[ { "id": 204298, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n62\n\n11\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n\"(Ching-Hai Fen-Chi) History of the Pirates who infested the China Sea, from 1807 to 1810\"; \"The Cathechism of the Shamans; or, The Laws and Regulations of The Priesthood of Buddha, in China\" and \"Vahram's Chronicle of The Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia, During The Time of The Crusades\". C. F. Neumann was a German sinologue who visited Canton in 1830 to buy Chinese books for the Royal Library, Berlin. He had a letter of introduction to Morrison from Sir George Staunton and enjoyed much hospitality from the British residents during his visit. It is recorded in the Memoirs that he deplored the attacks that von Klaproth and Rémusat were making on Morrison.\n\nSir George Staunton was a staunch friend to Morrison during long years in China and helped him in every way he could. Morrison had taken over the duties as Senior official translator to the East India Company (a post in which he had been assisting) when Staunton had to retire through ill-health in 1812. Two of Staunton's own contributions to translations from Chinese are in the Library, Narrative of the Chinese Embassy to the Khan of the Tourgouth Tartars, in the years 1712, 13, 14 & 15. By The Chinese Ambassador, and published By the Emperor's Authority, at Pekin, 1821 and Miscellaneous Notices Relating to China, and our Commercial Intercourse with that Country, printed for private circulation only in 1828. A letter from Staunton to Morrison telling him that he has sent him four copies of his work is printed in the Memoirs.\n\nThere are two translations from the Chinese by another French sinologue, Stanilas Julien (1799-1873), Le Livre des Récompenses Et Des Peines, En Chinois Et En Français: Accompagné De Quatre Cents Legendes, Anecdotes Et Histoires, Qui Font Connaitre Les Doctrines, Les Croyances Et Les Moeurs De La Secte Des Tao-Ssé and Lao Tseu Tao Te King, Le Livre de la voie et la Vertu, Paris, 1842.\n\nOne more French sinologue Jean Pierre Guillaume Pauthier (1801-1873), is represented by one of two books originally listed in the catalogue, Le Tao-Te-King ou Le Livre révéré de la Raison Suprême et de la Vertu, par Lao-Tseu, Paris, 1838, with the text in Latin and Chinese and with a French commentary.\n\nA noteworthy work by an earlier French sinologue, Jean Joseph Marie Amiot (1718-1793), (in the book printed Amyot) a Jesuit missionary at Peking is the Dictionnaire Tartare-Mantchou-Français, 1789. It is a two-volume work. Unfortunately, the first volume is missing.\n\n11 靖海氛記", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204301, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n65\n\nBlume, Carl Ludwig, 1796-1862.\n\nFlora Javae . . . cum tabulis lapidi aerique incisis. Bruxellis, J. Frank, 1828.\n\nCAMOES, LUIZ DE, 1524-1580.\n\nThe Lusiad, or, the discovery of India. An epic poem translated from the original Portuguese by William Julius Mickle. Oxford, printed by Jackson and Lister, 1776.\n\nCOOK, JAMES, 1728-1779,\n\nA voyage towards the South Pole, and round the world. Performed in His Majesty's ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the years 1772, 1773, 1774 and 1775. . . . In which is included, Captain Furneaux's narrative of his proceedings in the Adventure during the separation of the ships. 2v. London, printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1777.\n\nJULIEN, STANISLAS, 1799-1873.\n\nZTUNK Lao Tseu Tao te king, Le livre de la vie siècle avant l'ère chrétienne par le philosophe Lao-Tseu, traduit en français, et publié avec le texte chinois et un commentaire perpétuel. Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1842.\n\nJULIEN, STANISLAS, 1799-1873.\n\nLe livre des récompenses et des peines, en chinois et en français, accompagné de quatre cents légendes, anecdotes et histoires, qui font connaître les doctrines, les croyances et les moeurs de la secte des Tao-ssé. Traduit du chinois. Paris, printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. 1835.\n\nKIRCHER, ATHANASIUS, 1601-1680.\n\nChina monumentis quà sacris quà profanis, nec non variis naturae & artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata Amstelodami, Joannem Janssonium à Waesberge & Elizeum Weyerstraet, 1667,\n\nKLAPROTH, HEINRICH JULIUS VON, 1783-1835.\n\nAsia polyglotta. Paris, gedruckt bei J. M. Eberhart, 1823.\n\nMARTINI, MARTIN, 1614-1661.\n\nNovus atlas sinensis a Martino Martinio. Soc. iesu descriptius et serenmo Archiduci Leopoldo Guilielmo Austriaco dedicatus. Bruxellis, 1655.\n\nMILL, JAMES, 1773-1836,\n\nElements of political economy. London, printed for Baldwin, Cradock and Joy. 1821.\n\nMILNE, WILLIAM, 1785-1822.\n\nA retrospect of the first ten years of the Protestant Mission to China, (now, in connection with the Malay, denominated,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204403, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "26\n\nCURRENCY PROBLEMS IN A CYCLE OF CATHAY\n\nG. FINDLAY ANDREW, O.B.E.*\n\n44\n\nIn these days of simplified travel, when one may either \"pay as you go\" or travel first and pay later; when the traveller is spoon-fed by agencies and bear-led by travel bureaux, the many difficulties which faced the would-be traveller in the Chinese Empire during the early days of this century are almost entirely forgotten. Not the least of these were the many problems which arose in connection with financing such journeys. I shall only refer to foreign exchange very briefly as my subject has to do with the disbursement of Chinese currency. Suffice to say, in passing, that the sixty years under review has witnessed the pound sterling at $2.90 Mex, and the U.S. $ at sixty cents Mex. at the nadir, through to the astronomical zenith of 1949 when staffs had to be paid in the National currency twice daily and then given time off to spend the money before it deteriorated further.\n\nTo-day the would-be traveller presents himself, hat in hand before the Manager of his bank, arranges an overdraft, converts the proceeds into letters-of-credit or travellers' cheques, then proceeds blissfully upon his way shedding rays of sunshine through the distribution of his \"promises to pay\". This was not so in the days at the turn of the century. Then, the traveller in the interior of China might be able to engage his transport by payment with the native bank draft or gold or silver bullion, but the day by day road expenses had to be paid in the existing common currency of China, the old brass cash—the coin with a square hole in the centre. At that time the issuance of this currency was under the control of the Imperial Throne and new issues were uttered by each fresh monarch, perpetuating his memory by the inscription thereon. The value of the brass cash was based upon the tael of silver and fluctuated with the law of supply and demand. In the larger centres the daily rate of exchange was fixed by the Chamber of Commerce.\n\nBut in the matter of the exchange of silver into cash at the exchange shops there were many vagaries to be taken under\n\n*The author was born in China and was engaged for many years there in welfare work,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204406, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CURRENCY PROBLEMS\n\n29\n\nMemory calls to mind how that, in 1911, when I rode out of the Minshan range, which lies between the provinces of Kansu and Szechwan, I came out onto the great silk road of the Empire at Kwangyuan and travelled along it to Chengtu. On this road one found the most magnificent hotel accommodation then existent in the Empire. Yet in the best hotel I got the best room, together with all the rice I could eat at the evening meal, for forty cash a night—then the equivalent of about 3 cents U.S. currency!\n\nThis problem of the weight of the brass cash was well exemplified during the relief work I was called upon to direct in 1921 in North West China following the catastrophic earthquake that took place in December 1920. The quakes changed the whole face of nature in some fourteen counties and it became a matter of the utmost importance that we restored communications and set free the dammed up streams before break-throughs could cause flood devastation in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. To this end I had some fifteen thousand men at work in the 14 districts, engaged in this work of vital importance. They were paid on the basis of labour giving relief. On the largest undertaking at a place called Chin-Chiang-Yi I had four thousand eight hundred labourers. Of this number 10% were overseers or foremen gangers and received five hundred, or over, cash per day. The rank and file received a straight four hundred each. This means that the total weight of the cash required to meet a single day's pay on this one undertaking amounted to just over 12 tons deadweight. Something over 35 tons of cash was needed each day to pay the fifteen thousand men. Those were the days before motor transport in that part of the country and with the roads wiped out by the earthquake and pack-animals of all kinds exceedingly scarce the situation soon became impossible. After much thought I decided to put out my own note issue to meet the emergency. This though was easier conceived than executed. Neither paper supplies nor printing facilities were available. Therefore I had wooden blocks carved representing cash denominations of four hundred and five hundred cash. From these impressions were taken on strips of calico. The pull-offs were then oiled to prevent falsification. These notes were used in paying the workers who were able to use them for the purchase of food and necessities. The Chambers of Com-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204410, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 42, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CURRENCY PROBLEMS\n\n33\n\ntooth-picks, ear-cleaners, silver dollars from many of the provincial mints and even Russian roubles. We melted the whole mass down, refined the metal losing seventy ounces in weight in the process and recast in ingots of a standard whose increased exchange rate more than compensated for the loss of weight. The child of sycee, the silver dollar, gradually superseded its parent in favour. As far as the memory serves me, the Mexican dollar was the first to come into common circulation on the China coast. Thus for many years the dollar currency in China was designated \"Mex\". The Ching dynasty minted their own dollars and maintained a standard around 71 to 74 tael cents to the dollar. But with the coming of the regional and provincial mints all this was changed and standards varied considerably. One of the earliest war-lord dollars was the Yuan Shih-kai's which maintained a high standard of purity. Deterioration led to confusion of exchange rates and one certain provincial dollar eventually found its level on the common market at half the value of other provincial dollars. Gradually the dollar became the common form of silver currency. One great advantage lay in the fact that the \"dud\" dollar was much more readily spotted than adulterated sycee. There may be some, who, like myself, have been amazed at the dexterity of the Chinese bank teller in detecting spurious dollars by the \"dullness\" of their tinkle.