[ { "id": 205132, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\nL\n\n83\n\nTibet so that he could learn the language and some day return to translate Tibetan books. In 1933 he was given a scholarship at the Chinese Tibetan Language School, which moved in January 1934 to Chungking. There he became the disciple of a lama on the faculty. After completing the two-year course, he entered the Central Political University, which had been set up by the Kuomintang to train cadres. After a year and a half the government selected him to go to Tibet for further training.28 He lived for eight years at the Drebung Monastery outside Lhasa—the largest monastery in Tibet and probably in the world—and received a high ecclesiastical degree. His final years in Lhasa were spent running a school for Tibetan children and working in the Tibetan office of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, so that he kept his dual role of monk and political agent. This is not to imply that there was anything sinister in what he was doing. It was simply that the Chinese Government had enabled him to pursue his interest in Buddhism for their own purposes, which he naturally expected to serve.\n\nThe presence in China of an increasing number of Tibetan lamas2 and monks returned from Lhasa further stimulated interest in Tantrism among the Chinese laity. In November 1935 a group of devotees set up the Bodhi Society in Shanghai to promote the translation and study of Tantric texts. The Panchen Lama was president and the members included some high-ranking ex-officials.30 This society was one of the regular stops on the lecture tours of the lamas and Lhasa-trained monks.\n\nAmong the most active of the latter was Neng-hai (see p. 11) who had been a Nationalist general before he had taken the robe. About 1938 he became the abbot of the Chin-tz'u Ssu in Chen-tu, which until then had been a typically Chinese monastery. Neng-hai changed the daily ritual and routine to incorporate Tibetan elements. He also started a scriptural translation institute that published Tibetan books in Chinese. Since some 250 monks were usually in residence, this monastery might have exerted a wide influence towards the \"Tantrification\" of Chinese Buddhism if it had been able to carry on after 1950.\n\nRelations with Theravada Buddhists\n\nThe Japanese and Tibetans were Mahayana Buddhists with whom it would be natural for Buddhists in China, who were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205144, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n11 Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 213.\n\n12 Eastern Buddhist 3.2 (July-September, 1924), 190.\n\n95\n\n13 Chinese lay devotees went to Japan to learn Tantric Buddhism from Shingon masters. Chinese monks went for academic study (two in 1936 and two more in early 1937; see Chinese Year Book 1937, Shanghai, 1937, p. 73.\n\n14 That is, the Chung-jih fo-chiao hui. At about the same time the Sino-Japanese Tantric Association (Ching-jih mi-chiao hui) was established. See Chinese Year Book 1937, p. 73.\n\n15 Takada, p. 14.\n\n16 Takada, p. 24-36, lists a total of eleven temples established between 1876 and 1937, but on p. 14 he speaks of ten temples having been set up before 1937 and of forty-nine (not forty-six) being in operation as of December, 1942. It seems clear that he does not include temples that have gone out of operation, like those in Nanking and Changsha (see note 2), and possibly those in Fukien. The only temple outside Shanghai that survived from the era before 1937 was the Honganji temple in Hankow, established 1906, which in 1942 had 1,200 Japanese and 150 Chinese parishioners.\n\n17 For example, in 1942 at the original Honganji temple in Shanghai the number of Japanese parishioners was 4,930 and the number of Chinese was zero. This temple was obviously not engaged in missionary work, but exclusively in serving the Japanese community.\n\n18 Two officers of the Ching-an Ssu in Shanghai are said to have been arrested and in Canton the abbot of the Liu-jung Ssu, T'ieh-ch'an, was executed.\n\n19 H. G. Quaritch Wales, \"Buddhism As an Instrument of Japanese Propaganda\" Free World 5.5 (May 1943), 428.\n\n20 Takada, p. 1, states that the alliance was set up in April 1937 in accordance with the policy formulated in October 1938. Perhaps the first date is a misprint.\n\n21 Takada, pp. 1, 4, 5. The changes in the bureaucratic status of the Great Harmony Religious Alliance appear to have been as follows. After being set up under the military authorities, it was transferred to the liaison office of the Central China Liaison Office of the Office for the Resurgence of Asia (Koain), which had been set up in December 1938 directly under the Cabinet in order to formulate policy on and handle relations with China. In April 1942 the Alliance was placed under the supervision of the Foreign Ministry through its representatives in Shanghai. In November 1942 it seems to have been returned to the Office for the Resurgence of Asia, when the latter was integrated into the Ministry for Great East Asian Co-Prosperity.\n\n22 Takada, pp. 24-36.\n\n23 The most significant absentee was Yüan-ying, the national head of the Chinese Buddhist Association (Shanghai, 1929).\n\n24 H. Hackmann, A German Scholar in the East, pp. 118-119. John Blofeld, who visited Wu-t'ai Shan in 1937, describes a monastery with several hundred monks where \"the main pavilion... was arranged in the Chinese way, but many services were held in a smaller building where purely Tibetan rites were performed\" (Jewel in the Lotus, London, 1948, p. 97).\n\n25 Fa-p'u, a disciple of Ta-yung, is stated to have reached Lhasa and earned a ko-hsi degree. Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 17.\n\n26 Chinese Year Book 1937 (Shanghai, 1937), p. 73.\n\n27 Shirob Jaltso, for example, was a member of the People's Political Council (1938-1949); an alternate member of the Kuomintang Sixth Super-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205653, "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": 195, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "190\n\nJOUON, René.\n\nTHE LIBRARY\n\nGéographie commerciale de la Chine. 4e éd. [Zikawei, Shanghai, Imprim. de l'Orphelinat de Tou-sè-wè] 1937.\n\nKARLBECK, Orvar.\n\nTreasure seeker in China. Translated from the Swedish by Naomi Walford. London, Cresset Press, 1957.\n\nKARLGREN, Bernhard.\n\nThe book of documents. Stockholm, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950.\n\nKARLGREN, Bernhard.\n\nThe book of odes: Chinese text, transcription and translation. Stockholm, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950.\n\nKENDALL, Elizabeth.\n\nA wayfarer in China: impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1913.\n\nKOKUSAI BUNKA SHINKOKAI,\n\nK.B.S. bibliography of standard reference books for Japanese studies, with descriptive notes. Tokyo, K.B.S., 1960-\n\nvol. 2: Geography and travel only.\n\nKOREA. Supreme Council for National Reconstruction.\n\nMilitary revolution in Korea. Seoul, the Secretariat, Supreme Council, 1961.\n\nKOREA. University. Asiatic Research Center.\n\nA brief history of the.... Center. Seoul, the Center, 1964. Text in Korean and English.\n\nKUR'ÄN.\n\nThe Holy Qur'ān: Arabic text and English translation by the late Maulawi Sher Ali. Published under the auspices of Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad. Rabwah, West Pakistan, Ahmadiyya Muslim Foreign Missions Office, 1960.\n\nKWOK, K. W.\n\nThe splendours of historic Nanking: eighty photographic studies, with descriptive notes... Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1933.\n\nTitle and text in English and Chinese.\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206788, "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": 65, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "PERSIANS, ARABS IN T’ANG CHINA\n\n59\n\nManichaean whose doctrines were proposed to the court in A.D. 694.5 There were students from Japan, who, after enjoying a few years of study on Chinese classics, preferred to remain in China permanently. There were also aristocratic Tibetan youths sent by their parents for traditional Chinese scholarship. There were Khoten painters who later became great masters in Chinese artistic circles. There were Sogdians, who introduced polo to the Chinese. Above all, there were Persians and Arabs, whose activities and contributions had tremendous influence on T'ang political and social history.\n\nI\n\nMany Persians, Arabs and others lived in Tang China. The Turks, Uighurs, Tocharians, Sogdians, Koreans and Japanese for the most part lived in Ch'ang-an and the Chams, Khmers, Javanese and Singhalese in Canton. Persians and Arabs, however, were also to be found in these two places and in Yang-chou and Ch'üan-chou as well. All these foreigners in the early Tang period shared the same kind of life as the T'ang Chinese. In A.D. 714, the T'ang government had to establish a special office known as Shih-po-ssu (Superintendent of Customs) to look after the foreign affairs in Canton and in other cities along the coastal region.\n\nForeigners in T’ang China were not all law-abiding. Uighur nationals sought out Chinese businessmen and young Chinese wastrels and made shady deals with them in the capital. Persians and Arabs, on the other hand, would lure young beautiful Chinese girls to become part of their possessions and even engaged in the slave trade in Canton. Also, some of them would purposely encourage those Chinese who were in need of money to pledge their land, furniture and sacred relics for ready cash.\n\nThe Chinese pawn-shop came into being in late T’ang period and this kind of practice is believed to be the embryo of the modern pawn-shop. The moneylenders' business was regarded as a plague in the beginning of the ninth century and the emperor had to issue a decree in A.D. 822 prohibiting such practice or every Chinese in the Empire would be in debt.7 The Turks were as notorious as the others. A Turk stabbed a Chinese merchant to death in broad daylight and was rescued by his Fan-chang (Sheikh) without any...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207431, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n191\n\nof course I was responsible. Only on one occasion was I accused of a misuse of stores myself. In a community the size of ours, in the disturbing atmosphere of the early year or two, I suppose I was lucky not to meet more accusations of my own shortcomings. Anonymous letters diminished and eventually disappeared as the policy of spreading responsibilities took shape and of course as conditions improved.