking, however I have decided, and will not change my mind, that I will not go until I have received a regular and definite invitation to go. I have sought to establish what my obligations and duties are in this matter. The people who were brought to me I have baptized, instructed and assisted them on the way insofar as I was able. I believe that Fung respected me and would like to see me in Nanking, as he so often said. However, we cannot be definite about it, because we do not yet know if he will be successful in arriving at Nanking, and further, we cannot be sure that his friend there will welcome the idea, or that no obstacle will be placed in the way of foreigners, or that they have a real desire to be led deeper into the truths of God's words.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207819, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 207, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "192\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\nand the Nuffield Foundation), and partly by the London School of Economics and Political Science out of a Ford Foundation grant. In addition, for the first three months of my work in the New Territories I was fortunate enough to receive from the Hong Kong Government the services of a guide-interpreter and the use of a motor car. I wish to record my appreciation of this aid.\n\n2. My plans were not to be fully realised. Before the end of the first period of three months I fell ill, had to enter hospital, and was medically advised to leave Hong Kong. The result has been that, while I have been able to carry out most of what I intended to do under the heading of a general survey of New Territories social conditions, I am forced to write this report away from the Colony, cut off from the chance of checking my findings and filling in gaps in my knowledge.\n\n3. My report is based on field observations made from early February to early May and on reading done in the same period in the Colonial Secretariat Library. I travelled extensively in the New Territories but, owing to the fact that I lived for most of the time in Tai Po, I am more familiar with conditions in the District of that name than with those of the other four Districts.* It will be obvious, too, that the short time at my disposal sets a severe limit to the validity of my generalisations. Anthropologists usually spend some months getting used to a new field before embarking upon detailed enquiry, for there is a good deal of groundwork to be done. If I am bold enough now to set out some of my preliminary findings and tentative conclusions it is because I believe that the New Territories Administration ought to be given an idea of the kinds of problem which anthropologists find important and of the possibilities of correlating the interests of social research workers with its own. There will be increasing opportunities for co-operation. To begin with, in the autumn of this year two graduate students at London University are expected to arrive in Hong Kong to undertake intensive field work in the New Territories. My colleagues and I hope that their studies may be of some service to the Administration. Certainly, they will be able to probe more deeply into matters which in this report are treated superficially.\n\n* Yuen Long, Tsuen Wan, Sai Kung and Islands. An account of the New Territories at that time is given in the Annual Departmental Report of the District Commissioner, New Territories 1963-64, and of Hong Kong as a whole on the Hong Kong Annual Report 1963, both printed by the Government Printer, Hong Kong - Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207823, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 211, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "196\n\nMAURICE FREEDMAN\n\ntime than I could give it; and I am aware that I raise more questions than I can answer.\n\n11. It seems to me, if I may interpret behaviour only intermittently glimpsed, that administrators in the New Territories today are often in the dark about the kind and extent of the influence wielded by the men known in official language as Village Representatives. Are they elders or do they in some sense stand in opposition to elders? Are they mere spokesmen or do they in fact exercise independent power? Are they supported generally by their 'constituencies' or do they represent factions? Are their motives selfish or are they attempting to maintain and improve the general welfare? Do they provide a satisfactory channel for the expression of public opinion or do they represent as a class some sort of New Territories elite cut off from the ideas and aspirations of the ordinary people? Of course, the New Territories do not, even traditionally, form a homogeneous area; leadership in one of the big settlements in the Yuen Long District must differ in its sources and expression from leadership in a small Hakka village in the east. If, in gross terms, villages differ from one another in their clan composition, their riches, their education, and their contacts with the wider world, then we may assume a priori that their leaders will be different kinds of person. Moreover, the situation becomes further complicated by the role of immigrants in supplying a source of support (or not supplying it, as the case may be). There can be no simple rule for determining that the New Territories will have such and such a kind of leader. The question then arises whether we can isolate some typical situations in which particular characteristics of leadership are likely to be found. Again, formal leadership as exemplified by the Village Representative cannot realistically be treated independently of other institutions in which, within local communities and groupings of them, interests are promoted, disputes settled, and political decisions made.\n\n12. Let us consider how the predecessors of present-day administrators saw and tackled the problem of leadership. To deal with the newly leased territory the Administration set up a land system, which was in its day a workable compromise between traditional Chinese land tenure and the requirements of a western bureaucracy, and, after an abortive attempt to systematise (in the Local Communities Ordinance, 1899) what it romantically thought to be the customary mode of local government and law, achieved a practical solution", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207846, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 234, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n219\n\nof disbelief is other than what might be called purely contextual. Let me illustrate. Early in my study I found myself, during a visit to a remote coastal village, a fellow guest at lunch with two building contractors engaged in some local works. The conversation between my hosts and me turned to fung shui. One of the contractors spoke fluent English, as I discovered when he addressed me across the table to lament the nuisance caused by geomantic beliefs. I concluded that he had had trouble at some time with geomantic obstructions, and I read into his final remark on the subject an envy for a world where people would not be allowed to raise fung shui against builders; the talk had turned to how the authorities across the border in China had cast out geomancy along with the rest of traditional religion, and the contractor cried: 'Yes, they have cancelled all that bloody nonsense'. (If the others at the table had understood what he had said they would have been very shocked, for they had been giving me an enthusiastic account of fung shui and its benefits). Some weeks later I came across the contractor again, this time in the area where he lives, and, since I was already on good terms with members of the circle within which he moves, I was able to discuss many aspects of Chinese religion with him. I discovered in him a passionate interest in and devotion to fung shui. It is not necessary to conclude that he had been deceiving me on the first occasion. He had perhaps been irritated by the consequences of the fung shui beliefs of others; his own beliefs, bound up with his own interests and those of his close associates, were another matter. Again, I am acquainted with a man in the New Territories whom I may fairly describe as a devotee of geomancy and a constant client of geomancers who, quite sincerely and without any sense of strain, condemns the foolishness of people who raise fung shui objections to government works designed to benefit them. What one believes and how and in what circumstances one chooses to express and implement one's beliefs are two different things.\n\n49. The Administration is often forced to pay for geomancy; it is not alone. People make real economic sacrifices for their fung shui beliefs. Graves and dwellings are moved and altered, often at great expense. How are we to define and account for the nature of this faith? Fung shui is in fact a complex of beliefs concerned with a central theme in Chinese metaphysics: man's place in nature and the universe. But the last few words are a Western way of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207894, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 282, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n267\n\ncontinue to operate in the same manner as before the plague. There must be a proper diagnosis of cases according to western medical practice and careful and accurate mortality schedules kept. Fortunately, the majority report of the Commission recommended the continuance of the Hospital, though it would be necessary to appoint a western trained doctor as a member of the staff.\n\nOn the occasion of an official visit of the Tung Wah Hospital Committee at Government House in December, 1896, the Governor set forth his views on the Hospital.\n\nI am especially glad to observe that the three members of the committee who are entrusted with the management of its financial affairs and upon whom the chief share of the executive falls are gentlemen who have been long connected with Hong Kong and possess a knowledge of English. I trust that this is a sign that the Corporation as represented by the Committee is prepared to take steps to improve the present condition of the hospital. That such an improvement is necessary, I am fully convinced.*\n\nHe announced that he was about to appoint a Steward for the Hospital whose responsibility would be to establish sanitary and clean conditions, commenting that this \"should stop complaints as to unclean hospital clothing and bedding and unwashed and unshaven patients\". He reassured the committee that he didn't wish to interfere with Chinese medical treatment but that he believed patients ought to be able to have a choice regarding the type of treatment they received - Chinese or Western. He pointedly remarked that some members of the Committee were in the practice of consulting western trained doctors. Why then should not the poor have the same chance? To give them this opportunity he would appoint a Chinese trained in Western medicine to reside at the Hospital. He encouraged the Committee by saying, \"I feel sure you can explain this to the Chinese community or Kaifong for whom you are acting.\" He then shook a firm stick.\n\nIt has been hinted to me that there may be opposition to these appointments I intend to make. If I find anyone trying to stir up trouble, and by means of misrepresentation create bad feeling, I will take prompt steps to deal with such a person. He ended the visit of the deputation on a more positive note, expressing his confidence that the Committee would do everything\n\n* Hong Kong Telegraph, Dec. 4, 1896.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207979, "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": 18, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "largest, and most famous of the New Territories' Chinese kinship groups being settled in the area for over 900 years. Notes were again provided and will be published later in the Journal.\n\nThe December tour of Sri Lanka was very comprehensive and included a number of archeological sites not usually possible to visit in a short tour by the average tourist. We were fortunate enough to obtain the expert guidance of Ms. de Silva who volunteered to lead the tour and Ms. Berger who helped make many of the arrangements. I know that some members found the housekeeping side a shade more primitive than they would have preferred but I think that we compare favourably with many tourist agencies arranging accommodation from Hong Kong and providing a great deal more guidance and variation than does the average tour. It is not always possible to see places off the well-worn commercial track and enjoy all the facilities of the modern commercial world, to some extent these objectives being mutually incompatible. However if any members have suggestions as to how to improve the arrangements and take in the more unusual kind of visit—of course, in the same length of time—we would appreciate very much hearing from them, and this goes also for members who would themselves like to arrange a tour on our behalf.\n\nIn February a young exponent of the classical dance of South India gave a talk illustrated with the basic dance movements and related gestures and expressions. Also in February the tour of Borneo took place, participants visiting Sarawak, Brunei, and Sabah. The tour was very fortunate in gaining the help of people associated with museums in Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei who also provided unsolicited hospitality. I would like particularly to acknowledge our gratitude to Mr. Lucas Chin, Curator of the Sarawak Museum, Mr. P. M. Shariffuddin, Director of Museums, Brunei, and Mr. David McCredie, Curator-designate of the Sabah Museum.\n\nOn February 16, Mr. Chuang Shen of Hong Kong University's Department of Chinese talked about newly discovered rock engravings in China, and made comparisons with findings and techniques of engraving in many other parts of the world. A tour of the Chinese porcelain exhibition at Fung Ping Shan Museum, University of Hong Kong, took place also in February—or I should say three tours—for so popular was this event arranged in connection with the Arts Festival, that three different parties had to be arranged for our members. Dr. Michael Lau, Curator of the Museum,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208022, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "A JOURNEY TO YENAN 1946\n\n45\n\nKuomintang controlled areas*. It was therefore natural that the Unit be asked to take this load to Yenan, and I was picked as the Convoy leader. Preparations were made in December 1945, and when the National Military Council finally granted the permit, the convoy was able to leave Chungking for Yenan on Monday, 21st January 1946. The group consisted of the writer, Yu Chin-lung (Henry), another Unit member, two employed drivers (Fong Ah-fu and Lao Lü), a mechanic, and a trainee (Chow Ming-cheng and Hu Jo-han), with three Dodge trucks built to Canadian WD specifications and a trailer. The convoy was self-sufficient in spares and fuel and returned to Chungking on March 9, 1946.\n\nProspect of the Journey\n\nAs far as the operational aspect of the trip was concerned, there was little to worry about. We had new trucks, running on real petrol and a good supply of spares. After three or four years of nursing increasingly aged vehicles, running on charcoal gas, alcohol, and tung oil petrol, over the mountains of West China, we felt some competence in these things. The political aspects were, however, another matter altogether. The Kuomintang command in Sian was known to be somewhat independent of Chungking, and while Chungking might be forced to give us a permit, would there be a message to Sian to disregard it? Or officials be instructed to be very particular about our papers? And having delivered our load, would we be allowed back? And if we failed, or an 'incident' occurred, what would be the repercussion on future deliveries of materials and relief supplies and the political negotiations?\n\nWe were sure of one thing: a warm welcome when we reached Yenan. In Chungking on 27th December, members of the Unit (Brandon Cadbury, Chris Barber, Henry Yu, Wong Hsiao-hsin, and the writer) had been entertained to dinner by Tung Pi-wu, Teng Ying-chow (Mrs. Chou En-lai), Miss Kung Pan, Colonel Wang Ping-nan, and Colonel Chien. Quoting from a letter home of 29th December: \"They were very interested in what we could tell them about the FAU, what we did, and why we did it. They live a curious sort of existence with spies all round them but, like many things\n\n* Some account of this is given in W. A. Reynolds \"Operation and Maintenance of a Road Transport System in West China 1942-46\" in the 1976 Journal of this Society (vol. 16).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208059, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "82\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nlawsuits. In some instances the smaller villages pay their land tax through the influential clans.\" (p. 20).\n\n18. Tung-Kuan Hsien-chih (1921), 3:4a.\n\n19 For details on Hakka migration into the area, see Lo Hsiang-lin's K'o chia shih liao hui p'ien (***** Historical Sources for the Study of the Hakkas). See also Essay I.\n\n20 Krone, op. cit., p. 125.\n\n21 Sung Hok-p'ang, \"Legends and Tales of the New Territories” in The Hong Kong Naturalist, VII: 3 and 4. For the tale of the \"Hungry Bug\" see pp. 249-250 in number 3.\n\n22 CSO6269 in 1909,\n\n23 Extension Papers, p. 227.\n\n24 See statements by Tang Kok-lam in the Extension Papers (pp. 216 and 293-294): \"... the reason for the resistance is that there were rumours that there would be an increase in taxation, numbering of houses, and taxes on fruits and houses.\" See similar reasons put forth in the petition from the Tung Wo Kuk of Sha Tau Kok Tung, p. 319.\n\n25 CSO130 in 1902.\n\n26 Pat Heung and Shap Pat Heung are districts whose natural boundaries are made up of two major valleys of Un Long to the southeast and northwest of Kam Tin, respectively. These hsiang consist largely of small, multi-lineage settlements with substantial Hakka populations. In some of the documents in the Extension Papers, tung is appended to these districts, a usage still heard among the older elders in the area. The hypothesis which I develop later in this paper refers specifically to the large-order tung; however, it applies equally to the smaller-order tung insofar as they constitute districts treated as a whole for the purposes of revenue collection.\n\n28 CSO6269 in 1909.\n\n29 The only mention of this decision which I have seen is Tratman's account of the opening of a new market at Un Long in CSO3172 of 1915. \"Of the existence of this feud there can be no doubt. It began in the endeavors of Pat Heung to free their land from the ground-rent claimed by Kam Tin as first settlers and so overlords of the whole district. The actual bone of contention fell to the Pat Heung when the Land Court disallowed all the \"taxlord claims\" in that district; but the bad blood still remains. Its fast manifestation was in the form of an organized assault by the people of Un Long on certain Kam Tin cultivators in 1911.”\n\n30 Hugh Baker, \"The Five Great Clans of the New Territories,\" Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 6. pp. 25-48.\n\n31 “If a person is arrested by a village constable, he is taken before the gentry and elders of the village, who assemble in a place specially appointed for the purpose. The gentry and the elders, who are the representatives of the clans inhabiting the villages, are selected by the inhabitants to deal with cases in the village council, The usual cases are those of theft, disputes about land, domestic squabbles, and cases of debt. Most of these cases are summarily dealt with by the village council, and as a rule, the decision of that council is accepted as final. But if either of the parties to a case is dissatisfied, he can appeal to a council of the Tung, or to a general council, made up of representatives of the different Tung. A reference to Map VI will show how the newly leased territory is divided", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208060, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN\n\n83\n\ninto Tung or Divisions. Each council of a Tung contains representatives of the villages which make up the Tung. In addition to a council of a Tung there is a general council for the whole of the Tung Lo or Eastern Section, which is practically that portion of the district of San On contained in the map attached to the Convention. This general council is styled the Tung Ping Kuk or Council of Peace for the Eastern Section. It has its council chamber at the market town of Sham Chun, which is regarded as the centre of the Eastern Section.\n\nIf the decision of the council of the Tung or of the General Council is not regarded as satisfactory, an appeal lies to the magistrate of the district.\" (pp. 55-56, Extension Papers.).\n\n32 Extension Papers, p. 34.\n\n33 Ibid., p. 174.\n\n34 K'ang Nan-hai Kuan-chih I (***T**), pp. 15-16.\n\n35 Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China, pp. 91-92.\n\n36 K'ang Nan-hai, op. cit., p. 15.\n\n37 Other evidence which supports this hypothesis is drawn from the fact that the production and distribution of agricultural produce within the tung tends to be regulated by specific and unique processes. Hence, the tau chung (#), or local measures for payment of rent in kind, differs from tung to tung. Lockhart, in his Report on the New Territory at Hong Kong (Presented to both Houses of Parliament, November, 1900), relates the problems encountered in rationalizing land tenure: \"But even this tau varies in different localities. The Kun Tau, or Chinese official standard measure of 10 shing, is adopted at Tai Po, in the Sheung Yu District, and at Shat'aukok. The Ts'ong Tau, or grain measure of 11 shing, is used throughout the Un Long District. The Ts'in Tau of 8 shing is employed in the Ts'un Wan (ed. previously Kowloon District) and some other Districts. (p. 6). Moreover, the schedules of periodic markets within tung tend to complement each other, while they often clash with the schedules of markets in a neighboring tung.\n\n38 See petition from Tung Wo Kuk (\"i.e., the Committee appointed to deal with the affairs of the Shataukok Division\"). pp. 318-320.\n\n39 In a rough translation of a pamphlet obtained by the German missionary Schaub in Tung-Kuan, local gentry propose a strategy for obtaining funds for fighting the British: \"It is the best plan that the six confederations (six market places) keep together as we hear. But the outlay for the soldiers should not be collected by an extraordinary field tax. It is not right that the various confederations should pay the costs.... We should use the usual field tax. Let first the six confederations come together and ask our Government for help. Will the soldiers not come to help us, then let us ask the Mandarin for the present not to collect the field tax, that we can use the money to meet the barbarians. This would not be rebellious. Afterwards in peaceful times, we could pay our duties to the Government. (Extension Papers, p. 347.) See also, K'ang Nan-hai, op cit., p. 15.\n\n40 CSO433 in 1899,\n\n41 The British often experienced great difficulty in distinguishing landlords from taxlords, especially since members of large, gentry clans like the Tangs were one and the same. In a memorandum on the work of the Land Court, Lockhart writes: \"The most serious matter of all, however, is the stand taken by the farmers against the clans, their former landlords.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208122, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH \n\n145\n\nand might bring anything from a complicated murder to a petty assault case: the former, with its formalities, always ticklish for an inexperienced lay magistrate. The next job was to interview people sent for by the D.O., deal with any disputes brought up by the parties or the Police, and hear any land cases fixed for that morning. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons the longer cases could be heard: failing these, there were always land deeds and registers to sign, files to deal with, or minutes to write. At the end of the day the ledger, cash books and receipts would come in for checking.\n\nIn my time most of the cases that came to my office were from the nearer islands, New Kowloon, and the Tsun Wan district. Another class of case nearly always taken there was Resumptions, which I always considered the most distasteful and unpleasant task a D.O. can be expected to perform: for though resumptions in 1917 were usually paid for at cent a square foot, and those in 1926 at 34 cents a foot, I never felt that money could in any way make up to a peasant for the loss of most or all of his land. Nearly always they wanted land in exchange, which it was rarely possible to find. I may remark here that when Mr. Ruttonjee started the brewery at Sham Tseng about 1926 he secured the land for it partly by leasing a piece of foreshore from Government and reclaiming, and partly by leasing agricultural land from the villagers who were mostly surnamed Fu (— should be a Chinese character, possibly 祖 or 夫, but as per rule 1, it is preserved as is, assuming it was (4)) for a fixed term at a yearly rent, thus giving them a regular income and a right of re-entry on their land in default of payment, which seemed to me a very fair arrangement, though the raising of foreshore levels made a terrible mess of the fields.\n\nMy first spell at the D.O. South ended in about four weeks; but in March 1923 I left the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs for good, and became 'Lord of the Isles', and not a mere substitute. This gave me the chance to carry out researches without applying for Police launches, so I expect the appointment pleased the Water Police! It was the custom for the D.O. South to hire a big launch from a Chinese firm to take him, his bailiff, and his Chinese demarcator to Cheung Chau and Tai O on alternate Wednesdays if business there demanded his presence, or there were enquiries to make, or local applications for land to consider. For this he got a large travelling allowance, I think $1200 a year, which I believe I nearly used up every year, though I don't remember asking for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208131, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "154\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nbefore I handed him over to the Police: thus I was able to show that on balance Government had in the end not lost a single cent. Both shroffs were arrested and sentenced later. I then spent a good deal of time, especially on voyages to the islands, drawing up rules for the financial guidance of my successors, but Mr. Wynne Jones, who took over from me in late 1926, thought them too cumbrous, and discarded them.\n\nOne of the subjects which used to excite much feeling in the Chinese countryside was the disturbance of graves. In 1930 this occurred at Tai Wan in Lamma, on the big sand bank later excavated by Father Finn, once a leading local centre of Bronze Age culture. The sand diggers had cut away so much sand that coffins buried 2 feet deep in the bank were sticking out, and their contents could be seen. I at once ordered digging to stop till the coffins could be properly disposed of. Enquiries in the village showed that the villagers were not interested; so it was clear no local cemetery had been violated, and the persons buried had most likely been boat people. I believe the sand contractors got the Tung Wa Hospital authorities to remove the coffins: certainly there was no trouble with any local people. The high level and good preservation of these coffins showed that their burial took place long after the Bronze Age.\n\nOne troublesome class of case was the 'fung shui' difficulty caused by digging a new grave on a hill ridge not far above an older one. If the family owning the latter lost a child or two by smallpox or other complaint, they would conclude that their ancestor was displeased with them for letting a deceased stranger ‘ride' his grave, and so hinder the good influences of the site reaching him. Such cases might have to be settled by removal of the later grave, or by some compensation to the aggrieved family.\n\nOne crime that often came before my court in the office was stealing sand for building. Sand collecting was regulated by a system of permits, allowing junk masters to collect sand at selected beaches, each junk having its own collecting beach. Sand shortage was serious from 1924 to 1926, when concrete was coming into fashion for building, and between the demands of builders, and the interests of New Territory cultivators of land behind the sand banks, there was acute conflict, which sometimes grew into a shooting match. One such conflict took place at Sha Lo Wan in Northwest Lantau; this village was very jealous of the fine sandbank protecting its fields, and had licensed gun owners; so the junk", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208133, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "156 \n\nW. SCHOFIELD \n\non the ridge.* Further afield, on the Hang Hau peninsula, is the paved road referred to above, which runs as far as Ha Yeung: and on Nam Tong, commanding the strait, is the robbers' stronghold with its gun platform. Porcelain near its gate looked fairly modern, from what I remember. Remains of a similar kind can be found on the other islands of the Southern District. Just above the village of Shek Sun at the west end of Lantau stands a Dutch fort built about 1610, rectangular in plan. A few cannon balls and other relics have been found in it, but it is very overgrown and needs clearing if any research is to be done there, or sightseers enabled to visit it. The old fort and cannon protecting the small yamen were repaired when E. W. Hamilton was D.O., I think between 1927 and 1929: I remember that one room in the yamen was inscribed shu shat (library). Another relic of old coast defences, close to Tai O, is the old Chinese guard station already referred to, outside Po Chu Tam creek, and quite ruined. On the south coast, near Shek Pik, a very ancient rock carving on a cliff was found quite recently. In the outlying islands are three interesting structures: one is on the North Soko island, where in a small valley on its south coast are two converging lines of megaliths. The other two are on Sha Chau, one a stone burial chamber on the south isthmus in the form of a 'kistvaen,' the other a ruined guard station on the flat area northwards of the chamber, with an earthwork protecting the landing place to eastward.\n\nNo doubt there are many other places of interest, especially temples and their contents: one of the finest is the Pak Tai temple in Cheung Chau, with its coloured relief showing the local ferry boat nearing the pier in Hong Kong harbour. Lastly, there is one place of much interest with which I had to deal in 1917 or 1918. The Tang grave at Hau Tei, beside Tsun Wan, made in the Sung dynasty, was naturally affected by the new Castle Peak motor road and a projected reclamation of the shallow sea area beyond it. The Tang elders come to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, where I was 2nd A.S.C.A.,† and partly I think on my suggestion the hill of the grave was made into a public park, so as to preserve its surroundings and outlook. The grateful elders presented me with a 'fung shui' map of the grave site for my efforts on their behalf; and the good influence of their virtuous ancestor continues to augment the prosperity of their descendants, and of Hong Kong generally, if there is anything in 'fung shui'!\n\n* See Mr. Schofield's note in JHKBRAS 9 (1969): 154-156.\n\n† Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208198, "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": 237, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n221 \n\nPo Yan Hospital of the Church Missionary Society at Pakhoi, South China(廣東北海市普仁醫院). From the condition of the original typescript copies it is clear that they were among others sent to interested supporters like the Schofields. \n\nI do not yet know whether other copies have survived in the Archives of the C.M.S., nor whether similar material is repeated in the Hospital's Annual printed reports: but as the contents are of much human interest I am reproducing them here.-Hon. Editor. \n\nLetter from Po Yan Hospital, Pakhoi, South China. \n\nAn annual letter in wartime does not appear as peaceful and balanced as in normal times. If statistics need explanation it is at this time, as much useful work does not appear in them. \n\nFrom the beginning of our work in Pakhoi in March 1938 we considered it one of our most important tasks to collaborate with the Chinese authorities in every way. The civil officers asked our help and advice in general health measures. We vaccinated many thousands of people, prisoners, police cases etc., and performed post mortem, chemical and biological examinations for the court. The army doctors asked our opinion and help for a great number of difficult cases. We tried to ameliorate housing conditions, wells and public cleanliness, treated a great number of soldiers and their relatives in our hospital; this all without charge. We dispensed, for instance, Dysentery and Tetanus serum, of which the single dose costs $20 free of charge. No wonder that the financial part of the work is not looking as prosperous as usual. But we have the conviction that in this time when the Chinese people are faced with sufferings unknown before in history, the Missions are glad to show their real friendship and that we can make in some small measure Our Lord's commandment true in our deeds. \n\nIt was not surprising that in the year 1938 month after month showed a great increase in all departments of our work. It was encouraging for the Mission workers to see how far away our hospital was appreciated. We got patients from very remote places, treated the heads of the civil and military authorities, and people in towns and villages many miles away did not hesitate to make the long and sometimes exhausting journey to Pakhoi. One time we got such a great number of patients with cancer from Limchow that we were inclined to make our diagnosis from the fact that they came", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208353, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n61\n\nI have chosen to work on data from central China, southern Hubei and northern Hunan, the marshy and hilly areas around the Dongting Lake water system in the middle Yangzi valley. I have chosen so primarily because I have a personal academic interest in that region, and again because it seems to be a kind of heartland of 'rice China'. This study draws on data from local gazetteers, fang zhi, and from the compilations of fang zhi materials contained in the great 18th century ‘encyclopaedia’ Gujin tushu jicheng.\n\n2. Some Frameworks\n\nQingming is the name for one of the twenty-four periods of the Chinese solar calendar, each being fifteen days long. Approximately, it starts on the 5th of April and lasts until about the 20th of the same month. The name means 'Clear Brightness'; this term may correspond to prevalent climatic conditions for this time of the year in some parts of the vast country, but it does not translate well the meteorological facts of the season in the stretch of country surrounding the big Dongting Lake in the central Yangzi valley, which were more on the dull side. According to one chronicle, the period was noted for 'much strong wind and heavy showers'.\n\nThe agricultural activities in this rice producing part of China followed the landmarks set by the twenty-four solar period calendar. Thus the Qingming period marked the beginning of the sowing of rice, and it seems as if this was a widespread traditional pattern in the Dongting basin. Generally rice was sown toward the end of April in special small plots, in the literature often known as seed beds or 'nurseries'. Although this practice may have been normal, there was certainly a great deal of variation, even within this limited region of China. Some chroniclers give us dates in the second moon; She ri and Hua zhao are mentioned in places like Wuling, Gongan, and Chongyang, a period of the lunar calendar which corresponds roughly to March, as the time for the beginning of sowing. The Spring Equinox, or rather the solar period of Chunfen, is also mentioned in a record from Hanyang. It seems reasonable to say that, given a variation of a few weeks in accordance with local circumstances, rice was sown in late March and throughout April. As a period of ritual", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208360, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "68\n\nGÖRAN AIJMER\n\nsymbolic statement which parallels the set of technical acts which cluster together into the agricultural phase of sowing. Just as the graves are cleaned and repaired, the seed beds are cleaned and repaired.44 In the same light, the offerings on the grave make sense as a statement parallel to sowing. Meat and wine were offered to the graves and rice was offered to the seed beds. The grave offerings were probably shared between the dead and those who were presenting them. In Yuanjiang it was called to 'drink wine on the grave'. If these suggestions are correct, do they fit in an interesting way with our earlier reasoning? At any rate they lead us to a new and puzzling juxtaposition: graves are not only mountains, they are also seedbeds.