\n\n4\n\nIn the year 1929 I was back in Kansu distributing relief in severe famine areas. This was in the days before there was motor transport in the north-west of China and transport facilities had been decimated by the starvation deaths of man and beast. Added to which, difficulty was added to what transportation was possible by the roving bands of brigands roaming the country in search of food. All usual means of remitting money from the coast were suspended and the only way I could get funds was by issuing letters of credit on my brother in Tientsin. One leading war-lord offered me a remittance of fifty thousand taels of silver provided I would take delivery at his home village, located two and a half days' journey from the provincial capital. By a considerable effort I managed to assemble a caravan of some twenty pack animals. One pack mule will carry three thousand ounces of silver deadweight. With a heavily armed guard we took the trail over the mountains. On the second evening we came to the top of a mountain range and here we", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204603, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n73\n\nthe western side, is a bare space occupied in winter by Mongol traders, and known in consequence as the \"Mongol Market\". On the south side, a congeries of little Chinese shops. The whole is surrounded by a massive wall, which on the west, as being the wall of the Carriage Park and enclosing Imperial ground, is topped with yellow tiles. The principal gate of the Legation is in the centre of the eastern side, facing the canal. The gate-house has an upper storey surmounted by a flag-staff, and carrying the royal arms. ...\n\nNorth of the doctor's house is the Fives Court. From this, under the wall of the Carriage Park, runs the Bowling Alley. Opposite the Fives Court, again, is a converted Chinese building, now divided into a billiard-room, a reading-room, and a small stage. North of this are the garden and buildings of the Students' Quarters.\n\nThe Quarters consist of a long row facing south, having an upper storey, and containing ten sets of rooms, five above and five below. The whole block is in the common style of foreign architecture out here, with verandah and balcony. Each set consists of a sitting-room about fourteen feet by ten, with a small store-closet, a bed-room, say ten feet square, and a bathroom. In the upper rooms the store-closet becomes a cupboard, the bathroom being lengthened to allow the door to open on the stair-head. There is a stern disregard of ornament in the interiors at any rate, but they were comfortable enough on the whole.\"7\n\n+\n\nThe only furniture supplied to the incoming student was a bed, a chest of drawers with a looking-glass, a wash-stand, and three cane-bottomed office chairs for his sitting-room. Wilkinson mentions mess fees. \"On first joining the mess the student pays an entrance fee of $25. We contracted with the cook to supply us with breakfast, tiffin, and dinner at 50 cents 1s. 10d. a day. All stores, such as condiments, jellies, tea, coffee, we provided ourselves in regard to wine, each man had a separate account with the cellar.\" From time to time they gave a mess dinner, the largest one being for forty men, students and guests included.\n\n17 Ibid., 24-5; 27-8. For a plan of the buildings see over.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204635, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1963", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHAU\n\n103\n\n20 See T'ung-tsu CH'U Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Harvard University Press 1962) chapter 9, especially pp. 161-164.\n\nI am indebted to Mr. W. Schofield, a former District Officer, and Cudet Officer, Hong Kong Government, for a reference to an inscription, now lost, relating to the foundation of the Lung Chun Yee Hok *** in 1847. The school, which is still standing inside the former Kowloon walled city, was opened by the district magistrate WONG Ming Ting after the sub-district deputy magistrate HUI Man Sham had reported that it was being built.\n\nOrme in his \"Report on the New Territories 1899-1912” in Sessional Papers 1912, p. 63, Appendix G, gives a school census for April 1912, by which time there had apparently been little change since 1898. There were 10 schools on Cheung Chau, average attendance 20, average monthly fee 38 cents.\n\n21 See HSIAO op. cit. pp. 235-240 and CH'U, op. cit., pp. 161-162. Occasionally government-sponsored schools were granted land for their maintenance. In the 28th year of Kuang-hsü (1902-3) four years after the lease of the New Territories to Great Britain, land inside the boundary, previously used for the purpose of aiding a school still in Chinese territory, was sold by order of the Commissioner of Education for San On district. Part of the proceeds had also been used for offerings at the Confucian temple (in Nam Tau).\n\n22 The group of titles on the defence bureau tablet is another demonstration of the widespread sale of degree titles and positions in the late Ch'ing period already remarked in several places. (see HSIAO Kung-Chuan Rural China p. 415 and chapter 10 of CH'U's Local Government in China under the Ch'ing op. cit., pp. 168-173 and notes and, in more detail, Chung-li CHANG, The Chinese Gentry. Studies on their Role in Nineteenth Century Chinese Society, (Seattle, University of Washington Press 1955) pp. 102-111. For contemporary notices see Rev. Krone \"A Notice of the Sanon District\" in Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong), Part VI (1859) p. 84 and Arthur H. Smith Village Life in China (Edinburgh, Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier c. 1900 p. 121, amongst others.)\n\nNo fewer than twenty-one persons have titles prefixed to their names, many of them minor ones, of which three-quarters were probably purchased.\n\nthe first\n\nOf the purchased titles and posts five were chien-sheng degree by purchase, which was the prerequisite to purchasing any superior post, such as that of district magistrate or prefect. It was the most commonly purchased degree. Two others were styled chih-chien and chih-sheng. There were four chin-kung and four chih-yüan 職員。", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204726, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "20 \n\nW. C. HUNTER \n\nthere was a large Chop posted on the wall of the Company's Factory giving a review of the correspondence between the Commissioner and the foreigners up to this time. \n\nAt 5 p.m. the coolies brought us 6 buckets of water and 4 bundles [of] hay for the cows and promised to bring us some spring water tomorrow. \n\nApril 2, Tuesday \n\nNew China Street, Hog Lane and the alley in front of Cox's house have been built up with bricks for the double purpose of preventing the escape of foreigners and to keep all Chinese out of the Square. None but those on duty are permitted to come in front of the Factories. The guards are erecting more mat sheds by the water side. Supplies of bread, fruit, spring water and other things brought to each Factory. \n\nEverything very dull in the day time. The Factories, deserted by the Chinese who used to live in them, are as desolate as possible, and at night dark and dreary. We have, however, quantities of food supplied us by the Consoo. \n\nHired six of the coolies on guard at our Factory gate to wash out the Hong, and paid them 25 cents each. We have a fellow to look after our cows who comes in and goes out at pleasure, the linguists having furnished him with a pass. All the coolies, police and soldiers stationed around the Factories are each supplied with a pass which they are obliged to show on passing in and out of the gate at the end of Old China Street which is the only entrance into the Square, all the other avenues having been bricked up. The pass is a small piece of wood attached to a red string with the characters Yaou-Pae, meaning \"a pass attached to the waist\" where it is fastened. Beneath these characters are others, private marks. \n\nThe washerman came yesterday and brought our clean clothes and took some away to be washed, having no pass a linguist came in with him and remained till he went away. Everything taken from the Factories, I am told, is first carried to the Consoo House, where, with the carriers, all are examined. A precaution taken to prevent any letter or note being carried out of the Hongs which might be sent to the vessels at Whampoa, at Lintin, or Macao.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204795, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "86\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nHowever, the Cantonese, Hakka and even Hoklo fishermen lived on land and were still landsmen who could live in both worlds. The first two, if not always the third, could cut their own firewood, and grass for breaming, whereas I am led to believe that in the anchorages, which were nearly always in populated places, the Tanka fishermen had usually to buy these necessities from the villagers. The reason usually given for this is that the villagers had planted the trees which supplied the firewood and paid rent to the imperial government or, more often, to some powerful clan.42 A less striking, but equally practical reason, I was told on Peng Chau, was that fishermen did not wish to carry the grass or poles used in breaming their craft, in order to save valuable space. Breaming facilities were not always charged for, it seems, though on Peng Chau a breaming charge of 20 cents per boat was levied by the personnel of the military post before 1899 — the sort of \"squeeze\" by which soldiers supplemented their pay. The military post seems to have been a late innovation, prior to which no breaming charges are believed to have been levied by Peng Chau's land dwellers. On nearby Cheung Chau the WONG clan owned the main breaming beaches in the main anchorage and in a secondary one at Sai Wan, also much used by the boat people. They charged a fee for their use, part of the proceeds going to the upkeep and ceremonies connected with the clan's main ancestral grave on the island.43 Of course the boatmen could go to some deserted beach, but they were hard to find since villagers were well distributed in the coastal areas and islands by the nineteenth century and there were few areas capable of returning crops left undeveloped.44 In any case, there were no amenities, such as shops and temples, to tempt fishermen to such places; whilst, as Miss Ward remarks in her study of the Kau Sai fishing village in the Port Shelter area of Sai Kung, boat people are not the sea rovers drifting from place to place they are commonly imagined to be, but have been linked to a home base over a long period.45 This seems certainly to have been true of Peng Chau in the period under review.\n\nIn a mixed community of the small size of Peng Chau it is hardly surprising that no district associations similar to those of Cheung Chau and Tai O were established.46 The Cantonese residents were relatively few in number, whilst the Hakka clans had their own family ties and, at the grave festivals and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205146, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n97\n\n38 I have heard this from many informants. See also Reichelt, The Transformed Abbot, London, 1954, p. 156, and J. B. Pratt The Pilgrimage of Buddhism, New York, 1928, p. 311. A Buddhist monk once explained to me that although it was true that Jesus had risen after three days, no one should think he had done this \"just by becoming a Christian\". He had performed religious exercises (hsiu-hsing) and that was how he had achieved resurrection. There was no attempt on the part of this monk to deny the miracle of resurrection, only to fit it into the Buddhist scheme.\n\n39 Rev. Joseph Edkins, The Religious Condition of China, London, 1859, p. 75. In 1875 Timothy Richard, when he was baptising converts in Shantung, found that there was no building convenient to the river where they could change their clothes before and after. He explained his problem to the monk in charge of the Buddhist temple there who \"readily consented\" to lend some of its rooms for this purpose. See Richard, Forty-five Years in China, New York, 1916, p. 95. In 1879 the largest lama temple in Peking allowed a colporteur of the National Bible Society of Scotland to run a bookstore within the temple, where on several days a week Christian books were sold. See C. F. Gordon Cumming, Wanderings in China, London, 1888, pp. 4-9.\n\n40 Harry A. Franck, Roving Through Southern China, New York, 1925, pp. 575-576.