\n\nIn this account I have given much space to the problems of general messing of patients and staff for this was the most important general matter which affected everybody. Ordinary complaints as to quantity and quality of food were openly and freely made and as speedily forgotten by most of our population. There were some, a few only, whose recurring complaints made life miserable at times for all those in the supply line.\n\nArrangements made by our friends in Hong Kong\n\nEven now I do not know the whole story about the food supplies which arrived at the hospital as gifts from our friends in Hong Kong. I repeat here the hope that Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke will find it possible to relate this in detail for it was he who originated the system. A short account of this remarkable man is necessary. He was Director of Medical Services in Hong Kong at the outbreak of war and was deeply committed to the welfare of Hong Kong Chinese citizens of all classes. He had reorganized the medical services in the Colony and had a formidable reputation as an advocate in any cause that he took up. He sought nothing for himself; he liked his own ways of doing things and often enough these did not commend themselves to others. Courage, pertinacity and not a little guile allowed him usually to carry the day. His wife and very young daughter were in Hong Kong with him, and were not evacuated to the Philippines and later to Australia with other service and civilian wives and families in July 1940. His view was that if the families of Chinese and other races for whom the Hong Kong government was responsible were not to be evacuated then his own family would also stay in the Colony. In this decision his wife backed him up fully.\n\nBefore the Far East war, following representations by the Japanese Foreign Office a Japanese doctor named Eguchi came to study on the spot the medical and health arrangements in the Colony. Colonel T. Eguchi next appeared as the Director of Me-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207651, "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": 39, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "24\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\n43 See Ono Giichi, War and Armament Expenditures of Japan (New York, 1922), 57-58, 70-71, 140-144, 273-277, and Ono's Expenditures of the Sino-Japanese War (New York, 1922), 120-126; also Oshima, 372-375, 376, note 18.\n\n44 Smith, \"Foreign-Training,\" 219-220; Yamagata, \"The Army,” 107-108; British Public Record Office, W.O. 33/34, Captain Trotter, \"Some Remarks on the Army of Li Hung-Chang;\" Rawlinson, 190.\n\n45 Smith, \"Foreign-Training,\" 219, 221; see also Rawlinson, 202-203; Thomas William Ayers, Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 164-189, 204-215.\n\n46 Smith, \"Foreign-Training,\" 218-219; Cavendish, 721.\n\n47 Cavendish, 711, 713-715, 719-723.\n\n48 Smith, \"Chinese Military Institutions,\" 157, note 135.\n\n49 See Fairbank, et. al., “Economic Change,\" 20-21; Hsü, The Rise of Modern China, 527-534. On the more positive side of the ledger, consult Ernest Young, \"Nationalism, Reform and Republican Revolution: East Asia: Essays in Interpretation, 160-162; Hsü, The Rise of Modern China, 535.\n\n50 See, for example, Hatano Yoshihiro, \"The New Armies,” in Mary Wright, ed., China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900-1913 (New Haven and London, 1968).\n\n51 Paul Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang T'ao and Reform in Late Ch'ing China (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 4, 148-149.\n\n52 See Kublin.\n\n53 Smith, \"Foreign-Training:\" Ralph Powell, The Rise of Chinese Military Power, 1895-1912 (Princeton, 1955), 245-246, 262. An interesting question is whether the Manchus could have preserved their power, and even enhanced it, by undertaking meaningful military reform at the central government level. Although vested interests in the army were pervasive and solidly entrenched, one cannot assume that what happened to the dynasty in 1911 would necessarily have happened in the same way had the Ch'ing government initiated reforms in the 1860's and 1870's comparable to those undertaken by the dynasty in the early 1890's. By the beginning of the twentieth century, anti-Manchu sentiment was a powerful ideological weapon, at least in part because the Manchus had proven so totally incapable of protecting Chinese interests against foreign encroachments. But during the Tung-chih period, anti-Manchuism was no real issue at all.\n\n54 Dwight Perkins, \"Government as an Obstacle to Industrialization: The Case of Nineteenth-Century China,” Journal of Economic History (1967), esp. 486, 492.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207763, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "136\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nport for the work came from American United China Relief (UCR) funds through the American Friends Service Council (AFSC); there were members from Canada, U.S.A., New Zealand, as well as China itself; and the self-sufficiency required was much greater than that of other FAU groups.\n\nThe original plan, worked out in late 1940 and early 1941, was for a group of forty men, equipped with 20 trucks, a mobile operating theatre and mobile workshop, to undertake two tasks. The first was the transport of medical supplies into China from Burma and the second provision of medical teams to work with civilian and military hospitals. The proposals had the support of the British Fund for the Relief of Distress in China under Dr. H. Gordon Thompson, the Foreign Office, the U.C.R. and the AFSC. The trucks and equipment were purchased in the US and shipped to Rangoon where they were assembled and driven up to China. Dr. R. B. McClure, a Canadian medical missionary born in China, was appointed to lead the Unit.\n\nIt will be remembered that in 1941 Japan occupied all the coast of China, transport up the railway to Kunming from Hanoi had ceased and the only land routes into the western provinces still held by the Government of the Republic of China under Marshal Chiang Kai Shek were the Burma Road and the road from the USSR via Sinkiang. When the Sino-Japanese war widened into the Pacific War on December 8, 1941, about half of the FAU group had arrived in Burma and China, the first trucks were being assembled in Rangoon and the rest of the party and equipment were on the high seas. All arrived safely and the Unit undertook a number of interesting tasks during the Burma fighting of 1942.1\n\nMedical Services and Supplies in China\n\nDespite the diversion of manpower and loss of trucks and fuel in Burma the work of transporting medical supplies in China got underway in 1942. In 1941 there were four organizations concerned with military and civilian medical services:—\n\n1) the Army Medical Administration (AMA)\n\n2) the Chinese Red Cross (CRC)\n\n3) National Health Administration (NHA) Weishengshu (衛 生 署) with its civilian hospitals and clinics.\n\n4) Over 100 mission hospitals, responsible to their own Mission Boards.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208593, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS REMEMBERED\n\n23\n\nrecalled that while in charge of the Pakhoi Customs (Kwangsi), he was assigned an official residence that spread comfortably over 32 mou of land. Finally, on a light-hearted note, the interviewees readily agreed that those in the Service usually had pretty wives, simply because they could afford to be choosy!\n\nJob security, good pay and other benefits of a Customs career, however, had their demands. Customs officials were expected to meet the high standard of efficiency that had distinguished the Service since its early days. All three had been conscientious workers, we were assured, and one of them stressed that their sense of duty was also strong. He related an incident in which his life was threatened by some local rowdies demanding the release of some confiscated goods. Even at gun-point, he did not give in. In another, during the second Sino-Japanese war, he refused to hand over the Customs buildings in his charge to enemy troops, despite the pleadings of some han-chien (i.e., traitorous Chinese working for the Japanese). His argument then was that unless proper orders were issued and received from his superiors, he would not allow any interference with Customs property.\n\nWhen asked about the integrity of the Service, the interviewees were of the opinion that Customs officials could in general pride themselves on their honesty. A distinction, however, might be drawn between the Indoor and Outdoor staff. The latter were logically susceptible to outside influences as their duties involved actual inspection and appraisal of cargoes, whereas the former as office workers were not exposed to the same degree of corrupt practice.\n\nThe efficiency and integrity of the Chinese Maritime Customs were attributed by the former officials to its foreign style of administration. Of the Inspectors-General under whom they had served, F. Aglen (1911-28) and F. Maze (1929-43) commanded their greatest admiration. Instead of disparaging the foreign Inspectorate as a tool of Western imperialism, as their nationalistic compatriots have, they saw it in a more favorable light. It would in fact be ludicrous to expect that they would have seen it in any other way, having given the prime years of their lives to serving it. This aside, their appraisal was derived also from a close familiarity with its functions and achievements. As one of them put it, the foreign inspectorate “did do good work for China,” and did so, it might be added, during those tumultuous decades to which they themselves still bear personal witness.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208679, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46 \n\n109\n\n20- Another community meeting but no further developments on repatriation. At 11 o'clock this morning we were agreeably surprised to learn that Sister Paul and Sister Corazon were on \"The Hill\" and that we could go up and see them. Again Sister Paul moved the adamant hearts of the Japanese and secured permission to enter the Camp to say goodbye to her departing Sisters. We learn that our own names have been handed in to the Foreign Office in Hong Kong for release from the Camp, and our hopes are high. We also learn that Father Tennien is in Chungking, and that Father Briggs and Father Hater are both quite ill. Since Sister Paul and her Sisters have been in Hong Kong, we have been enabled to receive weekly parcels of foodstuffs, and this has helped a great deal. For some weeks a league of softball has been in progress, and today the last game of the season was played between the British and Americans, the score being 15 to 6 in favor of the latter. A Stanley Cup was fabricated by Camp artisans and presented to the winners.