\n\n5. Money trees.\n\nThe other important feature of the spring grave worship was the erection of bamboo top-branches with paper money or paper strips hung on the twigs. This kind of ritual arrangement has a certain Southeast Asian flavour, but here we shall resist all temptations to make comparisons in this broader perspective. Here we deal with Chinese ritual phenomena in their Chinese setting.\n\nI have discussed the sign of bamboo elsewhere,45 and from its contextual appearance in rituals in the lake area of Hubei and Hunan I induced the conclusion that it had ambiguous connotations to productive force and ‘driving-away' power. When the sweeping of the graves implied that they were swept with bamboo twigs, this may have entailed some sort of 'driving-away' or purification. A reminiscent practice is that of Jiangling where, on the 24th day of the twelfth moon, the doorways were swept with bamboo branches.46 It would, then, be possible to argue that the bamboos erected on the graves gave protection to the graves or the dead. But if so, what about paper money and paper strips? The latter are in all probability a version of the former. But what does it mean to hang paper money on bamboo branches?\n\nA similar arrangement is mentioned in the essay Wuling jingdu lue. It is said that during the dragon boat races in the fifth moon there were special small boats on the river; their task was to supply the competitors with food and wine. Each of these small boats was equipped with two trees in which 'yellow money' had been hung. They also had 'multicoloured scrolls', drummers and flutists.47", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208361, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA\n\n69\n\nIn an earlier work I have pointed to the similarity between these small boats and the spring practices on the graves; I suggested there that the small boats which carried wine and food were a kind of sacrificial altars intended for the benefit of the dead ancestors.\n\nThe insights we can get from such comparisons do not provide us with any real clues to the sign constellation of paper money suspended in branches. There are, however, some other notes of interest in this connection. If we turn to paper money49 there were two other main calendar events which called for their use. One was the lunar New Year when, according to records from many places,50 paper money was suspended above doors and burnt. This seems to have been part of the New Year offerings to the ancestors. The other event when paper money was used and burnt was on the Zhongyuan, or the 14th and 15th days of the seventh moon. This is mainly a Buddhist ceremonial occasion, in the literature often referred to as the 'Feast of the Hungry Ghosts' or 'All Souls Day', when offerings are made to the tortured souls in Hell, who escape their sufferings on one or a few nights to visit the earthly regions. An important feature of this ritual to be observed here is that the offerings of paper money are, on this occasion, directed in a general way to roaming souls, and not to particular graves. Practices concerned with Zhongyuan are on record from several places in the Dongting region.\n\nWhat ancestors are of concern in the spring grave worship? Says Maurice Freedman:\n\nThe ancestors as they are represented in their bones are not the ancestors worshipped in their tablets. Each dead forebear appears in two separate guises. Bones and tablets form opposite and complementary parts of the cult of the ancestors. The ancestors as bones are yin: they are of the Earth, passive and retiring. The ancestors in their tablets are yang: they have affinities with Heaven and are active and outgoing,52\n\nThe cult of the ancestors in their bone guise is focussed on the graves both with regard to calendar events and to geomantic considerations. Paper money was offered to the yin ancestors as well as to the yang ancestors. Furthermore 'mock money' was of important use on the Buddhist festival of Zhongyuan which, as we have just seen, was concerned with the spirits in the Buddhist", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208367, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA \n\n75\n\nlinguistic terms and customary conduct. Ta qing may not only have been an expression of periphery, it may also have been a ritual activity of visiting non-agricultural, non-productive land: 'the people tread on the green on the outlying wastelands'.94 It is a visit to the yin ancestors in their graves and the yin ancestors are, by virtue of the location of their graves, part of nature.\n\n11. Worship to the Family Spirits.\n\nOne piece of information tells us that in Yingshan people made gong & offerings to the jiashen, 'the family spirits'.95 This may be an offering in the ancestor hall but jiashen might also mean something like 'household gods'. The latter interpretation is the more likely. However, if jiashen should mean 'dead forefather' it must then be an offering in the ancestor hall. The term shen indicates this, and furthermore, the grave offerings are described after this entry, so the gong and the jiao to the graves must be different. According to my previous preliminary analysis of the Chinese calendar system as a system of ancestor worship, Qingming should definitely not be a day for worship to the tablets in the hall. Curiously enough, it may be that this gong is linked to the willow twigs. The chronicler says:\n\nthis day people collect willow twigs and make offerings to the family spirits. Some insert [willow] in the hair at the temples.\n\nSo it may be that this note should be interpreted in such a way that the use of willow was a gong offering to the jiashen, probably the protective godlings of the household.\n\n12. A Hypothesis.\n\nWhat bearing have these data on my earlier studies in the calendar system of ritual events in traditional Chinese society? Arguing from materials from the middle Yangzi valley I have maintained that the Qingming festival is a symbolic statement on the sowing of rice, and I have pointed to some similarities between the spring practices and the customs of Chongyang in the autumn. In both cases we deal with ritual gatherings of people away from built-up areas in natural surroundings. The main difference is that at Qingming activities were focussed on the ancestral graves, at Chongyang on mountain tops. I proposed that Qingming had affinity with yin ancestors, graves, earth and underground. Chongyang,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208576, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "6 \n\nand support.24\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\nThe first time the American government was called upon to act on the question of Hong Kong occurred towards the end of 1942 in connection with the extraterritoriality negotiations which the United States and Britain were conducting simultaneously with China. The initiative of the negotiations clearly belonged to the United States.25 Britain, however, was anxious that her treaty would as far as possible be identical with the American one, and that she would not lag behind the United States in signing the treaty. In this Britain keenly felt the pressure of time in that the United States, eager to please the Chinese, attempted to have the matter settled as fast as possible. Negotiations, which began early in October, were well advanced by about mid-November when disagreement remained on three questions which involved America and Britain alike: national treatment for commerce, coastal trade and inland navigation, and the right to acquire real property in China. Britain, however, had the additional problem of having to face China's demand, made on 13 November, for the rendition of concessions and to provide for the termination of the territory leased to Britain in 1898, i.e. the New Territories of Hong Kong, which included the area known as New Kowloon.\n\nBy the beginning of December 1943, the United States had given way over all the three questions with which she was concerned. Britain's disappointment and exasperation were thus summed up by Sir John Brenan: \"The Americans have now let us down on the three subjects to which we attached the greatest importance, namely national treatment for commerce, coastal trade and inland navigation, and the right to acquire real property. Moreover, by their rush tactics they have deprived us of any opportunity of real negotiation with the Chinese. We could hardly have done worse for ourselves if we had acted alone. It now remains to be seen if the Chinese, having got all they want from the United States, will hold up our treaty over the Kowloon question.\" Eden made a strong remonstrance to the United States on the way she had treated Britain in the latter phase of the extraterritoriality negotiations.27\n\nBy then the British Foreign Office had already reached a decision with regard to the Chinese demand for the return of the New Territories. Britain did not want to accede to the Chinese proposal, in that the New Territories were interdependent with, and economically and strategically vital to, Hong Kong and Kowloon. She", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208579, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45\n\n9\n\nHong Kong, stated without authorization but from his \"knowledge of the movement of opinion in England\", he felt confident that when the time came to deal with Hong Kong, the Chinese would be completely satisfied.\" The Foreign Office was naturally most displeased by such an utterance,36\n\nBy contrast, the American behaviour at the conference was dis-coordinated. While much of the criticism of British imperialism and skepticism regarding the British attitude and intention in respect to the Atlantic Charter were expressed by the American participants, and while they generally supported the Chinese stand on Hong Kong, the pressure they succeeded in exerting was considerably discounted because they failed to function as a closely coordinated team. Stanley Hornbeck, a delegate to the conference, commented specifically on the organization of the American group in a memorandum on his observations of the conference: \"It needs to be kept in mind with regard to I.P.R. Conferences that, whereas, as a rule, the Groups from most countries... attend and function as “delegations” (with a certain amount of guidance if not definite instructions from their Governments), the members of the American Group attend the function simply as members (without a \"group\" organization and without express guidance and with no instructions from their Government.)\" This disjointed approach was to largely characterize the American stand regarding the question of Hong Kong during the war,\n\nSuch an approach did not long escape Britain's attention. In March 1943 Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, paid a visit to Washington, apparently on Churchill's prompting. Eden's conversations with Roosevelt and senior American officials only \"provided an exchange of views with regard to such matters as cooperation between the Governments with respect to political questions arising in connection with the prosecution of the war\"; there was no intention of commitment on either side.38 Early in Eden's visit Harry Hopkins, special assistant to Roosevelt, made the general remark, in front of the president, to the British visitor that he \"thought no useful purpose would be served at this stage of the war, and surely no useful purpose at the Peace Table, by Great Britain and [the United States] having no knowledge of [their] differences of opinion” regarding Hong Kong, Malayan Straits, and India.39 Eden could do no harm in agreeing to this comment.40 Roosevelt, however, was much more direct about Hong Kong. He", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208744, "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": 201, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "174\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\n44\n\nAnother incorrectness is found on p. 273:\n\n... at the level of the town, the cult of the local people and the cult of the Confucian officialdom merged imperceptibly into one and the same figure that of the City God.\" This is a quite questionable statement: in many towns the City God temple is not the main deity of the community at all: Matsu is an example, Kuan-yin another one. I admit that officialdom made great efforts to positively control the community cults and promoted the City God temples, but I'd rather like to see examples of townships where his cult has become the main focus of worship. Moreover, City Gods do not seem to have arisen from so-called \"hungry ghosts\" but are rather deified men of great merit. The genesis of these gods does not fit in with the author's theory of deity formation.\n\nIn the latter part of Chapter 7, the author discusses cult leadership. There are several forms or patterns (i) the rotating pattern: all the heads of households in turn become \"stove-master\". (I'd prefer to call him 'incense-master', since in the Chinese term lu-chu the word lu means 'stove' in some contexts, but here it means incensor or incense container); (ii) election by divination (casting the divining blocks), usually for a limited term; (iii) appointment of a committee and chairman and often of a temple manager. Here the author is not clear as to how the appointments are made. If committees appoint chairmen and managers, by whom are the committees appointed? Very often larger temples elect wealthy local businessmen or politicians to their committee, and even in smaller temples local leaders often serve on the temple committee. Wealthy and influential personalities are hoped to guarantee the good luck of a temple in more than one way.\n\nIt is now time to recapitulate the main themes of the whole book: to point out its merits and its shortcomings. First of all, the book starts off with some kind of ambiguity concerning what the author's real objective is. On p. 1 he announces his intention as \"to develop a new analytical model to account for certain features of belief and behavior in Taiwanese temple cults, and to provide a classificatory framework for temple types in urban Taiwan\"; in particular he wishes to examine certain aspects of \"community religion\". What those \"certain aspects\" entail is not clear, but an indication is given when author says that his \"major goal is to classify temples”, (p. 4). On the other hand, he also seems to aim at revealing \"the systematic nature of the folk beliefs\" (p. 4), which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208752, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "182\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nBoth the Buddhists and Taoists are publishing books and monthly magazines to make their religion accessible to serious lay people; examples are the Journal of Buddhist Culture,11 imitated by its counterpart Journal of Taoist Culture.12 Besides these two, there are a great number of other monthlies.13\n\n(d) Folk Religion\n\nI believe that Chinese folk religion is the heart of religious life in Taiwan (and China). Although it has greatly borrowed from all the other systems, it has to be regarded as a distinct system in its own right, already in existence before the rise of the historical traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. In the course of the centuries, it has absorbed a great deal of their teachings and has thus been enriched considerably, but it still cannot simply be identified with any of the three. This does not mean that it is a well-organized and homogeneous system. To postulate a well-rounded and logically constructed system for the folk religion does not agree with the real facts. If one were to ask what the religious beliefs and practices of the Chinese people are, the answer would have to start with the folk religion, making exceptions for the relatively few who are purely and exclusively Buddhist or Taoist (also excepting those who have no religious beliefs any longer).\n\nWhat the majority of the people believe in and practice circles around two areas of major concern: the family (clan) and the local community. These two social organizations determine their religious practices and also, to a greater or lesser degree, control their religious beliefs.\n\n(i) Family: the family lineage is characterized by the cult of the ancestors and some select deities.14 The practice of ordinary ancestral worship at the home shrine is rather stereotyped: depending on the degree of religious fervor of individuals, rituals are performed with lesser or greater regularity and abundance of offerings. But a minimum practice in all families, even in the cities, is the devotions performed at the home shrine two times a month: on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar month. Daily offerings of incense are also often performed, but not in all homes.\n\nThe extraordinary ancestral cult consists of rituals of passage, especially those observed at funerals, and these are often focused on geomancy and second burial. These customs are still very seriously maintained by a large section of the population.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208992, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "122\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\ntraditional past, and at the same time we can watch the details of the processes of rapid social, economic, and cultural change that come with commercialization, emigration, immigration, and urbanization. All these things and many more are still here, alive, going on all round us, new. Thus social anthropology, like social history, has opportunities here which do not exist anywhere else. Here it is not yet quite too late.\n\nBut—and this is the final reason why the New Territories are so important to-day—even here it very soon will be too late. Even if the year 1997 was not looming so close, the New Towns are; and older people are dying, and younger people are emigrating (as they always have, but now because their wives and children go with them, usually with a greater desire to stay away). I guess we have about five more years—perhaps ten. That perhaps ten. That is why I am so excited when I hear of donations of money for New Territories research, why I am so thankful that Tam Yue-him and David Faure have launched their oral history project, and so delighted that administrators like James Hayes, and Chan Sui-jeung and Patrick Hase who are here to-night are in the positions they are in, and are not only willing but exceptionally able to advise and guide and take part—the British have a long tradition of scholar officials too!\n\nSo now I come to my fifth and final point, and back to our cultural heritage and the opportunities we still have to record it, and, if you will allow me, my own part in the enterprise. I said earlier that so much study has been done that we probably already know a great deal more than we know. In other words, one of the things that is most badly needed at this stage is for someone to go right through all the already existing material and try to put it together. The job is not a small one, for it must cover the whole mass of unpublished and documentary material as well as the published books and articles in several languages, but it would be immensely worthwhile.\n\nIt would have two main aims. The first, which might be called the academic aim, would be to discover exactly what our existing historical and sociological knowledge really is in order both to locate the gaps and to prevent overlapping wasteful reduplication of effort. Talks are already in progress on this important matter: you have heard about the oral history project; in my turn I am in touch with several established scholars both here and overseas, one", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209000, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "130\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nthat he had not seen before, particularly in the countryside. He was surprised by what he saw. His closest Chinese friends in Peking and Shanghai had not told him about such things. Perhaps they were unaware of them. China is a large country.\n\nMy experience and his raise an important question about methodology, about epistemology. How can we learn what is really happening in China? The answer is: not by going there. By going there one can learn much, particularly if one is lucky (as I was). If one has spent many years reading about China, one can learn particularly much. One is able to observe what is meaningless to those with no background in Chinese studies. My own visit in May helped me to understand a great deal that I had not understood before. It also confirmed a great deal that I had understood correctly. Chinese friends have admired my article, \"The Chinese Art of Make-Believe,\" published in the May 1968 Encounter. One Chinese friend gave me the ultimate compliment: \"I do not see how you, who are not Chinese, could have written this article.\"\n\nThere are many reasons why it has been hard to learn much about China by going there. Before 1977 there were too many Potemkin villages, designed to make a desired impression on the visitors to whom they were shown. More important is the fact that at any time in the past two millennia the people in China's principal cities have tended to be poorly informed about life in the countryside. So far as I know, every major revolution has started in the countryside. Equally important is the Chinese preference for talking about the way things are supposed to be rather than about the way they actually are — the preference for orthodoxy. All of us prefer orthodoxy in certain situations. But for us it is less natural to let our preference lead us into make-believe.\n\n——\n\nFor example, the abbot of Chin Shan told me in 1960 that it lay in the middle of the Yangtse River. He was very firm about this. But others had told me how they had walked on foot to the monastery gate. I confronted the abbot with their statements. He was indignant. “I did not tell you a lie,” he said. “Chin Shan is in the middle of the river. It is true that before the years when I was abbot the river had changed its course and silted up on the south side of Chin Shan.” The orthodox location of the monastery was still in the middle of the Yangtse, which had been changing its course, back and forth, for centuries. Why pick the years after 1900 as the time to locate the monastery?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209027, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nANOTHER (MISSING?) LIBRARY\n\n157\n\nIn 1935, after two years' travel and study in China, Gerald Yorke's book China Changes was published by Jonathan Cape of London. In Chapter Eight, entitled \"In Search of a Hermitage\", the following extract (p. 159) refers to a library at, it would appear from the final paragraph, \"the temple of the Mountain Cave (Tung Yuan) above Lanchi.\" This is county in Chekiang Province.\n\n\"In the meantime Li [Li Yuen-tzu, his companion, interpreter and friend, to whom the book is dedicated] had heard of a temple in the hills behind the town. It was not easy to find, and at first sight proved disappointing; for a family of peasants were in charge. But a draper's assistant, whose master had failed, was staying there to study. I had stumbled on a library presented by a scholar (Chao Ke-lao) in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. A tablet in his handwriting still bears witness to the gift. The books are in their original bindings and as fresh as if printed yesterday. Several appear to be of great age. This is hardly surprising, as the Tripitaka, the Bible of Chinese Buddhism in over one thousand volumes (the San Ts'ang), was first struck off wood blocks in the nine hundred and seventy-second year of Our Lord.\n\nThe draper's assistant knew his way about and picked out for me volumes with exquisite woodcuts as frontispieces. Unfortunately, he never distinguished between the dynasty in which a book had been written or translated, and the century in which it had been printed. I longed for a bibliophile to enlighten me. Over two thousand books printed before the year 1500 survive in as clean a condition as anyone could wish. Before taking them from their cases, sticks of incense and candles are lit by the peasant in charge. It gave me a real thrill to find such a treasure so respected in the hills. The veneration in which learning is held in China has no counterpart in the West.\n\nThere were too many people living at the temple of the Mountain Cave (Tung Yuan) above Lanchi. I decided to return to the Ch'ientang gorges, where the temple of the Master of the Water Rushes (Lu Su Chen Kung) had attracted me with its name.\"\n\nDoes anyone know if this library still exists?\n\nHong Kong. January, 1981.\n\nJAMES HAYES", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209028, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "158\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nYET ANOTHER LIBRARY\n\nIn his Korea, published by William Heinemann of London in 1904, Angus Hamilton has a good deal to say about John McLeavy Brown, C.M.G., LL.D., formerly Treasurer-General of that Kingdom and, when he wrote, Chief Commissioner of Customs, that is, of the Korean Customs.\n\nHamilton writes (pp. 85-86):\n\nIn his official life he represents a type of Englishman that is rapidly disappearing from our public services. His private life reflects the culture and the grace of an attractive personality. They say, in Seoul, that Mr. McLeavy Brown is more skilful as a diplomatist than as an administrator; and his brilliant conversational powers give some colour to the assertion. Upon arrival in Seoul, newcomers are apt to hear that \"Brown is a walking encyclopædia.\" He speaks, reads and writes with equal facility French, German, Italian and Chinese. It will be remembered that he is in the service of the Korean Government, a sphere of utility and activity which demands fluency in yet another language. His library attests the breadth of his culture; it numbers some 7000 volumes, and fills the walls of the rooms and corridors of his house at Seoul from floor to ceiling. Boxes of new books arrive by every mail. When he reads them it is difficult to conjecture. At night, as one strolls from the British Legation to the Station Hotel, the lights in his study window may be seen burning brightly. He is believed to sit up with his books very often until dawn. It would be typical of this silent self-contained man if he found in the pleasures of his library the antidote to much which takes place in Seoul.\n\nMcLeavy Brown appears in the contemporary Who's Who in the Far East 1906-7 published by the China Mail, Hong Kong, in June 1906, where he appears as 'ex-Head of Customs and Controller of Finance, Corea', having resigned in 1905 and gone on tour abroad in April following. He had been appointed a Student Interpreter in China in 1861 and was Acting Chinese Secretary in the British Legation at Peking 1871-72, resigning in 1872. He was later appointed a Commissioner in the Chinese Customs and appointed Commissioner-General of Customs, Corea.\n\nI am here less concerned with the man himself, despite his stature and later career which can be followed in the Dictionary of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209042, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 204, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "172\n\nBOOK LISTS\n\nMr. Leung's book lists those produced mainly in Canton and Fatshan (Fo-shan), but I have recently purchased another type of wood-block mu yu shue published in the Chiu-chau prefectural city, seemingly in late Ch'ing times and after. The covers give place of publication as Chiu-shing (M) by the 王生記, 財利堂, 吳瑞文堂 and 李萬利 publishing firms. Perhaps these were the ones referred to by D. H. Kulp, Country Life in China: The Sociology of Familism; Volume I, Phenix Village Kwangtung, China (New York, Columbia Teachers' College, Columbia University, 1925): Judging by my local collecting, they are rarely found in Hong Kong.\n\n(j) Popular poetry\n\nI have not collected old editions from Ch'ing and Republican times, but have seen many, even from the former period, usually with a Canton or Fatshan imprint. They were frequently \"borrowings\" of compilations made by scholars from the Yangtse area and North China, for such works were seemingly universally in demand. No list.\n\n(k) Novels and stories\n\nThis was not a main area for collecting, and the few works listed here are mainly for the purpose of illustrating the genre than for serious bibliographic attention. I have, in truth, seen many more titles.\n\n(l) Morality books\n\nHere again, I have not really attempted to collect such material, but only to provide a few titles on temple deities to accompany the text in Section A. But I can state that there is a great deal of it around, and that some can usually be found whenever a merchant's business and miscellaneous papers come onto the market, along with the account books and correspondence relating to his shop or firm.\n\n(m) Newspapers\n\nI have only mentioned them in the text because they seem to have been part of the stock of written materials available in rural areas of the Hong Kong Region before 1911, even if only casually and occasionally, which was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209223, "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-1981", "page_number": 126, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "112\n\nCARL T SMITH\n\nsystem must be abolished. On this there can be no compromise.\n\nAt the third reading of the Bill the Hon. Mr. P. H. Holyoak, elected representative of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce on the Legislative Council, also deplored the image of Hong Kong created by the discussion of the mui tsai question. He referred to the \"gross misrepresentations of fact made throughout the press at Home\". He described it as \"a malicious campaign that should not remain unchallenged in defence of the fair name of the Colony and the good Government which it represents.\"\n\nThe Hon. Mr. E. V. D. Parr referred to the united action of Christians and the labour unions:\n\nThe support of the Bill came from a most extraordinary combination of bodies. Anyone who knows anything of the inside history of the Colony could say perfectly well that support of the Bill is — I hesitate to describe it — perhaps it is best to describe it as a fake. There can be nothing in common or in sympathy between the labour unions and the YMCA and they join together on this occasion for reasons far different from any consideration for the welfare of the mui tsai.\n\nWhat these reasons were he did not state.\n\nThe Daily Press viewed these remarks in the Legislative Council as attempts to defend the Council and the Hong Kong Government for allowing the system to prevail so many years without taking any action either to ameliorate the practice or to abolish it. The speeches also clearly showed the real position of the Government to the Bill:\n\nIf we had ever entertained any doubts of the Government's real attitude toward the Bill which it has been obliged to father, it would certainly have been dissipated by the wonderful unanimity shown by Unofficial Members in attacking the measure and scoffing at its sponsors. The speakers imputed unworthy motives — including a desire for cheap advertisement, political intrigue and even malice to those who, without any hope of reward, sacrificed time, energy, money and even position, in order to help those who could not help themselves.\"7\n\nThe editor concluded that the views expressed by Chinese Christians and union members, rather than those of the elite establishment,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209407, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "42\n\nJ. H. HAAN\n\nThis limited franchise might be called the first characteristic of the voting structure in Shanghai. The second was the existence of proxy voting, that is voting by people present at a Public Meeting acting as agents of and voting for persons not present.\n\nNeither in the 1845 Land Regulations nor in those of 1854 had any provision for proxy voting been made, yet even before 1854 it was widely used, so we might put the question as to when it was introduced.\n\nThe first time the matter was considered at a Public Meeting was on June 14, 1851, when the problem was raised as \"to whether persons holding special powers of Attorney to deal with the land of parties absent could claim a vote on their behalf at a Public Meeting in addition to their own\" 27 It was then argued that \"such a system... had never been adopted at Public Meetings of this nature at Shanghai\" and consul Alcock was not inclined \"to admit the principle on the present occasion”.\n\nHowever, there were apparently some difficulties of a legal nature involved and Alcock thought it wise to consult the Attorney General at Hong Kong, whose advice was negative. Earlier I have drawn attention to the fact that the merchants at Shanghai were very self-conscious as to their self-government and the resolution against the interference from Hong Kong has already been referred to. At the same Public Meeting of May 25, 1852, it was decided, by resolution no. 2, \"That all holders of Land within the British limits may specially appoint an Attorney to act for them in their absence; and further that one person may act as Attorney for several renters, and be entitled to vote for each proprietor he may be duly empowered to represent\".28\n\nAs from that date proxy voting became the established practice at Shanghai and it was incorporated in article XIX of the 1869 Land Regulations.\n\nThere were evident dangers in this mode of voting. The already rather oligarchical procedure at a Public Meeting might be still more monopolized if a great number of votes were collected by some persons who might then be able to corner the meeting. Moreover, less scrupulous voters might be willing to sell their own vote to the highest bidder. It should be stressed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209446, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 103, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "81\n\nment's bias toward France than to try and understand that it would be an infringement of British sovereignty to blow up French ships in Hong Kong waters.\n\nEven the Colonial Office staff objected to the Hong Kong Government's apparently pro-French stance. Their impression was that the French would not be able to get any Chinese labour there if the Government did not put pressure on the Chinese. The conclusion was that \"It seems to me dangerous to British residents in China and to the peace of the Colony to help the French in this way.' 1905 How much more things would appear that way\n\nto the Chinese.\n\nThus the fines became a symbol of moral and legal injustice, of pro-French sympathies and disregard for the feelings of the predominant majority of the population. The fines were the last straw! It is significant that the Foreign Office strongly recommended that the fines be refunded.66\n\nThe strike apparently split the ranks of the labouring classes. If we assume that some had struck out of a sense of righteous indignation and nationalism, or out of fear of retaliation, there were perhaps just as many who did not share these feelings and would much rather have got on with their business. This split would aggravate the already excited atmosphere created by the war and by the strike itself.\n\nOn the 30th when the strike became general, there were already signs of trouble when those boats which continued working were stoned from the Praya, but things did not get out of hand. On the 3rd however, they did. The outbreak of the riot appears to me one of those historical events which \"just happened\". I believe it was not premeditated because the “rioters\" carried no real weapons, only stones and bricks they could pick up from the road. If there had been a conspiracy the men would have come better armed. The accounts in the newspapers and by Marsh in his despatches to the Colonial Office indicate the police over-reacted. The police rushed to the scene fully armed with carbines, which compared to the stones of the rioters, clearly suggests over-reaction. The police fired a large number of rounds of ammunition into the crowds. In fact there was so much firing that a newspaper expressed surprise that only one dead man", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209447, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "82\n\nELIZABETH SINN\n\nwas found.67 Besides firing, the police also charged at the crowd. The paper treats us to the vivid description of a particular “valiant” Sikh policeman. He had been knocked off his pony, but he got back on the saddle, and, “drawing his sword, he charged. He does not seem to have used the weapon on the mob,” the paper reported, but, “round and round he went in an increasing circle, knocking the mob over like nine pins. He must have bowled over a very great number of them, and with the pony trampling over the prostrate men, many must have been a good deal hurt.” Man and beast came in for praise. “The pony behaved splendidly and seemed imbued with the same spirit as its rider, tearing might and main in among the thick of the crowd, over numerous obstacles.”68 But when we remember that the “obstacles” were human beings, the ferocity of the police reaction to the morning’s stone-throwing strikes home.