\n\n41 In the early 1890's De Groot reported: \"It has often happened to the author of these lines that when he was taking his meal in one of the monasteries where he was staying, he was visited by monks who were curious to see how he ate and what he ate: but it was enough for them to smell the odour of his roast of pork or his leg of mutton and they would be forced to make a hasty exit from the room: they felt overcome by nausea. Such strict vegetarianism, it goes without saying that when non-vegetarian lay people came to stay sometimes in a monastery they are not allowed to have their food prepared in the monks' kitchen. There are small separate kitchens for them, where their own servants can stew things up for them.\" (Le Code du Mahayana en Chine, Amsterdam, 1893, p. 103). In 1908, when Boerschmann stayed on P'u-to Shan, he grew tired of the vegetarian fare and sent his cook to smuggle in some chickens (Pu-t'o Shan, Berlin, 1911, p. 166). In these and other instances the monks are portrayed as tacitly or even gleefully cooperating in getting meat onto the foreigner's bill of fare. It seems more likely that their cooperation, when it was forthcoming (and often it was refused), was reluctant and indignant. There was a compelling practical reason for this. If Chinese pilgrims saw meat being eaten on the premises of a monastery, many of them would take their patronage elsewhere. This was understood by early Western travellers like A. J. Little (Mount Omi and Beyond, London, 1901, pp. 75, 81, and 83). Little also provides an example of the Westerner's tendency to haggle (pp. 68, 83). The meanest bit of haggling was probably perpetrated by Mrs. C. F. Gordon Cumming. In 1879 she visited the Tien-t'ung Ssu, one of the model monasteries of China. After she and her party had enjoyed an \"excellent dinner,\" they were asked to give the equivalent of English tenpence, Mrs. Cumming offered eight pence. When the offer was accepted, she tipped the waiter tuppence halfpenny, and noted that he \"grinned with delight. Can I give you a better proof that we have reached a spot where foreigners are almost unknown?\" (Wanderings in China, London, 1888, p. 291). Mrs. Cumming was quite mistaken, of course, about foreigners being unknown: probably more had stayed at T'ien-t'ung than at any other monastery.\n\nEven today Westerners with plenty of dollars in their pocket take pride in doing the poor Chinese shopkeeper out of a few cents, partly to show their savoir faire and partly out of fear of being cheated themselves. But the monastery was not a shop, and this sort of behaviour was regarded as most inappropriate there.\n\n42 W. E. Soothill, Timothy Richard of China (London, 1924), pp. 162-163.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205383, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "138\n\nSALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG\n\nS. Y. LIN\n\nEditor's Note. This article, which is of considerable ethnographic and nearly thirty years after-historical interest, first appeared in the pre-war publication The Hong Kong Naturalist (1930-41), Volume X, No. 1, January 1940. The editor of this interesting series, Dr. G. A. C. Herklots, Reader in Biology at the University of Hong Kong 1928-45 and Principal and Director of Research at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad 1953-60, has kindly given permission to reproduce it here. It is hoped that the article will be of interest to present-day residents of Hong Kong as well as providing for scholars a record of salt-production on the South China coast by both the leaching (percolation) and solar (evaporation) processes, now practically defunct in Tai O where the salt pans have been almost deserted for several years past. The author, Dr. Shu-yen Lin, who is now with the Fisheries Division, Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction Taipei, Taiwan (Formosa) has also expressed his agreement to the article being reproduced. I have added a few notes which, it is hoped, will be of some interest and may encourage others to take up this interesting subject in more detail.\n\nIn three places only is salt prepared from sea-water in the Colony namely at Tai O, a fishing village on Lantau island, Sha-taukok on the frontier in Starling Inlet and San Hui in Castle Peak Bay. Of these the first is the most important.\n\nThe salt marsh at Tai O, which occupies an area of about 70 acres and is enclosed by high dykes to prevent flooding at high tide or by storms, is owned by three companies, two of which are slightly bigger than the third. The annual production in 1938 amounted to about 25,000 piculs (1,488 tons) valued at about $27,500. A small portion is consumed locally, chiefly by the fishermen in the salting of fish, and all the rest is exported.\n\nThe companies lease the salines from Government and sub-let to individual salt-makers or hire them on a piece-wage basis in the form of shares in the profits. In the former case each salt-farmer leases a small saline of about 1/10 acre from the company, paying a rental of $2.00 per month, and endeavours to produce as much salt as possible from this limited area of land. The salt produced, however, must be sold to the company from which the saline has been leased. The company should be able to pay the farmer at a fixed price (50 cents per picul for 1938-1939), immediately on receiving the salt. On the average,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205390, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "SALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG\n\n145\n\npond to evaporate to dryness. This will take 8 to 10 hours. The salt may crystalize out before the brine is completely dry; if it does not crystalize in the expected time, \"seeds\" of ordinary salt should be thrown into the pond to hasten the growth and sedimentation of the salt-crystals. Any excess of brine left is drained off or left to continue evaporating to dryness. The salt, left as a thin layer of white crystals on the bottom, is then scraped into piles and carried to the company for storage or for sale.\n\n(See Plates 8 and 9 for illustrations to this article)\n\nADDITIONAL NOTES\n\nSalt Production at Tai O\n\nThese figures are taken from the printed Administrative Reports of the District Officer, Southern District of the New Territories. Details are only available for the years 1910-1939, less 1926-27. The remarks in the right-hand column are direct \"quotes\" from the Reports.\n\n \n Year\n Production\n Price etc.\n \n \n 1910\n No figures\n Low, with an adverse effect on business of the salt pans; but not specified.\n \n \n 1911\n No figures\n A poor year, owing to the cheapness of salt.\n \n \n 1912\n No figures\n Salt pans proved a financial success.\n \n \n 1913\n Total export from all these salt pans was 600 tons.\n Typhoon of 17 August caused damage to the salt pans.\n \n \n 1914\n Now four salt pans working: almost 800 tons exported.\n Price fell from 80 to 70 cents per picul.\n \n\n* One picul = 1331/3 lbs\n\nTrade bad in the beginning of the year but improved considerably during the latter half. Average price 80 cents per picul.*", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205392, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 154, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "SALT MANUFACTURE IN HONG KONG\n\n \n Year\n Production\n Price etc.\n \n \n 1928\n \n \n \n \n 1929\n 10,200 piculs \"as against 18,000 piculs in 1928\"\n \n \n \n 1930\n 17,000 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1931\n 7,090 piculs.\n 12,760\n \n \n 1932\n Approximately 147 piculs, \"most of which was exported\"\n \n \n \n 1933\n 14,000 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1934\n 14,000 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1935\n 11,000 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1936\n 13,500 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1937\n 17,200 piculs.\n \n \n \n 1938\n 25,000 piculs.\n \n \n\nSalt pans did well; in some cases it is said the output was more than doubled, and it is certain that it was on the whole considerably increased.\n\nThe demand for salt was smaller than usual - a decrease which is probably due to the famine conditions prevailing in parts of China during the drought,\n\nA good year for salt pan owners. The serious decline in output is said to have been due to the heavy rains which fell throughout the summer and flooded the salt pans.\n\nThe salt pans did average business. The major portion of Tai O salt is exported to Chinese Territory and to Hong Kong,\n\nThe value declined from $13,000 to $10,000. The greater part was exported to Chinese Territory.\n\nThe price also fell to the very low figure of 63 cents a picul. The greater part was exported to Chinese Territory. The price also rose.\n\nPrices were well sustained.\n\nThe most successful local industry, the price also improving.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205393, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1967", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "148\n\nLIN SHU-YEN\n\n1939 “A slight (unspecified) fall in the output compared with 1938\" A very successful year as a result of a large increase in price.\n\nSome general figures for the New Territories salt-industry before 1912, not specifically related to Tai O, are given in G. N. Orme's \"Report on the New Territories 1899-1912\" (para. 71) to be found in the H.K. Government's printed Sessional Papers for 1912. They are as follows:\n\n1900 30 cents a picul.\n\n1908 $1.20 a picul: \"salt makers came in for large profits\".\n\n1912 70 cents a picul: decrease \"chiefly owing to imports from the Northern Coasts\".\n\nOrme lists 37 acres of salt pans at Tai O, 32 at Castle Peak, 12 at Shun Wan near Tai Po and less than one acre at Sha Tau Kok. However, at Tai O at least, the area under production at that time was not the total acreage laid out for the purpose. At the survey and land settlement conducted a few years after 1899 a total of 107.07 acres was recorded as salt-pans. These were then (1903-04) five pans, the largest 37.39 acres and the smallest 5.66 acres. The area under production was, it appears, usually less than the total and would vary according to the demand for salt, and the market price. These details are taken from the Block Crown Lease and Survey Sheets in the District Office South.\n\nThere is an interesting passage on the manufacture of salt in the New Territories and the uses to which both it and imported salt was put at that time in Colonial Reports Annual, No. 314 Hong Kong, Report for 1899 (London, HMSO, 1901);\n\n\"Salt is manufactured at four places in the New Territory, the yearly output being about 4,466 tons, worth some $16,000, which in part supplies the local demands of the population, the fishing junks which keep the fish they catch while at sea in brine, and the various fishing stations where fish is salted and dried. A much larger quantity is, however, imported at certain places for the use of the fleets of fishing junks. The imported salt is also largely used for the salting and drying of fish, for which purpose it seems to be preferred to the locally manufactured salt. The manufacture of salt is an industry which is likely to increase and develop in the New Territory, and which is worthy of being", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205591, "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": 133, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "128\n\n# CHINESE STREET-CRIES IN HONGKONG\n\nBy J. NACKEN*\n\nEditor's note. Dr. Alan Birch, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Hong Kong, came across this article in the China Review, Volume II, 1873, pp. 51-55. This publication was made available to him from U.S. National Archives Microfilm, Gp. 108, Roll 9 by courtesy of the United States Consulate General, Hong Kong. The Branch is grateful to Dr. Birch for bringing this interesting article to our notice. It is reproduced here exactly as in the original, though a different format has been adopted to suit the Journal's printing style.