[ { "id": 204238, "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-1961", "page_number": 6, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n3\n\nTHE NORTH CHINA BRANCH started in Shanghai in 1857 under the name of the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society. Its first President was the Rev. E. C. Bridgman, D.D., the first American missionary in China and the founder and manager of the Chinese Repository. Its first Journal appeared in 1858 in the name of the Literary and Scientific Society, but in that year the Society became affiliated to the Royal Asiatic Society as its North China Branch. Except for a brief period between 1861, when Dr. Bridgman died, and 1864 when the Society was reanimated through the unremitting efforts of Sir Harry Parkes as President, the Society maintained for nearly 85 years—until the outbreak of the second world war in December 1941—almost an unbroken vigour and a high reputation as the principal centre of Oriental culture among the foreign and Chinese communities in Central China. It also kept up a high standard of scholarship and of cultural appeal in its Journal, which appeared unfailingly every year. After the war it continued its work until, after 1948, it was forced through political troubles to cease its activities. The last issues of the Journal had been published with the co-operation of the International Institute of China.\n\nThe Society in Shanghai was from its early days fortunate in the support of a generous public and of the British Government, which in 1868 provided it with a site at a nominal rent for its own building, completed in 1871. Later the property was conveyed to the Society in perpetuity or for so long as it was used for the Society's purpose. Thus, in 1931 the Society was able, with the aid of public subscriptions and generous municipal grants, to build in Museum Road close to the British Consulate a commodious building of its own; it contained a lecture hall named after the late Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a floor to accommodate its Oriental Library of 12,000 volumes and adjacent reading rooms, as well as space for an excellent natural history museum and for the exhibition of Chinese paintings and other works of art.\n\nIn 1941 the Society had nearly 800 members, including most of the leading Oriental scholars, explorers and travellers. Amongst the outstanding personalities who had been associated with the North China Branch a few may be mentioned—Dr. Joseph Edkins, Thomas W. Kingsmill, Dr. Emil Breitschneider, Henri Cordier (at one time the Society's Librarian), P. G. van Mollendorf, Sir Robert Hart, Sir Harry Parkes, Sir Byron Brennan, W. H. Medhurst, Sir Edmund Hornby (the first British Judge in China), Sir Rutherford Alcock, H. A. Giles, G. H. Parker, H. B. Morse, A. P. Parker, Alexander Hosie, Samuel Couling, Sir Sidney Barton and Dr. J. C. Ferguson, an American, former President of Nanking University and a man of profound learning and wisdom who, in the course of half a century, served the Society as President, Secretary and Editor of the Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205657, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "194\n\nPRIP-MØLLER, J.\n\nTHE LIBRARY\n\nChinese Buddhist monasteries; their plan and its function as a setting for Buddhist monastic life. Hong Kong, Hong Kong U. P., 1967.\n\nReprinted from the original ed., Copenhagen, 1937.\n\nRAND, Christopher.\n\nHongkong; the island between. Tokyo, Tuttle, 1955.\n\nREMER, C. F., ed.\n\nThree essays on the international economics of communist China. Publ. for Center for Japanese Studies and the Department of Economics. Ann Arbor, Univ. of Michigan P., 1959.\n\nRIDE, Sir Lindsay.\n\nBiographical note [on] James Legge: concordance tables [to Legge's Chinese classics, and] notes on Mencius, by Arthur Waley. Hong Kong, H.K. Univ. P., 1960.\n\nRIDE, Sir Lindsay.\n\nRobert Morrison; the scholar and the man: and, Illustrated catalogue of the exhibition held at the University of Hong Kong September fourth to eighteenth 1957 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Robert Morrison's arrival in China. Hong Kong, University Press, 1957.\n\nROWLEY, George.\n\nPrinciples of Chinese painting, with illus. from the Du Boist Schanck Morris collection. Princeton, N.J., Princeton U.P., 1947. (Princeton monographs in art and archaeology, 24)\n\nROY, Jules.\n\nJourney through China. Tr. from the French by Francis Price. London, Faber, 1967.\n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. Hong Kong Branch.\n\nAspects of social organization in the New Territories: week-end symposium, 9th-10th May, 1964. [Hong Kong, the Branch, 1964]\n\nROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. Hong Kong Branch.\n\nSome traditional Chinese ideas and conceptions in Hong Kong life today: weekend symposium, October 1966. Hong Kong, the Branch, 1967.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206419, "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": 236, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\nEARLY MING WARES OF CHINGTECHEN. A. D. Brankston. 106 pp. 45 plates (1 coloured), 18 text-illus. Re-issue 1970. Vetch and Lee, Hong Kong $60; Lund Humphries, London, £5.\n\nThe appearance of a reissue of A. D. Brankston's book Early Ming Wares of Chingtechen will be welcomed by the collector, connoisseur and dealer alike and will fill a long-awaited need to possess this classic in the field of Chinese ceramics. The original edition, published by Mr. Henri Vetch in Peking in 1938 was limited to 650 copies and has been, until now, virtually unobtainable to the layman, despite the fact that it is frequently referred to by writers on Chinese Porcelain and freely quoted from in sales catalogues. The present edition has been faithfully reproduced on the off-set press and Mr. Vetch is to be congratulated for turning out a most pleasing volume which retains much of the charm of the original.