\n\nIt is perhaps as justifiable to say that police action had eventually quelled the disturbance as it is to say that police action had provoked the crowd and exacerbated the situation in the first place. In other words, the over-reaction of the police was likely to have magnified some ugly stone-throwing into a large-scale disturbance.\n\nIf our interpretation of these events is that the riot had broken out spontaneously, what can we make of the “bad characters” and triad members who were reported to be present in Hong Kong in large numbers? Marsh, for one, believed that bad characters had instigated the riots, and he suspected that they were somehow connected with the Canton authorities.\n\nThere is indeed evidence that there were large numbers of triad members in Hong Kong, but they had begun to gather there since 1883, and no disturbance had been instigated by them then. Then, their main purpose had been to stage a major uprising in Waichow, and it seems that in 1884, as again later in 1885, their main concern remained Waichow.70 What records we have of them do not indicate any connection with the Canton authorities.\n\nI think it is reasonable to contend that the particular circumstances emerging from the strike created the conditions for riot, not the presence of bad elements. None of the arrested", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209450, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "85\n\nChinese leaders seemed determined to use this occasion to make their presence felt, though they had already been told in no uncertain terms that the Government did not want this impression to be given.\n\nBefore the strike ended, cargo boatmen and others had been anxious about those rioters who had been arrested and detained. They had not been sentenced on the 3rd because of insufficient evidence against them. They were tried on the 10th. On that day, the court was packed, and significantly, among the crowd was a \"certain past director of the Tung Wah Hospital.\"76 Significant also was Ho Kai's appearance as defence attorney. Some of the men he defended were reported to be unaware of the fact that they were being represented by a barrister.\" Who instructed Ho Kai? One possibility is that Chinese leaders had hired him to defend rioters as part of the deal to induce boatmen and coolies to resume work. Another possibility is that Ho had done so on his own, out of a mixture of the patriotic fervour which he was to demonstrate so freely in his later reformist writings, and self-interest in establishing himself as a Chinese leader. Whatever the case, we see attempts by Chinese to defend Chinese, and reverse what many believed to be patent injustice. And again, we see the possible combination of high principles and material interests within the Chinese leadership.\n\nThe fines were, therefore, repaid and work was resumed. For all practical purposes, the riot was over by the afternoon of the 3rd and the general strike was terminated by the 5th. In quantitative terms, the general strike lasted only five days and the riot a matter of hours. A month and a half later, Governor Bowen summed up the events by saying, \"It is now generally acknowledged on all sides that the riot of October 3rd had little, if any, permanent or political significance.”78 His attitude seems to be shared by historians of Hong Kong, including G. B. Endacott and Lin Yu-lan79 who have not devoted special attention to it in their works.\n\nIronically, the few historians who have focussed upon these events have done so beyond the context of Hong Kong history. Fang Han-ch'i wrote of them in 1957 in terms of an", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209712, "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": 369, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n347\n\nChinese period. Perhaps because of this, the historian H. B. Morse commented in his International Relations of the Chinese Empire (3 volume, 1910) (Vol. I, p. 694) that it was \"history written to support the utmost pretentions of the Hongkong residents\" meaning its western inhabitants and especially the British. Saving Professor Lo Hsiang-lin's book on pre-1842 Hong Kong (1959) much of it done by his students and only part of it available in the English version (1963), we have had to wait all this time for someone to provide a clear and comprehensive account of the Chinese history of the region. It is fitting that it should have been written by China's scholar gentry, rescued from obscurity by a contemporary Chinese scholar businessman, aided and embellished by a British scholar long familiar with Hong Kong, and supported and published by the Hong Kong University Press.\n\nThe book is the result of collaboration between Peter Ng, who wrote a master's thesis for the University of Hong Kong on this subject in 1961 and Dr. Hugh Baker who revised and edited it for publication. I have used Peter Ng's thesis in connection with my own work for many years, and was consulted by the Hong Kong University Press when it was considering who might edit it for publication. I suggested that Dr. Baker, if available, would be the best person, but hinted that this would be a difficult task not because of any shortcomings in Mr. Ng's work but because a good deal of extra work would be necessary to make it suitable for the English-speaking public. It is therefore not surprising that, in the preface, the joint authors agree that the task was greater than they had anticipated. The work could have gone on and on, and it says much for Dr. Baker's will power that he was able to bring his complementary labours to a close so that we could all benefit.\n\nChinese gazetteers were never conceived for foreigners, as the Hong Kong University Press now intends. They were meant to provide a useful handbook of information on local subjects, for the benefit of senior officers in the district administration, particularly for the district magistrates and prefects who by the \"law of avoidance\" practised by the civil administration in imperial times, were required to be natives of other provinces of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209859, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "96\n\nIn the North District the islands are much barer and less cultivated than in the South District. Only two business centres of any importance exist; Tap Mun and Kat O. Both have shipbuilding sheds; the former has or had a launch service with Taipo, and the latter a distillery which gave a good deal of trouble to the Revenue Department. The business centres of these islands are in fact on the mainland; the Crooked Harbour islands look to Shataukok, the Port Shelter isles to Saikung.\n\nA very important element in the economy of the islands is the returned emigrant or seaman: Lamma has a good many of them; Lantau also. Emigrants generally go to America or Borneo, and a few to Singapore. Some returned emigrants are from Australia, they usually buy land, build a house and settle down.\n\nTour of the Islands\n\nTo get a view of each island as a whole, I suggest that a tour be taken as if in an imaginary launch, starting from Kowloon and going west as if to reach Canton through Kapshuimun (\"Rushing Water Channel\") but turning south of Lantau, passing the East Lamma Channel, and round Cape d'Aguilar into Port Shelter, and so up the East coast to Taipo and Crooked Harbour.\n\nStonecutters: or Ngong Shuen Chau (\"High Junk Island”). Most Chinese placenames are descriptive and have meanings. This one needs no elaboration, I think.\n\nTsingyi: (literally \"Green Clothes\": but the real meaning is uncertain). Has a fair harbour, a few shops and several villages in the northern half. The hills on this island are unusually high. There are two or three limekilns. A ferry calls about four times a day. Once a reclamation was started at the head of the harbour but it came to nothing and only two or three walls now mark where it was meant to be. The inhabitants are Hakka.\n\nIn 1856 this island was the scene of a small naval action against a number of pirate junks flying the rebel flag of the Taipings. The captain of H. M. S. Sampson states in his dispatch:\n\nIn proceeding through the mandarin channel (going west) some junks were observed at anchor inside the island, close", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209912, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 171, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "149\n\nBut they were in the minority. Most spinners entertained what appeared to me to be an impossible dream: government support without concomitant control. They criticised the Hong Kong Government on three policy areas which threatened their operations, namely the rise in land value, the 'hurried' introduction of labour legislation, and the administration's refusal to impose import control on foreign textile products. The Korean and Taiwanese governments were often mentioned as examples of political systems supportive of industry. But simultaneously, the spinners were aware of the twin evils of red-tape and corruption which often accompanied government subsidies. Their real desire appeared to be for the government to provide the ‘infra-structure' and leave them a free hand to run their business. As A12 said:\n\n'The more government assistance the better. But this is difficult to realize. When I say help, it is not necessarily with money. To control inflation is a form of assistance. To regulate finance and prices... Now the government does not know what changes will be introduced tomorrow. If there was a definite policy, then we would know what to expect.'\n\nThe tone and omissions were as important as the actual contents of their answers. Their opinions were strongly seasoned with resignation and cynicism. For example, B32 said to me:\n\n'Mr. Wong, all these [statements] are against the government. No comment. You see, there is no use participating. It is only superficial democracy. All are yes men. The more \"yes\" you say, the more honours you get. So all these are theoretical, cannot be done in practice. For example, the setting up of the Cotton Commodity Exchange. We are all in opposition, but the government wants to have it. Just another gambling house!'\n\nOf course, the flavour of powerlessness was not quite real. The spinners had strong political muscles as they provided employment on a large scale. When conflicts of interests did occur, they could force the government to yield. In the early 1970s, for instance, there was a dispute over the re-evaluation of the value of industrial land on 'Crown lease'. Immediately after the Second World War,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209924, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "161\n\nAmong the non-proprietary directors who displayed the ambition to be an independent owner, the rationale was simple. The terse remark of A24, manager of a public company, summed it up succinctly: 'You can have something of your own'. Their desire was thwarted so far because, as they said unanimously, they did not have the initial capital to start. But the real significance does not lie in the reasons they gave. It is in the act of expressing their wish to be self-employed so openly. They did not find it necessary to disguise this sentiment even as a mere gesture of deference to their employers. This openness indicates that their ambition is socially approved. Even the owners themselves acknowledged the prevalence of this motivation among their executives. They accepted it as a fact of life that could not be condemned as disloyalty or insubordination. As A32 said:\n\n\"It is a difficult situation. Many senior staff want to be their own boss. If they can stand on their own feet, they can get more, much more money. In Hong Kong, money is important.\"\n\nAlthough five of the non-propertied directors did not choose to be their own boss, they were in fact upholding the same value as those who did. The only difference was that they did not perceive the option to be a feasible one for themselves. The capital outlay for a cotton spinning mill was too enormous, they said, or that there were too many fluctuations in the trade in cotton yarn for a small firm to bear the risk. Nowhere did they exhibit any sense of pride in being an employee, no matter how senior their position might be. The self-depreciation was evident in their answers. A director, who spent his entire working life in Mill 24, found it necessary to be apologetic about his immobility:\n\nQ: Have you ever worked out of China?\n\nA: No. Not even out of this company. It is very foolish of me, isn't it?\n\nQ: Would you prefer to be a small owner or a senior executive?\n\nA: Executive. Everybody's background is different. As I am the eldest son, I cannot afford to take too many", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209949, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 208, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "186\n\ncollection and thus little hope of understanding some of its more obscure passages.\n\nFrom the dynastic histories we know that State auspices were drawn from almost any creature in the animal kingdom. If any abnormality in size, shape, colour, number, behaviour, etc. was observed in animals, birds or insects, it was reported to the capital for analysis by official soothsayers. Inevitably, their interpretation of unusual phenomena concerned affairs of state; a change of dynasty; the advent of a wise ruler; the possibility of victory or defeat in war or the imminence of natural catastrophes and subsequent famine. But while state oracles are well documented we know almost nothing about popular omen lores. This is why P. 3106 with its emphasis on private affairs deaths in the family, litigation over property and portents about personal prosperity and misfortune is such an interesting subject for study. Moreover, as I shall attempt to show, it may also include some non-Chinese material.\n\nA look at the translation of the treatise on dog divination will confirm that from columns 1 to 18 the text is fairly straightforward. With the notable exception of the beginning of column 9 (Chapter 26), the omens in P. 3106 resemble and in one or two instance are identical with omens quoted in the Gujin Tushu Jicheng, from such sources as the Guangkui** and the works of Jingfang10. The only real difference between P. 3106 and portents quoted in the Gujin Tushu Jicheng, is that in the former omens are combined with cyclical characters while in the latter they are not.\n\nFar more important, however, is the beginning of column 9 which advocates lopping off a dog's head and hanging it over the main entrance, a practice not normally associated with Chinese divination11.\n\nObviously, what we have here is a form of exorcism of unknown origin, but unless other manuscripts of the same kind come to light the source of these practices cannot be determined. One can only accept the fact that many peoples passed through Dunhuang, and left tantalising traces of their customs in the fragile pages of Dunhuang manuscripts.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209959, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 218, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "196\n\nthe vessel appointed to receive us, in the 10th month of the year Yeh-sze.\n\nLike Kong-heang my renown is small; like Lea-heang I have taught the classics, but profited little by the examples found in them. My attainments are slender, and I can only be compared to a ragged colt that has no real substance.\"\n\nIn view of Cree's mention of Charles Gutzlaff being on board the Vixen, and of the dearth of translators in Hong Kong at that time, it may be that the translation of the poem was made by Gutzlaff himself.\n\nNOTE\n\nThis is probably Liu Kai-yü (M), a native of Shun-Tien, Prefect of Canton (AHA) from 1843, or Liu Hsin (2), a native of Hsiang Fu, Honan, who succeeded him as Prefect of Canton in 1845 c.£. ƒƒƒ± (+M/2## Vol. 1), p. 405 (Note from Rev. C.T. Smith).\n\nRELICS OF HONG KONG AND CHINA IN BRITISH ARMY AND REGIMENTAL MUSEUMS\n\nP. BRUCE\n\nWhile in the United Kingdom in 1983 I visited a number of army museums in search of items related to China. There is, in fact, quite a lot to see, though the museums are scattered the length and breadth of the country and considerable travelling is involved. However, members of the society may like a brief note on what I was able to find and it would be interesting to hear of anything additional which is known of.\n\nI started at the Royal Marines Museum, at Southsea, Hampshire, which is, in effect, a part of Portsmouth. There is an interesting collection of China items here.\n\nThe oldest items are several assorted rifles and swords and an impressive Chinese cannon which looks as if it would have fired a shot about the size of a tennis ball. It is crafted to include a ferocious dragon's head at the muzzle from which the ball would roar forth. These were picked up in 1842.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210156, "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-1984", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "106\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nNor did he mince his words. “You have disobeyed and neglected your instructions” he told Elliot. \"You seem to have considered that my instructions were waste paper which you might treat with entire disregard, and that you were at full liberty to deal with the interests of your country according to your own fancy.\" The Foreign Secretary accused Elliot of having settled with the Chinese for much less than he had been told to demand “without the full employment of that force which was sent to you expressly for the purpose of enabling you to use compulsion, if persuasion should fail”. He was not impressed by the cession of Hong Kong “a barren island with hardly a house on it” and clogged by conditions which made it doubtful if it was a cession in full sovereignty.\"\n\n196\n\nThis myth, for myth it was, has died hard. Indeed, I fear it is not yet dead. It has always been more striking to compare the glowing present with such an insignificant past, and this has been the case at all times in Hong Kong's later history. Over forty years after the British occupation of Hong Kong, Governor Sir G.F. Bowen, addressing the Legislative Council at the opening of the 1884-85 Session, stated that \"... the Island of Hong Kong... when annexed to the British Empire in 1843 (sic) was merely a barren rock, inhabited only by a few fishermen and pirates.” This view was expressed another forty years on by the American Consul-General, George E. Anderson, writing on the Hong Kong Consular District in an official publication of the American Department of Commerce. \"The island of Hong Kong consists of a broken ridge of lofty hills, the highest, Victoria Peak, being approximately 1,800 feet in height. There are few valleys of any extent and scarcely any ground for cultivation... In general, the hills and mountains are bare and the soil is poor.\" He added usefully, \"The island of Hong Kong, 28 square miles in extent, is about 11 miles long and from 2 to 5 miles broad; its circumference is 27 miles\".*\n\nIs this a justifiable description? Was Hong Kong ‘a barren island with hardly a house on it\"? Were its people, such as they were, \"a handful of fishermen and pirates\"? The answer is NO, on both counts. There were several villages of some size, as well as hamlets, and a few larger coastal villages which served as market towns for the villages and as home ports for a permanent boat population and visiting craft. The land people were settled, and as we shall", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210205, "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-1984", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "155\n\nof the policy of suppression which had been adopted in Singapore. He strongly opposed the sending of an investigatory commission from London, which the Colonial Office had been pressing upon him. Peel's views were supported by the Permanent Under-Secretary and officials in London, who advised against any immediate action. A League of Nations commission to enquire into the international traffic in women and children was about to visit the Far East and this gave a good reason for delay, since any sudden change of policy would appear to be either designed to impress the commission or else to be an admission of guilt. Lord Passfield accepted this advice.\n\nFor the next six months the question was allowed to rest. Then in June 1931 Peel again wrote to the Colonial Office, enclosing a long memorandum on the legal position of brothels in Hong Kong written by the Chief Justice, Sir Joseph Kemp. This legal exposition concluded by warning that, though the suppression of all registered brothels might possibly lead to less illicit intercourse, it would probably arouse great resentment if the Chinese brothels patronized by the Chinese were to be suppressed. He continued: ‘I fear the danger of shaking the loyalty of the Chinese community as a whole and their confidence that the government will respect Chinese customs generally. The risk may have to be run, but I think it is a real one. It must be remembered that the Chinese do not view prostitution as we do. They look upon it with a more lenient eye, though excess is reprobated just as excess in other forms of self-indulgence is reprobated. Prostitutes are not social outcasts to the same extent as in 'Western' countries. A prostitute often becomes a highly respectable concubine . . . I realise that this is a very difficult defence to make, especially as the English public do not always realise the delicacy required in ruling an alien civilisation.' Peel offered up a small sacrifice to appease the Secretary of State: he suggested that the seven brothels containing European prostitutes should be closed down. This was not a sign that Peel had been converted to the moralists' point of view; European prostitutes were customarily deported from Hong Kong from time to time, since their presence was considered demeaning to European prestige in the East. This decision to close the brothels employing European, Australian and American women was endorsed by the Executive Council in July 1931.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210342, "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-1984", "page_number": 313, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "292\n\nRODERICK O'BRIEN S.J.\n\nsteamed amongst many barren-looking granite islands, about the fifth day from Singapore. At last one island with a very high peak upon it, loomed out from the clouds at no great distance, soon near enough to discern the forests of masts and crowds of steam-funnels, junks, sampans, and small steam launches which told unmistakably of a large seaport. As we neared it in the dull light of that cold foggy day, it looked as picturesque as any place I have ever seen. It may be defined as thick rows of masts; then handsome terraces of houses rising tier above tier upon such a steep incline that they looked as if each higher range were founded on the chimney-pots of the other. About half-way up the houses ceased, and then diagonal and zig-zag roadways, with scattered villas rapidly ascended into the clouds. A piercing cold Siberian wind was blowing keenly upon the animated scene of great rafts of steamers loading and unloading, a goodly fleet of men-of-war, and, as we neared the wharf, excited, surging, shouting crowds at the waterside. Hong Kong has often been described, but its wonderful population must be seen to be understood. Enormous crowds of boat-women, junk sailors, and coolies, which make a living stream on the quay, have no parallel in Europe or Asia.\n\nCertainly Hong Kong is not a Chinese town, but a town for Chinese, but yet not of European architecture, nor like the Straits Settlements. Its crowded by-streets and lanes, the absence of horse-carriages, the presence of chairs and jinrickshas make it very peculiar. There are plenty of soldiers in red coats and plenty of sailors in naval uniform, and all sorts of picturesque Chinese costumes, a few Hindoos and Malays, besides Parsees of portly presence and European dress surmounted with a hat like a stove-pipe.\n\nI am not going to describe any more of Hong Kong. I believe it is the most hospitable town in the East, almost surpassing the Straits Settlements and Shanghai. The merchant princes live in real splendour, extravagant if you will, but really comfortable. In winter sporting, hunting and other such amusements are out of the question; but for cricket, lawn-tennis, foot-ball and such like, and for balls, parties, private theatricals, & c., it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210436, "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-1985", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "24\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nprofessing the Christian religion could be buried and that such sections be consecrated. An area in an isolated part of the cemetery would be designated for the burial of non-Christians. The Ordinance set apart certain Crown Land to be used as a burial ground for persons professing the Christian religion and had its first reading in Legislative Council in November 1909.\n\nThere was some ambiguity between the title and the memorandum which accompanied the proposed bill. One spoke of the Colonial Cemetery, the other of the Protestant Cemetery. The original draft of the bill also excluded the burial of Roman Catholics. The Attorney General explained that they had been excluded because \"The Church of Rome had been in possession for years of a portion of the English Cemetery.\" A separate piece of ground under the administration of the Catholic Church was immediately to the north of the Colonial Cemetery.\n\nAs an explanation for the introduction of the Bill, the Governor told the Council, “I think everybody is aware of the fact that there has been a good deal of discussion at the Sanitary Board and elsewhere on the subject of Chinese interment in the Colonial Cemetery. The Colonial Cemetery, so far as I can ascertain from a study of the archives, has always been open to any person irrespective of race or creed. It has now been desired that there should be a certain portion set aside for Christian interment. The Bishop presented to me a joint request from the representatives of the Church of England and various denominations of the Colony that a portion of the Colonial Cemetery should be dedicated for Christian burial”. A member of the Council asked if Christians other than Protestants would be excluded, such as Nestorian and Armenian Christians. The Governor replied that this was an ecclesiastical problem which should be left to the ecclesiastical authorities. At a subsequent meeting of the Legislative Council the Governor stated that he had been approached privately regarding the situation of Roman Catholic who were Freemasons and who were not allowed to be buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery. He consulted the Anglican Bishop who assured him there would be no difficulties regarding their burial in the proposed consecrated section of the cemetery. A question was asked if in the separation of sections", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210459, "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-1985", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "47\n\n'sixties this prejudice began to disappear, and by 1970 most Kau Sai purse-seiners had given up using the sweeps for their fishing operations. One important result of this change was that most had also given up working in pairs. One mechanised junk and a sampan were now enough to shoot and haul the net. The quite far-reaching effects of this change on economic and family organisation are described in the following chapters. It almost certainly facilitated the move ashore. The 37 purse-seiners based upon Kau Sai in 1953 and working then in pairs (i.e. 18 pairs, one family owned an extra junk) had been reduced in 1970 to 12 single working boats.\n\nRhythms of living: the daily routine\n\nFor the purse-seiners the work of the day began a little before sunset. In 1970, just as twenty years before, the evening meal was eaten at about 5.30 p.m. in summer, earlier in winter. It was usually cooked by the most junior wife in the family and eaten en famille under cover of the forʼard shelter or in summer on the open fore-deck. Where in 1970 part of a family lived ashore, the meal might be cooked in either place, and eaten perhaps in two sittings. Immediately it was finished and cleared away, faces and bodies were washed, and with the minimum of fuss the fishing junk, with its partner if it had one, was off to sea. The further afield they planned to go the earlier they would start, but one noticeable result of mechanisation has been a generally later start in the evenings. Under sail all the purse-seiners would have left the anchorage by sunset, with engines they quite often stayed until it was already dark. Once they had left, the anchorage seemed very quiet.\n\nFor the dwellers on shore the evening meal used to be a little later, but by 1970 the later start to purse-seining meant that there was now little difference between mealtimes ashore and afloat. Previously, too, the departure of the purse-seiners involved a sudden silence, for with them went most of the children who had been playing ashore all day. Evenings in 1970 were less peaceful and much brighter. Many more people were about, and electricity now made it possible for children to play, boys and girls to do their homework, women to continue making plastic flowers and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210469, "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-1985", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "57\n\nliving in Kau Sai. The special peculiarity of the Boat People, however, is their potentially extreme spatial mobility. Both in their own belief and in others' it is this that differentiates them most from people who live on land. Whether or not the belief is well-founded, any description of Kau Sai which omitted to discuss the rhythms of movement would be misleadingly incomplete.\n\nSo far I have been describing Kau Sai almost as if it had been an entity in itself. This was only very partially the case. In fact there was not one single aspect of living that was totally contained within the bay. Life in Kau Sai in the mid-twentieth century can only be understood with reference to a much wider topographical framework. I do not argue that this is an unusual state of affairs. On the contrary, it is implicit in the term 'village', at least as it is used in descriptions of peasant or modern societies, that the entity to which it refers is subordinate to some wider grouping. There are, however, questions of degree. Kau Sai was small and very little self-contained. Without mobility on the part of at least some members of its population it could not have existed. The facts of the situation therefore forced me to consider spatial movement in this case.\n\nDuring most of the daylight hours of almost every day the purse-seiners' junks were moored in the anchorage. The male members of their crews and their children were ashore in Kau Sai village. Sampans were constantly moving from junk to shore and back again as shore jobs were started and completed, purchases made and so on. These were mostly movements of men and children. Women often acted as ferrymen, but except for the occasional quick visit to the shops, or longer sojourns for washing clothes, fetching water, gathering fuel or taking part in such jobs as net and fish drying they seldom went ashore, though they did some visiting from junk to junk amongst themselves. With the evening meal came the retreat from the shore, and immediately afterwards the removal of the entire family (and its home) to the chosen fishing grounds for the night.\n\nEarly morning might see a direct return to the anchorage or (more frequently after mechanisation) a journey to the Fish", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210508, "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-1985", "page_number": 115, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "96\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\n(i.e. grandfather) was master (on the three others he had retired in favour of an eldest son); on 7 of the 8 with the families of undivided brothers on board the eldest brother was master. Similarly, if we consider instead, and rather more realistically, the 18 purse-seiner firms (pairs) as they existed in 1953, we find that in 2 of the 4 which comprised three generation extended families the senior father was master (in the other 2 he had retired), and in the 12 comprising undivided paternal units the elder brother was master. The two firms composed of two unrelated crews were in a somewhat different situation, discussed in Chapters 7 and 8 below. In 1970, again, a very similar picture emerges: the 7 three-generation extended family crews were each under the mastership of the senior father, or, where he had retired, his eldest married son except in one case described more fully a little later on; in all the 4 undivided fraternal units the masters were the eldest brothers present; the 1 nuclear family crew was under the mastership of father.\n\nThere is nothing unexpected in this recital, except perhaps the fact of going through it at all. Normatively, of course, in any Chinese population with its known cultural predilection for the moral rectitude of strict patriliny and the award of respect by seniority this is the result that would be expected. The lingering prejudice against the Boat People is such, however, that their social customs are still sometimes alleged to be non-Chinese. For this reason, if for no other, it is probably worth recording the above data in detail, and adding to them the further information that investigation throughout the Hong Kong fishing fleets reveals substantially the same facts: normally, as well as normatively, of all those (i.e. family members) who are eligible it is the senior married male who is boat's master.\n\nThe few cases which appear to run counter to this norm in Kau Sai find echoes also and in roughly the same proportion (that is somewhat under 10%) elsewhere in the fishing fleets and, what is more, on land. Being, like many other exceptions, explicable only within the terms of the rules they throw a good deal of light upon them. They were of two main types, one of which the pattern of retirement has already been touched upon more than once. There an eldest son takes over the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210550, "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-1985", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "138\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\nmost striking aspects of this development was the growing popularity of corporate legatees in lieu of individuals, and the appointment of a conditional corporate heir in the event that the original nominee either refused to accept or failed to satisfy the prescribed demands. As an example, one may cite the following inscription, which was discovered at Pisa:\n\nMarcus Naevius Restitutus, the son of Marcus, of the Galerian tribe, a soldier of the tenth praetorian cohort, rests here. In my will I have left 4,000 sesterces to the guild of the shipyard workers at the most ancient and loyal anchorage of the Pisans, from the interest on which they are to celebrate the parentalia and rosalia each year at my tomb. But if they fail to do so, then the carpenters of Pisa, after they have received 4,000 sesterces from the shipyard workers in restitution, will be obliged to honour me under these same conditions.\n\nThe sum involved here is quite modest - a mere 1 per cent of the 400,000 sesterces required for membership in the equestrian order, which in turn was only one-third of the census qualification for senators but pragmatists who suspected that they would quickly be forgotten, or reduced to the fare that Ovid recommended in the Fasti (see above), were to be encountered at every level of society, and not simply within the elite. As we have intimated earlier, it was the fear of neglect, or of shabby treatment, that was the real driving force behind such highly creative arrangements as we observe here.