\n\nMy friend was sitting at his desk, busy, no doubt, in framing the best-worded sentence ever penned in the East, when a howl from the street rang through the lofty verandah, and rebounded, as it were, from the high ceilings of the room. \"That's one of those ubiquitous hawkers,\" said my friend angrily, springing to his feet and rushing to the verandah to have a look at the back of the disturber. I joined my friend quietly and was just in time to see a pair of broad shoulders raising themselves, and a pig-tailed head bending backwards; and then came a second edition of the howl we had heard before. I myself, being of an asthmatic nature, rather envied the sturdy fellow who could carry so much on his shoulders and walk a brisk pace, and yet have breath enough left to utter such stentorian sounds.\n\n\"What does that fellow call out?\" my friend asked. I could not say, though I had been in China for some years, and, as my friend remarked, ought to know, if I pretended to know Chinese at all.\n\nThat was some years ago. In the mean-time others like my friend must have suffered from the annoyance which led to the framing of Ordinance No. 8 of 1872, which says that:\n\n\"Every person is liable to a Penalty who shall use or utter Cries for Purpose of buying or selling any articles whatever,... within any District or Place not permitted by some Regulation of the Governor in Council.'\n\nFor the hawkers of Hongkong wooden tickets are provided which must be renewed every quarter at a cost of 50 cents. These\n\n* Mr. Nacken was a member of the Rhenish Mission, Mr. H. A. Rydings has located a brief reference to his work in South China in the account of the Rhenish Mission given at pp. 272-276 of The China Mission Hand-Book (Shanghai, American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1896). Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205934, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 14, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "the Society had a fine home of its own with a lecture hall presented by a Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a magnificent library and a museum and art gallery. It was supported by the Municipal Councils of the International Settlement and of the French Concession with liberal grants. In Hong Kong, however, no philanthropist has yet appeared to help the Society and the Government gives us only $200 a year in return for which it receives free copies of the Society's publications.\n\nOur library is increasing and now consists of about 500 books but can be much enlarged by the purchase of books and by donations. One section of the library, the rarest volumes and our exchange journals as well as a stock of our own journals, is kept in the University, while the other section is kept in the rooms of the British Council which is already hard pressed to house its own library. We are grateful to the University and the British Council for these facilities and the services of their staff but the time has come when the Society will have to appeal for funds to house our library and make it more easily available.\n\nWe have to acknowledge with gratitude the gifts of books made during the year, including contributions from the Hong Kong University and from the South China Morning Post. A most valuable gift was the presentation on behalf of the Diocesan Girls' School of the classic and rare book, Bentham's Flora Hongkongensis, published in 1861. Bentham was a member of the Society but published his great work two years after the Society's collapse. In this connection I want to add that it has been my great wish, so far not achieved, to see Bentham's book succeeded by a new and colour edition of the Flora of Hong Kong based on the 500 admirable slides from the photographs taken by Mr. F. A. Nixon. With some Government encouragement and some philanthropic help, such as was given by Jardines and Dents in 1859, such an aim could be achieved and would serve as a permanent contribution by the Royal Asiatic Society to the natural history of Hong Kong.\n\nAs you will see from the Hon. Treasurer's Report our finances are in a satisfactory position; but we cannot be complacent as we have heavy expenses to meet in printing the new issue of the Journal and in reprinting Vol. I and the printing of the record and results of the recent Symposia conducted by Professor Dwyer", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206043, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 123, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "118\n\nSerial\n\nK. M. A. BARNETT\n\nUse\n\n1. (a) In numbering off items: ONE!\n\n(b) As a preparatory word of command, as in ONE! TWO! THREE! GO!\n\n2. Item by item, seriatim.\n\n3. (a) One day (contrast Ser. 6c).\n\n(b) One foot (measure of length).\n\n(c) Ten cents (measure of money).\n\n4. The meaning in each case is the unit augmented by 10%—\n\n(a) 11 (Chinese) inches.\n\n(b) 11 cents.\n\n(c) 1,100.\n\n(d) 11 (contrast Ser. 6f).\n\n5. Used bound to a congruence-marker to denote the particular singular. Examples (a) (c) (e) (g) with null ictus denote an unemphatic singular, like the English indefinite article or the Greek (unaccented) τίς. Examples (b) (d) (f) (h) have emphatic singularity.\n\n(a) (b) mark the congruence class of thin rigid objects like sticks, bottles, small growing plants (sometimes including bamboo but seldom rice), spears, arrows; and some special ones like songs and flags. There is also transference from the bottle to its contents.\n\n(c) (d) mark the congruence class of thin non-rigid objects like strings, rivers, roads, reptiles, fish, footless and wingless insects; and some special ones like split firewood, dreams, lives, live naked human bodies, towels, handkerchiefs.\n\n(e) (f) mark the congruence class of articles which can be folded away when not in use, like tables, chairs, beds, bed-clothes, documents.\n\n(g) (h) mark the congruence class of articles which generally form one of a pair, like hands, feet, eyes, ears; also animals, birds, flying or walking insects. And some domestic utensils like cups and cooking pots.\n\n6. (a) The common ordinal adjective \"first\"; used also to mean first in quality,\n\n(b) The same as TRAW-DARNG, which has the same superfixes.\n\n(c) (d) The first day of the lunar month (contrast 3a, with different superfix).\n\n(e) The first day of the lunar year.\n\n(f) The 11th day of the month (contrast 4d with different superfix).\n\n(g) Denotes the first of a series of arguments or considerations.\n\n7. This group indicates that the action described was immediately followed by another.\n\n(a) learns off at a single lesson.\n\n(b) wakes at the first sound of the bell.\n\n(c) as soon as I heard this I was afraid.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206277, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "88\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\none of the leading brokers and charterers of emigrant ships. In front of his lots he erected a wharf which he leased to the Hong Kong, Canton and Macao Steamboat Company after its organization in 1865. In 1860, he appeared in the Courts on the charge of piracy. In response to a request of the Mandarin of his home district in Hoi Ping for assistance in suppressing some Hakka bandits, Achoy had chartered the vessel Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy from Kwok Acheong, the P. and O. Company's compradore. Engaging some Europeans in the Colony he took them up to Hoi Ping where they attacked some Hakka villages. Achoy pleaded that he had not realized that this would be against British law and therefore threw himself upon the mercy of the court.19 He again assisted his home district in 1865 by supplying the local militia with western-made armaments. This earned him official recognition and a biographical notice in the Hoi Ping Gazetteer. In later years his constitution was affected by habitual opium smoking and he did not participate actively in public affairs. He died in 1871, leaving a large fortune.20 In 1857, the editor of The Friend of China described him as being \"no doubt the most creditable Chinese in the Colony\".\n\nTang Aluk, another contractor, though not as much of a community leader as Tam Achoy, was a generous benefactor of worthy projects. He was the largest contributor to the Chinese school book fund of 1859, contributing sixty dollars; Tam Achoy contributed fifty dollars and Kwok Acheong, the P. and O. compradore contributed twenty dollars; all other contributions ranged from ten dollars to fifty cents. The fact that Tang Aluk's name was that of \"Number Six\" indicates he was of humble origin. He began as a stone cutter. Most of them were Hakka, and it is probable that Aluk was of this group. In time he built up a successful contracting business. At his death in 1887 he left a large estate, much of which was in landed property. The administration of his estate involved many lawsuits among his heirs. A newspaper commentator observed that the estate was a gold mine for the legal profession as suits and appeals dragged through the courts for several decades after his death.2\n\nTHE MERCHANTS GROUP\n\n21\n\nHong Kong had difficulty in attracting merchants with capital. We have mentioned the abortive efforts of Chinam and several", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206284, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG\n\n95\n\ntwo European partners of the firm, with the intention of building Chinese houses of a better type to accommodate the wives and families of the growing class of well-to-do compradores. Previously the compradores had not brought their families to Hong Kong but they remained in their home village or in Canton. The editor of The China Mail comments that \"Messrs. Dent and Company have shown both wisdom and kindness in disposing of their land for such purposes.\n\nChiu Wing Tsun (†), one of the purchasers, and his elder brother, Yuk Ting (†), had both been compradores in Dent and Company. Their nephew Chiu Yee Chee () was compradore at Shanghai and became one of the organizers of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company in 1872. Chiu Wing Tsun died at Macao in 1873, leaving property in Hong Kong estimated at $111,000.27 Yeong Lan Ko (☎), the other Chinese purchaser of the Dent property, had succeeded his relative Yeong Atai (*) alias Yeong Chun Kum, to the position of first compradore of Dents at Hong Kong upon the latter's death in 1870. Yeong Lan Ko alias Yeong Sun Yow (), and also known as Asam (), was one of Hong Kong's largest landowners. In 1876 he was the nineteenth largest rate-payer and in 1881 had risen to fifth position. He died in 1884 at Pak Shan, the family village in Heung Shan District.\n\nBefore Dents sold their property, the few substantial Chinese who had family residences in Hong Kong were located at the former Middle Bazaar site. When the inhabitants of the Middle Bazaar had been relocated at Tai Ping Shan, the Government replotted the area and laid off new lots which were meant to be bought principally by Europeans for their residences or business houses.28 Two of the more substantial Chinese bought lots at the sale in 1844: Ying Wing Kee (*) alias Ng Wing Kee (**), a compradore and merchant who died in 1849, and Tong Kam Sing, a contractor who died in 1845. Other Chinese of this class soon bought lots from European owners, that they might establish family houses in a better part of town. These included Wei Akwong, compradore of Bowra and Company and later of the Chartered Mercantile Bank; Ho Sek, compradore of Lyall, Still and Company; Lee Kip Tye, a Fukien broker who began his Hong Kong career as a Government interpreter;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206285, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 102, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "96\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nWong Shing, newspaper editor and manager of the London Mission press; and Cheung Achew, a wealthy carpenter.29 The Rev. Ho Fuk Tong and his family lived at the nearby compound of the London Mission Society. In time this area around Peel, Graham, Gage Streets and Hollywood Road became a centre for Parsee and Indian merchants, as well as European brothels. Some of the old families stayed on, but the opening up of the area bounded by Wyndham, Wellington and Pottinger Streets by the Dents provided a needed location for the houses of the better Chinese. After the Peak was developed in the 1870s and 1880s, the wealthy Chinese moved up to Mid-levels occupying the mansions of the Europeans who moved to the Peak.