\n\nArchibald Brankston was born in Shanghai in 1909. He followed his father's profession as a civil engineer and, after schooling in England, came to Hong Kong to work on the Shing Mun Valley Water Scheme. Being obliged to return to England due to ill health, he was fortunate to be employed in the setting-up of the International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London in 1935. This led to his appointment as a travelling student by the Universities China Committee in London and he was thereby enabled to journey into the interior of China and visited the kiln sites around Chingtechen from which he recovered a variety of samples which now form part of the British Museum study collection. He was also fortunate in being acquainted with well-known Chinese collectors of that time, including Mr. Wu Lai-hsi and others. Back in England, he was employed in the Department of Oriental Antiquities of the British Museum for two years until he had to return to the Far East on behalf of the Ministry of Information. He died in Hong Kong in 1941 at the early age of 31.\n\nThe book deals mainly with blue and white wares of the 15th Century covering the reigns of Yung Lo, Hsüan-Tê, Ch'êng Hua and Hung Chih and also includes some information on the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212540, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "74\n\nWhile the artistic level of the performances was important, balance between countries and art forms were secondary considerations. There was no \"quota\" of any kind.10\n\nActive, too, in hosting American performing artists in this period was the Central Philharmonic Society of China (CPSC). From 1979 to 1981, the CPSC invited 22 American musicians to China on 11 occasions, and co-performed with them.11 Like the CPAA, CPSC's invitations were merely based on the merit of the musicians who were willing to come. The policies of the CPAA and the CPSC demonstrated China's urgent need for quality cultural performances which could help China raise her artistic level, either for prestige or for fulfilling the demand of the society for a better cultural life, at very marginal expense. Equally important, these programmes of exchanges provide an illustration of the position of international arts exchanges under the open-door policy.\n\nThis cultural opening-up was also stimulated by the establishment of closer ties with other countries to improve general relations and win better international economic co-operation. This dynamic came from the Chinese leadership, within which it was widely accepted that economic co-operation from Western countries for China's modernization programme could not be gained without solid Chinese commitments in the international community. Cultural exchanges can be taken as expressions of such commitments.\n\nChina's international cultural exchanges were conducted on the basis of bilateral ties rather than as a function of a general policy in favour of a large-scale influx of foreign culture. Throughout the years between 1972 and 1986, there was no major speech, public announcement or publicized decision in favor of any foreign cultural presence in China comparable with those regarding foreign economic relations. On the other hand, China signed 63 cultural agreements with foreign governments between 1978 and 1986. It also renegotiated more than a dozen cultural agreements in this same period, making those old agreements compatible with China's new objectives in the new era.12 More significantly, bilateral cultural exchanges were reinforced through frequent signings of implementing accords under the agreements to consolidate cultural relations.\n\nTo foster official relations through arts exchanges, two state agencies, the CPAA and the China Exhibition Agency (CEA), were established", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212548, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "82\n\ninternational considerations once again dominated Sino-American relations, but cultural relations this time occupied an important position. The administration saw clearly that cultural exchanges were a means towards a closer relationship. In the period 1979-1981, bilateral arts exchanges were numerous, showing the strong support of the administration for such projects. Carter personally, like Nixon, granted interviews with visiting Chinese artists and to China-bound American artists.\n\nThe framework of arts exchanges established by the Carter Administration had a far-reaching impact on the coming years. The impact was so strong that a substantial number of exchanges were still carried out when Sino-American relations were at a low ebb in the initial years of the Reagan Administration.\n\nIn the Reagan Administration, cultural relations with China were handled at a lower level of management, as compared with the Carter Administration. Furthermore, the \"spirit of U.S. generosity, high expectations, and mutual understanding\" that had informed relations during the Carter administration had yielded to narrow calculations of interest, revived ideological enmity, and mutual suspicion. Nevertheless, the function of cultural exchanges as a foreign policy instrument was essentially the same - supporting general policy objectives. As the anti-Soviet strategic theme in Sino-American relations became less urgent, the United States began to pursue long-term American interests more vigorously and arts exchanges with China became even more politicized than in the previous three administrations.