[ { "id": 204509, "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": 141, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "126\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTHE SUNG WONG TOI INSCRIPTION\n\nIn the year 1277 A.D. Mongol troops overran the Canton area and the one but last Sung emperor, Ti Cheng, who was still a boy, took refuge in the neighbourhood of the present Kowloon City. In this area there was a small hill with a flat top and on this the followers of the boy emperor constructed a lookout, which afterwards became known as Sung Wong T’oi ('terrace of the Sung emperor') while the hill was called the 'Sacred Mount'.\n\nIn 1807 the three characters 宋皇台 (Sung-wong t'oi) were carved on a very large boulder on the Sacred Mount, and remained there until 1943 when the Japanese partially demolished the hill during their occupation of Hong Kong in order to make room for an extension to the airport. Eventually the inscription from the great rock of Sung Wong Toi was placed in its present position in the Sung Wong Toi Park which is off Sung Wong Toi Road near Kai Tak airport.\n\nThus this stone inscription has been preserved and provides a permanent reminder of Kowloon's association with the end of the Sung Dynasty.\n\nThere is a detailed account of these events written in Chinese by Mr. Lo Hsiang-lin ✯ of the Department of Oriental Studies in the University of Hong Kong which can be found in his book Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Hong Kong, 1959).\n\nJ. L. C-B.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205273, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "28\n\nJEN YU-WEN\n\nIt is recalled that the area north of the Sacred Hill was known locally by the name of Chiao-pei-shih (Kau-pui-shek in Cantonese) (1). Chiao-pei, or more properly pei-chiao, means two pieces of wood carved in the shape of oyster shells which are used for the purpose of divination in worshipping idols. This has induced me to think that the Sacred Hill just to the south was originally named Chiao-pei-shih, for the two large rocks really looked like a pair of divining blocks.13\n\nOn 24th October, 1860, when the Peking Treaty was signed, the area south of Boundary Street in Kowloon was ceded to Great Britain, and on 19th January, 1861 was formally taken over by the Hong Kong Government. Since then the Government has taken a deep interest in, and made special efforts for, the preservation and protection of the Sung Wong Toi. In February, 1899, the Sung Wong Toi Reservation Ordinance* was enacted expressing the popular wish of the local residents to preserve this area as a public resort and to prohibit the leasing of any piece of land within it for constructing buildings or any other purpose. The Government also erected a small stone tablet at the foot of the Sacred Hill bearing the words \"Sung Wong Toi Reservation, Quarrying Absolutely Forbidden” and two lines of Chinese characters beneath. In 1915 Prof. Lai Chi-hsi (賴際熙), head of the Chinese Department of the University of Hong Kong, upon hearing that this area was to be sold by auction, appealed to the Government to be sure to reserve this area permanently. Mr. Li Sui-kam (李瑞金), a leading citizen of Hong Kong, lent his support and paid for the erection of an encircling stone balustrade.\n\nWhen the Japanese occupied the territory 1941-45, they levelled the Sacred Hill for the purpose of extending the Kai-tak Airport. They blasted the engraved rock which broke into three pieces. Fortunately one part retained the original inscription intact. After the Liberation in 1945 the Government held to its former desire to preserve this ancient monument. A small garden was created to the southwest of the airfield, about five hundred feet west of the original Sacred Hill across the Tam-kung Road. The section of engraved rock was trimmed into a rectangular shape and placed within the garden which was to be its permanent and suitable resting place. This, too, fulfilled the public wish. Work on the\n\n* On the initiative of Dr Ho Kai, later Sir Kai Ho Kai (1859-1914).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205530, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "67\n\nFURTHER NOTES ON THE SUNG WONG T'OI\n\nW. SCHOFIELD*\n\nThe very interesting paper by Professor Lo Hsiang-lin on the Sung Wong T'oi and the travelling courts of the Sung Dynasty, in Volume III No. 2 of the Journal of Oriental Studies,† and the partial wrecking of the historic site by the Japanese in the war,‡ have prompted the writer to put on record some notes made during the years 1918 and 1937 on the earthworks, inscriptions and relics found by him on and near the site, which may help to supplement Professor Lo's paper. In what follows the hill is described as it was in 1937, as the writer has not seen it since 1938.\n\nIt is a crescent-shaped hill, convex towards the east, where it rises steeply from the beach to a height of nearly 40 metres. It commands a good view of the south slope of the Kowloon hills and the plain beneath, the east half of the harbour, and of Lyemun channel and the west end of the Fat Tau Mun channel beyond, except for a few hundred metres at its north side by Slope Island (see Plate 5). A watch-tower on its summit would provide an observation post well over 40 metres above sea level. The concave side, on which lies the main path to the top, is terraced for cultivation up to 15 or 20 metres.\n\nThe objects investigated on and near the hill can be classed in three categories, earthworks, inscriptions, and pottery and other objects, and will be dealt with in that order.\n\nThe Earthworks (see sketch plan at Plate 3)\n\nThere are signs that the hill was formerly fortified. On its top from the south end above the 20 metre contour as far as the great inscribed rock on the summit, there is a gentle rise from which the ground falls away steeply to the east, and rather less so to the west and south. At the south end of the ridge traces of a bank at the edge appear to form a rough semicircle, presumably as a flank defence, for a clearly defined earth bank about a metre high by three or four wide at the base runs northward from it nearly straight along the centre of the hill crest to a point near the south-\n\n*See biographical note at the end of this article.\n\n† Published by the Hong Kong University Press, May 1958. [See also Mr. Jen Yu-wen's article \"The Travelling Palace of Southern Sung in Kowloon\" in JHKBRAS, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 21-38. Ed.]