\n\nOf the individuals who had their family residence in the former Middle Bazaar area were two who were on the organizing committee of Tung Wah Hospital, Wong Shing and Ho Asek alias Ho Fai Yin #alias Ho In Kee. Ho Asek first appears in Hong Kong records in 1849 when he purchased a lot in Tai Ping Shan. At the time he was compradore of the opium firm of Lyall, Still and Company. It failed in 1867 and Ho Asek embarked upon his own business ventures under the firm name of Kin Nam. According to a newspaper account, he was subject to a $2,000 “squeeze” from the mandarins during the second Sino-British War.30 He traded extensively in opium as well as rice, and in 1871 held the gambling monopoly from which within a year he realized a $28,000 profit. In an action brought against him in 1871, he testified that he operated with a capital of $200,000.31 In 1868 two of his employees were brought before the court on a charge of extortion. In the evidence presented it was stated that about September 1866, some influential Chinese started a system of subscription or unofficial taxation to support district watchmen. The city had been divided into two sections, East and West. The West District was superintended by Tam Achoy and Ho Asek, \"a most respectable and honest trader”. A shopkeeper resisted the pressure put upon him to contribute and brought the charge of extortion against two of Asek's employees who had been collecting for the scheme. The court gave judgment in favour of the defendants.32 Ho Asek was still a member of the Kai Fong Committee in 1872. He died in Pang Po (likely Ping Po+), Shun Tak District in 1877. His wife was granted letters of administration on his estate, but she being blind, gave her power", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206409, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1971", "page_number": 226, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "200 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nains in Kiang-Si, the charcoal burners constitute the population of almost all the villages. The houses of these landowners may be at once recognised by the vast piles of charcoal in front of them.' \n\n** \n\nGray may be right in implying that charcoal was in great demand for domestic use at the time he wrote, but observation and enquiries in New Territories' villages show that wood has long been in general use at the kitchen stove and even in the portable earthenware stoves known as fung lo () in this area. \n\nThe observant traveller on the local hills can still find evidence of charcoal burning in the past, but first-hand information is now hard to come by. This note only deals with a few areas where I am familiar with the older local people. \n\nOn Lamma, for instance, an old person born in Yung Shue Long Village about 1887 recalls that there were a lot of charcoal burners on the island when she was a girl, mostly outsiders who employed the village women and girls to carry the charcoal from the kilns to the waiting junks or to barges towed by steamboats. These Lamma kilns were mostly situated in the more wooded south of the island, at the village localities of Mau Tat, Yung Shue Ha and Tung O. Too young to help, she followed her mother and her aunt there from their village in the northern part of Lamma. Along with other villagers, they were paid 2 cents (sin) a day for the work. \n\nOn the south coast of Lantau Island an old villager of Tong Fuk, born in 1889, recalled, as a boy, having seen charcoal burners at work near his village and on the hills above. He said that (as on Lamma) these were not local people. A few miles east, there are pits on the hills above the Pui O group of villages; but though linked by village tradition with charcoal burning, the oldest men said they had not been worked in their lifetime. \n\nIn the first few decades of this century charcoal burners were still to be seen on the hills behind north-west Kowloon, near the present Shek Lei Pui reservoir, formerly the site of a Hakka farming village of that name removed for the water scheme in 1923. An old village woman from Cheung Sha Wan, born 1892, recalls seeing them there as a young girl when grass cutting in the area. A second woman who married into another of the Cheung", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206768, "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": 45, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "YAUMATEI TYPHOON SHELTER, HONG KONG\n\n39\n\ncourse of that storm; but clearly the turning point in the typhoon refuge scheme had now been reached. On the 6th August, 1908 the Governor submitted for the acceptance of the Council the following resolution.\n\nBe it resolved that on and from 1st January, 1909 the owner, agent or master of every ship entering the waters of the Colony shall pay the following dues to such officer as the Governor may from time to time appoint. For all river steamers 5/6 ths of a cent per ton register. All other ships entering the waters of the Colony 2 cents per ton register.\n\nThe Yaumatei typhoon shelter was therefore to be financed by an impost placed on shipping entering Colony waters. The prolonged arguments of the preceding years as to how the Colony was to find the money for the new typhoon shelter were resolved by the introduction of this impost.\n\nIt was not to be anticipated that such a proposal as this, hitherto objected to by commercial interests, would pass without strong justification for it being advanced by His Excellency himself, and he did this in the course of a speech at the next meeting of the Council on 20th August, 1908. Thereafter matters continued apace. On the 25th February, 1909 a report on the proposed boat shelter at Mong Kok Tsui was tabled and in August 1909 the first reading of an Ordinance to authorize the construction and maintenance of a harbour refuge and the extinguishment of various marine rights was introduced to Council. Thereafter another altercation broke out in the Council on the introduction of the Liquor Ordinance which was to provide for the collection of duties upon intoxicating spirits, so it was not until October, 1909 that the matter of the typhoon shelter could next be proceeded with. However all submissions to the Legislative Council were finally completed in November, 1909. Nearly a year later, in October 1910, the Director of Public Works advised members of Council that a contract worth just over 2 million dollars had been let concerning the construction of the detached breakwater, and completion was anticipated in five years.\n\nIn 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914 work on the typhoon refuge continued steadily as the papers tabled before the Council indicate. Europe became engulfed in the First World War, but largely unaffected the life of the Colony continued, as did steady progress on the develop-\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207155, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 226, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "220 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nlarge paper bag. This cost 10 cents and the number of dim sum was 18 pieces, usually sufficient for 8-9 persons. The article made picturesque comparisons between the sizes of different foods, then and now, with much larger pieces being supplied in the past. Prices too came in for odious comparison. \"The difference in price in the old days and now is too great: people have said that it may be compared to the difference between the legs of mosquitoes and cows”. \n\nTea house business begins at dawn. Those in Western open between 5-6 a.m, and close about 9 p.m. nowadays. According to the article, the tea houses of 50 and more years ago started business before dawn and closed at 10 a.m., and opened again between 11-12 to 3 without doing business at night time. The interior of tea houses was very colourful. The waiters used slang to report, usually in a loud voice, the consumption of patrons for making up their bills. The customers lolled about and took things at their ease, putting their legs on their own or another stool, often dressed only in a singlet and shorts in the summer months. This sort of thing can still be seen in one of the tea houses that we will visit (the Foo Lung Tea-house, 382-386, Queen's Road, Central) and at lunch time many of the patrons bring their singbirds in cages which they hang around the walls. 50 years ago and more no women were present in the tea houses because at that time it was not the practice for them to appear in public places; and no doubt this added to the informality noted above. \n\nTea houses were also the scene of musical entertainment of a special Cantonese type known generally by the name of nam yam (✯✯) or \"Southern tunes\". Like Cantonese opera, the themes were often concerned with historical stories, handed down from one generation of entertainers to another. Blind musicians and singers often performed these roles. Until this year, this type of entertainment was given in the Tim Nam Tea House in Wing Lok Street, now under demolition. According to the former manager, the majority of the audience were boat people from the cargo boats plying in the harbour. In recent years this traditional type of entertainment has declined in popularity and both singers and audience were confined to a small group of devotees.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207731, "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": 119, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "104\n\nTIN-YUKE CHAR\n\nand for which sum the Laborer has signed a note; and in further consideration of the wages and other benefits to him moving, as hereinafter set forth:\n\nTHE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT HAS BEEN ENTERED INTO BETWEEN THE AFORESAID PARTIES HERETO:\n\nTHE SAID EMPLOYER, in consideration of the stipulations hereinafter contained, to be kept and performed by the said Laborer, covenants and agrees as follows:\n\n1. To procure for said Laborer proper lodgings and food at Honolulu while waiting for a steamer to go to plantation, and also proper transportation from Honolulu to the aforesaid plantation.\n\n2. To give employment to said Laborer, as an agricultural laborer, for the full period of three years from the date such employment actually begins.\n\n3. To pay or cause to be paid to said Laborer, during said 3 years, wages for each month of 26 days' labor actually performed at the rate of Twelve Dollars and Fifty Cents per month, and out of such wages earned to pay for said Laborer to the Hawaiian Government the sum of $1.50 per month for the first 24 months of this agreement, or in all $36.00, which sum the Government holds to the credit of the Laborer until such Laborer elects to return to China, when the said sum of $36.00, and accrued interest thereon, will be applied to the payment of his return passage, and the balance, if any, given to him in cash.\n\nAnd after 3 years' faithful work not to collect his note for $54.00 for passage money and expenses, but the note of $54.00 shall be due and collectable of the Laborer, if the Laborer deserts his employment at any time before the expiration of this agreement.