\n\nIn the Reagan Administration, arts exchanges were made a channel to export to China American ideology and to consciously create a cultural imagery in China. To examine the nature of arts exchanges with China in the Reagan Administration, a good example might be an incident involving a show of modern American paintings from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.\n\nThe art exhibition from the Boston Museum was an official exchange programme initiated to implement the accord reached in Beijing in 1979. Before the opening of the show, Chinese officials requested that 13 abstract paintings be deleted from the exhibition. The American side, headed by Charles Wick, Director of the USIA (then called the United States International Communication Agency (USICA)), responded", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213419, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1995", "page_number": 15, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "particular attention and that was the three and a half months photographic exhibition which was put on by the Society in conjunction with the very helpful Antiquities and Monuments Office. This exhibition, covering many aspects of Hong Kong history with a fine array of photographs from the Society's archives and other sources, ran for three months. It attracted a great deal of publicity in the Chinese and English press, radio programmes and United Press International also beamed a release around the world, not just about the exhibition but also about heritage and local history in Hong Kong in general. I would like to thank the staff of the Recreation and Culture Department of the Hong Kong Government, and particularly its Secretary, Mr. T.H. Chau, for making this all possible, those who lent photographs for the exhibition, Mrs. S. McGrady, Mr. Colin Gimson, Mrs. P. Alway, Mr. Brian Pearce and Mrs. Elaine Marden, and even more particularly Dr. Dan Waters. Without Dan's drive and enthusiasm it is doubtful if the Exhibition would ever have got off the ground, but it did and we owe him a huge vote of thanks.\n\nThe Exhibition was such a great success that we do hope that it will be possible to run similar events.\n\nI have dwelt for sometime on the activities of the Society deservedly so since they play a very important and prominent part in the Society's affairs. However there are other activity areas which are important for us to note and acknowledge. Firstly there is the library. Under the capable guidance of Ms. Julia Chan, our Librarian, it continues to flourish: she will report separately to you. Secondly, there is the administration of our finances, by our Treasurer, Mr. Robert Nield; he will be reporting to you separately later in detail. However, well as the finances are run, and they are in a sound position, even he cannot manufacture income from nothing and escape from the ravages of inflation. Subscription rates have not been raised since 1993 and you will note therefore that we are recommending a rise in rates with effect from 1 January 1997.\n\nLastly I would like to convey our thanks to those who keep this very interesting Society together, to all Council members, particularly to the two Vice-Presidents, Reverend Carl Smith and Dr. Elizabeth Sinn; Mrs. Anita Wilson for co-ordinating the all important Newsletter and last but not least our Assistant Secretary, Mrs. Claire Hockaday.\n\nXIV\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216342, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "50\n\nmore detail, the returns for the Company and 'Country' trade at Appendix I in Greenberg, Michael (1951), British Trade and the Opening of China. Cambridge University Press.\n\ns Cited in Views of the Pearl River Delta, Macau, Canton and Hong Kong (1996). Urban Council, Hong Kong joint exhibition organized by the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Peabody Essex Museum, USA, p.108.\n\n9\n\nBall, B.L., M.D., Rambles in Eastern Asia Including China and Manilla During Several Years' Residence, Boston, 1855, pp.97-8,\n\n10 Davis, John Francis (1845). Sketches of China Partly During an Inland Journey of Four Months, Between Peking, Nanking and Canton. [made with Lord Amherst's Embassy in 1816]. London, as a Supplement to the 1845 edition of The Chinese, p.262.\n\n11 Cited in Views, op.cit., p.109.\n\n12 Parkinson, op.cit., pp.257-8.\n\n13 Gutzlaff, Rev. Charles (1838). China Opened, or A Display of the Topography, History, Customs, Manners, Arts, Manufactures, Commerce, Literature, Religion, Jurisprudence, Etc., of the Chinese Empire. London, Smith, Elder & Co., 2 vols. At Vol. I, p.138.\n\n14 For an evocative recent account of Canton, see Garrett, Valery M. (2002). Heaven is High, the Emperor Far Away, Merchants and Mandarins in Old Canton, Hong Kong, Oxford University Press.\n\n15 For a description, see Davis, The Chinese, vol. II, pp.114-116.\n\n16 Herbert A. Giles (1900). A Glossary of Reference of Subjects Connected with the Far East. Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, Third Edition, p.87. A plan of the Factories, as drawn in 1856, is given in Morse, Hosea Ballou (1910), The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, The Period of Conflict 1834-1860. Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh, opposite p.70.\n\n17 Ball, Rambles in Eastern Asia, op.cit., p.100. The earlier remark is by Commodore Mathew Perry, USN, when en route to his Mission to Japan, but other than having recorded \"Perry, p.136\" I cannot at present trace my source.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]