\n\nThis is what we discover as we move forward in time from Cicero's day. Could it not be argued, then, that property would have been still less intrusive in the preceding centuries? This would certainly explain, for example, Cicero's otherwise anachronistic insistence at one point that \"these rites shall always be preserved and handed down without interruption in our families\" (Leg. 2.47). A priori, this conclusion would seem self-evident; unfortunately, it would be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to prove simply because in the Law of the Twelve Tables, our oldest legal text (traditionally dated to the mid-fifth century B.C.), kinship and property are inseparable. This law", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210552, "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-1985", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "140\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\nThe current scholarly debate on the behavior of spirits in Chinese society owes a great deal to this earlier literature. Echoing Goody, Maurice Freedman rests his claim that the ancestors are benevolent until provoked in large part on the argument that the jural emancipation of sons from their fathers' ritual and economic authority is not delayed until their deaths, but occurs more gradually once the sons attain adulthood.3 The conflicting positions of Hsu and Ahern also become more intelligible once set in this context. If the ancestors are unfailingly benevolent in West Town, it may well be because children there are rarely punished, and because a father treats a son who has married and produced children of his own as his equal.4 In Ch'i-nan, malevolent or simply capricious ancestors have been judged responsible for crippling injuries and deaths among their descendants: here, very young children are in fact routinely subjected to severe corporal and psychological punishment. What is more, for the adult male his father's death means both an end to ritual subordination and in most cases a substantial landed inheritance!75 Ch'i-nan seems, therefore, to be a community in which both explanations can be validated, and Ahern does attempt to establish a cause-effect relationship here by building upon the work of Meyer Fortes, another African anthropologist. Among the Tallensi, whose fathers literally own their children, Fortes concludes that ancestors are “a standardized and highly elaborated picture of the parents as they might appear to a young child in real life mystically omnipotent, capricious, vindictive, and yet beneficent and long-suffering; but the emphasis is far more on the persecuting than on the protecting attributes.” Careful questioning of her adult informants led Ahern to the conclusion that in Ch'i-nan as well, ascendants are not conceived to be elderly and infirm, as most were at the moment of death. Instead, they appear to their own fully grown sons and daughters as active adults in their own right, which can only mean that the perspective is that of the child.7\n\n78\n\nThere is little to be said on the subject of child-rearing in classical antiquity, but Roman fathers long exercised much the same rights over their children that Fortes witnessed among the Tallensi, and it may therefore be suggested that delayed jural", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210570, "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-1985", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "158 \n\nWEI PEH T'I \n\nshe continued taking Chinese lessons at Taiho. She took a second language examination in 1905. Mastery of the local dialect was also essential. It took Edith until 1905 to make herself understood in the northern Anhui dialect. “Last year I could not say much but this time I will have to do my share of the preaching,”20 Edith confided to Louese in her letter dated 5 January 1905. At the same time, another woman missionary, Mrs. Ferguson, “not having our pronunciation so that the women do not understand her very well,” was not very useful since she could not preach. \n\n9920 \n\nAt Taiho, the missionaries lived among the people to whom they were bringing the Gospel. These were poor people, judging by their daily fare and by their standards of hygiene. Edith described the scene in the back lane where the men of the neighbourhood ate their evening meal squatting outside their front doors. \n\nThe men do not eat with their wives, . . . The man of the house takes his bowl of rice, if he can afford it, or if not his bowl of dough strips and perhaps a bowl of salted garlic or some kind of greens. If it's the first or fifteenth of the month he will have another bowl with some stewed meat and onion etc.22 \n\nSeeing the population of the back lane thus gathered, the missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm as well as Edith, would assault them with the words of the Lord. \n\nevery day about the time they are eating their food we three stand at the back gate, sing a hymn to draw the crowd, then Mr. Malcolm steps out to preach to them. A great many of them won't come here, so we go to them.\" \n\nTheir timing might not be the most propitious way to make friends and influence their neighbours, but the missionaries were only following Hudson Taylor's directions to reach the people wherever and whenever possible. And Edith was surprised that the neighbours were so “unfriendly”,24 mumbling such things as \"the Boxers will finish them off yet\" and calling the missionaries \n\n!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210925, "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-1986", "page_number": 276, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "259\n\nstorm.\n\nIn commenting on the hawker problem, Dr. Ho Kai had said: \"This nuisance I feel sure is widely felt by many residents in this colony, and will, if not removed, be the occasion of much complaint and perhaps another public representation to Your Excellency. Of course, none of us grudge the poor fellows a means of livelihood. Still we cannot see why people should render their occupation a serious inconvenience to their fellow townsmen. Besides we must not forget the interests of the small shopkeepers, who have to pay heavy rents and taxes simply to be out-competed in their line of business by their brethren of the street.\" This spurred the police to take action. The day after the meeting a large group of hawkers were arrested and fined for obstruction and creating a nuisance. It was stated that this was only the beginning of the crackdown.\n\nA representation was made to Dr. Ho Kai that these measures were not what the Chinese community favoured. He was charged with not adequately presenting their true views on the matter.\n\nDr. Ho Kai replied through a letter to the press in which he acknowledged that his remarks were “too brief and not clear and might be a cause of hardship to the poor, unfortunate hawkers.”\n\nHe said he felt he needed to render an explanation as a respectable Chinese gentleman had written to him pointing out that he had not expressed the sentiments of the whole delegation. The gentleman may have been Ho A-mei, though Dr. Ho Kai does not say so. At any rate, a few days later A-mei voiced the same charge with some heat at a public meeting at Tung Wah Hospital. At the time of the delegation, however, he had only made a few remarks, expressing \"his concurrence with the views expressed by Dr. Ho Kai.” In the light of subsequent events, he must have soon had second thoughts about his concurrence.\n\nIn his letter of explanation, Dr. Ho Kai confessed he had not consulted all the members of the deputation but only a few of them. To correct misunderstandings he set forth the real meaning of his remarks, writing: “No doubt all Chinese merchants feel the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211033, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "69 \n\nlished in 1884 by ex-pupils and prominent members of the Chinese community as a mark of respect for Dr. Frederick Stewart who had resigned as headmaster in 1881 after nearly twenty years service to the school; and various special prizes especially for proficiency in Chinese.\n\n26 \n\nHe was appointed under Colonial Standing Order 3248 of 1884, as from 1st January, 1885, at a salary of $300 per year.\n\n27 The authority for his appointment was CSO2202. His starting salary was $240 per annum.\n\n24 For details of the memorial system and the part played in its genesis in England by Andrew Bell (1753-1832) and Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838), see John Lawson and Harold Silver, A Social History of Education in England (London: Methuen, 1973), pp. 241-246.\n\nIn one of Eitel's reports on the short-lived Normal School in Hong Kong, he refers to the \"Madras-born monitorial scheme of Bell and Lancaster\" being adopted at the Central School by Stewart. In Eitel's opinion, this scheme suffered in comparison with the Normal School because it did not include “the special private tuition and instruction”, presumably, in teaching rationale and methods. (CO129/202, p. 532).\n\nIn his Annual Report for the year 1866, for example, Stewart wrote: \"In my last Report I stated that I entertained the hope of being soon able to overcome many difficulties connected with the school by training Chinese assistants for their work. I then anticipated that I should always be able to retain two of the more advanced boys for a period of at least four years, after which they might, if they chose, find employment elsewhere and be succeeded by the two who stood next to them. The project has all but failed. The demand for the services of the more intelligent of the boys is so great that it is, in the meantime, hopeless to expect them to remain for any length of time. The two in whose case the experiment was tried have both left many months ago, just when they were beginning to be of real value to the school. I shall not, however, abandon the scheme. Out of several, it may be possible to retain some; and, as the knowledge of English becomes more general and situations more difficult to be obtained, the greater will be the probability that these Assistants will remain until, at least, others are qualified to take their place.” (Hong Kong Government Blue Book, 1866, pp. 279-280).\n\n30 The dispute was, in some ways, a continuation of the friction which existed between Frederick Stewart and Eitel after the separation of the duties of Headmaster of the Central School from those of the Inspector of Schools in 1878, first as an expedient measure while Dr. Stewart was on long leave in England and subsequently confirmed on Stewart's return to Hong Kong. Bateson Wright succeeded Stewart as Headmaster of the Central School in 1881. He inherited the bitter relations between the two leading education officers in the Government, but his own, quite positive personality, if anything, exacerbated the situation so much so, that the supervision of the Central School was taken away from the responsibilities of the Inspectorate and a “Dual System\" inaugurated whereby the Central School, renamed successively Victoria College and Queen's College, was administered and reported on by its own Headmaster and eventually examined by an independent Board which did not include the Inspector of Schools. The Dual System was kept in being until the retirement of Bateson Wright in 1909, when the Government's educational system was reunited and renamed the Education Department, headed by a Director of Education in place of the Inspector of Schools.11 Stokes (1962), p. 47.\n\n31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211104, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "140\n\ncommunicate with the Chinese.\n\nThe editor of the Daily Press suggested that, “it would be well, indeed, in this colony if the Chinese could be encouraged to give a fuller expression to their opinion than they have been accustomed to do, for at present the Government has to work largely in the dark and has no reliable means of feeling the pulse of the native community.\"\n\n\"Brownie\" of the China Mail also felt that the Government should be ready to listen to the real grievances of the Chinese, but only through the proper channels. \"We desire to hear the real views of the respectable Chinese, but we must fight shy of any agitation which is not recognised by the Chinese representative,” meaning Dr. Ho Kai. Here, of course, was some of the difficulty. Dr. Ho Kai was in some measure out of tune with elements in the Chinese community.\n\nThe Governor did not improve the position of Dr. Ho vis-a-vis the Chinese, or at least that is what I conclude from the remarks of \"Brownie.\" He comments on \"the clever way in which the Governor called upon Dr. Ho Kai to clinch the arguments,\" even though \"the worthy doctor may not have appreciated being used as a sledgehammer upon his own compatriots, though he doubtless recognised the necessity of the operation.\"\n\nThat he would submit to being a sledgehammer and appreciate the Governor's hard line was a high recommendation for him in the eyes of the foreigner, for \"we badly need a few more Chinese who possess the enlightenment of the doctor.\" So thought \"Brownie.\" An opposite view was taken by the Hongkong Telegraph.\n\nIt felt that, \"the Chinese are entitled to better representation in the Legislative Council than at present.\" The editor suggested that in Hongkong where the British principle of “no taxation without representation\" is ignored, “it must be especially galling to a large section of the community like the Chinese, whose one representative in the Council is nominated by the Governor. He is, we are assured, not the chosen representative of his countrymen,”\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211137, "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": 198, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "173\n\nThe concluding words of the telegram were: \"I presume there is no objection.\" This suggested the view the Home Government wished the Governor to take on the appointment.\n\nIn response, Governor Des Voeux requested the Colonial Office to refer to the despatch Governor MacDonnell had sent on the subject in 1868. This expressed his own opinion on the matter. Governor MacDonnell's views, of course, had been strongly against a Chinese consul in Hongkong.\n\nGovernor Des Voeux consulted his Executive Council and the Chief Justice for their opinions.\n\nAt that time the Council was composed only of Government officials. Therefore the views of the merchants were not directly represented. The fact that they had no voice in privy discussions and decisions caused the merchants to ask for the appointment of unofficial members to the Council. The first unofficial was not appointed until 1895.\n\nThe Governor instructed the Registrar General to ascertain the views of the leading Chinese. He reported that they were strongly opposed. In addition they were quite satisfied with the protection their interests received from the Registrar General.\n\nWhatever may have been the real opinion of the Chinese, the Registrar General would hardly have reported that they were dissatisfied with his services as mediator between the Chinese and the Government.\n\nIn the opinion of the Registrar General, a consul would become a centre of intrigue. This would make difficult the Government's efforts to manage its relations with the Chinese community and would shake the confidence of the Chinese in British rule.\n\nThe Registrar General also informed the Governor that if a consul were appointed, “much of my time which is spent looking after Chinese affairs would have to be spent in watching the Chinese consul and protecting Chinese against the machinations of the officer.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211169, "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": 230, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "205\n\nThere could be no question about local loyalty to the Crown. Chater reminded the council that, “the loyal feelings of this community are well known to every resident here, and most of us have already seen the hearty and eager manner in which, not only the foreign community, but also the native population, have come forward on previous occasions to celebrate the arrival of some member of the Royal Family upon these shores.”\n\nIf Hongkong was loyal, it was also generous. Mr. Chater was sure Hongkong residents would not enter into the celebration with a niggardly spirit.\n\nHe was convinced that \"there is no doubt this occasion will again cause a display of eagerness to loosen the purse strings for which I think this community, though but a small one, is second to none in the world.\"\n\nSomething more was wanting, however, than private celebrations. The Government should be involved, for \"whatever the loyalty of private individuals may prompt them to do whether they choose to give a ball on a grand scale or a banquet, whether to illuminate their houses or have a display of fireworks — I do not think the Government should spend the public funds in conventional cracker firing; this may be left to the enthusiasm of private individuals. But I think, Sir, the Government ought to do something of a more permanent character, something more lasting, something that should be a great deal more commemorative in its nature, and which will hereafter be of substantial benefit to the whole Colony.\"\n\nThe precise form this lasting memorial should take was a difficult question as future events painfully proved. Chater and others had been pondering the possibilities.\n\nHe noted that a number of the communities' needs had recently been provided for: the Civil Hospital had been enlarged, the new Alice Memorial Hospital was almost ready for occupation, and, in addition, \"we have the principal school in Hongkong rapidly blossoming into Victoria College (later renamed Queen's College).”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211215, "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": 276, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "251\n\nbring to fruition. Inquiries by a committee and reports to future meetings would take months. This leisurely pace would be acceptable if Her Majesty were to live for a hundred years. They all hoped she would, he piously added, but the implication of his remark was that this was too much to expect even from so good and gracious a personage and therefore they had better get the matter done with while she was still on the throne.\n\nHe pleaded for immediate action: “Why should we go on adjourning the meeting and waiting for special reports? Why cannot we settle it at once?” His method to achieve this end was “to scrape together what money we can get and have a general illumination.” By this he meant the decoration of buildings with gas lights and Chinese lanterns.\n\nAfter a great deal of discussion it was decided to vote on whether the meeting should decide at that time on the form of the celebration. The vote was 19 for an immediate decision and 11 against.\n\nTo decide that a decision should be made at once was much simpler than doing it. Each scheme was to be voted on. The illumination idea received only four votes. The party in favour of a library mustered nine. The meeting seemed headed towards acceptance of the sanitarium. But in the Jubilee affair it was destined that nothing should proceed as expected. The vote for it was 19 for and 18 against.\n\nRemembering the criticism levied against the chairman for ignoring a disputed vote on the same proposal at the last meeting, the secretary deemed it wise to have a second count. This time the vote had shifted with 20 for and 21 against. In the face of such uncertainty, it was necessary to have a third vote. This was a tie.\n\nThe chairman felt he need not now worry about false counts, and with some satisfaction declared: “I have the casting vote.” Mr. Ackroyd challenged this. He was supported by Mr. McClymont who said the chairman had no casting vote unless it was especially conferred on him. The chairman replied: “Then we are at a deadlock.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211239, "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": 300, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "275\n\n―\n\nabout a half-dozen villages that subsisted to a large extent on a single trade. One village had people who knew how to cut wood into planks; only one village in the whole of the Shatin area knew how to cut wood into planks. If you needed planks, you went and got a villager or pair of villagers from that village. They came to your village, cut up the planks and went back with a sack of rice. This sort of economy usually came from mountain villages without land but with a speciality. Masons represent another such trade. We know they existed, but we know very little about them or how such an economy worked.\n\nNext speaker: parts of China?\n\nWhat collecting work has been done on other\n\nJH - I can't speak for the Mainland, but a great deal of collecting work has been, and is being, done on Taiwan. We are fortunate, too, that on Taiwan as in north and central China, Japanese scholars during the Ch'ing period, and then right up to the 1940s, were doing a great deal of work on rural China. They were working in different areas, they didn't necessarily have the opportunities that we are having now, and they weren't seeking answers to the same questions. For instance, the village handbooks which seem to us to play such a major part in the transmission of management knowledge and techniques in our villages don't seem to be known to the Japanese researchers who worked in the north. I say this with some hesitation, but I have asked a good friend of mine who doesn't mind making enquiries if he would look in the main libraries in Tokyo; and so far he hasn't come up with anything, despite the enormous amount of work the Japanese did on China.\n\nPH - One of the most interesting things coming from the work that has been done in Hong Kong is that the traditional village life in the New Territories was radically different from that spelt out in the classic works on Chinese peasant life. The question that remains to be answered is, I suggest, ‘Is the Hong Kong traditional village life that we can see more typical, or are the classic studies more typical?' Or do you, in fact, have a whole range of situations over the whole of China of which none can be really classed as \"typical\", other than in the area from which they come?\n\nPage 300\n\nPage 301", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211241, "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": 302, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "277\n\nembark on more self-management in preparation for 1997, is that the people of Guangdong (if our New Territories are anything to go by) are absolutely 100% suited to this by reason of their capacity for it, demonstrated for centuries in the villages here and across the way. We are on to a good thing, I would think!\n\n—\n\nJH In drawing these proceedings to a close, perhaps I should add that this work does spill over into the urban area. Elizabeth [Sinn] and Patrick have been able to galvanize — that is probably the right word — the Tung Wah Hospital to do something about its records. The Po Leung Kuk is also now doing something to preserve its records. Indeed, today the SCMP has a very interesting photograph of the new lady chairman of the Kuk, Mrs. Lee, looking over her records.\n\nI should not forget to mention the work of the Hong Kong Museum of History which, David has said, is going to have an exhibition of historical inscriptions and is going to publish them too. They were going to do it last year, but realised that if they do it badly, all the scholars of Hong Kong will jump on them, particularly the elderly experienced Chinese scholars, and so they are being very cautious and rightly so. The exhibition will be held this year and perhaps even next, but no matter. They do give us a great deal of support, and we are very fortunate in this.\n\nAlso, I don't think we should hit the Universities too hard, because one can't expect everyone to be interested in local history. The important thing is that they get to know what we are doing and give us support, and that the institutions themselves become more broad-minded about what may be local history but in fact has a much wider contest and larger implications than the term \"local history\" would suggest. That's what we want from the Universities.\n\nRevd Carl Smith But the University of Hong Kong has just cancelled its proposed lectureship in Hong Kong Studies. This, I believe, indicates how much it really cares for ‘local history'.\n\nJH — Yes, so I hear, and it is regrettable and short-sighted if true.\n\nFinally, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming to us tonight.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211419, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "111\n\nTwo other physicians, one Japanese trained in Japan and one American trained in the United States, were also denied entry. Butterfield and Swire contested this decision in court; the court not only ruled against the company, but also made it pay a fine. Uncle felt he had to return to private practice because he had a family to support, even though he would have liked to study for two more years, and decided to go back to Shanghai where Western medicine was becoming more accepted among the Chinese residents.\n\nAlthough Uncle was proficient in Chinese, in preparation for an imperial examination (I believe this was one of the last imperial examinations held) for students who had studied abroad, he sought tutoring in the language and in the use of interjections. He passed the examinations and, according to Toby, he was awarded the degree of chü-jen. However, as I recall it, Father told me that Uncle received the degree of chin-shih; but would have been awarded a higher honour if his Chinese had been a little better. We have a copy of a photograph of him and the other recipients in their ceremonial caps and gowns taken in Peking. For Uncle, his family and his clansmen, it was an honour indeed and there was much rejoicing when he returned to Shanghai. His one regret was that he could not see clearly the Kuang-hsu Emperor (1875-1908) during the ceremonial awards, for although near-sighted, he was not allowed to wear his glasses in the imperial presence.\n\nOut of a sense of civic duty, Uncle served as medical officer for both the Customs Service and the Post Office in Shanghai, from 1916 until 1925 when he retired. When we visited him in 1919, his home was on Hankow Road. He later invested in real estate in the Chapei district and moved to Darrock Road, but all of his real property was taken over by the Japanese, and then by the Communists. When the Japanese invaded Shanghai, Uncle and Aunt moved south to live in Macau where he had become a Portuguese citizen earlier, and also in Hong Kong where he owned another home. When the war ended, they returned to Shanghai to live with their second son, Ting Hing R (Charles), and in 1948 visited with Toby in Taiwan for several months. When the Communists took over, they did not dare venture out of their home. Uncle died in 1953 at the age of 83, and Aunt a half year later in 1954 at the age of 81.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211454, "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": 170, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "146\n\nolder ones tagging behind. Happy was the welcome we gave him when we ran down the street to greet him as he returned from work, relieving him of parcels (usually food) he carried and vying to tell him of the day's happenings. This was before automobiles took over our streets. When in good spirits, he would sing Chinese opera or English songs or hymns, among which were 'Way Down Upon the Swanee River', 'Home, Sweet Home', 'My Old Kentucky Home', and 'In the Sweet, Bye and Bye', his favourite hymn. We learned these songs but did not thoroughly understand or correctly pronounce a number of the words.\n\nYet, in the other aspects, Father was a timid person. He was afraid of thunder and lightning. If a storm arose in the night, he would get up, cook a simple meal and awaken Ruth and me to eat and keep him company. He was not adept at manual work and he was afraid of heights. He usually got me to climb a ladder to do a necessary chore because I was the tom-boy in the family. He often felt the pressure of Mr. Carter's bad temper and would be silent and moody for a while when he returned from work. We the children sensed enough to keep quiet while he worked out his frustrations, although eventually he developed a duodenal ulcer. I will always remember Father as a warm, witty and loving father, whose sense of humour gave us cheers and laughter. However, he could be stern and strict, but not often, when he expected good behaviour.\n\nTwo themes ran through his early childhood in the village: a harsh teacher and inadequate food. He related how he and First Uncle's wife would commiserate with each other when they could afford ‘only one salted bean with each mouthful of rice. I am quite sure that Grandfather and First Uncle had sent adequate support and were not aware of their plight. In those days, it was the practice to send money to families through male relatives who often appropriated part of the money. Because of this deprivation during his childhood, Father was a frugal man, very careful and conservative with his money.\n\nExposed to the Christian influence of the Damons and others, Father became a member of the Fort Street Church in Honolulu, after being baptized in Hilo by the Rev. Yee Kui. A person of integrity and morality, he tried to bring us up to be respectful, honest and industrious. He once gave me a verbal dressing down when I said to him, 'Are you crazy?' Another time he gave me a terrible switching because I had wandered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211457, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "149\n\nUpon receiving word of the unexpected death of Second Paternal Aunt, Father decided to take a trip to China to see his remaining brothers and sisters. Passage by boat after the First World War was difficult to secure, but reluctant to change his schedule and to inconvenience the bank, he accepted steerage accommodation and left in April 1919 on the Shinyo Maru. Before the ship arrived in Japan some ten days later, he had seen 19 passengers die from influenza and he had himself fallen ill. He debarked in Japan to seek medical care, but as he had difficulty communicating with the Japanese doctor, he proceeded to Shanghai so that Second Paternal Uncle could take care of him. The weather in Shanghai proved to be too cold, so he decided to go to Hong Kong to stay with First Paternal Uncle. There a doctor Koch diagnosed Father as suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. When his fingers began to swell, relatives believed the sulphur content of the water in Hong Kong was not beneficial and arranged to move him to my maternal grandfather's home in Shekki, occupied then by his widow and son. It was then that Father sent for Mother. With the help of C. K. Ai, Mother was able to obtain passage, again steerage, on the S. S. Nanking for herself, Dora, and me. Ruth and Helen were left in the care of the Ais. It must have been difficult for them, especially for Helen, to be separated from Mother under such stressful circumstances.\n\nOn shipboard we were one of three families in a large cabin, sharing one bath. There was much noise and activity in and outside of this cabin, but we kept much to ourselves because Mother was very much worried about Father and left Dora, who cried a good deal, probably from seasickness, to my care. One day Mother suffered such severe gastric pain that she thought she would die and gave me instructions as to what to do. The ship's doctor was able to ease her pain. It was a frightening experience and the trip was a traumatic one for all three of us. Years later, Dr. Samuel Yee found that Mother had had a healed perforated gastric ulcer and I wondered if it had occurred then.\n\nSince we were total strangers in a different world, First Paternal Uncle thoughtfully accompanied us from Hong Kong to join Father in Shekki. We travelled over the ocean and up river to our destination on a crowded junk or \"doo\", to be greeted joyfully by Father. Chinese herbs and good food, however, had not been able to restore Father to good health. So my parents decided to return to Honolulu, hoping that a stay at the Leahi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211470, "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": 186, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "162\n\nthe rod. She would say, “A good rod produces a good offspring\". The louder I yelled, more out of anger than of pain, the more she applied the rattan until I gave in. She must have entertained some guilt over her handling of me, because when her anger subsided, she would rub the black and blue stripes on my legs with a Chinese herbal liquid. Father never interceded. Once when I attended a lawn party at the Theodore Richards home and did not heed Ruth's warning to desist from active play, Mother withheld dinner from me when she discovered that I had soiled my party dress. Even when Father asked me to supper, I did not dare join the family. It was not until Mother found me stealing food from the cupboard that she relented. There were times when she restricted my freedom by tying me to the leg of the dining table with a dog chain. It seemed that I was the child on whom she usually took out her frustrations, causing me to wonder at times if I were adopted. Ruth had her share of punishment, but much less. When Mother was in her 70's, I asked her why she had always concluded I was in the wrong without asking for my version. She merely smiled and asked what she should do to rectify it. In spite of these clashes of will, she gave me a good deal of love. I remember the time, when I was about 10, how pleased I was when she praised me for carrying the heavier of two bottles of limes she had left in the sun to cure. I also felt her concern the times she would prepare special foods and herbs for me, or massage my chest with warm peanut oil whenever I got sick. As I grew in knowledge and maturity, I began to understand her desire to bring me up correctly with the kind of discipline that prevailed in the Chinese culture. We were then able to communicate effectively, with much understanding and concern for each other.\n\nIn 1917 after Mother, who was under the care of Dr. Mitamura, almost suffered a miscarriage, Father bought a three-bedroom house from a Mr. Azevedo at 170 South School Street, the third one from Lusitana Street. It was located at the foot of Punchbowl where many Portuguese had settled, and was part of a small orange grove once owned by Judge Antonio Perry's father. We not only enjoyed the fruits of the three orange trees but also those of the avocado and Pirie mango trees which we planted - a great source of vitamins for us.\n\nOn 7 October, 1917, on a Sunday afternoon, when Mrs. Lam Toy chanced to visit us, Mother gave birth to her last child, attended by Dr.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211496, "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "188\n\nLet everyone bear in mind that nothing is to be rejected - a pamphlet, a newspaper, nay a handbill, which to the ordinary reader is no more than a valueless scrap of paper, may become, in the hands of the searcher, the means of an important discovery.\"\n\nUntil his departure from China in 1876, Cordier worked hard to build up the society's collection. He arranged exchanges of publications with other societies around the world and he regularly canvassed local foreign residents and members for donations. He was able to get, at no cost to the society, the British Parliamentary papers concerning China, Customs Service reports and other governmental publications, and a full run of the Shanghai Evening Courier. But in spite of his obvious successes, his last annual report revealed some frustration:\n\nDuring the last five years, the Society has endeavoured to enlist public sympathy and patronage to a greater extent, pointing out the wants of the Library in its annual reports; but the various appeals made have not fully realized the looked-for result. Unremitting attention and care have been bestowed upon the Library of the Asiatic Society; but the time thus spent, if not responded to on the part of the community, by a show of interest in its only literary and scientific institution, is uphill work, and naturally becomes disheartening.\n\nThat the Library meets a real want is proved by the great increase in the number of works consulted or lent out, as shown by the register kept for the purpose.