\n\n4. Also that overtime work exceeding 30 minutes shall be paid for at the rate of 10 cents per hour to the Laborer.\n\n5. During the continuance of this agreement the Employer guarantees to the Laborer the full and equal protection of the laws of the Hawaiian Islands, and to provide the Laborer with unfurnished lodgings, and with water and fuel for cooking purposes, medical attendance and medicines, but no rations, and to pay his personal taxes.\n\nTHE SAID LABORER, in consideration of the sum of $54.00 lent to him by his said Employer, and in consideration of the stipulations hereinbefore mentioned, to be kept and performed by the said Employer, covenants and agrees as follows:\n\n1. After arrival at Honolulu to proceed to the plantation, there to perform such agricultural labor in the field, or in or about rice or sugar mills, or as domestic servant, as the Employer under this agreement, and under the herein contained terms and conditions, shall direct.\n\n2. During the continuance of this agreement, being the full period of three years from the date such employment actually begins, to fulfill all the conditions of this agreement, and to diligently and faithfully perform all lawful and proper labor, and to obey all lawful commands of his employer, his agents or overseers, and to work during the night and rest during the day, if called upon to do so, and work on all days, but not on days which are holidays and as such recognized by the Hawaiian Government, or on Chinese New Year, the last mentioned holiday not to exceed two working days; but if the said Laborer should be employed in domestic", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208062, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "UNDER ALTARS (下壇)\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nThe first thing to be seen on entering Chinese temples in Hong Kong and Macau, even those in which a murky half-light obscures the view, is the main altar in the middle of the far end of the main hall. What is rarely seen however, even after a stroll around, is the “Altar at which prayers are offered to avert calamities” (避災壇). This is usually an even dingier ground-level alcove inside the back of which is pasted a large green sheet of paper bearing the titles in white, of five or seven spirits all of whom need placating or propitiating as needs arise. The altar often bears the less colourful titles of the \"Under Altar\" (下壇), the \"Yin and Yang Hall\" (陰陽堂), and in very rare instances, more so in Macau than in Hong Kong, the \"Five Demon Altar\" (五鬼壇).\n\nUnder Altars, only to be found in Cantonese, Hakka and Boat People's Taoist folk religion temples and never in Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, are usually situated under or between the main and secondary altars at ground level. They consist of a wooden or stone open-fronted \"box\" about three to four feet high, three feet wide and two feet six deep and are illuminated, if one can use such a term, by a 15 watt dark red electric bulb. In five temples in Hong Kong and Macau the Under Altar was in a corner beside the main altar, but without any top or covering. In one or two temples such altars may be found, again at ground level (this seems to be the one almost inflexible requirement) but without a top, against the side wall about half way down the main hall facing the centre, or alone in a separate side hall.\n\nThere are several different reasons given why people pray at these altars. The most common is the wish to avert ill-fortune of any form and not just major disasters, as the title of the altar “Calamity\" (災) suggests. An elderly lady pointing at one devotee said that he had just told her that he had placed a stick of incense before the Under Altar to avert losses at the races on the morrow. Another, she said, thought her child was sickening for something, and had placed ten cents before the White Tiger image and said a brief word to the deity asking for the illness to be averted.\n\nPlates 20 - 31 at end of this volume illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208116, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW LONG ISLAND\n\n-\n\n139\n\nwith a deft sweep of the foot, does one see more than an ankle.\n\nOur friend on the other side is not so particular. He sits in the open space between two counters of his shop, and having rolled his cotton singlet up into his armpits, fans with languid strokes a portly form, naked to a very low waist. Now the road begins to widen. It is almost four strides across at this point, owing no doubt to the zeal of some P.W.D. official, but as the extra width is entirely taken up with stalls extended from the shops, no loss of custom can be said to result.\n\nWe have come through a crowded street, and not seen a scowl or a frown, not been jostled, or hustled. The sweating burdened porters have been given right of way, politely asked for, and as graciously conceded. For in China men respect the burden. There are no cars or even bicycles to upset the stream, but if a European, in the usual hurry to leave a boat or catch a boat walks rapidly through the street, there is sometimes a little awkward eddy in the stream, and people have to step aside into shops while the impatient one passes. Not that the Europeans push or rudely press, for there is perfect good temper, and understanding on both sides; but distinguished foreigners in all countries are apt to be in a hurry, one has to help them on their way.\n\nNow we are in the market place... rows of stalls covered with canvas shades set forth cigarettes and sweets, vegetables, fish and meat. Cooked food is here in plenty, steaming soups and succulent pork: cheap Japanese matches, cottons and tin and hardware: but above all, food. The Chinese like to snatch a snack now and then between the main meals. Many coolies feed entirely on snacks obtained at these stalls, drink a cup of tea, take a cake or a bowl of rice, and put down a few cents before they gird up their loins and pass on to the next task. There is also a restaurant of two storeys here, overlooking the pier, the first storey buttressed by barbers' parlours, resplendent with mirrors and American barbers' chairs made in Canton. This is the Cantonese or Punti ward, here in the centre where drapers' shops, and chandlers, the pawnshop and houses are thickest. The Punti is one of the world's best traders and financiers within his own range, and it is here or hereabouts that the village magnates live and work. Here are the money lenders and fish merchants, the landlords and rulers of the people, the mortgage holders for whom the fishermen mostly work. This is the down town section, and the operations are probably", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208122, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH \n\n145\n\nand might bring anything from a complicated murder to a petty assault case: the former, with its formalities, always ticklish for an inexperienced lay magistrate. The next job was to interview people sent for by the D.O., deal with any disputes brought up by the parties or the Police, and hear any land cases fixed for that morning. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons the longer cases could be heard: failing these, there were always land deeds and registers to sign, files to deal with, or minutes to write. At the end of the day the ledger, cash books and receipts would come in for checking.\n\nIn my time most of the cases that came to my office were from the nearer islands, New Kowloon, and the Tsun Wan district. Another class of case nearly always taken there was Resumptions, which I always considered the most distasteful and unpleasant task a D.O. can be expected to perform: for though resumptions in 1917 were usually paid for at cent a square foot, and those in 1926 at 34 cents a foot, I never felt that money could in any way make up to a peasant for the loss of most or all of his land. Nearly always they wanted land in exchange, which it was rarely possible to find. I may remark here that when Mr. Ruttonjee started the brewery at Sham Tseng about 1926 he secured the land for it partly by leasing a piece of foreshore from Government and reclaiming, and partly by leasing agricultural land from the villagers who were mostly surnamed Fu (— should be a Chinese character, possibly 祖 or 夫, but as per rule 1, it is preserved as is, assuming it was (4)) for a fixed term at a yearly rent, thus giving them a regular income and a right of re-entry on their land in default of payment, which seemed to me a very fair arrangement, though the raising of foreshore levels made a terrible mess of the fields.\n\nMy first spell at the D.O. South ended in about four weeks; but in March 1923 I left the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs for good, and became 'Lord of the Isles', and not a mere substitute. This gave me the chance to carry out researches without applying for Police launches, so I expect the appointment pleased the Water Police! It was the custom for the D.O. South to hire a big launch from a Chinese firm to take him, his bailiff, and his Chinese demarcator to Cheung Chau and Tai O on alternate Wednesdays if business there demanded his presence, or there were enquiries to make, or local applications for land to consider. For this he got a large travelling allowance, I think $1200 a year, which I believe I nearly used up every year, though I don't remember asking for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208123, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "146\n\nW. SCHOFIELD\n\nsupplementary votes. Some D.O.s seemed to pride themselves on saving as much as possible of this vote, but I always thought it a D.O.'s duty not only to see as much of his district as he could, but to let its inhabitants see him.\n\nOne of the first questions I had to deal with was a request from the Sheung Tong villagers to make a grant from the small public works fund of $400 at my disposal to enable a footbridge to be built over the deep ravine dividing one side of their valley from the other. This was to be of granite beams, quarried in the Shap Pat Heung, and carried up over 1000 feet to Sheung Tong. I was anxious to get the village to contribute to the cost, as my vote for small public works was only $400 a year, and the cost of the three granite beams, and their transport by coolie up the mountain, would have come to about $160; and a good slice of the vote was usually granted to the Cheung Chau Residents' Association for upkeep and extension of paths there. The villagers could raise no money; they could not furnish coolies for transport; and they would not consider laying anything so ill-omened as an even number of stone beams: so to my regret I felt I could do nothing for people who could or would do nothing to help themselves.\n\nIn those days the Cheung Chau ferry was a large one-deck launch and passengers paid 3 cents each for a passage, but for 5 cents the Kaifong committee who ran it, largely in the interests of the fish industry, would give you a bamboo chair on the foredeck to sit on and this ferry was what drew missionaries to settle on the island from about 1907 onwards and build themselves bungalows for summer holidays, so saving the high cost of a Hong Kong apartment. Its timetable rarely suited my official arrangements, as by it I could never spend more than an hour ashore unless I got a night's lodging on the island; so I generally used my hired launch. In the thirties a guest house was opened for visitors in a large bungalow not far up the hill from the police station, and after 1934 I went there two or three times with friends while working on archaeological sites on Cheung Chau and the nearby coast of Lantau. This police station was not built till 1913 or 1914: before then the police had used a large house near the Kaifong pier, about 150 yards south of the later concrete pier, as their station. In 1912 a junk came to the pier by night, the crew and passengers landed, and carried the station by a sudden rush, as they were an armed pirate gang. The sergeant in charge and some police escaped and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208172, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 211, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n195\n\nWells: The cost of making eight wells at Kam Tin, Pan Chung, Wo Hop Shek, Ping Kong, Yu Kok, Tsat Sing Kong and Nam Shui Po is $2,400.