\n\n22-The first anniversary of our newly ordained Maryknollers, and they enjoy a Camp lunch at the Maryknoll Sisters' apartments at 7:00 p.m. The repatriation ship, the Asama Maru has been further delayed. Due to some circumstance or other, our rice ration on the 23rd and 24th was very meager, but Father Meyer came to the rescue with his toasted rice which he has been saving for such a rainy day.\n\n25-Rumor hath it that our papers or forms are now on “The Hill,” and that we may get final word any day now to pack up and leave for Hong Kong. Mr. Gunn, an American, and seven others, British and Portuguese, are advised they may leave Camp tomorrow.\n\n26-We were delighted today to receive a visit from His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, who asked permission to come out and say goodbye to the repatriates. He could remain but a short time, and bade the rest of us to have hope, as he felt we would be released in due time. He is also trying to secure the release of the Canadian Sisters. The Asama Maru is now scheduled to leave on the 30th, the repatriates going on board the 29th. The British are still incredulous about repatriation of the Americans. There is now some talk about possible repatriation of British women and children and old men, but nothing definite.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208691, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n121\n\nlyze our feelings. We regretted leaving our many friends in Camp, yet were glad to get out to freedom. What would we find in Hong Kong? Would we be allowed to go to the interior of China? Where are we going to stay in Hong Kong? There had been some talk of our staying with the Bishop in his \"Little Seminary\" and again some mention of Bethany at Pokfulam. So there was an element of mystery and of adventure in our trip that day.\n\nAll went well until our truck reached the top of the Wongneichong Gap on the Happy Valley Road. Here there was a barrier and we were stopped by a gendarme, who demanded that we get out of the truck and have our baggage inspected and examined. We were preparing to do this, when Mr. Yamashita, the young Japanese gentleman in charge of Camp affairs, who was sitting with the driver, got down and tried to explain the situation. It seems that the gendarmes had not been informed by the Foreign Office that we were being released, and the officer in charge of this post gave Mr. Yamashita an unmerciful tongue lashing while he, Mr. Yamashita, being a civilian, stood at attention, bowed repeatedly and never answered back a word. At length, when the officer ran out of breath, we were allowed to proceed, without having our baggage examined.\n\nWe then went into the city, stopping finally at the Queen's Road entrance to the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building, one of Hong Kong's newest and most imposing structures, and now occupied by the Japanese Foreign Office. Once inside, we saw Sister Paul and Sister Famula who had already very kindly arranged for our temporary passes. The Sisters were most helpful to us during our first free days in Hong Kong as we felt just like innocents abroad.\n\nAfter securing our passes and arranging for our baggage, Sister Paul told us that our new home is to be Bethany with the French Fathers, but that before going there we were to have tiffin at the Holy Spirit School. We walked up Queen's Road and then up onto Caine Road, feeling rather strange and out of place, but we reached our destination without any misadventure. At the Holy Spirit School we sat down to a real dining room table, with real dishes and knives and forks and most important of all, with some real food, for which we have to thank the Sisters and Mrs. Leong, the wife of our genial friend, the manager and owner of the Metropole", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208694, "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": 151, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "124\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nall-pervading air of suspense, and while we were quite free and unmolested on our trips to the City, we felt the heavy atmosphere that seemed to envelope the city. The crowds as usual milled about in the downtown section, but there was not the gaiety of former times, nor the life in the people. The city was still suffering and so were its people—from oppression and from starvation. Strangely enough at Bethany we were not bothered by inquisitive visitors; only occasionally would a Japanese soldier wander through the House and stare at us, and once a Chinese \"puppet\" detective paid us a ceremonial visit and asked us when we were going to Kwong-chauwan.\n\nDuring this time, many of the Fathers took advantage of the occasion to consult dentists and oculists, and Dr. Chawn, our Maryknoll dentist, was splendid. Realizing our financial straits, he very magnanimously waived payment of our debts to him until after the war. Others of our professional friends were equally kind and sympathetic.\n\nOCTOBER\n\nOne of the things we prized most at Bethany was the luxury of a private room. Having been packed in small rooms with from four to seven others for almost eight months was not a little trying on tempers, and to be able to go to one's own private room was indeed a luxury. For quite some time we had no electric lights in our rooms, as in order to save expense all extra light circuits had been cut out, but we did not mind burning our candles and vigil lights until time to retire. Later on, however, we had lights re-installed in our rooms. We also could sit on our spacious verandahs and watch the glorious sunsets on the South China Sea.\n\nAs mentioned previously, immediately on our release from the Camp, we had made out applications for permission to leave the Colony and had submitted these in proper form to the Foreign Office, of which a Mr. Oda was the head. According to usual procedure in the case of third nationals desiring to leave the Colony, it took about two weeks for the governmental machinery to work, and so when this time had about elapsed, Father Toomey asked Mr. Oda about our permissions. The answer came back: \"Decidedly no!\" We were enemy, and not neutral or third nationals, and under no consideration could we leave the Colony!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208696, "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": 153, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "126\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nevery foreign enemy building, whether public or private property, and those which have escaped confiscation have not escaped the looting by Chinese. Curiously enough, there was an almost total absence of English signs on streets and over buildings and stores, the Japanese having taken all these down, and in many instances, replacing them with Japanese signs. In the lobbies of office buildings all the tenants' names were in Chinese or Japanese, and it was often very difficult to find one's own family doctor, unless one happened to be familiar with his Chinese name. It seemed that everything reminiscent of the hated foreigner had to be effaced. Placarded all around the town, too, were flaming posters depicting the New Order in the Far East, showing smoking chimneys of busy factories, smiling Chinese gathering grain in the fields, and other indications of what Japan expected to do for the downtrodden Chinese. At various conspicuous places were also huge maps showing the conquests in East Asia of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. The streets were fairly clean, though here and there might be seen some piles of rubbish, and I understand that in the beginning, the Japanese kept in office some of the officials of the Sanitary Squad, that is, British officials. Just to show the effect of Japanese progress, now some of the streets in the downtown sector were actually being washed daily!\n\nHowever, along the side streets, one could find more sordid scenes--emaciated and dying beggars lying on the pavement, and others looking pretty thin and hungry. Before we left Hong Kong, most of these beggars had disappeared and I suppose it is not hard to imagine what became of them, for the Japanese are not very often moved to pity. There are many tales of cruelty inflicted on the Chinese, and one significant fact is that the huge Prison at Stanley is practically empty. It is said that often offenders against the laws were thrown off the bund into the sea; others were tied up and left standing in the broiling sun until they died, and some of us have seen the police dogs which the Japanese have trained to hunt down Chinese who cut wood on the mountain sides. A friend of mine was an actual eye-witness of a Chinese woman whose flesh was literally torn by these dogs and who ran screaming down the mountain. These brushwood gatherers are often shot at, too.\n\nThe Japanese have retained both the Indian and the Chinese police and they patrol this city and the roads. The Indian police", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208700, "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": 157, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "130\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nIn the first raid, bombs fell on the Kowloon dock area, on Whitfield Barracks, on a Japanese army canteen on Nathan Road and a few in the streets of Kowloon. The second and midnight raid was on the lighting plant at North Point, but the bombs, fortunately for us, missed their target. On the third visit, a few bombs fell near the Kowloon shipbuilding yards. One unexploded bomb was said to have been found near the lighting plant, and it was marked \"Cleveland, Ohio.\"\n\nAs a consequence of these raids, the whole city was blacked out at night, all Japanese flags which had been so gaily flying from many buildings were hauled down, and for a month after, there were from two to a dozen Japanese planes in the air all day, flying at a great height looking for more visitors, no doubt.