\n\nMr. Schofield writes in the present tense, Unfortunately the hill has now disappeared completely, what was left by the Japanese being removed for the airport extension about 1958. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206331, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "A BRIEF REPORT ON SUNG-TYPE POTTERY FINDS IN HONG KONG\n\nJ. C. Y. WATT*\n\nTHE SITES\n\nOver the past thirty years various pottery finds attributed to the Sung period have been made in many parts of Hong Kong. For the purpose of this paper, two representative sites will be described and the finds discussed. The sites are: the area of Kowloon City near the present Kai Tak Airport, and Nim Shu Wan on the eastern coast of Lantau Island, the largest of the islands of Hong Kong.\n\nKowloon City, formerly called Kuan-fu Chai, was the administrative centre of the salt-pans on the north coast of Kowloon Bay. These salt-pans were one of the chief official centres of production of salt in south China during the Southern Sung period2. The existence of the Kuan-fu salt-pans, which we know from historical records, is confirmed by an inscription written by one of the salt-officers, Yen I-chang, in 1274 and carved on a rock which still stands today. The rock is situated behind a Tien-hou temple in Joss House Bay. Kuan-fu Chai was also one of the stopping places of the fleeing court of the last princes of the Sung dynasty3.\n\nIt is not surprising that a site with so much connection with Sung history should yield archaeological finds of the Sung period. The first group of finds made in this area, which are still partially available for inspection and have a fair claim to be Sung, were unearthed intermittently from a small hill which used to be known as the Sacred Hill. This hill, on which stood the Sung Wang T'ai, the Sung Princes' Rock, was levelled during the Japanese occupation in the Second World War when the airfield was extended. When the hill was demolished a large quantity of pottery was unearthed, which consisted of celadons, green glazed\n\n*Mr. Watt is Assistant Curator, City Museum and Art Gallery, Hong Kong. His note \"A Pair of Pottery Covered Jars found at Shek Pik, Lantau Island\" appeared in Vol. 9 (1969) of this Journal, pp. 161-163. This article is based on a paper presented by the author at the Manila Trade Pottery Seminar held in March, 1968.\n\nPlates 1-10 illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207394, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "154\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nconflict. I came to regret my thoroughness, for there was never time to use the equipment thus accumulated and this must have been splendid booty for the Japanese. There was also a full social life; many British women had enrolled for nursing and other essential duties and had not been evacuated. The Hong Kong Hotel was a gay place indeed, particularly on a Saturday night.\n\nIn October 1938, 35,000 Japanese troops had landed in Bias Bay on the China coast 35 miles from Hong Kong, and had then occupied Canton and had cut all communications between Hong Kong and mainland China. Patrolling Japanese ships thereafter made sailing from the Colony outside a circumscribed area very hazardous. In February 1939 the Japanese occupied the island of Hainan, 300 miles to the south of Hong Kong thus controlling the sea communications with Singapore. Curiously, after my arrival I do not remember taking part in any serious discussions with my friends about the prospects of a successful defence of Hong Kong. There were however plenty of rumours to fill the air. It was generally known that the strategic plan required Hong Kong to resist an attack for 90 days before a relief could arrive, a decision taken by the British Chiefs of Staff in 1937. In February 1940 the home authorities decided that food reserves should be accumulated for 130 days, while in August 1940 the Chiefs of Staff reached a further decision that in case of war with Japan, Hong Kong should be regarded as an outpost to be held as long as possible. After the war I learned from Liddell Hart's History of the Second World War, that in February 1940 the Chiefs of Staff concluded that the troops should be withdrawn from Hong Kong. Nothing was done to give effect to this decision. I have no doubt that the decision taken in February 1940 was the correct one which could with advantage have been taken much earlier. Ever since my arrival in Hong Kong in 1939 I believed that the Colony could not be defended successfully. The frontier, beyond which lay a strong Japanese army, was some 20 miles from Hong Kong harbour, the line to be defended, the so-called Gin Drinkers line was less than 5 miles from the harbour, the Japanese navy controlled the coast, our airport was tiny and the Air Force planes were few in number and no match in performance for their potential opponents. One and a half million Chinese civilians were crowded into Kowloon and Victoria. Roads suitable for wheeled traffic were few and open to close observation at many points. The whole picture left no doubt", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207398, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "158\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nthought fit to fight was discharged from hospital, but there must have been many of those manning the mainland defences whose legs felt weak and shaky following the fever and anaemia of the disease as they covered the hilly and terribly uneven country they were called on to defend,\n\nThe news from Europe, North Africa and the United Kingdom during 1940 and the first part of 1941 was very bad, while the stories of the German advances in Russia after June 1941 added to the general depression. In October 1941, two battalions of Canadian infantry, the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada, disembarked in Hong Kong. With these came a number of Canadian Army Medical Officers, with Major John Crawford in charge, and two Canadian Army Nursing Sisters. The sight of these strongly built young men was momentarily, and quite irrationally comforting, but this feeling was soon replaced by astonishment that anyone should have dreamed that reinforcements of this order could possibly have altered the situation. In the event the Japanese attacked before the poor Canadians, who were not even accompanied by their transport, had time to settle down and they merely added to the numbers of casualties incurred and prisoners taken by the enemy. In February 1941 it might have been agreed that there were no ships available to withdraw the troops from Hong Kong, but in October of the same year ships were found to bring in more.