[ { "id": 211424, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "116\n\nhad to postpone its Christmas celebrations by a week, and that several Kauluwela boys were unsuccessful in their attempt to enter high school. After a quarantine of a week, the disease was considered stamped out. Ping Lim and Ting On, both of whom were attending Oahu College, were on a three-week vacation then.\n\nIn a letter dated 20 February 1900, Ping Lim wrote:\n\n\"My dear brother Ping Yip Chan:- On account of the great distance between town and our residing place in Moanalua and the inconvenience of getting your letter at once which came to me on Tuesday afternoon, the 14th of Feb., when the steamer was about to leave, I did not answer you immediately. You are, no doubt, wondering why I am in Moanalua. The cause was that S. M. Damon was afraid that his brother F. W. Damon's residence and the school might burn down in case one of our members should have attached the plague, and also the school's neighbourhood is in a very bad condition. So we moved to a small island owned by S. M. Damon, which is near to the 3 mi. water pumping tank, and borrowed six tents from the Kamehameha School to make our chambers. Four of them used for us, sixty in number, and one for the three teachers, and one for a food storeroom. You may think it is crowded but there the ocean wind is pretty strong. At first we expected to live there one week or two, but after having been there a week the news reached us, stating that several Chinamen working in the Pantheon stables, which are adjacent to our school, have died of plague and so these buildings were soon turned to ashes. Afterwards the whole block in which we live was said to be infected and a rough fence has been built around the block. The people of this spot have been put under quarantine. Had we not made the move we are surely in quarantine.\n\nNow I must turn to another important subject. Well, you have told me that the burning of Chinatown is the most cruel act that was done to our Chinese by the whites. No, the properties destroying itself was not so half bad as to see our ignorant helpless bind-footed Chinese women and babies crying and running forcibly for their lives on the streets, when the unexpected fire came. More than this, some few women who were about to let their babies out to earth were pushed to the drays which took them to quarantine. While during these hours it has been said that some births have occurred. Of course the Chinamen were driven like cattle by the inspectors who carried stakes or some other beating instruments in their hands. After that the men and women, numbering several thousand, were taken to the Kawaiahau Church and grounds. The women lived inside the church while the men outside on the grounds with tents. I am sorry to say that father, brother and in-law's whole family were among these people. During their residing in the church, I went to see father every day, asking if there was anything wanting. Many articles and foods have been taken there by our store partners. But after having been in there for a week they were driven to Kalihi just a little below the Kamehameha School where a great number of new rough rooms have been set up. In Kalihi's I can't see any of our known people to talk with there. All I can do is to send letters to them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211425, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 141, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "There besides Chinese are Japs and Hawaiians of both sex but these women are not so weak and helpless as the Chinese women are.\n\nHaving told you so many unpleasant things now I tell you some good chances that we have met. The whole Chinatown is gone except fifteen to twenty brick buildings were left. It was very very fortunate that the fire did not reach our store side. The Honolulu Chinese Chronicle's whole block was burned, including several brick buildings, as Sing Chong, Yee Wo Chan and others.\n\nThe unexpected fire was caused by the strong wind. Anyway the whole town shall be burned but gradually had not the big fire had happened.\n\nWhen the people left their homes for quarantine they were not allowed to take anything more than they can carry. So one of these numbers had to lose 90% of what he had or more. The Chinatown Quarantine did not raise entirely but King St's quarantine was raised on the 15th Feb. Our store had been resumed to business on that day. The business is very rapid and profitable because there are only four or five big grocery stores in town now. It is also lucky that Yim Quen, Lum Kam Chin, Yim Seg Lock, Lum Chock Hoo and Chong Chug are not in quarantine, if they are the store will probably not reopen so soon.\n\nAll schools will probably reopen in a couple of weeks, if no more new cases have been known from now on. There have been no case for nearly two wks. in Honolulu. It is said that the quarantined people in Kalihi will be all let out before March.\n\nI shall be glad to tell you some more news happened later.\n\nYour loving brother\n\nPing Lim Chan**\n\nOn 14 April 1900, Ping Lam informed Father that all schools had reopened and that the Board of Education had designated Kauluwela School open to both Chinese boys and girls in view of the fact that the school for Chinese girls had been destroyed. Apparently there was sexual segregation as well as racial discrimination then. Ping Lim had been depressed over his mother's death on 4 October 1899, but the upheaval caused by the Chinatown fire a few months later drew his attention away from his grief.