\"\n\nHowever, when looking back thirty years later, Cordier spoke of \"the pleasant feelings I have in my heart in speaking of these days of yore\", and he acknowledged that his work with the society's library laid the groundwork for his career as a sinologist.2\n\nCordier was replaced by a German named Joseph Haas, who seemed to have been more concerned with keeping books than acquiring them. His annual reports were filled with items such as:\n\n \n \n :\n ¦", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211551, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "244\n\nhalls and genealogies as significant constituents of the lineage when in fact they were just status-symbols of a past era. In the end, that aspect of the lineage which constituted the product of an official culture must be distinguished from those real lineages \"on the ground\" having rights of settlement and built upon rules of inheritance and estate.\n\nI would like to address my criticism with regard to three dimensions of his overall argument: 1) his assertion that the principles of lineage organization (i.e. descent) and village are distinct and that both then collaborate to produce a \"lineage society\" (his part 1), 2) his contention that the \"great\" lineages depicted in the historical and ethnographic literature are official \"fictions\" and thus should be dissociated from those real lineages on the ground” (his part 2), and 3) his argument that the appearance of lineage-villages and village-alliances in the \"post-traditional” era was made possible only following the decline of the \"great\" clans (the historical relationship between parts 1 and 2). I think there are failures with respect to all three dimensions.\n\n1\n\nWith respect to the first, frankly I see nothing in his alternative thesis which presents any salient criticism of Freedman's thesis or any serious understanding of the latter in its own terms. In fact, his basic argument would have been enhanced by not even referring to Freedman at all. Faure's attack on Freedman's focus on the apparent \"coincidence of agnatic and local community” misses the mark completely because the actual local constitution of territorial groups was never a crucial concern in any of Freedman's monographs as it is for Faure as a local historian. In his preface to the first of two monographs on Chinese lineage organization, Freedman (1958:xii) recognized the existence of both single-lineage and multi-lineage villages in order to emphasize the thrust of his thesis as something quite other, namely the functional operation of the lineage (as descent group) in analytical terms, irrespective of how it happens to be constituted in territorial terms. As he put it rather unambiguously.\n\nI must make it plain that while I attempt to remain faithful to the facts I have been able to adduce, the picture I gradually build up inevitably departs from reality by subsuming (territorial) variations under generalized heads. But if my picture of the localized lineage (as sociological ideal type) in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211681, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "71\n\nof the boatswain's whistle the Union Jack was hauled down, while the sailors presented arms and the civilians stood to attention: then we all stooped to collect our chattels, and the party in single file, laden as if returning from an especially successful jumble sale, passed over the Bund under cover of an additional guard detailed from the hulk. A surprised and now silent crowd of Chinese looked on with enquiring eyes at the strange procession, as it moved up the gangway, round the hulk, and on to H.M.S. \"Wyvern\", which had been brought alongside.\n\nWhile this withdrawal took place at Butterfield's hulk, a similar retreat was in progress from the other point of concentration further up the Bund, across Jardine's hulk, to H.M. gunboat \"Scarab”. The small group of American residents in Kiu Kiang had withdrawn to their own ship several days before.\n\nThe two warships cast off and anchored in mid-stream. The evacuees numbered three dozen males of several nationalities and various walks in life. With proverbial hospitality the Navy set about finding berths for them all; I was lucky to be detailed to one of several houseboats which had made fast alongside,\n\nThese motor-houseboats were designed for travel along the creeks and canals that formed an extensive inland water system throughout the Yangtze valley. Business men were thus able to visit in comfort the numerous cities of central China, to discuss affairs with their Chinese agents and dealers, check stocks, arrange remittances of funds through the native banks, and survey the market. The convenience was great in a country entirely devoid of motor roads. The boats were also ideal for week-end shooting trips. In season, the countryside teemed with game: snipe, woodcock, every species of duck and teal, geese and bustard; hare, hog-deer, quail, bamboo-partridge the best eating-bird of the lot and the king of them all the magnificent Chinese pheasant.\n\n―\n\nJ\n\nM.H.B. \"Hsun Si\" was a typical craft of her kind. She was fifty feet long and drew four feet of water. Right forward over the companion-way stood the small wheelhouse, where the \"laodah\"* sat to steer. Down\n\n* \"Laodah\". Name by which chief member of the Chinese crew was called. Translated literally it meant \"old great one” — generally old in skulduggery and great in prevarication. As a class, delightful. They would blandly fleece the unwary on coal, firewood, kerosene, cleaning materials, and market purchases; and more especially on mops, which would wear out at a phenomenal rate. But the real \"clean-up\" would occur during the annual overhaul, which often led to a change, but not for the better, of laodahs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211791, "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": 206, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "181\n\nof the Olympic Theatre or Royal Olympic Theatre which was located at the back of the Shanghai Club, in the southern part of the Settlement. It had a dress circle and there is even mention of a \"second circle\".\n\nI.\n\nFinally we come to the last of the godown theatres, the Lyceum Theatre which was stated to be situated at Peking Road (ex Consulate Road), 104 The proprietors were the big firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co which had a hong on the corner of the Bund and Peking Road, 105 This was the scene of the 1864-1865 and 1865-1866 seasons.\n\nJ.\n\nEvidently the existing situation was highly unsatisfactory. This was realised as early as 1852 when, at a Public Meeting on September 25, a Committee was formed at the instigation of the Shanghai Library that was looking for more appropriate accommodations. This Committee was to study the possibilities of “erecting a Building for an exchange and reading room\". 106 In December a prospectus was issued by the Committee in which it was suggested that in the so called \"Public Institution”, “a large room might be fitted for the Theatre, already under comparatively disadvantageous circumstances one of the most popular amusements we have\", All these plans came to nothing, however, so in 1864 an epilogue to a theatrical evening gave vent to feelings of discontent:\n\n* 107\n\nLadies and gentlemen, our course is run 'T is yours to gild our quickly setting sun For if upon your frowns that sun should set This theatre must be advertised \"To Let'. Shorn of its glory, prestige and renown Like our poor selves 't will be a mere godown. Not that the Drama in this wealthy port\n\nTo such an humble bounty pray be led And build a lasting structure in its stead\". 108\n\nApart from the inconvenience of securing a suitable godown every year, there was a great deal of capital loss involved. Each time a warehouse had to be fitted up at considerable cost (about 2,000 Taels in 1865; a Tael was worth approx. 6/7 in this period; in addition to the rent of Tls", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211801, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "A CALENDAR OF PERFORMANCES \n\n1850 - 1865 \n\n191 \n\nIntroduction \n\nInstead of giving a rather dull summing up of dates and plays, I have added to almost each performance excerpts from the reviews which appeared in the local paper(s), with explanatory note if necessary. The material is not equally abundant on all occasions. Sometimes only a few lines were published, sometimes more than a column: actors were not always mentioned and there are hardly any details about the staging of the plays. With respect to the actors and musicians, cast lists have been given only when real names were available. In the excerpts numerous instances will be found of stage names as adopted by Thespian residents. It is unfortunate that their true identity cannot be ascertained; nevertheless, I had to include them, especially those who made a \"career\" of sorts in the Shanghai theatre. Perhaps one day it will, through e.g., private correspondence in some archives, become possible gradually to lift the veil. It should be reminded that female characters with the amateurs were always played by men. Only in the professional companies is a Miss really a Miss. \n\nAll reports about the wonderful acting qualities of the amateurs should of course be seen in their proper perspective. It has been said in the Survey that we cannot be sure how good or bad the performances were, but it must be assumed (and the 1852 Epilogue hints as much) that things were liable to go wrong and that the acting was rather crude, certainly not as polished and natural as we are used to today. That was often not even the case with professional players in that time, let alone amateur ones. \n\nIn the papers, playwrights were almost never mentioned, so other sources had to be used in order to establish authorship. Invaluable in this regard are: Allardyce Nicoll: A Dictionary of the Drama, of which unfortunately only Volume I (A-G) was published; The Player's Library; and, to a lesser extent, T.A. Brown: A History of the New York Stage. \n\nComposers of musical pieces performed at concerts were similarly not always mentioned. Where possible, I have tried to supply the missing information. \n\nIn Appendix I will be found an author list of plays with full titles and in Appendix II an alphabetical list of plays staged in Shanghai; both with dates of performances. \n\nAs far as feasible, the pieces in the Calendar have been entered in the order they were represented on a particular night. \n\nAbbreviations: \n\nT. Type of play \n\nC.: Company \n\nF.: Features \n\nBGM: Boletim do Governo de Macao \n\nCM: China Mail \n\nNCH: North China Herald \n\nSCR: Shanghai Commercial Record \n\nTh. Theatre \n\nN.: Note \n\nR.: Review \n\nN.N.: Not Named \n\n1849-1850: First theatrical season, but no titles of plays have been recorded.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211823, "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": 238, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "213 \n\nOur Wife: \n\nCount de Brissac: Major Taylor \n\nRosine: Mr. W. Hyslop (of Gibb, Livington & Co) Pomaret, father of Rosine: D.A.C.G. Cooksley \n\nMarquis de Ligny: Mr. Stuart \n\nMariette: Lt Maynard of the 31st regiment \n\nThe Goose with the Golden Eggs: \n\nMr. Turby: D.A.C.G. Cooksley \n\nHis wife: D.A.C.G. Hayter \n\nClara, their daughter: Mr. A. Broom (of Jardine, Matheson & Co) \n\nBonsor, clerk: Dr. Sexton of the 5th Bombay N.L.I. (native lancers and infantry) Flickster: Li Yonge, 2nd Beloochi regiment \n\nAfter a lapse of almost three years the amateur theatricals took a new lease of life in a tastefully fitted up godown-theatre (for a description see Survey). It was a subscription-night with about 250 spectators, of whom 30 were female. For the first time some real names of actors were given and it became clear that the cooperation of the military had been sought for the occasion. Because the names are no longer phoney, it is finally useful to present a cast list. Among those mentioned was D.A.C.G. (i.e. Deputy Assistant Commissary General) Cooksley who died in July during one of the campaigns against the Taipings, at Quinsan. Fine playing, if one did not mind the pieces. That, however, had become a standard complaint by now. \"There was nothing striking or witty in either of the plays so that an occasional local pun or remark interpolated by the actors elicited the greatest applause\"; rather sourly the critic continued “this should not be as it interferes with the harmony of the play”. In Our Wife \"the gentle blushing Rosine was capitally got up by Mr. HYSLOP who created quite ‘a sensation' when he made his curtsey to the audience\". In contrast Mr. STUART \"was graceful in his part but lacked energy where it was requisite to give effect to the plot\". That female dress was not always easy to wear for the men was underlined when \"Lt MAYNARD acted the strong-minded cousin Mariette very fairly, despite the difficulties of crinoline”. In The Goose with the Golden Eggs the Mrs. Turby of D.A.C.G. HAYTER was \"the best piece of masculo-feminine performance we have seen\". It had to be admitted though that not all men were equally up to female characters: \"Clara, as represented by Mr. BROOM, although admirably got up in the coiffure, was rather outré in the dress, especially about the sleeves; while the manner and voice resembled more the roughness of the father than the gentleness of the mother\". (NCH 14.2.1863). \n\nL \n\n17.2.1863 (Tue) \n\nRepeat of 13.2.1863. \n\n2.3.1863 \n\nS. LOVER: \"The White Horse of the Peppers\" (1838) \n\nT: Comic drama (2 acts) \n\nR.B. BROUGH: \"Crinoline*\" (1856) \n\nT: Farce (1 act) \n\nC: Amateurs of the British 31st regiment \n\nTH: N.N. \n\nR: Cast: \n\nThe White Horse of the Peppers: \n\nMajor Hans Mansfeldt: W. Parrott Gerald Pepper: A. Keeble Magdalene: H. MacGuire Crinoline: \n\nMrs. Coobiddy: S. Gale Mr. Coobiddy: W. Phillips \n\nAgutha: S. Gule \n\nDillon: J.S. Galbreath \n\nCapt. LeBrown: J.S. Galbreath Miss Tite: P. Conron", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211866, "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": 281, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "256\n\nMonday, March 11th\n\nBreakfast at half past eight. Walk on deck. The deck is a very convenient place, and being high, and clean, and quiet, forms a nice walk to and fro. Only the captain and passengers, and chief mate have any business on the deck. In hot weather we shall have an awning spread over, and it will be very pleasant. At present it is too cold to sit; the wind being very keen.\n\nAt ten we were under weigh, and rounded the North Foreland, and were off Deal in almost no time. The ship is a fast sailor, and far surpassed all the other ships that were going out with us. Just as she came to the cross tides she began to roll very much, and shortly after, my headache increased, and I had my first turn at sickness, though it was not seasickness, nor anything like it. We anchored off Deal, and could have a fine view of the town and of all the coast of Kent. I put my room in order, and made it tolerably comfortable.\n\nTuesday, March 12th\n\nRose early and had a walk on deck. The wind unfavorable, sea rough, and no sign of making a move. However the wind shifted, and we made for the Downs where was quite a crowd of shipping, waiting for favorable wind. So we came to anchor among them, and remained all day. I have now become more reconciled to my berth, and hope soon to feel myself quite at home.\n\nToday Capt. Moate came on board. He is to be my fellow passenger for the journey. If I had to select a companion for the voyage I should not have chosen him. He would do very well for a fast young man, but not for me. There will be little sympathy between us during the voyage.\n\nWednesday, March 13th\n\nToday the wind shifting we followed the example of our neighbours, and made a start. It was mid-day before we could get fairly off. At last off we went, past Dover, Folkestone, and poor old Hythe.3 My thoughts and feelings as we went along, however, I shall not attempt to describe, since they are indescribable. We were soon round Dungeness, and up to Beachy Head; when about midnight the wind", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211873, "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": 288, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "263\n\nI shall not venture to say much about the cooking, etc. for I am obliged to keep my eyes shut on all occasions where I am near it, for fear I might see something not quite to my fancy in that department. I enjoy the biscuits very much, only I shall soon have to shut my eyes when eating them. Our fresh provisions are beginning to go, so we must soon fall back upon the preserved provisions. We have plenty of good milk to last the voyage, plenty of sardines, salmon, etc. and plenty of bottled fruit, so that we have a fruit pie or pudding every day. In fact we have everything that could be procured on land, and for what I can see, quite as good.\n\nThe captain and I agree very well on all points but religion. Yesterday we had a regular set-to about it, and I was obliged to talk to him rather plainly, only it will not do to say too much to such a man when he is warm. Captain Moult is about such another, or else he would not be a bad companion. He has been well educated, and has a good share of common sense. We are thrown a great deal into each other's society, and so it is to our interest to keep on pretty good terms. Since he has resided at Hong Kong for some time he knows all about the place, and I get a good deal of information out of him, on different subjects.\n\nWe have spent several hours in walking the deck together. It is the only exercise to be got on board ship. I have however invented two or three species of exercise in my cabin, which I find very beneficial. I believe I should be soon laid up if I did not take a fair amount of exercise. Often I have envied the sailors at their work, and should have liked to have a pull at the ropes with them.\n\nSaturday, April 6th\n\nToday has been a cheerful pleasant day. Soon after daylight the chief mate came down with the intelligence that land was in sight on the \"lee bow\". After so many days rambling over the water it was joyful news to me, so I got up, and had the usual wash all over, and went upon deck to take my constitutional, i.e. early walk. It was a lovely morning. The sun already \"well up\" was rather warm, and all round was lovely and delightful. Sure enough there was the land, but it was above thirty miles off, yet on account of its great elevation (in some parts 6000 ft) I judged it to be about four. The clear atmosphere quite deceived me. It proved to be Madeira, and we were on the eastern side. All day I have been on deck enjoying the beautiful soft balmy breezes, which are now quite", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211875, "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": 290, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "265\n\nshade in the saloon. It will not at any part of the voyage be very much hotter. I hope to be able to endure the heat without much inconvenience.\n\nI have got into a kind of system of living of which I will give you today as an instance. Rose at half past six, had a wash all over in salt water, and then at half past seven went up on deck for half-an-hour's parade. Breakfast at half past eight. Study Chinese from nine till twelve. Lunch, and then read Milton till dinner time, committing some portions to memory. At four o'clock I went at Milton again till six, when I stopped to view the sunset and walk up and down for half an hour. Then tea, and am now here writing.\n\nToday several whales played round the ship. One was estimated at 50ft long. One I saw was I believe 30ft, and leaped clean out of the water. As yet we have not caught a fish of any kind, but hope to when we reach the line, which we expect to do in eight or ten days with a fair wind.\n\nIt is now about one fourth of the voyage over, which is a great comfort to think of. The other day we killed a sheep, and now have only one left. We have still fowls enough to last for some time to come, although we generally have two every day.\n\nI am often thinking of what lies before me in China, and expect I shall find it rather strange at first, but I mean to make the best of it come what may. The sun has regularly browned my face, and made me look quite a different person, quite unlike the palefaced fellow I used to, and I am getting quite stout, so much so as to burst my waistcoat. We now have an awning spread over the deck, so that the deck is very cool and comfortable.\n\nFriday, April 19th\n\nI have nothing of any importance to add to my journal, yet I may as well put down what there is. This morning's observation showed that we have very nearly reached the line. Tomorrow if all is well we shall be crossing it. The captain and others have been joking me a great deal about what I have to undergo, according to the usual custom, on this occasion. They talk about having a long boat half filled with water for my ducking, and preparing a fine lather and iron hoop for the purpose of shaving me. But I only laugh at their nonsense, although they may perhaps want to try it on as a bit of fun. So if they do I must even make", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211881, "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": 296, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "271 \n\nand fine ones they are too. I do not know how many we have now. We talk about getting some monkeys at Anjer when we get there. I wish we were to be there tomorrow. They reckon above 40 days now before we make it. We yesterday crossed the meridian of Greenwich and are now in East Longitude.\n\nI could not help thinking all day yesterday what was going on at home and among my friends and relations since it is the same time with us here as it is in England. I very often visited them all round, and had a peep at what all were doing during the day. We shall soon be ahead of you now, and very soon when you get up in the morning we shall be at noon, taking our luncheon.\n\nSaturday, May 18th\n\nYesterday we were within 200 miles of the Cape, but had to come to a stop and turn back on account of foul winds, so now we are going back again. If we had gone farther the current would have taken us no one knows where out of the way. We have now to go south for about 300 miles before we get round the Cape; and today the sea is as smooth as glass, and it is the calmest day we have had since leaving England. Still we hope for a wind soon, and I believe the men are \"putting the ship round\" to be ready for it. Tomorrow we shall have been out ten weeks, and with fair winds we ought to have been here in seven weeks. It is very disheartening.\n\n1\n\nI have spent a good deal of time lately in study. In fact I am making it like college work, and thus the time goes very nearly as fast. I should like this very nearly as well as college if there were more society, and if I could hear from home once a week.\n\nYesterday I amused myself by fishing for birds. I manufactured a hook out of a bent pin, but that did not answer, so I tried a bent needle, but that being slender and brittle was soon gone. So I bent a large stocking needle and managed to make it do. I caught a cape pigeon by the wing and hauled him up and put him to death. A second one I dropped into the water before I could seize him. In the evening I caught another, but in killing it I made its feathers so dirty that it was useless. The first I skinned and should preserve it if I had the proper chemicals. I can have plenty of alum, but that I fear would not do, so I shall throw it overboard after the other. They are large birds with very thick plumage,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212022, "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": 437, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "412\n\nsignificant step in his development into a connoisseur—collector-painter.\n\nCollecting as well as creating paintings soon became young Mr. Wang's principal preoccupation. However, he supported his collecting and his family by some real estate ventures because he was not able to make enough money through the sale of his paintings.\n\nThe story of C.C. Wang's journey to the West (New York) and attending classes at the Art Students League, his explorations of modern Western art and his artistic evolution is marvelously told through the well-written prose of Jerome Silbergeld, Professor of Art History at the University of Washington in Seattle.\n\nProfessor Silbergeld comes to his subject with a deep knowledge and background in classical Chinese painting and provides a sinological, art historical perspective of C.C. Wang's work. But the author does not avoid his role as contemporary critic, analyzing the relationship of the artist and modern art. When C.C. Wang's breakthrough to his mature style comes in 1971-2, the author allows the events to unfold like high drama. Moreover, throughout the text, the artist is permitted to state his own views on the elements of his art such as line, colour, composition, dots, texture, cultivation of controlled accidents, synthesis of East and West: \"Chinese brushwork is really individual, like Western color. Good brushwork is so beautiful. It can make you look at it many times... It's just like with voice when I hear one song, if the voice is good I want to hear another song. It's the same voice, but each time it's a little bit different: that attracts me so much. . .', (p. 42).\n\nOther notable scholars and critics who have written about artist-collector-connoisseur Wang have also been allowed to speak with their own voices, which gives the story a clarity and authenticity rarely achieved in a scholarly book. Moreover, the book is lavishly illustrated with not only Mr. Wang's works of all periods but also with the paintings that were most influential in building his style.\n\nIn addition, Professor Silbergeld recounts the long history of C.C. Wang as collector, and how he has been a central figure in influencing the growth of major collections of Chinese art in the West, notably that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, through the sale of his own collections.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212061, "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": 3, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "Page & \n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH \n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1990/91 \n\nMembers who attended last year's Annual General Meeting and the dinner that followed will remember with pleasure that the latter was attended by our patron, the Governor of Hong Kong, His Excellency, Sir David Wilson. It was a singularly happy occasion in which at a speech at the dinner Sir David, a notable scholar on Chinese affairs and culture, wished he could be plain Dr. Wilson again. He said he appreciated the good work done by the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society and that the Journal had built up an established place in scholarly circles; the visits and talks programmes did a great deal to inform members and their friends about Hong Kong. He went on to say there were two kinds of overseas resident. Those who never bothered much about their surroundings and could, if they wished, live a hotel type of existence and the other kind to which our members belonged, i.e. those who were always curious about the local scene, and wished to know more about it. The Society was largely founded on the great British tradition of scholar-officials and such persons had contributed much to the study of Asia. He recognised, however, that changes were in the air and was pleased to know that there was now a significant local element in the membership of the Society and in the organisation of its activities. \n\nThat evening, however, also saw another significant event, and I refer of course to the stepping down of Dr. James Hayes as President of the Society, in view of his departure to Australia, although I am more than pleased to see that he has returned temporarily and is here this evening. It is difficult to tabulate briefly what James has done for the Society, from the moment he joined soon after its revival in 1959, and later as a permanent office bearer: he was Editor of the Journal for fourteen years, Vice-President since 1970 and then President as from 1983. His scholarly contributions to the Journal are there in our publications to read: many of us have benefited from his knowledge and expertise on the many exhausting excursions he led in Hong Kong. In brief he epitomised everything the Royal Asiatic Society in Hong Kong stood for and we all miss his wise counsel. \n\nWith those events in mind it is with some trepidation therefore I stand before you to report on the Society's activities during my first \n\nvii \n\nPage &", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212071, "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": 13, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "object of encouraging an active interest in East Asia, and in particular China, through the medium of lectures and discussions and by publishing an annual Journal”. These objectives must always be borne in mind and so it was particularly gratifying to see that the Hong Kong Standard thought we were worthy of space in their special 150th anniversary issue on the Foundation of Hong Kong, published late last year: I am grateful to Carl Smith for writing this article and to see that it brought forth many favourable comments. It is interesting to note that in spite of a 112 year gap in our history the influence of the Royal Asiatic Society is very much in evidence.\n\nThis evidence can also be seen in other areas. I would hesitate to call this Society a watchdog for the History of Hong Kong but nevertheless we are concerned about matters which could erode the historical heritage of our local community. For this reason the Council thought it appropriate to write to the Urban Council urging them to think again about the proposed charges for entering museums under their control; this is a new departure for the Urban Council and we will inform you in due course whether our representations make any headway. Again, whilst the Society does not have direct representation on the Antiquities Advisory Board, (a matter of some controversy), there are three members of the Council on the Board and we are therefore in some position to make our views known. We have also at their request written to the Government about the conservation and rescue programme for the area affected by the Airport and Lantau Port Study Areas.\n\nFinally I would like to turn to the future. Whether 1997 was on the horizon or not a Society such as ours needs to ensure that it continues to meet the aspirations of its members, have an active and interesting programme, a Journal which is worthy of the best, and that we are in a position to make our contribution within our objectives to the community at large. The Society was asked to comment by OMELCO on the Bill of Rights and we responded by emphasising the need for real freedoms, as opposed to paper ones and that such conditions in the Bill of Rights should also be included in or be in accord with the Basic Law when it comes into force: in particular, members of Council agreed on the need for freedom of academic research and that there should be no diminution of existing access to government and other records. We shall continue to watch developments, but if we are to succeed in continuing as a viable and active society we will\n\nxii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212201, "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": 143, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "120\n\nwhich the government was hurriedly building from Hengyang, on the Canton-Hankow line. The embankment was finished, the culverts and bridges were in, and the construction gangs laying the rails were only a few miles off. The rails had been salvaged from sections of line abandoned to the invader in the distant north, and brought to Kwangsi despite great difficulties.\n\nI drove on to Hengyang and on the way observed one of those curious inconsistencies to which you grow accustomed in China. The Ministry of Communications, all the handicaps of the war notwithstanding, continued resolutely with its programme of road building. Where rivers were too wide to justify bridges, ferries were used. The ferry boat, a wide pontoon long enough to carry two lorries, one behind the other, would be poled across the river, or rowed over those stretches where the water might be too deep. As the current often ran fast some skill was needed to bring the ferry safely to the far side, and it took time. You would have thought that on these main roads, on which the movement of war supplies depended, relays of ferries would have been installed at the wider rivers to avoid unnecessary delay. Not only was that not so, but the ferry men, who were controlled by the Provincial Road Bureaux under the Ministry of Communications, refused to work after dark, or at meal hours. The consequence was that again and again a long string of vehicles would be held up waiting to cross, and if the ferry-trip took half an hour, as it usually did, you might have to wait a whole day for your turn. The wooden ferry boats were of local construction and not difficult to build. It would have been easy to increase the number of boats and ferrymen, but these serious bottlenecks in transportation continued to hamper the Chinese war effort. Only too often have Japanese bombers taken advantage of the target presented by a group of vehicles bunched at a ferry.\n\nBetween Kweilin and Hengyang you pass the watershed that separates the Yangtze basin from the West river basin. An ancient narrow canal, five feet wide, recently repaired, connects the two headwaters. There is an old story of a British gunboat having come up from the West river past Kweilin to a point whence those on board could see the mast-tops of a sister ship which had sailed up from the Yangtze. The masts must have been very tall; or perhaps the story is tall, because actually the gap between them could not have been less than thirty miles.\n\nWithout stopping at Hengyang I went straight through the same", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212205, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "124\n\ninternational communities, the smaller treaty ports had come to depend for their foreign population on the few large companies which maintained organisations throughout the country. These included the British American Tobacco Company, the Asiatic Petroleum (Shell) Company, amongst the distributing companies, and Messrs. Jardine Matheson and Company generally known as Ewo, and Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, amongst the shipping companies. Imperial Chemical Industries as a rule only had offices in the larger ports. China at one time offered the largest market in the world for cheap quality cigarettes, and for kerosene (paraffin as we call it). The motorist in Britain and America paid less for petrol because of the kerosene offtake in China. It is self-evident that amongst the cuts distilled from the crude oil petrol, kerosene, lubricating oil, diesel oil, wax and asphalt the cost of production is recovered in proportion on each finished product and, if the market for one of those products is limited, then the price proportionately increases on the others.\n\n—\n\n―\n\nBut let not our Chinese friends claim that the distribution of kerosene in China was a form of oppressive dumping. It was not. A very real demand for illumination was met, where other satisfactory illuminants were missing, and at a price below that at which the locally produced and less efficient vegetable oils could be marketed. And this despite the heavy duty which was collected on the imported product for revenue purposes, so that it could be said of kerosene that in China it not only provided almost the sole source of illumination, but also a substantial contribution towards the cost of government.\n\nThe urgency of war was more evident in Kiu Kiang, though the Japanese had refrained from bombing the former Concession area. My old Chinese friends all wanted to know what was going to happen. How could I tell them?\n\nThe Club had moved from the Customs godown to our former flat, the interior of which had been reconstructed to meet the new purpose. The bar was in our former bedroom, and from behind it the same ancient retainer dispensed the drinks; even the dice boxes looked the same with their heavy yellow ivory dice. But I could not loiter to rattle these for long. There was a decrepit railway to Nanchang, the provincial capital, a hundred miles to the south, and with some difficulty I procured a seat for myself on the train, which as always in China was overcrowded.