\n\nI have chronicled my own thoughts on the situation in Hong Kong in the years leading up to December 1941 only to give some idea of the position as it appeared to one individual and as a background to an account of the events which followed. I do not know that these thoughts were shared by many others though it would be strange if they were not. There was certainly no defeatist spirit abroad and the general feeling seemed to be one of some confidence in our ability to hold the Japanese for a time. I imagine that many shared my own feeling in 1941 that since I could not change the situation I would have to put up with it. And so, on the morning of 8 December 1941, Dr. J.W. Anderson, who had most generously shared his house with me, and I stood at Magazine Gap and had a spectacular grandstand view of the short Japanese air attack on Kai Tak airport by the end of which no British planes remained able to fly. Together he, now a Major R.A.M.C., and I moved into", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207434, "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": 202, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "194\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nalways been under close surveillance as well by the gendarmerie. After his arrest in May, 1943, he was confined in the cells below the Supreme Court in conditions of the utmost squalor and was subjected to the intensive, unending, repetitive \"interrogation\" about his alleged spying activities which are lamentably so well known nowadays. One of the accusations was that in some way he was in touch with the British Embassy in Lisbon to which he was supposed to have reported information about Japanese activities. The charge was a capital one and the sentence of the trial court was death. To such a condition was he reduced that he told his captors to get on with the job and carry out the sentence. This they did not do, and he suspects that the deaths in prison of the Chief Manager of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in circumstances in which ill-treatment and starvation were suspected made even the Japanese gendarmerie reluctant to offer Selwyn-Clarke as a third victim. Sixteen months later he was tried again, also upon a capital charge but due to some dealings of oriental subtlety by some of his friends in the Colony the sentence this time was three years in prison. In December 1944 he was transferred from Stanley prison to Ma Tau Wei Internment camp near Kai Tak airport and there he says he was alright. In August 1945, when we welcomed him to our hospital in the Central British School he was still physically in poor shape and he suffered permanent disabilities. His spirit, however, if it had once been bent, had by then recovered and as soon as he could after the Japanese surrender he returned to his office in Hong Kong to reestablish medical and health control and order in the Colony.\n\nBefore closing this section which has been devoted to the problems of feeding patients and staff in the hospital I am glad to refer to the Red Cross organization in Hong Kong during the war. Mr. R. Zindel, a Swiss citizen and thus a neutral, was in charge. He made formal inspections of the hospital about every six months accompanied by the Japanese Commander of P.O.W. camps. I shall refer later to these visits, but it was quite evident to me that Mr. Zindel was confined within strict limits by the Japanese during his inspections. He must, I feel sure, have met the same difficulties in his work outside the hospital, but I record here with gratitude our indebtedness to his tenacity, skill and resource in getting to us so many of the food stores which made such a very great difference to our wellbeing. I had the pleasure of meeting him also in Hong Kong during my visit in 1964.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208007, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "BEHIND JAPANESE BARBED WIRE: STANLEY INTERNMENT CAMP, HONG KONG\n\n1942-1945\n\nGEOFFREY CHARLES EMERSON*\n\nOn Monday morning, December 8th 1941, a few minutes after 8 a.m. and a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, bombs dropped on Kai Tak airport and the battle of Hong Kong had begun. 17 days later, on Christmas Day 1941, Hong Kong surrendered. At that time there were approximately 3000 non-Chinese civilians of the Allied powers in Hong Kong. Until early January 1942, these people were on the whole left alone, most of them remaining at home because it was very dangerous to go out due to the breakdown of law and order which occurred with the surrender on Christmas Day.\n\nOn 4th January 1942, a notice appeared in the Hongkong News (the only English-language newspaper published during the occupation) for all enemy nationals to assemble at Murray Parade Grounds (today the site of the Hilton Hotel). Many people, especially those on the Peak and in the University area, did not see this notice, but eventually about 1000 gathered at the Parade Grounds, and after registration they were marched through the centre of Hong Kong and interned in a number of hotel-brothels located on the waterfront (near the present Macau Ferry Pier).\n\nThe American journalist Joseph Alsop, who was one of those caught in Hong Kong in 1941, wrote the following in The Saturday Evening Post:\n\nAfter trudging a mile and a half, we turned abruptly into a narrow alley and were halted before the grilled door of an ancient, dilapidated and very dirty building. Painted on the peeling plaster was an announcement in Chinese that it was the Stag Hotel, offering comfortable rooms at cheap rates. In reality, it was a Chinese brothel of the third class.†\n\n* Text of a paper read at a meeting of the Society on 13 April 1977. Mr. Emerson, M.Phil. (Hong Kong) is Vice Principal of St. Paul's College, Hong Kong, and President of the Hong Kong History Society.\n\n†The Stag Hotel was situated in Queen's Road Central to the west of the Central Market.