\n\nHouses: Free sites are given in exchange for land on which houses now stand and the question of compensation for building land resumed at Shing Mun should not arise. The existing dwellings at Shing Mun have been measured and it is necessary to provide for the erection of buildings of the same cubic content in the new villages subject only to approval of plans. It is proposed to allow the villagers to construct their own houses, Government paying in accordance with the following table, for\n\n(1) Dwellings, by contract (contractors engaged by villagers) as the work proceeds, at a flat rate of 12 cents per cubic foot.\n\n(2) Outhouses, roughly constructed by the villagers themselves, at their value as they now stand in Shing Mun.\n\n \n \n Cost of New Dwellings\n Compensation for Outhouses\n \n \n Kam Tin\n $106,056\n $4,838\n \n \n Pan Chung\n $22,463\n $891\n \n \n Wo Hop Shek\n $9,022\n $926\n \n \n Shek Ku Lung\n $1,745\n $71\n \n \n Ping Kong\n $10,564\n $759\n \n \n Yue Kok\n $9,152\n $491\n \n \n Tsat Sing Kong\n $6,458\n $161\n \n \n Nam Shui Po\n $2,814\n $209\n \n \n Compensation (Outside owners)\n $1,874\n \n \n \n Total:\n $170,148\n $8,346\n \n\nThere being now 200 dwellings, this works out roughly at $850 a house including temples, and should ensure a good type of building throughout.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208200, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 239, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n223\n\nsity so many and interesting cases as in these 2 hours in your hospital\". Cancer, sarcoma, psychosis, compound fractures, eye diseases, bone tuberculosis, kidney affections (probably exaggerated by Chinese drugs), the most malicious skin and venereal affections, complications from opium smoking (demanding difficult operations on the urinary tract), infectious diseases, meningitis, malaria, tropical and parasitical sickness, snake bites, elephantiasis and monstrosities have also been treated here.\n\nGenerally speaking we treated one third of all our patients free and one third at reduced fees. On the average the cost of drugs paid by the patient is 19 cents per visit. We have been generously supplied by British drug firms with Sulphanilamide and so have had the means to help with the most advanced scientific methods.\n\nOn the 4th of December 1938 we received our first victims from air raids, the 18th was the next with 10 very bad cases; one boy 10 years old died in the arms of his mother when she brought him in with his back completely torn off. We operated that day and night, and the next day, without pause. We were extremely sorry to lose two more lives; one a girl 14 years old with 10 wounds through her intestines, and a young woman with different large abdominal wounds. Another young woman got a bomb splinter in her face and lost her right eye and 5 teeth. We were able to provide her, after recovering, with an artificial eye and 5 gold teeth, so she looks quite nice again. We also had a mother with several small children who had an open splintered fracture of the lower jaw bone, a 10 inches long wound in the abdomen and a compound fracture of the left heel, also some other smaller wounds, 15 all together. We removed a dozen splinters from the jaw, and to our great joy she recovered and can use her mouth and can walk again normally. We had not only wounded from bombing incidents as the planes very often came down and machine gunned the fishermen in the junks and sampans, or small gunboats approached the coast and fired on the people. An old fisherman with an arm splintered by 5 bullets we were able to release as cured after some months.\n\nIn contrast to a former rather suspicious attitude of the authorities towards a foreign-run hospital is the present appreciation of the civil and army leaders. We have the honour to have the head of the local government now as a member of our Committee of Management.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208237, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 276, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "260\n\nLIST OF MEMBERS\n\nORDINARY OVERSEAS MEMBERS:\n\nANDERSON, Dr. E. N.\n\nBERKOWITZ, Prof. M. I.\n\nBEVERIDGE, R. J.\n\nBINGHAM, Mrs. A.\n\nBRAGA, J. M.\n\nBUNGER, Prof. K.\n\nCHAR, Tin Yuke\n\nCLARK, Mrs. A. T.\n\nDANSEY-BROWNING, Mrs. S. M.\n\nEITZEN, Mrs. J.\n\nGARD, Dr. R. A.\n\nGOODRICH, Prof. L. Carrington\n\nHARRISON, Prof. B.\n\nHAYWARD, G. W.\n\nHEATHERINGTON, Mrs. E.\n\nKRAMERS, Dr. R. P.\n\nLAWTON, D.\n\nLIU, Prof. Ts'un-yan\n\nLU, Mrs. S.\n\nLYNCH, Rev. P. F.\n\nMACLEAN, R.\n\nMACPHERSON, J. A.\n\nDept. of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, Cal. 92502, U.S.A.\n\nDept. of Sociology, Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada.\n\n13 Hartwell Hill Road, Hartwell, Victoria 3124, Australia.\n\nWelby Croft, Chapel-en-le-Frith SK12 6CY, Cheshire, England.\n\nNational Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia.\n\n53 Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Lukas-Cranach-Strabe 14, Germany.\n\n3898 Diamond Head Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96816, U.S.A.\n\nWilliams & Glyns Bank Ltd., Hottsbank Kirkland House, Whitehall, London S.W.1., England\n\n155 Mount Pleasant Road, Singapore 11.\n\nThe Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions, 531-2 Melville Library, State University of New York, Stony Brook, Long Island, New York 11790, U.S.A.\n\n640 West 238th Street, The Bronx, New York 10463, U.S.A.\n\n26 The White House, St. Paul's Bay, Malta.\n\nWhite Mill End, 5 Granville Road, Sevenoaks, Kents, England.\n\nc/o Col. & Mrs. Raymont, 270 Park Road, Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa K1M 0E1, Canada.\n\nOstasiatisches Seminar, Der Universitat Zürich, Mühlegasse 21, 8001 Zürich, Switzerland.\n\nTime-Life News Service, c/o Associated Press, P.O. Box 775, Bangkok, Thailand.\n\nDept. of Chinese, Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia.\n\nc/o U.S. Embassy, 581 Merchant Street, Rangoon, Burma.\n\nMaryknoll Centre House, 120 San Min Road 1st Section, Taichung City 400, Taiwan.\n\nThe Singapore International Chamber of Commerce, Denmark House, Singapore 1.\n\nThe Library, Cabrillo College, 6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos, California 95003, U.S.A.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208546, "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": 3, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "192\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nMadam Wan of Ha Yeung (near Hang Hau), for instance, carried firewood into Kowloon, leaving Ha Yeung at 2.00 in the morning. But the Japanese came and \"cut their firewood\", and then took her husband away to work for them. She had some rice, and could purchase in addition to what she had her ration of 6.4 taels of rice per day at Ngau Chi Wan. For fear that she might be robbed, she kept her rice in a pit in front of her house. Girls were afraid of being raped when the Japanese came. They darkened their faces with soot and hid under straw. The Japanese sometimes found them nonetheless.85\n\nMr. Uen Chan Wan of Ta Ho Tun gave us a description that we heard time and again in our interviews:\n\n\"Every day I carried firewood into Kowloon with my wife. Life was hard. At the time, oil was 8 cents a catty, eggs 12 for 10 cents, kerosene 3.5 cents a catty, sugar 5 cents a catty. We split bamboo lengthwise into two halves, dried it and sold it for fuel. Then the Japanese wanted labourers to build the road, and asked the village heads to find a person from each family. In principle, a day's work was paid four taels of rice. There was not enough to eat, even when we added what we ourselves grew. We had to eat cassava flour, leaves, and even bark.\"86\n\nOr, from Mr. Wong Ts'ing of Nam Shan Village,\n\n\"During the War, every household had a ration ticket that entitled it to buy four taels of rice a day.\n\nAt first you had to go to Kowloon to buy your ration rice; but later it was possible to buy it in Sai Kung. That was more rice than you would now eat, but there was no meat at the time. Many people had swollen feet. It was a very bad time. My father ate bamboo shoots and finally died with swollen feet.\"87\n\nMr. Chan Uet Shing of Chiu Hang and his wife worked as porters, and described their experience,\n\n\"I was beaten by the Japanese. And there were many bandits who came down from the mainland. There was the rice ration, but you had to buy the rice at Ngau Chi Wan.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208844, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 6, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "205\n\n12 On this particular type of tenancy, see John Kamm, \"Two essays on the Ch'ing economy of Hsin-an, Kwangtung Province”, JHKBRÁS 1977, pp. 55-84, and James Hayes, The Hong Kong Region, 1850-1911, Folkestone, Kent, England, 1977, pp. 50-53.\n\n13 Ints. Mr. Wong 22.6.81, Mr. Lam Kaap Shau 8.6.81, Mr. Cheung Kau 26.6.81, Mr. Cheung 26.6.81, Mr. Cheng Yung 10.7.81, and Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81; Hugh D.R. Baker, Sheung Shui, A Chinese Lineage Village, Guildford and London, 1968, p. 172.\n\n14 Father Sergio Ticozzi, 12.5.81, quoting from Giovanni B. Tragella, Le Mission Estere di Milano, Nel Quadro Degli Avvenimenti Contemporanli, Milan 1950-1963, vol. 1, pp. 274-275, vol. 2, pp. 85, 89, and 314. Int. Father George Carusso, 20.5.81.\n\n15 Ints. Mr. Lok Tak K'ei 17.7.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81, Mrs. Lau 14.6.81, and Mr. Tse Kw'an 16.11.80.\n\n10 Int. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81. Mr. Yau's term for \"moorage inlet\" was \"siu wan t'au\". Cf. also the type of market James Hayes refers to as \"coastal market centres\" in his Hong Kong Region, p. 37.\n\n17\n\nDocuments on this case are included in Kuan T'ien-p'ei, Ch'ou-hai ch'u-chi (1836, n.p., Taipei reprint, 1968) 2/26a-33a, 56a-74a, 80a-99b. Kuan was Naval Commander-in-Chief for Kwangtung from 1834 to 1841. C. Fred Blake, in Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, Hawaii, 1981, p. 46 note 8, states \"Lung Shuen Wan was a traditional outpost for the Chinese imperial navy's regulation of eastern approaches to the Pearl River. I wonder if perhaps Lung Shuen Wan was the original 'coastal market centre' in this area?\" Elsewhere (loc. cit. and p. 95) he points out that the Lung Shuen Wan Tin Hau Temple retained the patronage of the Pak Kong and Sha Kok Mei villagers, despite the greater convenience of the Tin Hau Temple within Sai Kung Market.\n\n18 These are figures of shops as registered in the Block Crown Lease (DD215, DD224). It is more than likely that these were shop spaces rather than shops, and in the event that a shop might take up more than a shop space, there were fewer shops in Sai Kung and Hang Hau in the early 1900's than noted here. For comparison, in 1905, Yuen Long had only seventy-four shops and Tai Po Market twenty-three large and fifteen small ones. See James Hayes, Hong Kong Region, p. 36.\n\n19 Ints. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81, Father George Carusso 20.5.81, Mr. Lei Kan 19.6.81, Mr. Ue Shun Hing 10.7.81.\n\n20 Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81.\n\n21 Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Madam Chiu I Mooi 7.5.81, Mrs. Foo, née Lei, 28.6.81.