\n\nNo record has been preserved to indicate when Ping Lim matriculated at the University of California in Berkeley where he became interested in dentistry, then in law and in political economy. In his letter of 17 January 1903, he said that 250 students were expelled and 900 more received conditions because the large enrolment forced these eliminations.\n\n[17", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211435, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "127\n\nfluently in the process, although he suffered much teasing and abuse from the native boys.\n\nBorn and bred in the city, Grandfather was an intellectual and romantic, but not a good businessman. He loved to read, an enjoyment my mother also shared. Physically he was fair-skinned and fine-haired. Grandmother, on the other hand, from a village environment, was warm, hearty and practical. I have no recollection of her, but I understand that she was an active person, with a good deal of energy and drive. A snapshot of her shows an angular face with rather long teeth and high cheek bones. Cousin Helen Jong Zane is said to resemble her somewhat in looks and temperament.\n\nGrandfather handled Uncle with little understanding. The latter was required to do more than was reasonable for a growing boy. He had little energy left to do well in his studies, for he often fell asleep while doing his homework. Grandmother thus felt compelled to be protective of him against Grandfather's explosive temper. Mother, bright and delicate, was very pleasing to Grandfather and did not have to do any hard manual work. She became a fine needle worker and helped to supplement the family income by sewing denim slacks and buttons at home for tailor shops. Neither Uncle nor Mother had the opportunity to have much schooling.\n\nAlthough Grandfather was able to make a small profit from his 'dim sum' business, the Chinatown fire on 20 January 1900 disrupted it, and the family was, among many, to be confined in a camp set up in Kalihi during and following the conflagration. My grandparents were not among those residents who received compensation from the government for their losses after their release from the camp. Later that year, Grandfather bought the lease to a farm at Kapatai, Luluku, Kaneohe, for 1,000 dollars from Chun Chiu Yee8, the father of Mrs. Sam Young. The farm was named Hook Sung Waiiii and was a leasehold from Mendonca, a Portuguese of some means, although I was given the impression that the Magoons owned the land. This large piece of property was located on the Pali side of the present site of the State Hospital, at the foot of the Koolau Mountain range. It embraced a profuse spring pouring clear, cold and delicious water into a deep stream flowing through and past the entrance of the farm. Mother said that she would always watch with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211450, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1988", "page_number": 166, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "142\n\nThe plague continued in the city and the Board of Health was advised by the medical profession to burn all buildings that might harbour plague-carrying rats, a measure Hong Kong had successfully taken to prevent its spread. C. K. Ai gives the following account of what happened in his autobiography. On 20 January 1900, the Board of Health ordered the Fire Department to burn a building on Beretania Street between Nuuanu and Maunakea Streets, with two engines on guard to contain the fire. Unfortunately the wind direction shifted, sending sparks onto two wooden stables belonging to the Kaumakapili Church which was located on Beretania near Maunakea, spreading the fire through Chinatown in spite of help from volunteers to douse the fire. The police drove the residents out of the danger zone, down Kekaulike Street, along Queen Street, to Kakaako where emergency camps were set up. By two o'clock that afternoon, all Chinatown was in flames. Fortunately no lives were lost, but it was a pitiful sight.\n\nFather learned from Grandfather that 300 stores, both wooden and brick, were destroyed. Luckily, the conflagration just missed Wong On Tai, Yuen Chong and Kwong Li Yuan, but they were forced to relocate nevertheless. Father, Aunt Yim and her husband were sent away to a camp in Kalihi, where my Mother and her family were also confined. In his letter dated 20 February 1900, Ping Lim gave graphic description of the insensitive way in which the Chinese were evacuated and of their strong feelings of degradation. Further news to Father came from Yim Goon Siu who voiced his resentment against the 'white bandits' who 'chased' all 'foreigners', Japanese and natives, young and old, male and female, to the camps in Kalihi and Kakaako. When the block in which Mills School was located was quarantined following the death of several Chinese working for the Pantheon Stables nearby, the Rev. Damon had already moved his students to an island owned by Samuel Damon near the 3-mile pumping station in Moanalua. Ping Lim was thus free to visit and take food to the family when they were first interned in Kawaiahao Church in Kakaako, and to send mail to them when they were moved to Kalihi. During this period, according to First Uncle, the 'white bandits' took similar action in San Francisco by sending the Chinese away from Chinatown, and he was not permitted to send to Hawaii medical supplies which Father had ordered for a friend, although the supplies had been purchased from 'white' people.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 } ]