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208282, "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": 6, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "185\n\nthey were knocking on every door in the village to force villagers to act as their porters. Mr. Chung had little choice but to obey. For the next week, he and quite a few of his fellow villagers were taken away from the village. He remembered having to march up Fei Ngo Shan, down to Ma Yau Tong, and then to Lei Yu Mun, until he successfully escaped.66\n\nIt was probably on December 11 that Mr. Chau T'in Shang in Sai Kung Market saw the Japanese cavalry pass. The Japanese did not enter the market. There was no disturbance or fighting. The police had been withdrawn before the Japanese arrived, and people just stayed indoors.67\n\nQuite a few villagers from Sai Kung and nearby villages were in the city when the War broke out. Mr. Wan Ts'eung of Tai Po Tsai was living in Kowloon City at the time. He must have learnt of the beginning of the War when he saw Kai Tak Airport bombed. But he recalled that one morning, he was in the street, and was shocked by machine-gun fire behind him. He hid behind some stone pillars, and then saw Fifth Columnists, known as the \"victory fellows\" (shing lei yau) who proclaimed that they were members of the Asia Prosperity Institution (Hing A Kei Kwan). Mr. Cheung Wing of Wo Mei was in Shaukiwan when he heard of the outbreak of war. He immediately went with several people back to the village, and feared all the way that they might be spotted and shot at by the Japanese. He arrived in the village before the Japanese came down from Keng Hing Shek. Mr. Tse Koon K'au of Tan Ka Wan spent the night of December 7 in the Nathan Hotel in Kowloon. This hotel was frequented by New Territories villagers when they went into the city. The next morning, he heard the aeroplanes and the bombs, and went out to ask what the matter was. When he saw that people in Shamshuipo were wounded, he realized that it was not a practice exercise, and started immediately to return to Sai Kung. A Mr. Chan Shing of Tai Po had a petrol station on Waterloo Road, and Mr. Chan drove Mr. Tse and five other people towards Sha Tin. They were stopped at a roadblock and were not allowed to drive into the New Territories. He left the car, with some difficulty bypassed the roadblock, spent some time with a friend in Chap Wai Kon (Sha Tin), and spent the night at Wu Kai Sha. He arrived in Sai Kung the next day, before the Japanese appeared", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211003, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "40\n\nare the ones to be found remounted in the City today. Inscriptions on them indicate that they had been cast in 1802 and apparently transferred to Kowloon from the Tung-lung Forts in 1811. We do not know the origins of the other cannon, and since the War, there has been no trace of them.\n\nAnd so the City languished. Although squatters had filtered in after 1899, in the 1930s, the population was still less than 500. Conditions there were insanitary but at least it escaped the horrific over-crowding of some other parts of the Colony. In 1933, however, the government announced plans to demolish the houses, ostensibly for sanitary reasons, sparing only those used for public purposes, and to make the area into “a place of popular resort and antiquarian interest\". There was some resistance from the residents; the Chinese authorities protested on their behalf while objecting to British disregard for the Convention. After several years' hesitation, the Hong Kong government finally took steps, despite Chinese objections, to evict all residents. By 1940, all buildings, except the old people's home, the former Lung-chin Communal School and the private home of a native resident, had been demolished. The dismantling continued under the Japanese: the wall was completely torn down to provide material to extend Kai Tak Airport.\n\nThe \"Walled City\" was no more.\n\nAfter the War, as refugees fled to Hong Kong, a number of them settled in the \"Walled City”; by 1947, its population had risen to about 2,000. Once more, the Hong Kong government's attempt to expel them provoked diplomatic conflict. But this time, no eviction took place. Instead, the City was left to its own devices, and to develop, as Governor Sir Alexander Grantham described it, into “a cesspool of iniquity, with heroin divans, brothels and everything unsavoury. From the early '60s, squatter huts gave way to high-rise buildings, which seem designed to break every conceivable construction regulation. Built with no open space between them, but with passages connecting each other like rabbit warrens, they are fire and health hazards and perfect criminal hide-outs. The old people's centre, formerly the Kuang-yin yuan, provides the only open area, and the mass of concrete around this\n\n+65", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214062, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "In order to deliver fresh water to the public. It is interesting to note that, in order to conserve fresh water, a salt-water mains system for flushing was investigated in 1921 and again in 1927 but was not pursued at that time.\n\nAirfields\n\nThe original aerodrome was formed on a wedge of land comprising some 10 hectares (350m long by 275m wide) which had been reclaimed from the shallow waters of Kowloon Bay by a private housing development company established by Sir Kai Ho Kai and Mr Au Tak and bounded on the east and west by large open nullahs, with the first plane taking off in 1924. The reclamation then came under the control of Government in 1927 after the company failed. Government subsequently arranged for the airfield to be extended in 1929 and 1931 to some 83 hectares, partly using as a filling material hydraulic fill, obtained by dredging from the harbour, which was then covered with about a metre of decomposed granite and contained by a concrete blockwork seawall extending some 1.2 kilometres. The three open nullahs crossing the airport field were all covered by 1930, the concrete slab decks being propped by central piers.\n\nA short 457m-long tarmac runway, primarily for civilian use on an east-south-east/west-north-west alignment, together with hardstandings, jetty, control building, offices and a new piled civil hangar near the south-western extremity of the airport were completed in the later thirties which enabled Kai Tak to become viable, not only for flying club and military purposes, but more importantly for scheduled commercial operations which began in 1936 at a time when mail took precedence to passengers. One significant improvement noted at that time was the provision of a concrete slipway for seaplanes to replace the old tedious method of lifting them ashore with a steam-operated crane.\n\nReports that three Royal Air Force squadrons were being sent out to reinforce Hong Kong's defences shortly before the Pacific war prompted planning of a second airport, at a site near Pat Heung (Shek Kong). In 1938 the ground was levelled and grassed over but the scheme was abandoned in early 1940 with the realisation that it would be within range of Japanese artillery following their invasion of Guangdong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214063, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "98\n\nprovince.