\n\nWith the advent of the month of November, we secured a Hakka teacher and our Language School was functioning, though not too briskly. Early in the month, Father Moore took to his bed with some ailment, which Dr. Samy diagnosed as a nervous stomach. Dr. Samy, by the way, is a neighbor of ours, and an Indian doctor, very prominent in Hong Kong. He has a very talented Chinese wife, and two daughters. He formerly lived near the Queen Mary Hospital, but the Japanese took over his home and, in exchange, gave him a house just below Bethany. Fathers Toomey and McKeirnan teach his children daily, and they often come to visit us. The doctor and his wife have been extremely kind to us and have offered to give us financial help if we find it necessary.\n\nWe mustered up enough courage again to approach the Foreign Office about permission to go to Kwangchauwan, but again came back a final \"NO!\" Since their release from the Camp, the Maryknoll Sisters have been living in Holy Spirit School on Caine Road, but now they are threatened with eviction, as some branch of the government wants the house for some purpose or other.\n\nDuring the month, Father Troesch secured permission to visit our House at Stanley, on pretext of getting some church goods which we needed. All together, we made five trips, two or three Fathers going each time, and each time bringing back a few suitcases full of odds and ends which we managed to salvage in the attic. A few of the extern Carmelite Sisters accompanied us, and they saved quite a number of things for us, which the Mother Superior kindly consented to keep in Carmel for us. Among the salvaged goods were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208701, "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE MARYKNOLL MISSION, HONG KONG 1941-46\n\n131\n\nvestments, books, including some of Father Meyer's dictionaries and Father O'Melia's language books, a typewriter or two, an adding machine, and various odds and ends. The officer in charge was quite pleasant and when he was in the building, gave us permission to go to the attic and rummage through the mess on the floor. In the attic, everything which had been stored in the missioners' trunks and boxes, such as clothing, books and other personal articles, was all strewn about on the floor, and the place looked a sight. In the attic, we also came across the large crucifix and two wooden statues from our main chapel and these we were also allowed to take away to the Carmelite Chapel. The Japanese seemed to have a superstitious dread of such things. Once on the bus going to Stanley, we noticed a Chinese girl who evidently worked for the Japanese stationed in our house, carrying a small hand-bag. Looking carefully at it, we noticed it was made out of a silk vestment, for we could see the embroidered border and the monogram IHS.\n\nDecember came again and found us still waiting and hoping for some word about Kwangchauwan, but the Foreign Office was silent. Early in the month there was some talk about further repatriation, and we wrote to Mr. Oda again stating that if we could not go to Kwangchauwan we would like to make application for repatriation.\n\nNOVEMBER\n\nOn the first of the month the Japanese government issued orders that all shortwave radio sets must be turned in to be sealed, after which they would be returned to their owners. At that time there was no radio at Bethany, but we listened to a neighboring one, the owner of which kindly opened his door wide and turned up the radio strong. After the first we still heard the radio news but from other sources.\n\nOn the 23rd, His Excellency, Bishop Valtorta, went to see Mr. Oda at the Foreign Office on a matter of his own. A few weeks previous, one of his Chinese priests, Father Wong, in charge of the mission at Sai Kung, disappeared, and it was feared that he had been killed. Later, Father Terruzzi, the Bishop's Chancellor and right-hand man, went to Sai Kung to look over the ground and he was never seen again. Conflicting reports seeped in concerning his fate, and it seems that in some way or other he was killed and his body thrown into the sea. Of course it is not known by whom, but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208702, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "132\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nthe Bishop thinks it may have been Chinese Communists. At any rate, Bishop Valtorta went to see Mr. Oda about this incident, and while in the office, Mr. Oda suddenly said: \"Do the Maryknoll Fathers still want to go to Kwangchauwan?\" The Bishop, quite taken aback, said: \"Why, I thought you said they could leave the Colony under no consideration whatever!\" \"Well,” replied Mr. Oda, “I have changed my mind, and if they still want to go, tell them to send in their names.\" At this, the Bishop lost no time in acquainting Father Toomey with the latest developments and we again promptly submitted our names.\n\n**\n\nWhat brought about this abrupt change of policy, of course, we do not know. In the meantime, the Bishop had used every means at his command and had, I believe, threatened to write to the Apostolic Delegate in Japan, Archbishop Marella. We also heard that the Governor of Macao might be able to do something for us. Then too, we thought perhaps the Vatican had brought some pressure to bear, and that possibly Maryknoll itself might be working in our behalf. At any rate, after all this time, our hopes were now high, and we anxiously expected an answer from the Foreign Office.\n\nIn the meantime, Sister Paul was fighting a tough battle with the Japanese who wanted to take over Holy Spirit School. They talked and threatened, and she wanted guarantees and reasons for their actions, so that they were somewhat nonplussed. And the Sisters stayed in Holy Spirit School.\n\nLate in the afternoon of the 24th, Christmas Eve, the Bishop hurried over to the Sisters with the gladsome news that at last the Maryknoll Fathers and Sisters might go to Kwangchauwan! What a wonderful Christmas present! At last we were to get to China and our missions! Deo gratias!\n\nAt Holy Spirit School, Father Downs sang a Midnight Mass and the Sisters had a little procession upstairs and downstairs to the little cribs. Fathers Toomey, Tackney and Moore also helped out in churches in Kowloon, and at Pokfulam the Fathers sang at a Solemn Mass on Christmas morning in the little mission chapel near Nazareth, of which Father Favreau is in charge.\n\nAt tiffin, we had the French Fathers at our festive board, Fathers Vircondelet, Tournier, Biotteau, Morel and Favreau, as well as the two Fathers of Bethany, Bos and Chaye. Of course, we had no turkey but our tiffin was a little more festive than ordinary, despite", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208714, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "144\n\nREVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS\n\nMaryknollers being driven West in the face of the Japanese advance that we had to secure a house to serve them until they got flights out over the Himalaya mountains into Burma or India. Father Frank Keelan received from the Bishop of Kunming a good-sized building, formerly a club for the French who maintained the railway between Kunming and Indo-China, and turned it into a hostel for travel-weary Maryknollers who had been walking, or riding trucks, for weeks in order to reach this city. Father Jim Smith, who had been assisting Father Tennien in Chungking, took Father Keelan's place in Kunming when the latter left for the States, and while there set up a branch of Father Tennien's continent-spanning financial operation to assure a steady supply of funds to the missioners not yet driven out of their posts by the Japanese armies. Father Tennien's mission at this time was to close out this operation; his travels brought him to Calcutta and Chungking, and in the latter place, now manned by Father Tom Brack, it was decided to move the base of operation to Shanghai since the Government was leaving this wartime capital for its former site, Nanking, while the many foreign aid organizations were leaving for Shanghai. Since it seemed that Shanghai would now become the financial center for overseas remittances, he worked out a plan with Father Brack to begin closing down the Chungking operation and move to Shanghai. Following this, he then flew to Shanghai to look things over, and reported to Maryknoll that a priest should be assigned to that city to take care of financial matters for the Society. On his return to Hong Kong, Father Tennien received the first copy of his latest book, \"Chungking Listening Post,\" written while he was in that city during the war years. This copy he autographed and sent to General Wedemeyer, Chief of the American mission in China, and a personal friend.\n\nIn response to Father Tennien's request to set up office in Shanghai, the Maryknoll General Council requested him to do this personally and to continue to manage financial affairs until the post-war situation settled down.\n\n1946\n\nAt the beginning of the year, the Maryknoll Council decided to keep Father Tennien in Shanghai over his repeated requests to return to his mission in Wuchow where there was an unprecedented", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211257, "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": 318, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "293\n\nPamela Atwell had taken it for granted that her readers had not needed any such historical background information. The story of Weihaiwei under British administration during this highly turbulent era as well as its return to Chinese rule was the focus of her research, embracing hundreds of documents in the Public Records Office in London, a number of unpublished private papers in England and Scotland, as well as sources in Japanese and Chinese but not Chinese archival documents.\n\nA meticulous researcher and skilful writer who also provided the readers with clear and interesting photographs, Dr. Atwell has produced a book that is a joy to behold indeed, both for the specialist reader and the non-specialist. She has shown admirable understanding of Chinese institutions and British thinking, and thus has recreated an area that had needed a thorough examination by historians looking at imperialism in China. Dr. Atwell has found, for instance, that the leasing of Weihaiwei was not a simple and straightforward matter. The Chinese had first proposed the leasing through Robert Hart of the Imperial Customs Service and Ambassador MacDonald at Peking to a reluctant British cabinet. Then, even as the British cabinet were being convinced of the value of leasing Weihaiwei, the Chinese had second thoughts. Together with other diplomatic and political complications, it was not until 24 May 1898, after the Japanese forces withdrew, that the British ensign was finally hoisted over the port.