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212216, "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "135\n\nPolice Station, and were allocated various districts to patrol. We worked in pairs. Sometimes a regular French policeman accompanied us, in addition to several Chinese constables of the French Police Force. We would walk along as the spirit moved us; and on arriving at a cross-roads would take up a position in the middle of the street, cock our pistols, and stop all cars to look inside them. The idea of this was to catch kidnappers, as they usually carried off their gagged victims by car. One day we stopped a large car, only to find the venerable Mr. Yu Ya Ching in it. He was the senior of the five Chinese representatives on the Municipal Council. I do not know who was the more astonished, he or we! On another occasion when we looked into a car we found a complete thuggery of Russian gunmen; there is a large White Russian community in Shanghai, a survival of the Russian revolution, and many of the men were engaged by rich Chinese as bodyguards. They looked ugly, as if they were more used to holding people up themselves than being held up. The next car turned out to contain the puppet Mayor of the Chinese Municipality, who durst not venture abroad without a heavy escort. All passed off with mutual compliments. In my time we fortunately never ran into a real gangster: I have difficulty in hitting a haystack even with a snug little weapon, let alone with so heavy a piece of ancient ironmongery.\n\nUntil about 10 p.m. a heavy traffic would continue in the Avenue Joffre, the main highway on our beat. Sometimes, when we went out on bicycles, a form of sport to which I had been unaccustomed for at least a quarter of a century. I found it rather tricky moving in patrol formation amidst the traffic. If we came across an obstreperous drunk, we would turn tactfully in the opposite direction. It at least gave the Chinese some confidence to see armed foreign patrols out at night, a confidence which, I fear, may have been exaggerated. Sometimes we would stand at the corner of the street, at about the time the cinemas came out, and watch our families go home; and, when the time was up, we might go into that little bar on the ground floor of the Cathay Mansions for a bottle of \"Ewo\" Beer.\n\nAt the police station the French Municipality provided sandwiches, crumbly French rolls split in half, buttered, and holding a slice of ham, which we would munch, while our leader made his report. Then early in the morning we would go home, feeling we had earned our sleep.\n\nThe cinemas of Shanghai are as luxurious as any in the world.", "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": 212241, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "160\n\nWe now come through the porch and enter the verandah. This is an open one, and very cool and pleasant in the middle of the day. We look into the dining room where the animals are fed, and there they are, throwing in the rice with their chopsticks at a fine rate. There are two rows of square tables, and they sit on bamboo stools, and eat out of very curious plates. Their food costs but very little, although they eat a great deal of it. Two meals a day is all they require; but then they lay in a good stock while they are at it. The feeding times are a quarter to eight and half past four.\n\nWe now turn the corner of the verandah, and just glance at the rooms of the upper servants, masters, etc. At the end of the verandah is my bath room, with a jolly large bath in it where I perform my ablutions. Before the verandah is the play ground, where the pupils having done dinner are now at play. They have such a strange way of playing that if we look for a long time we shall not understand it.\n\nSo I will now take you through the bath room, up my private stairs, which I never use except to go down from the dressing room to bathe. By turning to the other side of the plan you will see where we have come up into the dressing room. Here hang all my clothes, and I have all the apparatus one can desire. I had it painted afresh. There is a large strong box, where I can keep clothes, etc.\n\nWe now come out on the verandah, and enjoy the view. The trees are so high that they reach the verandah and form a pleasant shade. This is my own private verandah. We will now enter by the large glass doors into my parlour; a very neat little room which I have had newly painted, and set out very neatly. The floor, like every other floor in the college is painted. The Chinese are excellent imitators of marble; and they paint it so naturally that it looks like square slabs of variegated marble let into the ground; dark, and whitish alternately. There is a large mahogany book case or secretary, with cupboards underneath; as many arm chairs as I like out of the library. Two easy chairs were lent me for an indefinite period by Mr Beach, who is going to Tien Tsin. One is an old fashioned one, with a spring cushion, and back, and a reading stand and candlestick which move in a socket in the arms, in any direction. The other is a very easy one, and well lined with wadding. There is a neat fire place, brass fender, marbled mantle piece, etc. A fine portrait of the Bp hangs over it; other pictures in frames hang round the room. It", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212245, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "164\n\nswing him about. He is a tall fellow, and when well rigged up, as he is when he attends on me, he does not cut a bad figure. He never was a personal servant before, and in fact never was with Europeans before. He consequently regarded me with almost as much amazement as I did him. He must have had queer ideas of what Englishmen eat, as well as the cook, who does not understand English cooking. Since I cannot explain what I want, for several days his blunders were very laughable. [I] gave him orders as I thought for a good breakfast. Went to sit down [and] found a strange medley; and had to make a meal of rice and potatoes. Told him to make some pork curry; so he and the cook got some fat pork, and stewed it in lard, and thus served it up. Now however he does very fairly. I cannot scold him, [and it is] well for him, for he would not understand me. However I am getting hold of the lingo and will soon give him the arrears, with interest. He seems desperately afraid of doing too much work, although I give him $5 a month.\n\nMy coolie is an old stager and has been employed in the college for several years. I have to rout him about pretty sharp, to keep everything clean and tidy. The cook I know but little about, except that he has the national characteristic of being a rascal. I know, as it is I have to keep the three of them nearly; and if I did not look precious sharp I might keep all their fathers and mothers. Things go no one knows how. The rats the other night went to the [meat-]safe, and ate up two pork chops, bones and all, after which they washed out the plate very clean, and put it away among the earthenware! Remarkably clever! However I told John Chinaman to tell the rats to come again, and eat as much as they thought proper, and welcome, for I should take the amount out of the wages at the end of the month. Strange to say the rats do not accept the invitation.\n\nMr Beach tells me the first few weeks will give me nothing but a continual battle with them, till they find out the depth of my purse. They always try and find out just how far you can afford to go. It costs a good deal to live here at all decently and properly. Yet I hope to be able to save money which I get quite to rights. My expenses this month have been heavy. Five pounds have had to go for clothes suitable to the climate; and I have only laid in a slender stock. People here dress almost entirely in white, since it is the coolest. Fancy me walking about with a white suit and helmet. It is rather expensive however as so much washing is required. The washing costs about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212394, "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": 336, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "313\n\nlarge balloons in the sky with banners attached calling on Group Members to purchase real estate.\n\nThe group leaders, Rosemary Lee and Anita Wilson, had done their preparatory work thoroughly. But the weather did not behave according to plan. Rain prevented a visit to the botanical gardens on the last day. The newly completed Harbour View Holiday Inn Hotel was comfortable with generally good service. The plumbing really worked unlike in some provinces such as Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang even if there were complications with key tags having to be wedged into light master-switches with a small wad of paper. But all banquets come to an end and Members arrived back in Hong Kong with fond memories of their three days' break.\n\nT\n\nI-\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nFurther Reading\n\nCourtauld, Caroline, An Illustrated Guide to Fujian, (1988) Hughes, George, Amoy and the Surrounding Districts, [1872]\n\nMcCunn, Ruthanne Lum, An Illustrated History of the Chinese in America, (1979) Pitcher, Philip Wilson, In and About Amoy (1912)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212403, "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": 345, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "322 \n\nwas also the proximate cause of American entry into World War II. Not until 1959, however, did it become one of the United States. \n\nIn Hawaii there was an important, American-backed annexationist movement; the Philippines, by contrast, were acquired largely due to the accident of the Spanish-American War of 1898, when Commodore (later Admiral) George Dewey sailed south from Hong Kong and defeated the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay. American troops initially cooperated with the Filipino insurgents who had for some time rebelled against Spanish rule; within a few months, however, Congress, after fierce debate, decided to keep the islands, the beginning of the most significant formal colonial episode in United States history. American involvement in the Philippines would illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of the American approach to international affairs. The Filipino insurrection, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, was brutally suppressed by Arthur MacArthur (father of Douglas), yet American rule was in many respects benign; indeed, the supposed American overlords were frequently manipulated by members of the Filipino elite for their own political ends. Even so, American possession of the Philippines fostered an unhealthy sense of dependency among Filipinos, still not entirely dissipated today, while overextending the United States strategically. As Theodore Roosevelt had foreseen more than thirty years earlier, in World War II the islands would prove indefensible, a military hostage and the United States' \"Achilles' heel\". \n\nAlthough Dudden fails to cite recent works by Ralph Eldin Minger on William Howard Taft's and Jack C. Lane on Leonard Wood's gubernatorial efforts in the Philippines, the early sections of the book are thorough and well-researched. Regrettably, the standards slip in his chapters on American relations with China and Japan in the decades before Pearl Harbour. Here, indeed, his determination to deal with each country in turn is a defect, since by World War I, if not before, United States policies towards China, Japan, and the Philippines were closely inter-related. The resulting repetition leads to a somewhat confused narrative. Dudden's grasp of the financial dealings between the United States government and private American bankers and China and Japan is shaky; the American Group of the Second China Consortium had not collapsed by the end of World War I, but was about to be established. His understanding of the complexities of interwar American State Department and governmental \n\nPage 345\nPage 346", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212415, "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": 357, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "334\n\nWhen you buy a book in your field — in my case women — you often do so simply because it is there and you have to have it. It is only when you get it home and start to weigh it up that you start to form judgements. If it concerns something I am writing about at the time, I look first at the bibliography and index. More generally, I look first at the illustrations to get a feel of a book, then at the preface and acknowledgements to get a feel of the writer. A book concentrating on marriage from whatever perspective, or about wherever in the world, should give out a whiff of something fascinating in that distinctive aspect of society. In this respect, The Bartered Brides starts well. There are three pictures captioned ‘A married couple ask to have their picture taken’ (p. 135). If in that particular case the bride was bartered, then both partners were, it seems, happy with the deal. Their warm feelings for each other, and their sense of fun, are delightfully apparent.\n\n—\n\nThe author, anthropologist Nancy Tapper, from whose doctoral thesis the book is derived, starts her acknowledgements, 'My debts to Richard Tapper are limitless' (p. xix); she then elaborates on their long and fruitful collaboration in both fieldwork and writing among the Maduzai of Afghanistan. ‘This woman has a head start in an attempt to analyse marriage,’ was my reaction, whether or not she is going to find for or against the marriage system of the tribal people about whom she writes, \"We care very deeply for them\" (p. xx). What is more important about this book is that, since the recent upheavals in Afghanistan, it is a unique record of a way of life that has inevitably disappeared; it is a memorial.\n\nThis introduction may have given the impression that Bartered Brides is a book for the general reader; that is not so. It is an academic one — scholarly, indeed — intended for those actively pursuing interests in gender studies, anthropology (including politics and economics), and Afghanistan. This last category includes Central Asia, for the Maduzai, one of the major tribes of the Durrani Pashtuns, are an Islamic Turkic people.\n\nThe problems of the anthropologist in observing a society and then of explaining it to the reader start, as Tapper explains, with translation. The fact that some terms are apparently easily translatable into English brings its own difficulties with, for example, the term 'marriage' itself. To point out such difficulties is to hint at the...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212459, "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": 13, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "I also have to report that there has not been much progress on the Photographic Survey being carried out in conjunction with the Cathay Camera Club. It was intended there would be a series of publications, the first of which was to cover Shaukeiwan. Photographs have been taken and some members have volunteered to assist in the collation of photographic and written material. I understand that there will be a meeting quite soon to move this project forward, initially by holding a slide show to remind ourselves what photographs we have available. The Council considers that the basic idea is still a good one and we would very much like to see some progress made this year.\n\nA great deal of the events noted above would not take place unless there was a Council of energetic members who are prepared to put time and effort into making those events successful. We are a harmonious Council, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who have served over the last year, all of whom I see are prepared to stand again next year with the exception of Dr. Thomas Lau, who has regretfully decided to stand down due to pressure of other commitments. Dr. Lau is in charge of the Public Records Office and he assures me that the Society's all-important link with that office will continue. The organisation of the Society does not of course entirely depend on Council members; we often need volunteers to help in many activities and it is heartening to see that such requests through the newsletter are generally met.\n\nThis report would not be complete, I believe, unless there was some reference to the future. The past year has seen some momentous events world-wide, and here in Hong Kong we are fully aware that there will be significant changes: in fact, they are already happening. This society is not, of course, a political one: nevertheless, if there are aspects which will have some effect on our activities, then clearly we will need to take notice, and respond accordingly. Our strength lies in the body of our membership, and the ability to look beyond our immediate environment. With the continuous opening up of China and the prospect of further dialogues, there is no reason why this society should not continue to extend its interests into regions across the border. We are not, of course, the only society in Hong Kong to try and stimulate interest in this way. There are other societies which are around, and in the last year or two, members may be aware of the Asia Society and the Royal Society of Asian Affairs: the former is based in New York and carries out a high-profile lecture programme, some of which are conducted here: the latter is based in...\n\nxii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212544, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "78\n\nproblems were blamed no longer on the Cultural Revolution activists and the Gang of Four, but also on those presently in power and those in power before the Cultural Revolution.\" With the emergence of **exposure literature**, artists and writers began to experiment with new forms. Wang Meng, for example, writing less on political issues and more on the emotions and relationships of everyday life, experimented with a variety of styles, including stream of consciousness. His short story, The Butterfly, in which he successfully used the technique of stream of consciousness, won him national recognition.\n\nThe If I Were Real episode turned out, however, rather differently. In terms of interaction between political developments and those of art and literature in the post-Mao era, probably no other single instance can provide as much insight as the play If I Were Real does. By comparing it with Wang Meng's experiments and with a later case, the Bitter Love episode, conclusions about how much artists and writers could push politically and artistically can be better tested.\n\nIf I Were Real was initially a play script depicting a young man who deceives officials in Shanghai, by pretending to be the son of a high military officer in Beijing. Because of his supposed good connections, the young man is granted all kinds of privileges, from theatre tickets to having a “friend”, who was actually himself transferred from a farm to Shanghai. When he is finally caught, he protests that he has done nothing wrong. He explains: “If I were really the son of some high party official, then whatever I have done would be considered legal.\" Thus the playscript went beyond criticism of the Gang of Four to criticize the current system.\n\n1920\n\nAs for the form, the experimental side of If I Were Real was shown in its actual staging. Audiences participated in the whole process at the beginning of the play. Pre-planned, the play begins later than the set time. When the audience grows impatient and asks why it has not started, one actress would appear in the name of the theatre manager to tell them that they cannot begin until some important “officials\" arrive. Then the audience would grow even more impatient and protest against the inequality of treatment. Then those \"officials\" would appear, among them is the \"son\", and soon some \"policemen\" follow up to arrest him and explain the story to the audience. Of course, all of the people involved are performers.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212545, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "79\n\nIf I Were Real involved two areas, literature and art and it broke into two previously \"forbidden zones\", criticizing the present leadership for tolerating corruption, and experimenting boldly with a new technique. As has been mentioned, writers who experimented with new techniques, even by borrowing Western ones, were given great leeway while the fate for the \"new content\" in literary and artistic reflections was quite different.\n\nBeginning in the autumn of 1980, the situation developed along the lines of tighter control following some speeches by some outspoken members of the Association of Writers and Artists at its Fourth Congress in October-November 19792 and the numerous stories, poems and investigative reports in the subsequent period. Fitfully in 1980, and repeatedly in 1981, literary works were charged with exaggerating the gloom, weariness, and cynicism within the population and spreading a feeling of utter hopelessness. Specifically, If I Were Real was criticized for inducing disillusionment with the system.\n\nIn the spring of 1981, the filmscript by Bai Hua, Bitter Love, was openly criticized by the Liberation Army Daily, signalling a new round of re-assessment of political development and this time culture was the target. Bitter Love was published in one of the most innovative literary journals, Shiyue (October), in September 1979. By 1981, it had been made into a movie which was shown to selected audiences but was not released to the general public. The filmscript was a sad story of an overseas Chinese painter who returned to China out of patriotism, only to be persecuted as a counter-revolutionary during the Cultural Revolution. At one point, his daughter raised the question “You have loved this country so much but does this motherland love you?'' Obviously, this question encouraged disloyalty to the party. After August 1981, the party newspapers fully joined in the attack. \"It became evident that the party leadership was increasingly concerned with the continuing disrespect for authority and growing Western influence.\"22\n\nAlthough this concern of disrespect for authority and growing Western influence subsided somewhat in 1982 and early 1983, it surfaced again in a campaign launched in the autumn of 1983 against “spiritual pollution\", which was attributed to increased contact with the West. Political leaders were particularly concerned with Western ideas that evoked questioning of the party and its policies. Unlike the Bitter Love episode, this campaign was ideological in character. When in the later", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212573, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "107\n\nis unacceptable to many Chinese. In China, therefore, organs are often obtained from executed criminals.\n\nIn this study the three sisters cried bitterly when informed an autopsy would be carried out on their mother's body. They were relieved when the authorities relented. The three blamed themselves because the mother was alone at the time of the heart attack. A soothsayer, however, said that nobody could have saved her. If she had been taken straight to hospital at the onset she would have died just the same. Because of her age and the hour of death it was prophesied the deceased would go to heaven.\n\nThat the dead person had not eaten that evening before death was construed as a good omen. Missing the meal signified she has left everything behind for her children. However, she was in the habit of drinking from a special mug. This had disappeared. It was assumed she had taken it with her. That three months before death she had given a friend a piece of jade and had told her: 'I may not be here for your next birthday,' was repeated frequently by mourners.\n\nIn her early thirties, influenced by eldest daughter, mother had been baptised a Catholic. But the attractions of a combination of native Taoism, Buddhism and folk religion were too great. By the 1960s, mother was no longer practising Christianity. She never expressly told relatives why she left the Church. It was probably because, to a very Chinese person who spoke no English, Catholicism was too western; in spite of the Church adopting a few Chinese customs, such as three bows to a deceased's photograph and the 'last glance' at a funeral. Many quote the saying: 'One Christian more is one Chinese less.'\n\nA few hours after death, the mother's spirit, which left the body as visible vapour, was in limbo wandering about'. Depending upon deeds performed on earth there are six possible 'destinations': hell, heaven, and becoming an animal, a ghost, a human again or a buddha. Everybody possesses a number of spirits, one of which first descends into hell (described as dark and yin) to await sentencing by 10 judges. There the spirit is tried, punished and purged. Those who have committed excessive evil spend longer in purgatory before going to heaven (seen as bright and yang). People can later be reborn as children, or, if sinful, as animals.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212740, "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": 49, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "34\n\nhad a head of steam and wrote several pages of detailed description on one particular theme, usually with an educational value aimed at foreigners in China. One in particular was his portrayal of a Chinese banquet, consisting not only of various menus, but seating plans, courtesies and the role of the servants.\n\nHis Promotion of Western Education\n\nSince 1868, Mesny claimed, he had had an inclination to do something towards dispelling some of the gross darkness that prevailed amongst the Chinese. In 1870 he established a small day school for boys and girls in a temple called the Yu-huang Kung [The Temple of the Jade Emperor], which served as a club house for the people of the Hu-kuang provinces who resided in Kuei-yang. He imported some school books which he considered suitable and paid a Chinese teacher to teach the children during the four years of his residence in Kuei-yang.\n\nMesny in later years had interviews with senior Chinese mandarins with a view to promoting western sciences and other subjects of study for examinations in China. He also claimed that he had persuaded a Chinese Viceroy to submit a memorial on educational reform to the throne and that this was the start of such reform. The reforms were abolished by the Empress Dowager in 1898.\n\nMesny and Women\n\nDespite the genuinely colourful life he led in China, his experiences living with the Taiping rebels, his service with the Szechuan Force în Kueichou and his treks across much of the country; when we come to his descriptions of his love life with Chinese ladies, although they may have been real and authentic, for the most part they read like episodes out of a modern pulp novelette. This may be due to a possible inability to describe them without a modicum of exaggeration or 'editing' or, though unlikely, they may have been figments of his imagination. There is little doubt that he was red-blooded and normal, and as a single man in foreign parts with few if any women of his own race or culture it was the understood thing for expatriate westerners to have a local female partner. He frequently wrote of pretty women at the roadside during his journeys across China who attracted him or, more to the point, were attracted by him. However, the exact measure of his intimacy with any but his wives is destined to remain tantalizingly obscure.\n\nCorrected minor OCR errors, reformatted text into paragraphs, and corrected \"în\" to \"in\" for consistency and correctness.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212845, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "139\n\na mess for the British, with a kitchen where Lao Teng ruled: similar buildings for our Chinese, Burmese, Kachin and Chin assistants; and barracks for the K.D.F. We also built a store-room, where one of our Chinese assistants, a most excellent man who had previously worked in the service of one of the few remaining Chinese sawbwas, presided; an armoury, where Stan played about with screwdrivers in his spare moments; and an office, and a wireless station. As our party grew larger we kept on having to increase the accommodation.\n\n―\n\nAt most times of the day there would be a small crowd of visitors from distant villages, sitting on their haunches outside the office, with offerings of eggs and chickens, or wandering through the camp looking at everything. They too were much impressed with our water-works. But the main show-piece was a Browning machine gun, which Stan had mounted on a post in the centre of the camp for A.A. protection; it was one of a number salvaged from an R.A.F. supply plane which had crashed in the mountain nearby. If we wished to impress a visiting headman we would loose off a few tracer rounds from this gun at the hawks, circling far overhead. We never hit a hawk but the demonstrations delighted these good simple people.\n\nThe furniture was mostly of the fixed type, and of bamboo: beds, shelves, hooks; baths, basins, and stools. For our mess room we borrowed a table in the local style from the headman; it was only two feet high, with benches of corresponding height, a much more comfortable height in my opinion than our own high chairs and tables. There is a good deal to be said for the argument that the nearer you sit to the ground the more sociable you feel. A dear old man, an expert in bamboo work, became one of our permanent retainers, and when anything came unstuck he would busy himself going round and doing the repairs. There were no nails.\n\nThe evenings were still chilly; at night we would light a camp fire outside the mess door and sit around and talk, often about the ration of rum which, if we were lucky, might be included next time the aircraft made a sortie. Our talk seemed to be much of food and drink; in the supplies we received from the air naturally weapons for our work took precedence, so that we had to rely much on local provender for our nourishment. With Lao Teng in the background we did not do so badly.\n\nThe Myosa's brother paid me a visit; I shall call him the Puppet,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212850, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "144\n\nshortly after to have raised Tsai's house, so that at any rate part of his ill-gotten wealth probably fell into their hands. Tsai and the Chinese assistant commander were then taken and executed by the Chinese troops. We saw their graves at Sincheng. This had all happened some months before our arrival. While I was in Kokang at least one further store of money belonging to the Myosa was discovered and the bullion sent to Sincheng; for whose benefit, it was no part of my business to enquire.\n\nWhen the Chinese appointed the Puppet to the Myosa's position they also made him commander of the Defence Force and gave him a Chinese colonel as second-in-command. On arrival at Sincheng, as anticipated, I found the Chinese flag flying and Chinese officers, who never left the Puppet's side, behaved as if they had taken over the country. I hoped to persuade them of my friendly disposition and to enlist their co-operation. I was not successful; at a feast given by the Puppet the second-in-command got slightly drunk and openly twitted me with my alleged friendship for China, a lack of manners with which I had never before met among Chinese.\n\nAll through Kokang there are extensive poppy fields. The crop ripens in the spring. In Burma, following the Indian practice, opium was controlled by monopoly, and could only be smoked by licence. The Burmese themselves do not smoke opium, though they sometimes eat it; only persons of Chinese blood smoke. Supplies for the Burma monopoly used to come from Kokang; there was also smuggling across the border from Yunnan, where it was for long grown openly. By the efforts of the Chinese government the cultivation in Yunnan had been very largely suppressed — I myself never saw any growing in Yunnan but a great deal of opium was still smoked in Yunnan. There was no secrecy, for instance, about the opium dens in Kun-ming. So now the flow of traffic was reversed. Yunnan received its opium from Kokang and the Wa states, and the commerce in the drug must have produced large profits for those who took part in it.\n\nIn Kokang the Myosa had been the agent for the collection of the small annual house tax, of which he retained a percentage, remitting the bulk to the government. Now there was no government to which to remit, but the Puppet had heavily increased the rate of taxation, and collected it in opium. According to the reports of the village headmen he had so assessed the tax that nearly the whole of the annual opium crop went into his hands. It was a very heavy burden for the village people to bear,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213041, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "89 \n\n+ \n\nThe reason given was the LMS financial position. Yet the fares, salary and expenses of the lady doctor had been guaranteed by the Chinese subscribers at a rate of $2,000 per annum on a five or six year contract basis. \"If there is the slightest prospect of a Lady who would be either self-supporting or supported privately I would prefer to wait a year even\" Dr. wrote to Mr. Cousins and, in a postscript added: 'Mr. Pearce has suggested a code of answer by telegram and I strongly recommend the Society's answer to be \"wait\". While saying that he saw a lady doctor as important for the credibility of the maternity hospital and claiming that she would be equal, his resistance to the type of appointment which was eventually made is clear. Dr. Gibson's position is consistent with his medical training and the social mores of his day. Edinburgh had been the site of strong resistance to female medical students, and the admission of women doctors to the British Medical Association was recent. As well as the 'nature' perception of women, the organisation of medical work itself was modelled on patriarchal family roles and relationships, wherein male doctors were dominant.\n\n10 \n\n申 \n\nDr. Sibree was warmly welcomed, however, began her language classes and was introduced to the Chinese subscribers and visited their wives. Dr. Gibson noted that she seemed ‘eminently fitted for the task which lies before her.'\" In June, 1904, the new six-bed hospital was opened.\n\nAlthough, as Paterson notes, Dr. Sibree's Annual Reports show the growth of the maternity work and midwifery training, her correspondence with the Joint Foreign Secretary of the LMS paints a different picture. Dr. Sibree, within six months of the hospital's opening, complained of lack of work and the LMS District Committee General Meeting of 1904 recorded support for her opening of a dispensary for women and children at Sham Shui Po to provide more work.\n\nThe problem appears to have been two-pronged. With respect to Chinese people, their knowledge of and therefore use of the maternity facilities was low, at an average of 1.5 patients per week in the early years. The wives of the Chinese subscribers also did not use her services, either because they were not in Hong Kong, were ignorant of the service, or were already patients of private doctors.\n\nThose we did see were in perfect ignorance of the whole scheme. Mr. Wells took a great deal of time and trouble in trying to explain", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213165, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 233, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "215\n\nTAKING A GODSON\n\nDAN WATERS\n\nOne June Sunday evening, in 1995, I attended a ceremony at a restaurant in Tonnochy Road, Wanchai, at which a childless couple (the wife has a daughter by a previous marriage) adopted (kai zi), Chinese style, a 28-year-old ‘godson'. The first ceremony of this kind that I went to took place in a private home, when a girl of 19, for whom the foster mother had great affection, was adopted. Presents brought to the foster parent's house on that occasion, by her real parents in 1966, included a live chicken.\n\nAmong traditional Chinese it is important for a couple to have a son to offer sacrifices, to worship the departed and to carry on the family line. Without a son, one cannot die in peace. If you do not have one you can adopt one. Not infrequently, if two families want to strengthen the friendship existing between them, then one couple may kai an offspring from the other family. On such occasions, Chinese speak of yuan fen (緣分), meaning ‘predestined connections”.\n\nAncient custom had it that there was no distinction between an adopted and a natural son. An adopted boy could not be disinherited except for offences which would apply to a natural son. On the death of his foster parents an adopted son mourned as for the death of his natural parents, although J. Dyer Ball, in Things Chinese (1903), says the adopted son need only go into ‘half mourning'. Ball also maintains that five per cent of Chinese families adopt children, 70 per cent of whom are male. A large number of Hong Kong Chinese families adopt children today.