\n\nIn 1941, construction of a 457m-long tarmac-surfaced runway at Kai Tak for military use on an approximate south-east/north-west orientation, which had already necessitated the dismantling of the RAF hangar, was due to start on 8th December 1941, the precise day on which the Japanese invaded the New Territories and attacked Kai Tak airport.\n\nMilitary/Defence Works\n\nPrior to the British administration, there were several forts in the New Territories going back to the early years (17th century) of the Ch'ing Dynasty, the oldest existing fort (1717) probably being that on Tung Lung Chau overlooking the narrow Fat Tong Mun passage in the eastern approaches to the harbour, and the largest still remaining at Tung Chung (60m by 80m) on the northern coast of Lantau, which was completed in 1832. Little remains of the old 4m-high walled Kowloon City, a garrison fort (120m by 230m) with its sturdy granite parapet wall complete with embrasures and watchtowers, which was finished in 1847 soon after the British established themselves on Hong Kong Island.\n\nSubsequently, the British military have been involved in a considerable amount of civil engineering. The Royal Engineers were first involved in 1841 in the early construction of Queen's Road in Victoria. Perhaps their most impressive roadworks over the years, constructed before the Pacific war, have been Jat's Incline, which provides access to the upper levels of the steep hills overlooking Kowloon. Nevertheless, the main military engineering effort was expended on providing defences and back-up facilities (for example, naval dockyards, aviation needs, storage depots, barracks, and hospitals), principally against possible seaborne attack by Russia last century and later against the increasingly land/sea invasion threat by Japan in the 1930s. Novel defence measures included excavation of a cavern at Lei Yue Mun towards the end of the nineteenth century to house the sophisticated Brennan torpedo, which, after launching down a ramp, was controlled from the shore with a wire attached to the rudder.\n\nRegarding defence facilities, at the outbreak of the Pacific war in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214603, "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": 18, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "first time that an RASHKB representative, in this case your President, has been invited to sit on a government committee of this nature.\n\nThe Branch has also been notified by various bodies who were searching for scholars: for instance the Urban Council which was looking for a Hong Kong Researcher(s) to compile a monograph on the history of the Urban Council. We have also received a number of queries from the media, scholars, students and members of the public. Such queries referred mainly to Hong Kong history, culture or customs. We were generally able to answer such enquiries. Subjects ranged from conditions in prisoner-of-war camps under the Japanese; to the retaking of Hong Kong in 1945 after World War Two; to a doctorate student seeking information about Wei Hai Wei. In another case the business house of Swire was trying to find out where the place, Bak Hin Hok, was. This was found to be, thanks to Dr Joseph Ting, a district in Canton as it was so named a century or so ago. In some cases, with such queries, a number of RAS members and considerable time, research and interviews have been necessary.\n\nThe RASHKB Volunteers\n\nThis working group of well over 20 members on roll has, for much of the year, gone off on expeditions every other week or so, to inspect and report on various buildings or sites. These have included such structures as the old Kai Tak Airport, military installations and Chinese shop-houses. There is no doubt that these inspections, which are another form of community service, are of significant value to the Government Antiquities and Monuments Office to whom reports are submitted. We are grateful to all our Volunteers many of whom put in a considerable amount of time and effort which includes research and writing up reports. A special vote of thanks must go to Bill Greaves and Bob Horsnell, both Chartered Surveyors, historians and long-time residents of Hong Kong, who lead our band of stalwart Volunteers.\n\n'Friends' of the RASHKB\n\nThis group of overseas RASHKB members has completed another successful year in Britain and a report, written by David Gilkes (RASHKB Immediate Past President), the 'Friends' Chairman, has been prepared. Your President was pleased to be able to attend their AGM in\n\nxvii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214654, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "33\n\nartisans. In many of the uncle-and-nephew joint ownerships, the older man would work the farm, while the younger went off as a seaman - when the older man died or got too old to work the land, the younger would return to work the farm and marry, while the uncle's son in turn would go off as a seaman. In others, one of the owners would work a shop in the Market, with his brother or cousin working the farm. In all these cases the subsistence income from the farm, and the cash income from the shop or ship were regarded as the joint property of the whole family. These joint ownerships, therefore, tended to allow more flexibility in management of the economic opportunities available than the single-ownership properties.\n\nOf course, where, as at Nga Tsin Wai after the foundation of the City at Hong Kong in 1841, a good deal of the land was devoted to market gardening, then a household could subsist on less land than was needed for rice subsistence, so long as the village had good access to a vigorous market. Market gardening, however, required considerably more labour than a rice farm, perhaps three or four adults to the acre.\n\nNga Tsin Wai was, therefore, not seriously short of arable land. The villagers could, in normal years, feed themselves, especially since a good deal of the land was devoted to market gardening, even in the nineteenth century. Indeed, even as late as the Japanese Occupation, the village could subsist on its own land: Nga Tsin Wai is one of the few New Territories villages where no-one died of starvation under the Japanese - the village fields (by then entirely given over to market gardening) could still feed the village, even when a third or more had been confiscated by the Japanese for the construction of the Airport Extension and the new nullah.