\n\nResearching as a political scientist, Dr. Atwell's major interests resided in the juxtaposition of government authorities. She had observed that the British administration at Weihaiwei was noteworthy in several ways. The British never claimed sovereignty over the port. They had maintained that Weihaiwei \"remained part of a foreign country within which Britain exercised legal jurisdiction, but it was not a colony and the Chinese living there were not British citizens.\" (p. 12). British administrators were simply superimposed over traditional Chinese rural community elders and magistrates who represented the central government in these localities.\n\nEarly conflicts over such issues as taxes and militia were resolved when Britain began to send civilian commissioners experienced...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211259, "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": 320, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "295\n\non 1 October 1930. The Chinese, in the opinion of Dr. Atwell, had not done their homework. The administrator sent by the central government was a naval officer. Instead of working within the framework of local traditions, the central government chose to embark on a programme of immediate modernization and reform, doing away with practices of many centuries, leading to deprivation and resentment. Economic and social conditions continued to deteriorate. The area was again occupied by Japanese forces when the second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937.\n\nIf Dr. Atwell's work had to be faulted at all, it would be on her preponderant reliance upon British documents. Even what Chinese policies were and how people felt about them were discerned from Foreign Office records. Motivations and reasons for adoption of certain policies, therefore, were not exactly taken from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Dr. Atwell has a more than respectable command of Chinese, and could have investigated more Chinese sources in greater depth. Perhaps her mentors at the University of London did not encourage consultation of Chinese historical archives. Perhaps the documents were not accessible. In addition, it must have been a disappointment to Dr. Atwell and a loss to the readers that she was denied access to some important personal papers of Lockhart.\n\nIt must also be noted that Chinese central governments did not normally look at localities except as a small part of the whole. Policies and programmes were adopted for the entire country, and Weihaiwei came only as a part of it. It was, as Dr. Atwell has pointed out, T. V. Soong, Minister of Finance, therefore, rather than the local administrator, who determined fiscal policies for Weihaiwei. The National Government was following the time-honoured tradition of giving priority to the total policy over individual localities. Perhaps, had British administrators followed modernization programmes adopted elsewhere in China, Chinese rulers after 1930 would not have needed to use such drastic means. Scholars in future may examine Chinese materials more fully, including extant archival sources which are becoming routinely consulted in Chinese historical research, and may find some of the answers raised by Dr. Atwell's investigations.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211687, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "HONG KONG, DECEMBER 1941 — JULY 1942\n\nA. D. BLACKBURN*\n\n77\n\nThe following is an account of the personal experiences of my wife and myself at Hongkong during the Japanese attack and afterwards.\n\nI was still in Queen Mary Hospital when hostilities began. My leg had so far recovered that I was able to hobble about on crutches and the doctor had decided that he could now safely proceed to operate on my ear which had become completely obstructed with scar tissue. The operation was fixed for 8 a.m. on December 8th. I was waiting to be taken to the theatre when, almost exactly at 8 a.m., the wailing of the sirens and the noise of planes announced the beginning of the blitz and the operation had to be abandoned.\n\nMeanwhile my wife was at the War Memorial Nursing Home recovering from an operation for appendicitis. All patients whom it was possible to remove were evicted from the hospitals to make room for war casualties. My wife was turned out on December 10th and I on December 12th and Witham (Tea Adviser to the Chinese Government and a friend of ours) arranged for us to be billeted with him and his wife in their flat on the Peak, which the Hongkong Government had declared an evacuation area. There we stayed throughout the hostilities.\n\nThere was fairly heavy artillery fire and air bombing but the Japanese seemed to be concentrating on military objectives (particularly Mt. Austin barracks and two field gun batteries in our neighbourhood), and civilian property around us was not\n\n* Editor's Note. Sir Arthur Blackburn was Counsellor of the British Embassy in Chungking in 1941. On June 29th, 1941, his house there was totally destroyed by a Japanese bomb. Two people were killed, and fifteen injured, including Sir Arthur, who received injuries to his knee and ear. The injury to the ear required operation, as did the injury to the knee, which had become infected. Sir Arthur and his wife were evacuated to Hong Kong to enable these operations to take place, arriving at the end of November, 1941. Sir Arthur was a witness to the Japanese attack on Hong Kong in December, 1941, and he and his wife were interned from January 22nd to the end of July 1942 in Stanley Camp. He and his wife with other captured diplomatic staff were then repatriated, leaving Shanghai on August 17th, 1942. Sir Arthur was asked by both the Foreign Office and the Red Cross to report on conditions in Hong Kong and in Stanley Camp. These reports were completed by the end of September, 1942, even before the Blackburns docked in England. Because of the general interest of these reports, and particularly because of their contemporary character and absence of post-war hindsight, it is felt useful to print them here. The Journal owes copies of these interesting documents to the kindness of Mr. C. Blackburn.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211691, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "81\n\nwhich had been allocated for that purpose, but as they had to start with exactly nothing it was difficult. I was dumped off my lorry in front of the hospital-to-be at about 1 o'clock, and it was 5 p.m. before the staff had cleared a room and found enough beds to get the most elementary of wards going. There I stayed exactly two months. Meanwhile my wife had found a corner for herself in a room with three other married couples and a baby. She got on very well with two of the other couples (and the baby), but the third couple were very disagreeable and behaved in an almost incredibly disgraceful way towards the other people in the room, but particularly to my poor wife. So when I was fit to be moved from the hospital we tried to get quarters elsewhere but the billeting committee couldn't fix us in anywhere and the Japanese Chief Supervisor was unhelpful, so I just had to make one more in an already overcrowded room. And there we stayed, with one brief excursion to the French Hospital to have my knee X-rayed, until the Americans were repatriated early in July when we were moved into the block vacated by them where we shared a room with Mr. and Mrs. Witham and their baby and one other couple. Here we were perfectly happy and were facing with equanimity the prospect of internment for the duration when on July 20th we were told that we could, if we wished and if we paid our own fares, go to Shanghai. No further explanation was forthcoming and the permission did not extend to the rest of the Embassy and Consulate personnel in the camp. Of course I said we would go (the Swiss Consul sent in enough money for the fares) and we were shipped to Shanghai with some 60 other people who had also been allowed to leave the camp. I assumed that once I was in Shanghai I would be entitled to be repatriated with the rest of the Embassy people; but as soon as the ship berthed in Shanghai a Japanese Vice-Consul came on board and told me that though I had been allowed to come to Shanghai I was not going to be repatriated. It looked as if I was going to share with Sir Mark Young (who is interned at Woosung) the melancholy distinction of being the only British officials in Japan and occupied China. We were taken to the Cathay Hotel where the outport Consulate staffs and other persons destined for repatriation were being collected. We were given a comfortable suite and, except for the restriction in our movements, had nothing to complain about. I telephoned to Mr. Le Rougetel who had not been told that we were coming. He got the Swiss Consul-General to inform the Foreign Office and it seems that a special exchange agreement was made for me and my wife. So on August 17th we embarked on the \"Kamakura Maru\".\n\nAs regards conditions in Stanley Internment Camp I wrote a few notes,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211692, "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": 107, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "82\n\nand left copies with the Swiss Consul-General in Shanghai for his own information and for that of the Red Cross representative. In their original form I showed them to three responsible British subjects who left the Camp at the same time as I did, and they agreed that the notes gave a fairly accurate picture of the situation, though perhaps the colours were not dark enough. A copy of these notes, somewhat amended, is attached. A point which perhaps ought to have been made is that prior to internment at Stanley most of the \"enemy nationals\" in Hongkong and Kowloon had already been interned in Chinese hotels for periods varying from two weeks to six weeks in conditions of great discomfort and hardship and that they were seriously debilitated when they reached the Camp. They, and all the other \"enemy nationals\" who had so far escaped internment, were then thrown into the camp without adequate preparations having been made for their reception. In the Science Block of St. Stephen's College men, women and children found themselves herded together in large class rooms without beds, mattresses or furniture; there was only one lavatory for the block and no arrangements had been made for cooking food. Though the Japanese never actively ill-treated the civilian internees their whole attitude was unhelpful and unsympathetic. Consequently conditions were very bad during the first 2½ or 3 months. Then the Japanese began to realise the seriousness of the situation and conditions improved considerably, as I have indicated in my notes. Conditions were about at their worst in the middle of April, and when I was taken to the French Hospital on April 21st to have my leg X-rayed Dr. Selwyn Clark and Dr. Court both impressed on me that the food situation, not only in the camp but in the Colony generally was extremely serious since the Japanese were shipping all foodstuffs to Japan and were bringing nothing in. They said they expected the crisis to come at the end of July and they urged me to represent to the Foreign Office that if no relief was forthcoming the whole of the foreign community ought to be removed before the end of the Summer. I accordingly wrote a short message on these lines to H.M. Consul at Macao, which Dr. Selwyn Clark said he would be able to send through.