\n\nAlthough these adoptions are supposed to be permanent, come what may, I myself know of cases where relationships have been severed. For example, because of the alleged misconduct of the foster child.\n\nBut back to the case study in Wanchai. At that gathering in the restaurant there were four standard, Chinese, round tables, meaning that approximately 48 people, comprising relatives and friends, attended. A ‘good day' had been chosen according to the Chinese almanac. The ceremony of ‘adopting' commenced with a speech by godmother (kai neung ah).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213213, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "14\n\nheard that Petersen's barman had been discharged for neglecting his duties due to lack of supervision. The board commented that Petersen's more lucrative employment at the German Consulate led him to neglect his business. If he was to continue to hold his spirit licence, he could not leave the management of his business to others (DP 2 Nov. 1875).\n\nPeter Henry Schmidt was a German by birth but came to the East as a young man and married a Portuguese girl from Macao. For many years he was the proprietor of a licensed boarding house for seamen. Over the years he and Petersen built up a money-making business as shipping masters for the recruitment of crews. While Petersen worked his business through the German Consulate, Schmidt did the same through the American Consulate. In 1881, Mr. Smith - he had changed his name from Schmidt to Smith - brought action in the Supreme Court against the American Consul, Colonel John Mosby, for slander. The alleged slander were remarks published by the Consul concerning the involvement of Smith in the desertion of two seamen from the \"Belle of Oregon\". The Consul had been informed that Smith had harboured the deserters in his garden in Kowloon and that after the \"Belle of Oregon\" left port, he brought them to his boarding house in his launch. The testimony of Smith stated he had been in Hong Kong about twenty years and had held a licence for a seamen's boarding house for some eighteen years. \"During that time,\" he continued, \"I have done a great deal of business for the various Consuls. I and Mr. Petersen have done lately more than half the foreign business of the port. On December 24th, they (the two deserting seamen) brought permits to ship and I took them into my house. They were Scandinavian. I do work for the Consulate. I have done so for the last ten years, gave them board and lodging in the ordinary course of business.\" Smith then goes into some of the history of his connection with the American Consulate and its licensing of crews, \"Since Colonel Mosby has been in the Colony, I have not been an officer of the American Consulate nor in any way connected with it. Under his predecessor I had a desk and a clerk in the U.S. Consulate.\" Mr. Smith's assistant testified that Colonel Mosby had said, \"You can tell Peter Smith he is not going to ship any more men in this office. I shall tell all the American shipmasters not to have anything to do with him.\" The assistant also told the court that in his despatches the Consul had called Mr. Smith some very hard names. Mosby had attacked everyone who had previously been connected with the Consulate.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213261, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "63\n\nIn another case a post-graduate Chinese student told the author:\n\n'Before, I thought it was all superstition. But now I realise it makes sense to proceed in harmony with nature. In life, one of the most important things is to maintain harmony. Although Mother is a Catholic she also believes in fung sha.\n\nThe author, years ago, personally knew young Hong Kong Chinese teenagers who did not believe in, or were not convinced about the efficaciousness of fung shui. But now, after becoming middle-aged or elderly, they have become firm followers. 'A woman who did not believe nearly died,' the author was informed. 'After recovering, she became convinced.'\n\nAs Hong Kong has become more developed and affluent, people have had more money to spend on 'luxuries', such as fung shui. Certainly, modern education alone seems not to deal the final blow (Freedman, 1976:235). Yet it is more likely that a New Territories' villager, who lives close to nature and is a member of a tightly knit group, is more likely to believe in fung shui than his urban cousin. Urban society is divorced from close, everyday contact with mother earth and her cycles. For the urban dweller the modes of thought which underly the practise of fung shui have to be consciously cultivated in order to comprehend them. There are, of course, some New Territories' villagers who do not believe in fung shui in spite of the close web of relationships in rural life.\n\nEugene Ho (who one assumes is Chinese although he could be Eurasian) wrote in the South China Morning Post letters to the editor columns, on 25 May 1987- 'I find the whole theory of fung shui wholly devoid of cognitive content.' He went on to say that many of the casual 'laws' of fung shui, (if they are really \"laws\" at all) are no more than half a probability.\n\nNonetheless, when the British took over the New Territories on a 99-year lease in 1898, they promised to respect the then existing (Qing Dynasty) religious rites, ceremonies and social customs. The Hong Kong Government Gazette of October 7, 1899, published (one year after the New Territories were taken over) as a supplement to the Convention of Peking, said that graves in the leased Territory were never to be removed. Some law lecturers at Hong Kong University feel, however, that, because", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213304, "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": 126, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "106\n\nwas made \"holy\". Now it is too commercialised. To think that by moving your desk by a few feet you can change your luck!' \n\n'One does not like to dispute anything to do with the \"cosmic arts\".' \n\n'Things like fung shui till a need, and people have to create something, like God, Allah or fung shui, to fill that need. Fung shui is also a rationalisation of good planning.' \n\n'I don't believe that fung shui really has any effect on anything. But it is an intelligent use of land, such as flow of water and siting of buildings etc.' \n\n'If your ancestors are comfortable in their graves then you are comfortable. My Chinese friend felt someone was trying to tell him something. He then went to the cemetery and found the family graves were flooded. Fung shui can be a source of terror.' \n\n'I'm sceptical, although, like some superstitions, much is commonsense. Like walking under a ladder. It may fall on you.' \n\n'I don't believe. But, as a government servant working in the New Territories, you have to go along with villagers' customs.' \n\n'Everyone has their own pattern of beliefs: and so they should.' \n\n'Fung shui is a good belief. People need beliefs. There are different kinds and degrees of belief.' \n\nlike Christianity. But \n\n'I don't believe in the mumbo jumbo. Fung shui has been distorted and commercialised. But the planning aspects are sensible. For instance, water is important. In village life you need to retain it, but, if it is a few inches too high, it can flood all your paddy.' \n\n'Yes, man needs things like fung shui to hang on to.' \n\n'My husband and I built a new house on the Peak in the late 1980s. But after we moved in I felt unwell, so we called in the fung shui man. He said there was not a great deal wrong but he put in the odd plant here and there and made minor changes. After that, we held a \"fung shui party\" and invited all our friends. I did not feel off-colour any more.'", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213372, "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": 194, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "180\n\nunaware that he came home every evening. The Minister's wife became pregnant. Her mother-in-law said that she must have had another man, but the wife said that it was the Minister's child. The mother-in-law said, \"My son has gone to Court, and has not returned. How can you be pregnant?\" The minister's wife said that her husband, the Minister, was accustomed to return home every night to sleep - he flew home using two strips of bamboo. If the mother-in-law did not believe her, she could spend the night sleeping in the wife's bed, and see for herself that the wife was not lying. The mother-in-law agreed, and slept that night in her daughter-in-law's bed. During the night, the Minister flew home, and came to land touching his wife's bed. His mother said, \"I am your mother, not your wife.\" Because the mother was a woman, and had touched the bamboo strips used by the Minister, these bamboo strips were not able to fly any more.\n\nIn the house of the Minister, there grew some bamboo which was without sections. The Minister took two strips of this to fly on back to Court, but because these strips were not strong enough, they could only fly half-way. When the Emperor was in Court, calling the roll, he saw Ho, the Minister of the Left, fly in, and decided then and there to have him killed.\n\nThe Emperor ordered the Minister to return home. He was to ask people three times for things which could live with their heads cut off. If he could do this, then he need not die. Ho, the Minister of the Left, went off to ask. He came across an old woman, and asked her if sweet potato could live when its head was cut off, and the old woman said it could. In a second place, he asked another old lady if water-spinach could live when its head was cut off, and the old lady said it could. The Minister returned home to his mother. When she saw her son return, she killed a chicken for a meal. The Minister asked her, \"Can a chicken with its head cut off live or not?\" The mother said, \"Stupid boy! Of course, a chicken with its head cut off cannot live!\"\n\nAs soon as she said this, the Minister's head fell off onto the ground. He could, however, still speak. He told his wife to bury him in a certain place, and to mourn for him for seven days and seven nights. A tree would sprout at the head of the grave, and at the end of this period, that tree would have grown so tall that it would touch the wife's nose, and then the son in the wife's womb would be born, and a sprig of the tree would fly...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213944, "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-1997", "page_number": 14, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "that a copy of the Journal is given, free, to all fully-paid-up members. Also, while our lectures are free, our visits provide leadership and quality that one is unlikely to find elsewhere, at a similar cost in the private sector for example. It should be noted that, to encourage students to join, their annual subscription remains at only HK$50.\n\nAlthough there has not been a mass exodus of expatriates from Hong Kong, many have left, and, in turn, new people have arrived, often short-term stayers. Our Branch is becoming less British in composition. With the RAS in some ways an international institution, with branches or affiliated organisations in places like Japan and Korea which never formed part of the old British Empire, for our Branch to become more cosmopolitan is not a bad thing. However, although we have tried to recruit more Chinese members over recent years, we have had limited success with numbers varying from 15 to 20 per cent of total membership. Nevertheless, although we have organised a few lectures in Cantonese, we are basically an English-speaking society in what has become, since the Handover, a more Cantonese-speaking community. But, in spite of this change, the RAS still fills a need in Hong Kong in its present form. Having said that, if our Branch wishes to increase considerably its number of Chinese members, then it will have to organise many more functions in the local language.\n\nWe are a society catering partly to scholars, and some of the quality research on Hong Kong has been undertaken by RAS members who have endeavoured to place their findings on record, in some cases before the old ways of life disappear forever. But, at the same time, the RAS is popular with newcomers to Hong Kong who wish to learn something of local history and about Chinese culture, one of the most important cultures in the world.\n\nHere it should be said that many of our members contribute a great deal to the Hong Kong community, and, as a result, five were named in the June 1997 Queen's Birthday Honour's List. They included Dr Michael Lau, Professor I.J. Hodgkiss, Mr Randolf O'Hara, and Ms Caroline Courtauld, who each received an MBE, and Mr Peter Halliday, who was awarded the Queen's Police Medal.\n\nxiii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213951, "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-1997", "page_number": 21, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "Acknowledgements\n\nOne has only to read a President's Report for one of the years during the 1960s, or even more recently, to realise how our Branch has, in some ways, changed. It is important that we as members keep our ears to the ground and move with the times. It is important with a Society as rich in history as the RAS, with our Branch being reconstituted (in 1959) a year or so after sedan chairs disappeared from Wyndham Street (where they awaited customers), that we do not change for the sake of change. At the moment things appear to be working well. Time will reveal what further alterations are necessary. But it is important that, as our American friends say, 'If it ain't dysfunctional don't fix it'.\n\nMuch of the success of our Society is achieved by small efforts repeated day in and day out by Branch members working as a team. Here we must also not forget Claire Hockaday who did a splendid job as Assistant Secretary. After she returned to England, in late 1997, her post was filled by Sarah Parnell who soon demonstrated that she has her own special expertise and enthusiasm to bring to bear.\n\nMay I say here how grateful I am to everyone who has spent time and laboured for the Branch or who has supported me over the past year. On an occasion like this it is not easy to think of all the persons one should thank and to thank them adequately. If I have missed anyone I crave your indulgence.\n\nConclusions\n\nAs I mentioned earlier a number of our members have now left Hong Kong. We appreciate there is a great deal to do at such times with packing and other chores, but, if you are leaving in the near future, it would be appreciated if you could let us know. We can then update our records.\n\nOver the past year some members have written to say how much they appreciated being members of the RASHKB. For example Anita Wilson wrote,\n\nXX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214189, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "10\n\ncannot, usually, stand the smell of cheese, be able to understand the complex English? But you can argue, too, how can the British, who cannot enjoy a succulent chicken's foot for breakfast, understand the Chinese? The latter believe you need to 'eat the part to nourish the part' (DE). By eating chicken's feet, for example, you can walk faster.\n\n4\n\nOf course there are people like Lucy Sheen, a Chinese who was brought up in Britain, who played Portia in Julius Caesar at Bristol Old Vic (Rosser, 1990;8). But she still had to overcome racial stereotyping. She recounts how, to use her own words, ... the Dickhead of a critic said, about her acting, 'It doesn't matter if one can speak the language. If one's not White forget it.' Lucy also recalls how she was taken home to meet her new Chinese boyfriend's parents. They were really chuffed that at last their son had met a nice, real Chinese girl. All went well until she opened her mouth!\n\nOf course, even within Britain itself there are traditional regional differences. There are ‘cockneyisms' with rhyming slang; where 'apples and pears' means 'stairs' and 'tit for tat' stands for 'hat.' This contrasts with the humour of those who believe they belong to the 'posh' set, although the latter is not usually racist and a person is readily accepted if they have personality. You also have the realistic, often macabre humour of the Scots and the Irish, the down-to-earth humour of the English North Countryman, and the japes, recounted time and again, in the slow drawl of rural folk.\n\nUnless you have lived in a country for some considerable time many jokes may be obscure to a foreigner, even if he or she is fluent in the language. A knowledge of local affairs is often important. A man who was once asked why he did not weep at a sermon when everyone else was shedding tears replied: 'I don't belong to this parish' (Bergson, 1956;64). Similarly, the author recalls seeing a show in New York when he failed to appreciate many of the jokes. American humour often centres around family conflict (like American soap operas), bar-room buddy banter, practical jokes, bragging and tall stories although the French claim that practical jokes and tall stories are important aspects of their humour as well (Zeldin, 1983:74). In turn the Danish sense of humour, which is often sarcastic, can shock the average Frenchman. Similarly, Dutch humour can be abrasive, cynical and, on occasions, teasing and aggressive.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214207, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "28\n\nso different Chinese ethnic sub-groups laugh at each other. In the early 1950s, when many Shanghainese came to Hong Kong from the Mainland, the sally going the rounds among the Cantonese was: First the Shanghainese travelled in a small car. Now they ride in a big car. For the Westerner who is slow on the uptake this means, when they first came to Hong Kong they drove a car. Later, they could not afford it so they travelled by bus.\n\nIn China too, at one stage there was a tendency, as in other societies years ago, to deride cripples and the mentally retarded (Sypher, 1956; 202). In England in the Middle Ages, a hunchback was expected to caper around and amuse others. Jews, the village idiot, and the 'Chinaman' with his pigtail were usually all good, certainly in the 19th century, for a giggle (Pan, 1990; 84). More recently, there was the case of the Duke of Edinburgh meeting some British students studying in China and the Duke saying to them: 'If you stay here too long you'll get \"slitty\" eyes.' Many people seemed to think it was an insensitive remark and in bad taste. A few however felt, no doubt like the Duke himself (and indeed a few Hong Kong Chinese), that it was all intended in good, clean fun.\n\nWe must not forget that a witch was burned alive in Sunderland, England, as late as 1722, which was an occasion of some merriment. Even today many children enjoy 'cruelty' in their humour, such as the slip on the banana skin or the bucket of water tipped on the head. The author recalls how a colleague, a Chinese teacher, was given the nickname of tsoh hau ue (left [sloping] mouth fish) (false halibut) in the 1950s. Although humour can conceal or even help to heal pain, there are people of all nationalities who delight in the misfortune of others, and, even today, a few get pleasure from stoning a hedgehog to death which is stuck in a hedge.\n\nFrequently one hears about oppressive authority in Chinese life and there are sometimes attempts to 'skewer' an incident, by the oppressed, with a good joke. Everyone loves to make the leaders look stupid.\n\nThere is the one about the three Chinese in a prison cell during the Cultural Revolution. The first said: 'I'm here because I supported Deng", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214210, "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": 68, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "31\n\none foot in the grave.' Such expressions could help to bring about death. Nevertheless, in Cantonese slang, a corpse is sometimes described as 'salt fish' (hàm yú), one imagines because of the smell. In the context of not joking about death Mary Rafferty, the then new chief executive at the Matilda Hospital, on the Peak in Hong Kong, seems to have put her foot in it when she told one of the Chinese doctors: 'I'm checking up on you to see if your patients are still alive' (Cheng, 1998). It did not seem to dawn on the good lady that you do not make such remarks in Chinese society.\n\nA retired English, Hong Kong government servant was, as his son described it, showing off to a lady friend how he could swim under water. He suffered a heart attack and died. 'What a wonderful way to go,' was how his middle-aged son, with a grin, described it. When the author related this event to a number of Chinese they were unable to appreciate the 'joke' in quite the same light.\n\nThe English sometimes play with sentences and the meaning of words, as may be seen from the joke quoted earlier in this paper, about Lewinsky, Gore and Clinton junk bonds. Similarly the Cantonese, with the homophonous nature of their language, play with similar tones with which two or more characters are pronounced (Smith, 1988:149). They love puns and double entendre, which Westerners do not always appreciate, in which their rich and complex language abounds (Bolton 1997:299). Chinese have a great deal of fun playing with homonyms in their conversations around dining tables. For example two pairs of Chinese characters, both pronounced faat choi but with slightly different tones, mean either 'hair vegetable' (fà cài) (a blue-green algae) or, alternatively, 'become wealthy' (fā cái). There are countless examples. Similarly, a lecturer who taught in the ‘electrical' engineering department of a college varied the tone of the word 'deen' (meaning electrical) so that it sounded as if he taught in the 'crazy' engineering department.\n\n... \n\nThe word for 'fry', in Cantonese, is pronounced chaau. But the same sound is also slang for 'speculate.' People joke about a certain Mr Wong, in Hong Kong, who changed his profession from cook to stockbroker. The pun is that he used to chaau food but now he chaaus shares!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214414, "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": 272, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "238 \n\nment you will undoubtedly form a mental picture of the appearance of the mountain in time to come. The Chinese of course never dreamt, in 1842, when, by the Treaty of Nanking, they ceded to the English this barren rock, instead of the flourishing island of Chusan, what the red headed barbarians would turn it into. Even less likely were they to have dreamt that they, the Chinese, would with their own hands, be heaving these stones, laying walls, building parapets, mounting cannons... and round their own necks to boot.\n\nAll this has been done. True, the city of Victoria consists of one street but there are almost no houses on it; I erroneously said houses earlier: these are all palaces whose foundations bathe in the bay. The balconies of these palaces face the sea and are shaded by those scraggy bananas and palms which are visible from the searoad and which have the same effect on the landscape, as a forced smile on a sad face.\n\nI didn't go ashore for about three days: I wasn't feeling well and it wasn't inviting. There was no freshness or freedom in the air. Finally on the fourth day P. and I took the ship's boat, first going alongside the Chinese quarter, consisting of two sections of population: one section lives on boats, the other in little houses which are all clustered together and cling to the very shore and some of which are fixed on piles in the water. The boats, with families on board, stand in rows in the one place, or move about the harbour, engaging in fishing, trading and if not that, then transporting people from ship to shore and back. They all have cabin-like awnings. One sees family scenes everywhere: eating, stitching, a mother breast-feeding a baby.\n\nWe pulled in to one of the numerous piers in the European quarter and through some sort of merchant house, through a crowd of Chinese, vendors and porters (coolies), through all manner of odours, we squeezed our way to the street, thinking we would be able to breathe freely there. But on drawing breath, we seemed to be swallowing hot steam and then after only a few steps we had to think about a refuge where we could shelter in real, cool shade and not that which lay along one side of the splendid street. The sun burns here, even in the shade. We ran to some shop where bales of all kinds of goods lay heaped on the floor and, incidentally, with pharmaceutical items on the shelves. For some reason they also sold soda water and aerated lemonade. Here too the English drink it with a touch of brandy, that is, cognac, ostensi-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214715, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "94\n\n'I don't go along with that for one moment. Village people have a long tradition of believing that cosmic harmony is required for the well-being of the living and the dead...'\n\nThe Author agrees with Hayes that many Chinese do take feng shui and tun fu very seriously. This includes some of the western-educated. The fact that with some ceremonies villagers are prepared to put up with inconveniences, such as not being allowed to leave their village, demonstrates this. People spend large sums of their own money on some festivals, not just money that is given to them by the Government. Feng shui can even be a source of terror: if a grave of an ancestor is flooded, for example (Waters; 1997, 106). Taking remedial action and conducting ceremonies can have a therapeutic effect on the persons involved. The fervency with which these ceremonies are carried out, as described in this paper, are also indicators of 'serious intent'. Organisers and participants frequently put themselves to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience.\n\nOn a lighter note a retired, English, Hong Kong senior police officer told the Author that, in the early 1960s when he was stationed in the Ping Shan district in the north-west of the New Territories, tun fu ceremonies were more common. The belief then among the police was that as long as there was money in Government's coffers to pay for them and to let off a few firecrackers, with a bit of cash left over for villagers including paying for a lunch, then everybody was happy.\n\n13\n\nWest Rail representatives complained, at a government meeting that the Author attended in 1998, that New Territories' villagers were not always co-operative. In the case of the tunnel at Pat Heung, work has not been held up. Compensation, it seems, can sometimes help buy co-operation. This has not always been so. For instance, as previously mentioned, in the case of the Tang clan, they closed some of their buildings along the Ping Shan Heritage Trail in retaliation because the Government needed to move an ancestral grave (Cheung; 1999, 582).\n\nNevertheless, even if many villagers do genuinely believe in tun fu, there are, it is agreed, inconsistencies in their beliefs even if, at times, the average Chinese does not act as though everything depends on such things as the pulsation of feng shui. Chinese not infrequently say that, when a baby is born, ‘it lands on the ground, cries three times", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214777, "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "A DECODED DIARY REVEALS A WAR TIME STORY\n\nP.J. ASTON\n\n157\n\nAbstract\n\nA diary written using a numerical code in a prisoner of war camp in 1941/2 should not be too difficult to decode, should it?\n\nHong Kong, 1941. On December 8 1941, the Japanese attacked Hong Kong. Seventeen days later, on Christmas day, the brave but outnumbered defending forces surrendered and were put into prisoner of war camps in which many died. A young squadron leader in the RAF, Donald Hill, kept a diary of events during the battle for Hong Kong and for a while during his captivity. In order to keep it secret, he wrote it in a numerical code which, according to the cover of the book in which he wrote, was supposedly \"Russel's Mathematical Tables\". Donald survived the camp and brought the diary out with him. However, his experiences were so traumatic that he did not like to talk about them. The diary was never translated before his death in 1985.\n\nGuildford, 1996. The phone rings again. The secretary in the Department of Mathematical and Computing Sciences, University of Surrey answers it, polite as always. The caller, Col Ian Quayle of the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen's Families Association, asks to speak to a mathematician. Having just finished some photocopying, I happen to be the nearest person to the phone so the secretary asks if I will deal with the call. Col Quayle explains about Donald Hill's diary. Mrs Pamela Hill, Donald's widow, is keen to have the diary decoded so that she can find out more about a closed chapter in his life. I suggest that he sends a copy of the diary and say that I will have a look at it.\n\nThe Diary. The first page described how the 'Tables' could be used for multiplication. Instructions for multiplying 83 by 26 were given which could be followed on the first page of numbers. However, the claimed answer of 2118 was clearly incorrect. This presumably was part of the disguise.\n\nTwelve pages filled with numbers followed. On each page there", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214790, "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": 205, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "170\n\nplace, with a hearty lack of nostalgic longings for ancestral roots - yet the sentimental or strategic nostalgia of overseas Chinese for their ancestral homes in China has also been well documented and described.1\n\nNostalgia is of course now commodified, fragmented and eclectic, as befits a late capitalist era in which global capital determines shifting allocations of labour. Nostalgia, and pastiche of the past, is almost commonplace, and through what was called the 'post-modern' eclectically mixes emblems of diverse eras of the past to provoke a momentary pang. The irony of Flagstaff House's transformation from a military site to a tea museum, noted by Abbas (1997), is a good example of this post-modern bricolage of meanings and historical ironies typified by Charles Moore's Piazza d'Italia in New Orleans (Harvey 1989), which we can find too in the toothless attendants and bright paints of restored Colonial Williamsburg (Lowenthal 1985), or the imaginary nostalgia of Disneyland disguising the unreality of America itself (Baudrillard 1994). But here I should like to draw attention to the importance of nostalgia as, if you like, a strategic resource for knitting together communities which have become dispersed and fragmented.\n\nWhile nostalgia adopts a temporal form (nostalgia for the past), it essentially implies the sense of belonging to a place (nostalgia for a place), as in its etymological roots. Can there be nostalgia for a taste, a face, an experience of abandon, a vanished emotion or capacity? Of course there can, but these experiences are all associated with a particular locus, a particular time and place (in the past). That place may never have existed, as writers from Lowenthal and Lovell to Mitchell remark, or not have existed for those who pine for it; the remembered, longed-for experience may be purely fictive and imaginative. Then again, it may have been very much a reality the loss of which is regretted; it was a real, living community we mourn the passage of. In any case, through the power of memory and recollection, that experience, that community, that place, can hardly be recollected exactly as it was, so that there is an inevitably imaginative, fictive quality to the faculty or power of nostalgia.\n\nIn one sense, it may not matter very much whether the lost object was, or was not, a reality, since that reality will have been transformed through the nostalgic recollection of it. Yet, in another sense, it does matter that not all nostalgia is necessarily imaginary; that real separations, real partings, may be what are being mourned.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214888, "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": 303, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "276\n\nargued a bit among themselves they were not militant people. Letters to the Editor were, however, written to the English press.\n\nLet us look at the Chinese community that went up to this temple on a daily basis. Many more went up at weekends. Some of them I got to know quite well. The first to arrive every morning was a man and his wife, both in their eighties, who got up at about four o'clock. They then walked up the hill in the dark (there are now streetlights on the lower part of Hatton Road). The old couple would stay up at the temple until late afternoon when they would return to their home in Western District. The temple meant a great deal to them. Their lives were woven around it. They had spent some of their own hard-earned money on repairing it and providing for day-to-day necessities - like joss sticks and oil for the lamps.\n\nDuring the day the old man would spend much of his time meditating. I saw him seated, frequently, swaying in a trance. Some maintain that the ultimate aim of meditation is to get one's soul to leave one's body. The danger is that it may be difficult to coax the soul, suspended in space in front of one's body, to return to its normal abode. All the time the old man was so occupied the wife was engaged in more mundane pursuits. She spent much of her time busying around cleaning the temple and listening to Buddhist music from a cassette player. She also prepared simple dishes such as congee. She made tea. I was frequently invited to drink with them.\n\nMost people came up to the temple early in the morning. Those that had jobs to go to would hurry down the hill, at what was still a reasonably early hour, while the elderly, the retired, would stay in the vicinity of the Temple longer. Often they would remain there for the best part of the day. Many would exercise in styles varying from the different schools of 'hard' and 'soft' Chinese martial arts to quasi-western callisthenics. Others would tend flower beds they had managed to create from the sparse layer of top soil, while others, who were mostly handymen rather than craftsmen, would carry such items as tools, timber or cement up the hillside. In their own time, in stages, a section of trellis or a shelter was added here, and an extension to the Temple there. Of course if one had nothing to do one could chat, relax and while away the time. They played mahjong (especially popular on Sundays), or worshiped the benign, grubby statue of Kwan Yin, the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215242, "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": 19, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "resigned each year, mostly on leaving Hong Kong, and had to be replaced with new members if the overall membership was to remain the same size. If the Society fails to replace those members resigning on leaving Hong Kong, then, in very short order, the Society would face serious membership problems.\n\nBecause of this high annual turnover of members, Council decided we had to institute a major reform of our membership database. This task proved to be a major task, and took well over a year before it was completed earlier this year. We now know a lot more about the make-up of our membership, and in a more up-to-date fashion. I must here thank especially our previous Hon. Secretary, Dr Peter Barker, who recently left us on relocation to Chicago. It was his hard work which, above all, enabled the successful completion of the new database to be achieved.\n\nAt the moment we have a total of 605 members of the Society, comprising 451 Annual Members and 154 Life Members. Of these 605, 492 are resident in Hong Kong, and 113 are resident abroad. 402 are Single Members, 174 are Joint Members (representing 87 couples), 9 are Institutional Members, and 20 are Student Members. 111 new members joined the Society during the year. This was significantly more than the number who resigned on leaving Hong Kong or for other reasons.\n\nThe Society has, therefore, over the year, managed to increase its membership by a reasonably substantial figure (the increase, when compared with the figure given in the last President's Report would seem to be much more substantial, but a good deal of the apparent increase is due to a change in the way we calculate Joint Memberships, and is thus to some degree illusory).