\n\nvery\n\nThe Ng clan comprised 58.8% of the recorded 1902 Nga Tsin Wai house-owning households (including those households only owning land in Sha Po or Kowloon City), but owned 68.59% of the arable land (including land held by Ng clan trusts). If the Chan and Yung households who held only houses are ignored, then the Ngs represent 63.09% of the recorded house-owning households. At the same time, the Ngs owned 20 of the 30 premises owned by villagers within the Market at Kowloon, (66%), and their premises were equivalent to 73 standard shop-sites (76.84%). The Ng clan was thus a little wealthier than the rest of the village.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214676, "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": 91, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "55 years the Nga Tsin Wai villagers blamed on this act of disrespect to the Goddess: those disasters were massive and permanent.\n\nThese disasters stemmed from the coming of the Japanese. When the Japanese came, the squatters living on the Nga Tsin Wai fields all fled, or were forced, back to China, and the villagers started the slow job of rehabilitating their fields. Before this work was complete, however, the Japanese decided to extend the airfield at Kai Tak. The pre-War Airfield was very tiny, and built solely on a narrow strip of reclaimed land seaward of today's Prince Edward Road, extending not much further seaward than the Airport Terminal Building as it stood before 1998. The Japanese saw that this was totally inadequate. They decided both to reclaim a further strip out to sea, and to clear a large area inland. They closed the very narrow road which the British had built along the sea-coast (approximately along the line of today's Prince Edward Road). They diverted all the streams of the area into a single huge stone-lined nullah, and built a new road along the inner side of this nullah (today's Choi Hung Road). To prevent floods, they built the banks of this nullah high, so that Nga Tsin Wai found itself at a level some four or five feet below that of the new nullah banks. Everything within the huge semicircle thus formed they confiscated and cleared. Po Kong, Sha Tei Yuen, Kak Hang, Ma Tau Chung, Kau Pui Shek and Nga Yiu Tau villages, with about half of Tai Hom, were all destroyed in a matter of weeks. The Sacred Hill, with the Sung Wong Toi Rock, was blasted for fill for the new reclamation.\n\nThe Japanese paid no compensation for the land they confiscated. It was just taken, and a barbed-wire fence erected: anyone crossing this fence was executed. According to the Nga Tsin Wai villagers, the villagers of the destroyed villages were allowed to take part in a ballot for huts in the “Model Village” (). This had been built by the Japanese in the area between Lancashire Road and Renfrew Road in Kowloon Tong (this area had been cleared for development in the late 1930s, but was still empty when the Japanese came in 1941). The Japanese divided this area into a number of tiny patches. Those successful in the ballot were given one of these patches, and permitted to build on it a tiny one-room hut, and to use the rest of the patch for market gardening. Those who succeeded in getting a hut here mostly survived the War: those who failed mostly died. At best a half of the villagers whose houses were destroyed and whose fields were confiscated got", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214678, "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": 93, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "57\n\nand patchings. It was at this date that the village started to look generally run-down.\n\nDespite the obvious problems, the displaced villagers who took up the empty premises inside the walls managed to survive the War. Although the village had lost many fields to the new Airport and the new nullah, nonetheless, what was left enabled the village to survive - just by growing vegetables for the market at Yaumatei. The villagers all starved, but not quite to the point of death. This is unusual - very few villages in the New Territories were able to survive the War without even one person dying of hunger.\n\nMany of the villagers, in their blazing hatred of the Japanese, however, joined the guerrillas who were active in the hills behind Kowloon. As a result, there were several raids by the Japanese on the village. Several villagers were taken and executed (by beheading, usually in front of the village) for assisting the guerrillas. The villagers say that between a minimum of three and perhaps as many as seven village men were executed in this way. The present Temple Keeper of the Tin Hau Temple had her husband of less than a year beheaded in this way.\n\nBy the end of the War, the village was on its last legs. \"If the War had gone on another year, we would all have died\": this statement is heard from all over the New Territories, including very definitely Nga Tsin Wai.\n\nAt the end of the War, the village looked to an improvement. The returning British felt they had to keep the Airfield as extended by the Japanese, but they paid solid compensation in cash to all the villagers whose land or houses had been taken by the Japanese. Some years later the \"Model Village\" was closed down, but compensation was, again, paid to those living there. New work opportunities began to open up. The village was able to find funds for a full-scale restoration of their Tin Hau Temple, in thanksgiving for the favours shown them by the goddess during the years of hardship (1948). Before these improvements could bring about any major changes, however, the Revolution in China sent another wave of refugees into Hong Kong. As in the late 1930s, many of these settled around Nga Tsin Wai, on what was left of the villagers' fields. From Diamond Hill to Kowloon City, there was, by the middle 1950s, a solid mass of squatter housing interspersed with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214680, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "59\n\nsize of the old Hall), and the Government built a new school behind the village, and handed it over to the villagers to manage. At about the same date, however, the Government included all the remaining houses within the walls in its Squatter Survey, giving them the Squatter Survey numbers they still show painted on their outer walls. By thus classing the ancient houses in Nga Tsin Wai as squatter structures, the Government made it difficult, or even impossible, for the houses to be rebuilt, or even to be given anything other than the most cursory of repairs. As a result, the village, already very run-down in the mid 1950s following the Wartime emergency repairs to the houses, became slowly more and more shabby. By the 1960s, very little survived to remind visitors of the proud and prosperous village of a half-century before. The incident in 1967, when the villagers closed their gates and readied themselves for a possible defence of the village against the rioters in San Po Kong was the last flicker of the old village pride.