\n\nI did all I could to get the Japanese to admit my diplomatic status and to include the whole of the Embassy and Consulate group in any exchange arrangements but, except for Mr. Yano's original assurance, they took the attitude that, as we had not been at our posts we had no special status, and beyond that there was a blank wall; we were not allowed to know even what had become of the Embassy and Consular establishments in occupied China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212024, "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": 439, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "414\n\nThe British stayed at Weihaiwei until 1930, when it was returned to Chinese administration. During the interim, the Kaiser and the Tsar had collapsed and China had gone through the Boxer uprising, a series of reforms, a revolution that toppled the Ch'ing dynasty, a period of disunity and warlord rule, and, finally, the establishment of the National Government at Nanking led by Chiang Kai-shek in 1927. The rise of Chinese nationalism increased demand for return of all foreign concessions in China, including Weihaiwei.\n\nPamela Atwell has taken it for granted that her readers do not need any historical background information. The story of Weihaiwei under British administration during this highly turbulent era as well as its return to Chinese rule was the focus of her research, embracing hundreds of documents in the Public Records Office in London, a number of unpublished private papers in England and Scotland, as well as sources in Japanese and Chinese but not Chinese archival documents.\n\nA meticulous researcher and skilful writer who also provided the readers with clear and interesting photographs, Dr. Atwell has produced a book that is a joy to behold, both for specialist readers and non-specialists. She has shown admirable understanding of Chinese institutions and British thinking, and thus has recreated an area that had needed a thorough examination by historians looking at imperialism in China. Dr. Atwell has found, for instance, that the leasing of Weihaiwei was not a simple and straightforward matter. The Chinese had first proposed the leasing through Robert Hart of the Imperial Customs Service and Ambassador MacDonald at Peking to a reluctant British cabinet. Then, after the British cabinet were convinced of the value of leasing Weihaiwei, the Chinese had second thoughts. Together with other diplomatic and political complications, it was not until 24 May 1898, after the Japanese forces withdrew, that the British ensign was finally hoisted over the port.\n\nResearching as a political scientist, Dr. Atwell's major interests were in the juxtaposition of government authorities. She had observed that the British administration at Weihaiwei was noteworthy in several ways. The British never claimed sovereignty over the port. They maintained that Weihaiwei \"remained part of a foreign country within which Britain exercised legal jurisdiction, but it was not a colony and the Chinese living there were not British citizens\", (p. 12), British administrators were simply superimposed over traditional Chinese rural", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212026, "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": 441, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "416\n\nOctober 1930. The Chinese, in the opinion of Dr. Atwell, had not done their homework. The administrator sent by the central government was a naval officer. Instead of working within the framework of local traditions, the central government chose to embark on a programme of immediate modernization and reform, doing away with practices of many centuries, leading to deprivation and resentment. Economic and social conditions continued to deteriorate. The area was again occupied by Japanese forces when the second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937.\n\nIf Dr. Atwell's work has to be faulted at all, it would be on her preponderant reliance upon British documents. Even what Chinese policies were and how people felt about them were discerned from Foreign Office records. Motivations and reasons for adoption of certain policies, therefore, were not exactly taken from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Dr. Atwell has a more than respectable command of Chinese, and could have investigated more Chinese sources in greater depth. Perhaps her mentors at the University of London did not encourage consultation of Chinese historical archives. Perhaps the documents were not accessible. In addition, it must have been a disappointment to Dr. Atwell and a loss to the readers that she was denied access to some important personal papers of Lockhart.\n\nIt must also be noted that Chinese central governments did not normally look at localities except as a small part of the whole. Policies and programmes were adopted for the entire country, and Weihaiwei came under them only as a part of the whole. It was, as Dr. Atwell has pointed out, T. V. Soong, Minister of Finance, therefore, rather than the local administrator, who determined fiscal policies for Weihaiwei after 1930. The National Government was following the time-honoured tradition of giving priority to the total polity over individual localities. Perhaps, had British administrators followed modernization programmes adopted elsewhere in China, Chinese rulers after 1930 would not have needed to use such drastic means. Scholars in future may examine Chinese materials more fully, including extant archival sources which are becoming routinely consulted in Chinese historical research, and may find some of the answers to the questions raised by Dr. Atwell's investigations.\n\nIndividual treaty ports in China as well as other parts of Asia, large and small, are receiving attention from scholars. Meanwhile, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers should be read by all who are", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212177, "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": 119, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "96\n\nteased. The cook had promptly disappeared over the garden fence into a hole, dug by the servants in the hillside during the past few days, but the boy was made of stouter stuff and continued to wait on us at table. Morale, however, crumbled when a crashing inferno opened up all round and each scuttled into the nearest corner, soon to emerge under the embarrassing discovery that it was only the anti-aircraft guns. The boy issued from the linen cupboard and went to doff his white coat and put on a black mackintosh overcoat and waterproof cap, so that \"Japanese no can see\", as he explained.\n\nOn August 15th there was only one raid, but the very next day there were three raids and no less than six alerts. Each alert would last up to two hours, as it took time to check whether all enemy aircraft had left the zone, so that on that day and some of the succeeding days there was an almost continuous state of alarm. This was most inconvenient, because as soon as the alert went the Chinese police strictly stopped all road traffic and you had to stay where you were. That day we were unable to get home to lunch. We thereafter kept a reserve of food at the office against contingencies. Fortunately later on the Japanese developed the habit for a time of raiding in the morning and again in the afternoon, leaving a good long interval for lunch, for which mercy we were duly grateful.\n\nThe Japanese airforce by no means had it all their own way. In the initial raids they sent their bombers over without escort, and the Chinese fighter pilots, trained by the American Mission headed by Colonel Chennault and equipped with Curtis Hawk pursuit planes, had the legs off them and shot down many. The Chinese Ministry of Information organised tours for the foreign newspaper correspondents to review the remains of the destroyed enemy bombers, and it was not long before the Japanese took to raiding by night to avoid casualties. Later on, when they had occupied an airfield near Shanghai, they were able to send fighter escorts with their bombers. In November a few Russian planes and crews arrived and took up the battle, and in all I should say by mid-December, when Nanking fell, not less than 300 Japanese planes had been destroyed. For those days that was no mean achievement, but by then the Chinese airforce, unable to replace casualties to pilots and aircraft, had shot its bolt.\n\nOn land at Shanghai, though they failed in their objective of driving the Japanese into the river, the two German-trained Chinese divisions", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212931, "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": 240, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "225\n\nparallels Hong Kong's, petitioned the British government to acquire 'an insular possession near the coast of China... beyond the reach of future despotism and oppression,' Matheson, who did not have Hong Kong specifically in mind, thought of British merchants as 'princes of the earth,' and despised the Chinese, ‘a people characterized by marvellous degree of imbecility, avarice, conceit and obstinacy... [in] possession of a vast portion of the most desirable parts of the earth.'