\n\nOver this last year, the Council has advertised the Society in a number of ways. In particular, we have run a series of advertisements in Dollarsaver. Councillors also regularly give talks to various community groups (e.g. Rotary Clubs), and also on the radio, and this provides excellent advertising exposure for the Society. Councillors giving academic lectures also often give their academic affiliation as \"The Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch\" and this, too, provides useful exposure. I would like at this point to thank my predecessor, Dr Dan Waters, in particular, for the many talks he has given, and the tremendous help this has been to our advertising campaign. The\n\nxvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215243, "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": 20, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "Society's web-site, which Dr Waters discussed at some length in his Report to last year's AGM, is another valuable advertising resource. Council has also been successful in getting our talks and other events included in the regular lists of \"What's On\" in the print media, notably in the SCMP and HK Magazine. Of course, as always, our main source of advertising is by word-of-mouth: we become known to potential new members to a large extent because existing members talk to their friends and urge them, too, to join. So please carry on this good work, and tell everyone you meet what a splendid body we are!\n\nAt the moment, our overall membership is such that our talks and visits are well supported, but not seriously over-subscribed. Council's view is that, if we can continue to replace those members who resign on leaving Hong Kong or for other reasons, then our current membership levels are acceptable. Council does not, therefore, feel that any intensification of our current advertising campaign is called for, at least as of today. We shall continue to advertise in local magazines, to give talks and in every other way advertise our existence and presence to potential new members as at present, but will not start any major new initiatives aimed at generating new Ordinary Members, unless applications from new members start to show a worrying drop-off.\n\nCouncil is, however, concerned about those members who leave Hong Kong without informing us or formally resigning from the Society. We only learn about these disappearances when the annual membership fee is not paid, and then only after we have written letters, and sought the defaulting members out. This causes a great deal of work, and some expense, all of it nugatory. I must appeal, therefore, to everyone here, and everyone who will read this report, for them to let us know if they are leaving Hong Kong, or feel they need to resign from the Society for some other reason, so that we can keep our membership books up to date, and do not have to spend a couple of months each year reworking our membership database to cope with resignations only coming to light because fees are not paid!\n\nCouncil also remains concerned about the low level of local Chinese membership of the Society. As I mentioned above, this has been a concern of Council's throughout the 25 years I have been on Council, and remains a concern today. We have a substantial number of local Chinese members, but not enough, and, of those members,\n\nxvii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215465, "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": 242, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "191\n\nCloser to the ground\n\nThe call came, loud and clear, and 30 minutes later we were off, bound for the BAe 146 aircraft, a reassuring piece of British engineering, and the flight to Paro. Some Bangkok to Paro flights route via Dhaka in Bangladesh, but most call in at Calcutta. When, during my less-than-extensive research, I had seen ‘Kolkata' on the itinerary I presumed it was somewhere in Bhutan. But like Mumbai and Yangon, Kolkata is modern-speak for an old familiar name. I wonder if it will catch on?\n\nThe leg from Calcutta (obviously didn't catch on with me) to Paro was just over an hour—long enough to serve a boxed meal and deliver a warning to all passengers. The pilot came on the overhead speakers to tell us that the approach to Paro is quite unusual. 'Do not worry if you appear to be closer to the ground than normal. This is quite standard.'\n\nI thought to myself: 'This chap doesn't realise that he is dealing with 27 people who have done many landings at Kai Tak.' But, loyal as I am to all things Hong Kong, I have to say that the approach to Paro is a bit more hairy than Kai Tak used to be. It is rather like flying into Happy Valley as far as the foot of Blue Pool Road, doing a u-turn, and then landing on Queen's Road East using a runway about one-quarter as wide as Kai Tak's was.\n\nOn the walk across the tarmac to the terminal building I was able to talk to the pilot and congratulate him on such a challenging landing. He told me that he had been with his country's national carrier, Druk Air, for thirteen years, always flying 146s. In fact he started on them after only 250 hours experience. 250 hours! Even I have 350 hours of flying experience—but I am very happy to leave such interesting landings to him, full load of passengers and fuel and all.\n\nA pleasant surprise\n\nThe temperature on arrival was a pleasant surprise. On the plane, the pilot had initially reported -5°C, and then -2°C and just before landing +5°C. Obviously things warm up pretty quickly when the sun comes out. And it was certainly out when we arrived—clear blue skies and what felt like 15-20°C, although noticeably cooler in the shade.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215473, "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": 250, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "199\n\nsnoozed for a lot of the way.\n\nHappily, I was awake when we arrived at the Riverview Hotel because there was a large banner on the front of the building, welcoming us to Bhutan and to the hotel. Mobile 'phones have not yet arrived in Bhutan, and not everywhere has an international dialling service. Thimpu, however, being the country's capital, offers this service at its major hotels. So I made a quick two-minute call to Hong Kong to report in. Two minutes after that there was a knock on my door. A member of the hotel staff was asking if I would like to pay for my phone call now - US$51! A big chunk of my spending money went, just like that - but what a worthy cause!\n\nDinner that night was rather special, preceded by a cocktail reception hosted by our local tour company, Etho Metho. There was Bhutanese music, singing and dancing. Like many similar experiences, appreciation of Bhutanese music is an acquired art. It really did seem to me that the musicians misinterpreted our applause, for each time we clapped they appeared to play the same piece again. But I guess that is just my ignorance showing through. I had a long and interesting conversation with Aum Dago Beda, a most impressive lady and the company's urbane managing director. After dinner there was a thorough and rather complex (for my IQ) briefing from Brian who promised us 'a full day' for the morrow. He was not wrong.\n\nA peer through the gate\n\nDay 3, the eve of Losar (the Bhutanese New Year) started with a fairly leisurely 7:00 a.m. breakfast and 8:00 a.m. departure for the Queen Mother's formal residence. This is set in a very secluded spot up the valley from the capital city. Her estate has a lot of trees in the grounds and a very impressive entrance gate - and that is all we were allowed to see. Usually, tourists were not even able to get as far as the gate, so I suppose we were privileged.\n\nPerhaps one of the most photographed buildings in Bhutan is the Tashichho Dzong, our next destination. This is the seat of government and houses the offices of the majority of government departments. As the King is the head of the government, a role he plays similar to that of the chief executive of a large corporation, a great deal of respect has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215494, "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": 271, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "220\n\nThe wrong sort of bees\n\n-\n\nWhen it did eventually start, the dance proved to be well worth the cramp and the extremely long wait. Two monks appeared, dressed head to toe in crimson robes with brightly coloured sleeves and other attachments. The bull's head masks that they wore meant that the dancers were totally covered, and they whirled and twirled, leapt and stepped, dancing like demons. It was over in three minutes. The purpose was to cleanse the area of evil spirits - and it worked as far as I was concerned. I am afraid to say that I had had enough. I had been standing in a most uncomfortable and twisted position for an hour with one arm stuck up in the air. I was afraid that, like Pooh Bear when he had been observing the wrong sort of bees from a balloon, my arm would stay up straight in the air for more than a week. Added to that I was being pushed in the back by people who had, some of them, been walking for the best part of three days, presumably without the advantage of a hot shower every day. Besides, I thought it only fair for some of them to get a shot at the front row.\n\nOutside I found a cool corner to watch the world go by and collect my thoughts. As I left the dzong there was still a steady stream of people coming in past the policeman at the main entrance standing, incongruously, with his fixed bayonet. If they were all heading for the viewing gallery, I realised that I had indeed chosen the right time to withdraw. It might be days before the front row could extricate itself.\n\nFrom my shady vantage point I could see some wooden shacks standing in the shadow of the citadel. From these dwellings I heard the sound of a child screaming in distress. It struck me that until now I had not heard this all-too familiar sound in Bhutan; Bhutanese children all seemed to be smiling and happy, but this experience proved them to be the same as children everywhere. However, I should have had more faith. On inspection through my binoculars I saw that the little mite was screaming with delight at being chased round and round by an elder sister.\n\nAll too quickly, we realised that the only thing left to do on our trip was to get back to Paro for the night, in time to catch the plane the following day. There was a real sense of last night blues in the restaurant where we had dinner. A few of us felt compelled to sing a song or tell", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215699, "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": 476, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "429\n\nExecutive, with what he sees as the inevitable concomitant to these developments of a ministerial system - are made fascinatingly clear.\n\nHong Kong was immensely lucky to have had Denis in senior positions throughout the formative years of modern Hong Kong. Without innovative, intelligent, and vigorous officers like him, what would the place have been like? At the same time, Denis, too, was lucky. For much of his early career, he had the sympathetic support of Ronald Holmes as his immediate superior: almost the only man with the imagination to countenance Denis's guerrilla attacks on the shibboleths of administration, and, more importantly, with the intelligence and drive to support them when he was satisfied they were needed. Had Denis had a succession of stolid and lazy lame-brains as his superiors, how long would it have taken for him to have been black-listed as just someone who \"rocked the boat,\" who was \"too clever for his own good”? I wonder if anyone with his flair and instinctive feel for the needs of ordinary people could survive in the Administrative Service of today?\n\nDenis comes over in this book as a man of great intelligence and charm, wit, and decency. His 'horror and disgust' at the things disclosed by the Independent Commission Against Corruption come through, for instance, very clearly. Having worked for him for a couple of years, I know that the book shows the real Denis.\n\nThe book is very well printed by Hong Kong University Press. There are a few errors that should have been caught by the copy-editors (for instance, 'Rodean School' and 'the Ordinance Survey,' both on p. 151). Denis states that he is no historian, and there are a few places where there are minor errors of historical fact, although none that affect the overall value of the book. Among them are the names of the Seven Yeuk of Tai Po (p. 96), the date of the New Market at Tai Po (founded 1892, and not after the building of the Tai Po Road a decade later, as suggested on pp. 96 and 170-171), and the date of the Tolo Harbour arable reclamations (almost all in the nineteenth century, rather than the late eighteenth as suggested on p. 61).\n\nAll in all, this is a book of considerable charm; thoroughly to be recommended to anyone interested in today's Hong Kong.\n\nPATRICK HASE", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215730, "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": 29, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "sole routine income, does not bring us in enough income to cover our routine expenses.\n\nThese routine expenses, as of today, are the costs of printing and distributing the Journal, the costs of printing and distributing the Newsletter, the salary of our Assistant Secretary, the office expenses of the Society and other minor expenses of a similar character. Our non-routine expenses are mostly, the costs of activities mounted as part of our Visits and Tours programme. We are in consequence obliged to set the charge we make for each such activity at a level which not only covers all the direct costs of the activity, but which also allows us to make a small contribution to our general, routine, income, to reflect the indirect subsidy which the activity would otherwise get from our general income. Thus, no visit or tour could be mounted if the Newsletter did not advertise it, nor could the Newsletter be issued if we did not have an Assistant Secretary to prepare it. We believe that it is reasonable to expect the charge for the activity to meet these indirect expenses. This is not always feasible, however.\n\nI confess that I remain a little concerned about the state of our routine income and expenditure figures. I would feel happier if our routine income could meet our routine expenses. The Council has decided not to seek an increase in the annual subscription rates during 2004-2005, but I feel I must say that I do not believe that this situation can continue indefinitely.\n\nThe second point I would like to make is to point out that we have been urging Members for some years now to switch to Autopay for the renewal of their annual subscriptions. About half the Membership has now switched to Autopay. Those of the Members who have not switched cause the Society a great deal of work, however. We have to do an annual check, Member by Member, to see whether the sum due has been paid or not, whether any Standing Instruction has been re-figured to the current subscription rates or not, and so on, and to send out reminders and so forth. As of today's date, for instance, no less than 161 of our Annual Members not paying by Autopay have still not yet completed payment for this year, whereas all the Autopay Annual Members have, and 18 have still not reconfigured their Standing Instructions to meet the present-day subscription rates, even though these were put in place a good few years ago. Our expenses are, in\n\nXX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215743, "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": 42, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "RESOLUTION\n\n2002 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE\n\nFRIENDS OF THE HONG KONG BRANCH OF THE\n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (UK)\n\nThis is the Friends' fifth annual report since its inauguration in 1998, and is therefore a cause for celebration. Members may recall that it was with some trepidation that a few past members in Hong Kong circulated known members living in the United Kingdom as to whether they would be interested in forming a Friends Association as an offshoot of the Royal Asiatic Society in Hong Kong. The response was very encouraging and around 75 to 80 people responded positively, most of whom are still members; indeed since then new members who were living in Hong Kong have also joined, and numbers continue to increase slowly.\n\nA great deal of the success of this is due to the encouragement the Friends received and continue to receive from Hong Kong. Visits by members to Hong Kong are warmly received, and in the United Kingdom we welcome any members, particularly if they are able and willing to participate in our activities or give a talk. In the last year we have received Dr Dan Waters, past President, Dr Patrick Hase, President, and Dr Elizabeth Sinn, Vice President. Members may recall that in the previous year we also had a talk by Mr Anthony Lawrence.\n\nOne of the great strengths of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society is the publication of the Annual Journal, and the Friends would like to pay tribute to Dr Peter Halliday, who has been the Editor for ten years. The Friends are always pleased to receive the journal, which continues to reach a high academic standard (it is noted that the forthcoming journal has six contributions from the Friends) and is well received by United Kingdom education institutions: It is hoped that Friends' contributions will increase in future, since this is an effective way of improving the link between the two organisations [Hon. Ed. - Thank you, David, for this most handsome tribute. I'll \"keep with it” for as long as Council and members wish.]\n\nA report would not be complete without paying tribute to those on\n\nXxxiii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215778, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "10\n\nreporting to the Government of India if they took unfair trade measures).\n\nHowever, I am more inclined to take the view that the Calcutta government was not efficient in administering the Straits Settlements, in spite of the mitigating factors. Problems were still prevalent, albeit small or insignificant as Mills makes them out to be. In this regard, the Straits Settlements were better off being under the Colonial Office, and concluding thus, the \"problems\" were justified ones.\n\nAt this point, I wish to draw attention to the different systems of law existing simultaneously in the Straits Settlements. There were the Indian laws (passed by Calcutta, modelled on English law) which were either unsuitable to the Straits Settlements or did not cover \"illegality\" in many cases, as we have seen. Then there were the English laws which were more predominant after the transfer but even before 1867 were still the official laws to be applied insofar as the public sphere was concerned. Matters were a little more complicated in the private sphere, as in the case of the local laws under the Sultans, for example, pertaining to Malay customs and religion, discussion of which is beyond the intended scope of this essay.\n\nChinese secret societies—\n\nA wealth of material can be obtained on this issue which has been well-researched by many scholars. However, with regards to the petition and the transfer, all that need be said (despite the topic's complexity) is that the merchants had a legitimate cause for complaint because the Chinese secret societies were dangerous and caused problems; for example 'rivalries of hostile societies and clans gave rise to disturbances and outrages, often of a very grave nature.' This was a real problem, and not a questionable or hazy one, and the Indian government paid little attention to the situation.69\n\nAfter the transfer, measures were undertaken by the Colonial Office to deal with the problem. \"The Straits Settlements government was now empowered to legislate fully for the requirements of the Colony and to adopt a more determined policy towards secret societies,\" for example, Act XX of 1867 legalised the 1863 practice of apprehending headmen of belligerent societies to do duty as special constables during riots;71 1869 Ordinance XIX to provide for 'the suppression of dangerous", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215978, "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": 277, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "211\n\nbelievers was also one of the explicit conditions mentioned in the new treaty. Here was a prime test case for compliance to the new treaty, one which would force both Qing and British bureaucracies to express public support for the most recent treaty regulations. On this score Legge felt he and the London Missionary Society were on solid legal ground. But Legge also felt obliged to move because it was probably told him by colonial officials he knew in Hong Kong that the regiments currently residing in Canton would soon be leaving.\" Once they left, there would be no easy recourse to a militarily supported British official in the region, and so Legge sought to resolve the case before it became essentially a matter of working directly with the Qing provincial authorities. Expecting that those authorities would be less responsive, Legge probably felt he had no real option but to make a personal and immediate appeal to the British authorities in Canton.\n\nAfter an initial interview over the problem in Canton, Legge was recalled to the British Governor-General's office there and offered an unexpected compromise. A British military escort would be sent to oversee the proper transaction only if Legge himself would go. In the accounts published for the British public nothing is explained about Legge's response except that he decided to go. Having offered to try to resolve the issue by going to Poklo himself and using “a blended firmness and conciliatoriness to get over our difficulties,\" Legge was asked if he could leave immediately to pursue this approach. Reflecting first about his family and then on his sense of religious duty to Christ and to the Chinese Christians in Poklo, he confirmed his willingness to go under escort while still in the office. What he did not tell others is the content of a message he left with John Chalmers, who had come with him to the Governor-General's office.77 It read as follows:\n\nIt is possible that I may be beheaded at Pok-lo. If news comes that I have been murdered, go at once to the English consul and tell him that it was my wish that no English gun-boat should be sent up the river to punish the people for my death.\n\nNothing could have been more risky or bold, Legge trusting that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216095, "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": 394, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "328\n\nThere was a great deal of respect for Britain in the 1950s and when I bargained with a stall holder to buy a piece of electrical equipment he said to me: “This is not Japanese you know. It's best quality. It's British!' As late as the mid-1960s one of my Chinese staff, teaching surveying, refused to use a theodolite because it was made in Japan. War time memories died hard!\n\nAlmost wherever one went in the colony during the 1954-55 winter one could hear the song, Whatever will be, will be, blaring out over loudspeakers or being hummed or sung. I was told that I should not tip more than 20 cents for odd tasks and, at the end of the month, I should tip my hotel room boy and my waiter each $10. I could go out then and have a haircut, a shave, a shampoo and a manicure for $2.80, and, being a generous sort of chap, I gave the 20 cents change as a tip. As I have said, I did not arrive immediately after the Second World War when people were prepared to work for two bowls of rice a day.\n\nThere was no income tax in Hong Kong until 1939 when a 10 per cent \"war tax\" was levied. This was supposed to come off when the war ended but it never did. When I arrived in the mid-1950s the maximum salaries tax one could pay was 12 per cent. It had been increased from 10 per cent in 1950.\n\n1\n\n2\n\nI started teaching at the old Technical College in Wood Road, Wan Chai. On my first visit a \"big man coolie team\" was grunting and manhandling heavy engineering equipment up the stairs. We did not move to Hung Hom until 1957. With the help of \"academic drift” my old College became the Polytechnic University, on the Hung Hom campus, in 1994.\n\nShortly after I arrived in the colony there was a rumour a leopard was on the prowl in the New Territories. It was probably no more than a rumour but I do believe that there were instances of South China Tigers briefly visiting the New Territories in the 1950s. If you don't believe me you should read The Hong Kong Countryside, by zoologist GAC Herklots (1951).\n\nI was taken the rounds of Hong Kong by a Yorkshire colleague within a few days of my arriving. First we went to the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (as it was known then) where I opened an", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216096, "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": 395, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "329\n\naccount. It was an old colonial style building with paddle fans suspended from ceilings. This structure was replaced by an air-conditioned building in 1959, which was, in turn, replaced by another new Standard Chartered building opened formally in 1990. In the 1950s many buildings were old, roomy, colonial style, low-rise buildings, with colonnades, wide balconies and large windows or French doors in order to allow for \"through draught.\" That was important. Windows usually were fitted with louvres or jalousies.\n\nI was taken to meet the Director of Education whose office was then in the lovely old French Mission Building (now the Court of Final Appeal) at the top of Battery Path. I had to sign the visitor's book at Government House. 'Unless you do this,' I was warned, 'you will not be invited to the garden party on the Queen's birthday.' In spite of what people would often have you believe they were generally proud to receive an invitation from the Governor. Just as today they like to receive an invitation to the reception, in the Convention and Exhibition Centre, on China's National Day. (When a HKBRAS group visited Government House in January 1997, shortly before The Handover, just about every member was keen to sign the book.) There was no doubt, too, that Hong Kong people felt greatly honoured if they were decorated by the Queen just as they feel honoured today if they receive a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region award.\n\nMy Yorkshire colleague, back in early 1955, also introduced me to a reliable comprador. In this sense, I mean a grocer. In fact I still deal with the Asia Company to this day. Compared to the aseptic, soulless supermarkets I have wonderful memories of street-corner comprador shops stocked with goodies, including kam wa hams hanging from ceilings. I am, of course, talking of times when cheung saams were far more common and years before Big Macs and Kentucky Fried Chicken had made their debuts in the Territory. Regarding the latter, one person commented to me, 'We Chinese have a 1,000 ways to cook a chicken. Kentucky will never make it!' But although they failed once they returned to Hong Kong, Kentucky Fried Chicken has been a success story.\n\nWhen I arrived I had to register and obtain an identity card. I was quite embarrassed. On arrival at the North Point office, as I was a European, I was taken by my Chinese colleague straight to the front of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216100, "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": 399, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "333\n\nSuyin's autobiographical novel, A Many Splendoured Thing, was partly shot there in the mid-1950s. In real life the boyfriend, a war correspondent killed in Korea, was British. In the film he miraculously became an American.\n\nI frequently walked past the FCC on Saturday nights when riotous parties were in full swing. The old number 41, \"Fairview,\" was the first private residence in the territory to have a lift. This came right up from road level. The house depended on water from a watercourse, on Po Shan Road, for flushing toilets. There is an artist's embellished painting of the old \"Fairview\" in the Hong Kong Museum of Art's collection at Tsim Sha Tsui.\n\nRemaining from the days when it was occupied by a private family, the master bedroom had four bell-pulls. These were connected to the bedrooms of his four concubines. In fact, during his lifetime he was said to have had eight (some say nine) concubines. This was by no means unusual. When a rich Hong Kong man went to the United States in the 1930s, a headline in a newspaper read, 'Here comes the man with 20 wives!'\n\nA Chinese could legally take a concubine up until October 1971, just as up until the 1960s most weddings were customary Chinese marriages. Some concubines taken before October 1971 remain legal secondary wives to this day. There was, of course, a customary ceremony for concubines too and they had their place in the hierarchy of the family. I did know families however where, when the principal wife found out the old man had “another woman,” she was brought in to live with the family. There, the principal wife could keep an eye on her. She was not infrequently made by the first wife to live and eat with the servants. Later, if the first wife died, the concubine, who was usually quite a bit younger, sometimes took her place as a “fill the room” (t' in fong) as a succeeding main wife is known.\n\nAnother important event, in October 1971, was the legislation that came into force making it compulsory for everyone to have at least one day's holiday a week. Up until then, certainly in the 1950s, there would be no problem with crowds on beaches. But no, it was not all work and no play and I swam in the Cross-harbour Race in 1955 and took part in the 42 mile 'Round the Island Walkathon' the following year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216263, "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-2003", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "have not yet converted their subscription payment method to Autopay will receive notice that their Membership Subscription Fee will be surcharged as agreed, unless they change immediately to the Autopay system. Please take urgent steps to change your payment method if you have still not done so!\n\nThe Sir Lindsay and Lady Ride Memorial Fund\n\nI am extremely glad to be able to inform you that the three years of work to set up the Sir Lindsay and Lady Ride Memorial Fund has at long last been finalised. Jason Wordie and Robert Nield will be saying a good deal more about this. In brief, in December of last year the Fund was formally established, and it now has in it over half a million dollars. The first book for consideration for publication under the Fund is currently being given a careful read-over by Hong Kong University Press to see if it is suitable. It is my very real hope that, by this time next year, the first book in our Hong Kong Studies series will have been published. In the near future I shall be writing to all the local Universities and others to urge people with suitable books to submit them to us for consideration for publication. Any book written in English; on Hong Kong, its history or society, or on South China generally, which has not been able to be published because of financial constraints, will be considered. The Hong Kong University Press will publish any such book on our behalf, so long as it considers it to be academically of a sufficiently high quality. Members, if they have books which might be suitable, should consider sending them to us for consideration. I must, however, warn that, in practice, it is unlikely that the Society will be able to process more than two, or at the very best three, books a year, and, if we get very large numbers of books submitted, some of them may have to wait for some years before we can process them!\n\nLecture and Visit Programme\n\nThis year we have enjoyed another wide-ranging and interesting programme of lectures and visits. During the year we had 15 lectures, 4 visits to places within Hong Kong and 4 to places outside Hong Kong. Three of the lectures were associated with visits which took place shortly afterwards. Nonetheless, despite the range and interest of the programme, the number of this year's events shows a slight falling off\n\nxxii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216402, "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-2003", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "111\n\nvery close down her side. When it got near it would suddenly put the helm over, with the apparent intention of being run down, in a sort of suicide action but with the real object of passing as close as it could under the steamer's bows. The reason for this apparently suicidal manoeuvre, I was told, was this.\n\nEvery junk, every morning, started off on its day's journey with a malevolent devil hanging on to its rudder whose object was to slow it down, and if possible run it onto a sandbank. But if the junk succeeded in passing very close under a steamer's bow the devil would be cut off from its precarious hold and would drown. On days of heavy traffic, when we often saw as many as fifty junks in a mile of river, it became a bit nerve-wracking to see scores of the craft scuttling across our bows like mad, hoping to have their devils cut off.'\"\n\nWith overnight stops on passage our ship spent the night of 3rd September 1931 off Kiukiang, some 493 miles from the Fairway Buoy at the mouth of the River. Here it was noted that the current flowed at from three to four knots, a powerful stream and gigantic mass of water. Debris in the river included the swollen bodies of humans, and of cattle and other animals, tree branches and trunks, pieces of wood, and any other manner of flotsam.\n\nContinuing upstream the following day guns' crews and machine gunners were closed up in case of fire being received from parties of bandits ashore.\n\nAt 1500 hours on Saturday, 5th September HERMES anchored off Hankow, one of the three cities forming Wuhan in Hupeh Province, 636 miles from the Fairway Buoy. Wuhan is the home of the successful revolution of 1911.\n\nConflict ashore between various warlords, groups of mere bandits, and the Nationalists, it sometimes being impossible to tell the difference between such groups, had resulted in there being some danger on the River. This in addition to the high and hazardous waters. It was not only relatively large warships such as HERMES who had to guard against random fire from the river banks. The small river steamers were a far more obvious target. Consequently from Monday, the 7th, parties of armed guards constantly were being sent away from the ship to escort", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216495, "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-2003", "page_number": 254, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "205\n\nYET ANOTHER ANGLE ON THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE, 1918\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nMany of the officers of the Chinese Labour Corps in France in 1918 were or had been Christian missionaries in China recruited for their language skills. One usually hears about Protestant missionaries of various sects in uniform in France though, as far as I am aware, no Roman Catholic missionaries would appear to have been recruited. It was therefore fascinating to come across a short essay in a book containing experiences and memories of members of the Irish Maynooth Mission to China which highlights this.\n\nOne afternoon in late April 1918 a Roman Catholic Chaplain was riding along a road near the border of Artois and Picardy on the \"Poor Old Slob,\" as his groom affectionately called the antiquated charger. Some eight miles to the east he could discern the gentle rise where the line had been held during the desperate weeks which followed March 21st and it was here that he saw in a sheltered field a short distance off the road, a group of tents before which swarms of Chinese Labour men were cooking their evening meal.\n\nThe Chaplain suddenly realised that he had never heard whether there were any Catholics amongst the Chinese: and besides, it was meal time there and perhaps, with a bit of luck he would find an officer there at tea. As he rode through the camp the Chinese turned and looked at him with that impenetrable stare which is so disconcerting to the western mind. He found the officer in his tent, with his Chinese servant setting the tea-things on a soap box which did duty for a table.\n\nThe officer, as he sat to tea, said to the Chaplain, ‘Any Catholics, you ask. I should not be surprised if there were, because these chaps come from an inland village where I know there was a French Mission. We can enquire during the next parade.'\n\nAfter tea the officer paraded his men and spoke a few words to them, completely unintelligible to the Catholic Chaplain. The result\n\n'Heralds of the Orient : Maynooth Mission to China: Dalgan Park, Galway : 1924", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]