\n\nAlmost all the Nga Tsin Wai clan ancestral graves have been cleared for development in the last 45 years. Resites have proved very difficult to find. The Ngs have re-buried many of their disturbed graves in a single site near Shap Yi Wat village, high in the hills behind Kowloon. The clan have, however, been forced to store many other sets of remains within their Ancestral Hall, a sad abuse forced on the clan because of these resite problems.\n\nThe area within the semi-circle of Choi Hung Road, which had been taken by the Japanese for the extension of the Airport, in turn was developed for industrial and residential use in the early 1960s. A major programme of expansion was undertaken at the Airport, around a huge reclamation project involving a new runway extending out to sea (1956). The seaward end of the Japanese nullah was re-laid further to the east (this did not affect the part close to Nga Tsin Wai village). When this was completed, Prince Edward Road was extended across the old Japanese Airport site, to allow development to start at the Kwun Tong New Town. The area between the new Prince Edward Road and Choi Hung Road became superfluous to the Airport, and thus was freed for re-development. The new re-development area was given the name San Po Kong, \"New Po Kong\"), although few people realise today the significance of the name.\n\nThus, year-by-year, the old village communities of Kowloon", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215199, "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-2000", "page_number": 295, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "259\n\nAfter the Japanese invasion of Malaya on December 8, 1941 he accepted an invitation by The Times to become its war correspondent. His wife, Maria, and other expatriates were evacuated to Batavia (Jakarta) in January 1942. Mr. Morrison covered the Malayan campaign through to the surrender of Singapore on February 15, 1942, leaving the city for Batavia on February 10, where he rejoined his wife. He was in Melbourne by May of 1942, and appears to have spent the rest of the war in Australia as a war correspondent, although there is some evidence that he was in New Guinea for a period.\n\nAfter the war he and his wife returned to Singapore where he continued as a correspondent for The Times. He met Han Suyin in Hong Kong in June 1949. He went to Korea in July, 1950 to cover the Korean War and was killed on August 12, near Taegu, when the jeep in which he was travelling was blown up by a land mine. He had a brother, Alastair, in the Diplomatic Service and another brother, Colin, in the colonial service in Hong Kong.\n\nCloud service in\n\nAnd now I've seen the pavilion where Ian and Suyin sat together under the stars, and the tree, and the steps that Mark ran down (in the motion picture) after saying his final goodbye to Suyin, on his way to the airport (the book is much less romantic — they say goodbye on the street and Mark boards a 'bus for the airport). What an incredibly poignant experience!\n\nPavilion behind Realty Gardens\n\nI made my visit to the pavilion with my two young children (my wife was otherwise engaged) and understand, perhaps for the first time, that passage in Han Suyin's book where she quotes Mark as saying that life's greatest tragedy is not to be loved, which he promptly amends to not to love.\n\nAnd then, of course, there is the passage central to the book's theme and from which the title is taken:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215828, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "60 \n\nwould be unfavourable. \n\n18 G.S.P. Heywood, Hong Kong Typhoons (Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1950), p.15. \n\n19 Spring 1944 estimates for the number of Japanese aircraft able to oppose a Hong Kong landing numbered 400, with perhaps another 1,150 in nearby areas able to be diverted to Hong Kong. Allied planners believed that they could maintain a CAP of about 120 aircraft over Hong Kong at any time. See (1) CPS107/1, p.35-36, 40. (2) JIC177, \"Campaign in China: Japanese Aircraft Available to Oppose a Landing in the Hong Kong Area,\" 21 Mar 44, p.3-4; CCS381 Hong Kong; RG218; NA, Washington, DC. \n\n20 Heywood, p.15. \n\n21 There are other possible origins of the word. Tufan means smoke in Arabic, and typhon means monster in Greek. See William J. Kotsch & Richard Henderson, Heavy Weather Guide, 2nd Ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), p.167. \n\n22 (1) Heywood, p.1-2. (2) Hans Christian Adamson & George Francis Kosco, Halsey's Typhoons (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1967), p.10-14, 176-177. \n\n23 Heywood, p.1. \n\n24 (1) HKRO, Tropical Cyclones, p.2. (2) Heywood, p.16, 19. (3) Adamson & Kosco, p.11-12. \n\n25 (1) HKRO, Meteorological Results, 1937 (Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1938), Appendix II, p.4-5 (hereafter referred to as HKRO, Meteorological Results). (2) Denis Campbell Bray, Hong Kong Metamorphosis (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001), p.144. (3) Gordon John Bell, Surface Winds in Hong Kong Typhoons: Preliminary Report (Hong Kong: Royal Observatory, 1963), p.1 \n\n26 (1) HKRO, Meteorological Results, p.6. (2) South China Morning Post (SCMP), September 4, 1937, p.12. \n\n27 (1) HKRO, Meteorological Results, Appendix II. (2) Charles E.J. Eather, Airport of the Nine Dragons: Kai Tak, Kowloon (Surfer's Paradise, Queensland: Ching", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215830, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "62\n\nOH: USAAF, 1944), p.178 (hereafter referred to as USAAF). The higher the altitude of an airfield, the softer the surface of its runway, and/or the heavier the B-29, the longer its runway had to be for the aircraft to take off. Kai Tak was at sea level, but its runway was soft-surfaced for much of the war.\n\n37 The B-29 runways that were constructed in India and China were 8,500 feet (2,591 metres) long and hard-surfaced. See Keith Wheeler and the editors of Time-Life Books, Bombers Over Japan (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1982), p.99.