\n\nChinese officials were no less culture-bound: Commissioner Lin Zexu, the Emperor's man in Canton, confronted the British just before the 1839-1840 Opium War by burning 2,613,879 pounds of British opium, 'surely the largest drug haul ever collected,' says Welsh. The British had been smuggling opium into China, hoping to balance off the large amounts of money they were spending for tea and other products exported home to Britain. Lin Zexu advised punishing the British traders by withholding exports to them of rhubarb and tea, without which they could not exist. Because 'their legs were too tightly bound to permit them to box or wrestle,' British soldiers, he said, were not suited to fighting on shore. Unfortunately for the Chinese, their confiscation of opium was followed by attacks by British gunboats on their port cities. They were forced to open Shanghai and other coastal cities to the British and cede Hong Kong to them.\n\nNot until Chris Patten was appointed governor in 1992 did Hong Kong become a high British priority. While publicly demanding that the garrison lay down their lives for it, says Welsh, Churchill privately considered the colony not worth defending against the Japanese. During World War II, the Foreign Office regarded Hong Kong as 'something of a thorn in the side' - a view some of its diplomats still hold — and wanted to return it to China; the Americans wanted this too. In 1946, the first postwar governor, Sir Mark Young, drafted a plan for a 'Municipal Council' constituted on a fully representative basis, but this was consistently turned down. Later, the colonial secretary, Oliver Lyttelton, commented, \"The electorate of Britain didn't care a brass farthing about Hong Kong.' Welsh says this remains true, but he also reminds us that, in 1992, Chris Patten was proposing a more democratically elected Legislative Council not for the British voters but for the people of Hong Kong. As Welsh suggests, in 1946 China would have been in no position to object. But Hong Kong has since become more valuable than anyone could have dreamed in 1946.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214307, "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": 165, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "129\n\na few wavered in the face of student rioting they all stood firm and Sowerby's tense moment passed.\n\nIn 1935 he was elected president of the North China Branch of the RAS until illness forced him to resign in late 1940. He was also elected honorary director of the Shanghai Museum, one of the major activities of the RAS, an office he held until 1946. The RAS had a new building in the early 1930s and the China Society of Science and Art of which he was president was incorporated into the RAS with all its funds and interests passing to the RAS.\n\nLife in Shanghai was quite busy what with his business company directorships and his membership of several councils including the Foreign Residents' Association and the British Residents' Association of Shanghai.\n\nHe and Clarice lived in comfort in Shanghai with their collection of Chinese pottery and porcelain and all their books on China until her death in May 1944. These were all donated to the Heude Museum in Shanghai before he left China in 1946 and placed into a large room named \"The Sowerby Hall.\" During the first part of the Japanese occupation he and Clarice were granted exemption from internment and were allowed to remain at home categorised as sick and elderly. However, after Clarice's death he was taken into an internment camp where he became so ill that he spent the last eight months of the war in hospital. He was fortunate in that his belongings were safely stored with friends.\n\nHe remained on in Shanghai for a further year, enjoying his garden and studying animals, insects and flowers. Then, in the autumn of 1946 he brought Alice Cowens, the nurse who had cared for his brother in France, out to Shanghai where they were married and left for England. They stayed in London for some months, through the bad winter of 1946-7 and after a short trip around parts of England they decided to retire to Washington DC, partly because so much of the material he had collected during his expeditions in China was kept there but mainly because he thought that it would be better for his health.\n\nThen a problem arose. Though his wife as a British citizen could stay, he had been born in China and the quota for that category to settle in the States was\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215277, "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": 54, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "2\n\nThere is one exception to these generalisations, a deviant case which has never been analysed by the economists who deplore the underdevelopment of the colonial empire. The amazing economic growth of Hong Kong since its liberation from the Japanese occupation in 1945 is well known, but it is widely assumed that before the war the Hong Kong economy was almost entirely based upon the entrepôt trade transporting goods to and from China and that its transformation from a trading mart to a manufacturing centre began with the post-war arrival of industrialists from Shanghai fleeing from the chaos of China's civil war. In fact, the development of industry had begun in the nineteenth century and by 1939 Hong Kong had built up a flourishing export trade in manufactured goods to China and neighbouring Asian countries and was even successfully competing with British firms in a few items in the British home market.\n\nThe growth of Hong Kong industry was accelerated in the 1930s by decisions taken at the Imperial Economic Conference which met at Ottawa in August 1932. The conference was called to find ways of combating the worldwide economic depression by stimulating trade between the countries of the empire after the British government had decided to abandon its long-standing commitment to free trade and to impose a ten per cent tariff on foreign imports. The conference was mainly occupied with bargaining between Britain and the dominions over the terms on which agricultural products from the dominions would enter the British market and the access of British manufactured goods to the dominions.\n\nThe ministers meeting at Ottawa also decided to impose stringent restrictions by tariffs and specific duties on imports of textiles and other goods from Japan which were beginning to penetrate empire markets, displacing British and Canadian manufactures. Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong took advantage of this attempt to exclude Japanese goods from dominion and colonial markets to export large quantities of cheap footwear and textiles to the empire. This provoked indignant complaints from industrialists in Britain and Canada who demanded that restrictions should be placed on the supercompetitive Hong Kong manufactures.\n\nHong Kong's successful penetration of empire markets forced the British government for the first time to consider what its policy should be towards the industrial development of the colonial empire. Two interdepartmental committees of civil servants were set up in 1933 and 1937, but no authoritative decision was reached by the cabinet before the outbreak of war in 1939. Officials at the Colonial Office defended the right of the colonies to diversify their economies by moving into manufacturing, but the Board of Trade and the Treasury were generally unenthusiastic about such schemes where they might result in a reduction of British exports.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215289, "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": 66, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "14\n\nCanadian products. To counter this competition the British government in 1934 instructed the colonies to institute a system of quotas for 'piece goods containing 50 per cent or more of cotton or of artificial silk, or of cotton and artificial silk combined'. The annual quota allowed in any colony should be the average imports over the years 1927 to 1931.\" This covered the period before Japanese textiles began to flood into colonial markets. British textiles and empire textiles were excluded from quota, provided that they had 50 per cent imperial content. This measure aroused considerable opposition in many colonies since the poorest customers would be deprived of their only source of cheap clothing for the benefit of the British textile industry. The official majority was used to carry the bill through the colonial legislatures in the face of opposition from the unofficial members. In Ceylon, where elected unofficials had a majority in the legislative council, quotas were imposed by an Order in Council issued by the British government. In spite of its long history as a free port Singapore agreed to impose quotas on imports retained in the colony. Hong Kong refused because of possible damage to its entrepôt trade, much to the annoyance of the colonial secretary, Cunliffe-Lister.52\n\nIn 1936 the Colonial Office asked for reports from all colonies on the effects of the quotas imposed two years earlier. The replies from governors indicated that quotas had been generally successful in excluding Japanese and foreign textiles, but this had had very little effect in increasing the trade of Britain and Canada. As happened when discriminatory duties were imposed on rubber shoes the chief beneficiary was Hong Kong. Imports of shirts, singlets and hosiery from Hong Kong had made their appearance for the first time and were now the dominant supplier at the cheaper end of the market.\" The governor of Jamaica complained that imports of ready-made apparel were driving the local garment industry out of business and suggested specific duties or quotas on Hong Kong textiles on the same lines as the restrictions against Japan.\n\n34\n\nAfter the Ottawa conference other Hong Kong goods besides rubber footwear began to appear in the British market. The Import Duties Act 1932 had allowed free entry into Britain to imports provided that at least 25 per cent of their value was derived from materials grown or produced or from work done within a part of the empire. This provision enabled a number of small manufacturers in Hong Kong who had previously exported their products to China and Asian countries to turn their attention to the British market. Exports of wearing apparel to Britain increased from HK$2,000 in 1932 to HK$498,000 in 1933, and HK$1,169,000 in 1935. Exports of electric torches went up from none in 1932 to HK$30,000 in 1933, HK$128,000 in 1934, and HK$131,000 in 1935.