\n\n38 Peter Pigott, Kai Tak: A History of Aviation in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1990), p.67. After the war, the press reported that the Japanese had cleared some residences and hills around Kai Tak to make way for its expansion. See SCMP, September 11, 1945 (Morning Edition), p.2.\n\n39 (1) Eather, p.53. (2) Hong Kong Government Information Services, Hong Kong Airport (Hong Kong: s.n., 1962), p.27. (3) Wings Over Hong Kong: a Tribute to Kai Tak: an Aviation History, 1891-1998 (Hong Kong: Odyssey, 1998), p.131. The Japanese apparently had a scheme to extend one of Kai Tak's runways to about 5,580 feet (1,700 metres), which still didn't allow much latitude for B-29 operations. See \"Japanese Scheme for Extension of Kai Tak,\" 7 Nov 42: Series 10/38; WIZ (Waichow Intelligence Summary) Vol.2; Nos.27-72 (Excluding Nos. 35, 37, 64, 65), April 1943-April 1944; Ride Papers.\n\n40 Wheeler, p.39, 44, 59, 63.\n\n41 Wheeler, p.44.\n\n42 USAAF, p.178. The U.S. also faced a rubber shortage after Japan gained control over most of the world's natural supplies. But it eventually produced synthetic substitutes.\n\n43 USAAF, p.180.\n\n44 According to temperature data available for the three most recent years before the war in Hong Kong (1937-1939), early morning (1-5 AM) temperatures began to approach 75°F by late April, and didn't dip well below this figure until mid- to late November. See HKRO, Meteorological Results, 1937, 1938, and 1939 (Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1938, 1939, and 1940) for hourly temperature readings for each day of the year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216239, "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": 538, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "472\n\nlacking in balance and discrimination: luckily, this is not true of the vital central three-quarters of the book. But readers should beware of the lack of balance in these two sections.\n\nThere are a few other minor flaws as well. Thus, while, of the two main Hong Kong Chinese-language newspapers, one is spoken of as the Wah Kiu Yat Po, the other is spoken of as the Xing Dao Ribao (Star Isle Daily), thus disguising (very effectively) the Sing Tao. It is difficult to discern any pattern here. There are also a few errors of fact, particularly in the first and last chapters. Thus, inter alia, nowhere near 20,000 villagers were displaced for the Japanese extension of the Airport - there were no more than a tenth of that number living in Po Kong, Sha Tei Yuen, and Kak Hang. The demolished tenements in the Kowloon City area in the 1930s were not inside the Walled City, but outside, in the Kowloon Market area. Sir Thomas Jackson was not the founder of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank (1864): he was its General Manager from 1876-1902.\n\nThese flaws, however, are minor, in comparison with the immense value and interest of the bulk of the book. It is, despite the flaws, confidently and wholeheartedly recommended to anyone interested in the history of Hong Kong.\n\nPATRICK H. HASE\n\nJane Hutcheon, From Rice to Riches, A personal journey through a changing China Sydney, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2003.\n\nThis book delivers. Its coverage is broad but deep, it has the right mix of passion and detachment, with impish but biting humour, and is quietly but cleverly constructed by the author who, for five years from 1995, was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's correspondent in China.\n\nThe author is well-suited to her task. A “China-coast\" background on both sides of her family over several generations, her Hong Kong birth and upbringing, her family's devotion to journalism, plus a genuine interest in China and its people, combine with her own independent and questing spirit to make this a memorable account of their recent and current history. It is, indeed, a tale of 'China's wrestle with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216310, "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": 69, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "18\n\nRestoring the damage done by the three years of Taiping destruction required a massive reconstruction project which lasted for nearly 30 years from 1871 to 1899. In addition to rebuilding the previous structures, several new halls which had not existed before were added during this time, including the Guest House (Ke Tang) and the Dining Hall (Zhai Tang) in 1887; the Goddess of Mercy Hall (Guan Yin Dian), Ancestors Hall (Zu Shi Dian), and the Kshitigarbha Hall (Di Zang Dian) in 1890; and finally the 500 Arhats Hall (Wu Bai Luohan Tang) in 1896.\n\nThe Republican era, 1911-1949\n\nAt the beginning of the Min Guo Republic (1912), all the monks were forced to move out by armed soldiers who moved in and used the temple as a barracks. The soldiers looted the golden statues from the temple, and wooden parts of the temple such as window frames were used by the soldiers to make cooking fires. However, in 1920 the temple and the pagoda were both repaired, and after being closed for a whole decade the temple finally officially reopened in 1922 when all the monks came back. Holmes Welch's otherwise authoritative 1967 study of Buddhism in China mistakenly stated that Longhua Temple was occupied by the Chinese military for the entire Min Guo period. Photos from D. C. Burn's brief 1926 study of the temple show that the Qing Dynasty 500 Arhat Hall (Wu Bai Luohan Tang) was still intact then, although it no longer exists now.\n\nLonghua Temple enjoyed 15 years of peace and tranquility until September 11, 1937 when the temple was badly damaged during the Japanese attack on Shanghai. Nine Japanese airplanes dropped 30 bombs on the Longhua area. Most likely they were targeting the nearby Longhua Airport and the Guomindang's Longhua Garrison military camp next door, but they accidentally caused severe damage to the temple. Before the attack there had been 80 monks living in the temple, but afterward there were only 7 monks remaining.\n\nDuring the first five years of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1942, the internal affairs of the temple were confused and disorganized, with rival masters claiming the post of Abbot, and unqualified persons claiming to be Buddhist monks for the sake of seeking safe haven in the temple. On September 9, 1942 a reorganization committee was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]