\" The Board of Trade feared that foreign manufacturers such as Japan were shipping goods substantially", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215291, "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": 68, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "16\n\nsufficient to qualify for preference in colonial 'native' markets then it is a very bad outlook for us as I cannot see how the growing population of Victoria and Kowloon are going to find employment without industrial development,\n\nI therefore consider it as politically important as it is, from our point of view, economically advantageous to give the Hong Kong Chinese a commercial attachment to the empire. Our military and naval defences are designed against external aggression, but if relations with China ever became antagonistic there would be an enemy totalling over one million within the fortress gates, unless their bread is liberally spread with Empire butter.\n\nThe governor's plea for Hong Kong's manufacturing industry was warmly supported by all the Colonial Office officials who wrote minutes on this despatch. It was quickly passed up to the colonial secretary, W. Ormsby-Gore, who endorsed it as 'an admirable letter' and gave instructions for copies to be sent to the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade.\" Officials made frequent use of Caldecott's argument of imperial interests when attempting to repulse proposals from the Board of Trade and other departments to place further restrictions on Hong Kong's manufactures in the years that followed.\n\nBritish textile manufacturers continued to protest that they were suffering from unfair competition in the British and colonial markets and demanded that Hong Kong exports should be excluded by tariffs or quantitative restrictions. In order to fend off these pressures the Colonial Office suggested to the governor of Hong Kong that all cotton and artificial silk piece goods exported to Britain and the colonies should be accompanied by a certificate that they had been made from cloth which had been spun, woven and finished within the empire. This proposal posed difficulties for Hong Kong. There were no spinning mills in the colony and more than half the cotton yarn used in the production of piece goods and hosiery was imported from Japan and Shanghai. In order to continue to enjoy the benefits of imperial preference, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce secured the manufacturers' agreement to switch their purchases of yarn from China and Japan to cotton mills in India which were within the empire. But the manufacturers of goods made from artificial silk protested strongly that the only alternative to yarn from Japan was British yarn which was double the price ($1.70 a pound compared to 85c). This would destroy their competitiveness with Japanese products in British Malaya, the African colonies and the West Indies and drive them to bankruptcy. The Colonial Office put its case to the Board of Trade which refused to compromise, asserting that if Hong Kong was to continue to enjoy the advantages of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215930, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "163\n\na new breed of intelligence officer. Grimsdale recalled his admiration with the ease with which Boxer could gain the trust of the Japanese.\n\nWhen the Japanese conquered Guangdong in 1938, Boxer arranged an invitation for himself and Grimsdale to visit the Commander of Japanese Forces, General Ando, whom he had known socially in London. To Grimsdale's amazement, Ando showed them round Japanese installations in his own staff car. They were able to inspect troop positions, aerodromes and see the power of the Japanese army at first hand. Perhaps that was Ando's subtle point, but it benefited both parties. At one stage, the general joked to Boxer that the British should stop supporting the Chinese 'then we could finish off this bloody war and all go home.' In the same jesting vein, Boxer answered that the Japanese should stop supporting the Germans.\n\nBoxer and his colleagues made a point of travelling and meeting people. Through personal contacts they were able to extract more information, and get an understanding of context. Boxer and his colleagues were articulate and fluent in Chinese or Japanese, and above all sensitive to the cultures, aware of the place of Hong Kong in the overall Chinese scheme of things. They illustrated the concept that \"well informed is well armed.\" Nor were they the only ones. In 1937/8, the Japanese Army in central China had agreed to take a young Japanese speaking British officer \"on attachment\" for nine months. Although his detailed report was misinterpreted (the atrocities in China were deemed a 'temporary lapse') is the then Military Attache and Foreign Office agreed that a non confrontational approach was more effective in getting information and defusing potential incidents.\n\niv\n\nAlert to the nuances of Japanese politics, Boxer sensed in July 1939, a sharp deterioration in Japanese attitudes towards the British. He interpreted this as a move by the Japanese Army to find a scapegoat for their lack of progress in the China campaign. He reported 'at present there can be no greater error than to assume as is so often done that Japan's military machine is too bogged down in China to prevent it being turned towards us...the only thing likely to restrain the Japanese Army....is the fear of possible complications with the United States of America.\" His warnings however went unheeded: Europe was itself just about to plunge into war, and to the Foreign Office, Hong Kong seemed very far away. Indeed, the note covering Boxer's letter", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215942, "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": 241, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "175\n\nHong Kong shipyards to do marine engineering could also be used to make armour cladding for ships and vehicles. Hong Kong was also the base from which British aircraft manufacturers wanted to penetrate the Chinese market - the Far East Flying School wanted to train Chinese to fly so they would buy British rather than American or German planes. Hong Kong was also a centre for financial transactions both within and outside the banking system, a source for remittances and money transfers, more secure than Shanghai after the Japanese conquest. A large KMT community operated out of and lived in Hong Kong: almost a parallel government. While there was sympathy for the Nationalists, the colonial administration was uncertain how to maintain a balance between the Japanese and the Chinese Government. Riots against Japanese living in Hong Kong had been suppressed, and no protests made against Japanese attacks on the junk fleet. When the St Johns Ambulance wanted to send an ambulance to bombed Canton, the Colonial Office refused permission. Groups of Chinese 'terrorists' were arrested and deported from time to time. As late as May 1941 the colony's police force raided premises at 98 Robinson Road and destroyed a wireless transmitting station which had been operating for three years. The leader of this group was Chan So, an agent of General Wu Te Ching. When Governor Northcote sought guidance, the Colonial Office was advised by the Foreign Office that British policy had to vary according to circumstances, and support for China should be rendered 'compatible with the safety of Empire and avoidance of actual hostilities with the Japanese.'xix Nonetheless, there was a significant understanding between the Goumindang and the British when it came to matters of mutual benefit. When war officially broke out, their clandestine relationship could come out into the open. When Phyllis Harrop,\n\na civilian consultant working with the police reported for duty right after the outbreak of hostilities, she was assigned to work with the KMT who had already started to occupy offices with the police.\n\nThe Japanese were all too aware of the importance of Hong Kong to the KMT. The Japanese Foreign Minister had softly but firmly reminded the British Ambassador to keep the KMT under control. Even before their push to the south, the Japanese had identified KMT activists and targeted educated, articulate overseas Chinese as a threat and source of resistance. In Malaya and Singapore, they were to massacre thousands of Chinese in the wake of their advance, a fact obscured by the emphasis on the sufferings of Europeans interned in camps. In Hong Kong, on", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216407, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "116\n\nJapanese cruiser YAHAGI11 was due to arrive at 2200 hours that evening.\n\nIn the interim the freighter MADRAS MARU2 arrived. She attempted a rescue operation but this was not successful. Indeed the seas were so high that it was not even possible to contemplate sending the nine survivors across to her for repatriation to Japan.\n\nSince all these Japanese flag ships had appeared or were due to appear at the scene of the grounding Captain Mackinnon informed NASHI that he would sail for Hong Kong that afternoon, and take with him the nine men. Later he was to write:\n\n'Many friendly and complimentary flag signals were exchanged with all ships present, including the wreck. At 1700 I proceeded to Hong Kong leaving the Japanese destroyer NASHI in charge of the situation.'\n\nOn Saturday 7 November HERMES returned to her buoy at Hong Kong and a short while later the nine rescued seamen were landed ashore.\n\nIt is pleasant to be able to record that in due course official thanks were rendered by the Japanese minister of foreign affairs, Baron Kijuro Shidehara. His letter was addressed to the British ambassador to Tokyo, H.E. Sir Francis Oswald Lindley who forwarded these thanks to the Foreign Office in London from where, in turn, they were passed to the Secretary to the Admiralty.\n\nA year later, on 6th December 1932 at Hong Kong, the C. in C. came onboard our ship to present Lloyds Silver Medals to the three officers, and Bronze Medals to the six ratings who had taken part in the rescue. Also a bronze shield, mounted on a wooden base, was presented to the ship by the Committee of Lloyds.\n\nIn December 1931 an epidemic of diphtheria struck Hong Kong. Amongst those taken ill was Captain Mackinnon. Commander Baxter temporarily assumed command until the arrival of the ship's new commanding officer, Captain W.B. Mackenzie, on 25th February 1932.\n\nCaptain Mackinnon duly returned home and on 21 January 1933", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]