\n\n22\n\nMrs. Kong Lei San Kiu 21.6.81. Mr. Cheung Kin Wa 10.6.81 of Taai Fung Nin (opened c. 1933) in Sai Kung Market remembered that the shop used to slaughter a pig each day to sell to the boat people.\n\n23 Mr. Chan Kei Shang 28.5.81, Mr. Chan Shou 19.6.81.\n\n24 Mr. Hoh King 6.5.81, Mrs. Lei née So 20.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 13.11.80, Mr. Cheung Ming Shing 8.6.81, Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81. Mrs. Lei used to obtain piglets from Kam Lei Loi in Sai Kung Market. It took six to seven months to fatten them, and two dollars to have each pig carried back to Sai Kung Market. She also had rice and pig feed (chiefly rice husk) from Kam Lei Loi on credit. Kam Lei Loi was a butcher's cum general store, where her husband worked.\n\n25 According to Mr. Yau T'aam Shang, 15.5.81, the interest rate in Sai Kung Market was 5 cents per dollar per month, i.e. 60 percent per annum.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208845, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 7, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "206\n\nDAVID FAURE\n\nannum. The Yung Sz Ch'iu account books from Hoi Ha (see footnote 8) show that it was 30 percent, and that as a rule, interest was seldom successfully collected in full.\n\n20 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 3.6.81, Mr. Tse Kw'an 16.11.80. Mr. Lau K'in Tsun of Ha Yeung (Int. 17.7.81), who managed the Kwong Shing general store at Hang Hau before the War, remembered that he bought oil and rice from the Nam Pak Hong, and had to send his goods to Hang Hau via Shaukiwan.\n\n27 Mr. Hoh King 27.5.81 described the shops making rice wine in conjunction with pig raising, the dregs from the wine being used to feed the pigs. The beancurd maker was Loi Lei, see int. Madam Laai Hung Tai 8.5.81, the owner's daughter. Of course, the markets also provided the hawkers who went regularly to the villages. Mrs. Lau 14.6.81 remembered the fish mongers who took fish from Seung Sz Wan to Ha Yeung, and the hawkers who came with sweets and items of clothing.\n\n28 Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81 for years operated a boat that carried lime and firewood to Kowloon. His father was in a similar business. In the 1930's, Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81 had a junk that took orders from shops in Sai Kung for purchases from Hong Kong. Mr. Lei P'aang Kei collected fish in Sai Kung directly from fishermen to be sent to Kowloon. He had formerly worked for Saam Shing, and started this business on his own when Saam Shing collapsed in the 1930's (Int. Mr. Lei P'aang Kei 12.5.81, 19.5.81). Mr. Chan T'in Po 12.5.81 from Yim Tin Tsai used to send his fish to Sai Kung Market and employed women to carry them into Kowloon, paying 40 cents for approximately 40 catties.\n\n29 In addition to references already cited, see Ints. Mr. Hoh Shang 20.6.81, Mr. Tse Shui Kam 24.6.81, Mrs. Mo née Cheng 28.6.81, Mr. Lau 16.6.81, Mr. Leung Yung Hei 16.6.81, Mr. Lok Shang 21.5.81, Mrs. Yung née Wan 2.7.81, Mr. Shing Uen Wan 10.7.81, Mrs. Tsang née Shing 14.7.81, Mr. Ng 15.7.81, Mr. Lau 17.7.81, Mr. Yau Yan 22.7.81.\n\n30 Mr. Wong Kam Tai 20.7.81 remembered Shing Woh general store, owned by the ancestors of Mr. Shing Mau Kwong of Mang Kung Uk, that collected fish for various shops that made salt fish, a shop that made wine, owned by a Mr. Lau, a stationer's owned by a Mr. Chan, and a small shipyard that removed barnacles from boats, owned by a Mr. Po. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 31.7.81 remembered that the Maus of Pan Long Wan had a general store there, the Shings of Mang Kung Uk had two shops, both called Shing Woh.\n\n31 Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81, Mr. Chan Tsz K'eung 28.5.81, Mr. Hoh Taai 10.6.81, Mr. Hoh King 27.5.81, 5.6.81, Mr. Chau T'in Shang 3.6.81, Mrs. Lei née So 20.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 13.11.80.\n\n32 Mr. Lei Yiu T'ing 23.6.81, Mr. Lei Shiu Yam 8.5.81, Mr. Lei P'aang Kei 12.5.81, 19.5.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 8.5.81, 15.5.81.\n\n33 For background see Hong Kong Government, Administrative Report 1914 D (Harbour Office), p. 6, Hong Kong Government Gazette August 3, 1914. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang referred to this in relation to the growth of Saam Shing and T'aai Shing in int. 8.5.81.\n\n34 Ts'ui Mau Fung was not a shop-keeper, but a land-owner who lived in Sai Kung. He was not involved in the kaifong (int. Mr. Lei Shiu Yum 8.5.81). On Chan Pak T'o, see int. Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 15.5.81. According to Mr. Chan P'aang Hing 29.5.81, he was the teacher of Chan Ue Kwong's younger brother Min Ue.\n\n35 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 18.5.81, 3.6.81.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208848, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "209\n\n22.7.81, Mr. Yau Taai Hin 23.7.81, 8.81, Mr. Lau 24.7.81, Mrs. Yau née Lau 13.8.81, and Hong Kong Government Administrative Report, 1934 p. M101.\n\n5. For the work of the village teacher, see ints. Mr. Tse Wing 9.6.81, and Mr. Cheng Yung 23.6.81. For naam yam in village, see Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 22.5.81, and Mr. Sung Kw'an 22.6.81.\n\n60 Mr. Chau T'in Shang's father, for instance, owned one of the shipyards in Sai Kung Market, but his mother and his sister-in-law farmed (see int. 3.6.81), and Mr. Lei Shiu Yam entered his father's herbalist's store at eighteen, married at nineteen, and continued to work in the market while his wife farmed in the village at Man Yi Wan (see int. 8.5.81). For shortage of rice see Mr. Chan T'in Po 12.5.81, Mr. Wong Yung Ts'ing 20.5.81, Mr. Lok Shaang 21.5.81, Mr. Sung 22.6, Mrs. Lau 1.7.81. In the 1920's and 1930's, each load of firewood carried into Kowloon sold for 25 to 40 cents, pigs were sold in Sai Kung at approximately 18 dollars per picul, which was the weight of one pig, and rice for 3 to 4 dollars per picul. It was possible for a family to carry firewood into Kowloon quite a few times every month for about five months per year, and to sell two to three pigs. The cash income would have been 50 to 80 dollars per year, enough to buy 15 to 20 piculs of rice, enough for about five adults for the year. In addition, daily wages were 30 cents, and there was employment in the limekilns and in construction. Money was not short for daily necessities, but for weddings, in which the present to the bride's family alone would have been 200 to 300 dollars, many families would have had to resort to borrowing. See ints. Madam Laai Hung Tai 8.5.81, Mr. Lei P'aang Kei 12.5.81, Mr. Chan Tin Po 12.5.81, Mrs. Lau 14.6.81, Mrs. Kong Lei San Kiu 21.6.81, Mr. Kong Hei 21.6.81, Mrs. Cheung 24.6.81, Mr. Lau Hing Lung 16.6.81, Mr. Lei 29.6.81, Mr. K'uet Po Shing 2.7.81, Mr. Cheung Ts'oi 20.6.81, Madam Lo Koon Mooi 21.6.81, Mr. Lau Lui Faat 23.6.81, Mr. Lei Yau 28.6.81, Mr. Yau T'aam Shang 22.5.81, Mr. Lok Foh Kau 20.6.81, Mrs. Tse 21.6.81, Mr. Tsang 25.6.81. For a descriptive account of village production, see Mr. Cheng Ip 4.5.81.\n\n01 Ints. Mr. Yau Taam Shang 8.5.81, Mr. Lei Yau 28.6.81, Mr. Lai Foh 8.5.81, Mr. Hoh Taai 10.6.81, Mr. Cheung T'o 15.6.81, Mr. Hoh Shang 20.6.81, Madam Wan née Lau 21.6.81.\n\n02 Int. Mr. Sung 22.6.81.\n\n03 Yield on good land was 3 piculs of grain per harvest, i.e. 6 piculs per year. In addition to this, there were several piculs of sweet potatoes. On poorer land, e.g. near Mang Kung Uk, it could be as low as 1 to 2 piculs per harvest. Rent was half the produce of grain, and somewhat less if the land was rented from the ancestral trust. See ints. Mr. Sung 22.6.81, Mr. Lau Lui Faat 23.6.81, Mrs. Tse née Lau 24.6.81, Mr. Tse Shui Kam 24.6.81.\n\n04 Madam Yau 10.7.81, and cf. Mrs. Tse 22.6.81.\n\n05\n\n65 Int. Mr. Chung P'oon 13.11.80.\n\n00 ibid.\n\n07 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 13.11.80.\n\n08 Mr. Wan Ts'eung 31.11.80, Mr. Cheung Wing 81, Mr. Tse Koon K'au 9.6.81.\n\n60\n\n6 Mr. Tse Ming 15.1.81, Mr. Yau Kei 8.7.81, Mr. Shing 20.7.81, Mr. Leung Chiu Man 25.7.81.\n\n70 Mr. Chau T'in Shang 13.11.80, Mr. Cheng Ip 14.5.81, Mrs. Tsui née Lei 20.5.81, Mr. Hoh King 5.6.81.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209314, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1981", "page_number": 217, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n203\n\nstraw was used mostly as fuel, and in the repairs of the irrigation canal dykes. At second harvest the rice was cut as close to the ground as possible - the sweet potato harvest did not need this fertiliser, and, the ground being dry it would not rot quickly enough. Also straw was more valuable in the winter as it was needed to feed cattle, and to lay along the furrows where vegetable or sweet potato seeds had been planted to protect them from the birds. Just before and after the War the British army would come to Tai Wai in autumn to buy spare straw to feed army horses. Wai H.L. acted as broker and could make 30 cents on a load.\n\nCalculating the harvest\n\nBoth at Tai Wai and Wong Chuk Yeung the quality of the harvest was calculated by counting the grains of rice in the heads. In Tai Wai a good harvest was where each head had 120-140 grains, in Wong Chuk Yeung 80-100 grains (120 was also known). In upland fields Tai Wai occasionally had harvests with only 8-10 grains a head. The density of growth was assumed constant - in Wong Chuk Yeung 80-100 grains presumed 2 piculs per tau, in Tai Wai 120-140 presumed 3-4 piculs etc. The estimates were regarded in both villages as reasonably accurate.\n\nIrrigations\n\nThe Tai Wai fields were irrigated by means of lateral irrigation canals taking water from main streams. A dyke was built across a main stream (Shing Mun River or Tin Sam Nullah), damming up the waters behind it. These were then led into an irrigation canal running along the river bank, roughly parallel to it, but at a higher level. In order to lead the river waters into the irrigation canal the dyke was built aslant the river. With this method the irrigation canal could provide water efficiently to large areas of land. Where the river had raised its bed above surrounding land levels, a dyke across half the river was adequate. At the end of the irrigation canal it was best to build a fish pond into which any excess waters could be allowed to fall. Water would only flow back into the main river if the pond overflowed. In low water years the water in this pond could be lifted with the shui-ch'e (a hand-operated water wheel) and so the pond could be used as a reservoir, otherwise as a fish pond. Because of the risk of flooding the fields in very heavy rain times the main irrigation canal required sluices to close the flow and force the flow back into the main river above the fields. Tai Wai had 3 such systems. The Tin Sam valley had a similar system; from a dyke at Hin Tin water was led between Tin Sam and Keng Hau to a pond opposite the Che", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209622, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 279, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "257\n\napproximately between 1900 and 1915. We find that of the four born before 1898, three had attended class for an average of four years, one attended for only one year, and then worked first in the farm for a few years and then in the construction of the railway. Amongst the six born after 1898, however, three never went to school and one claimed that he learnt to read a little when he worked as a shop assistant in a small tea-house at Shamshuipo. Around 1900, at least two teachers are known to have given up teaching, one to work in the Land Office of the New Territories administration and the other to work for his brother-in-law at Taipo. Liao Chung-nan, the siu-tsai who formerly taught a small class at high fees in his own home as mentioned above, eventually had to move to teach at the Wan Shih Tang at a lower fee of about $5 per pupil.\n\nThree government schools providing an elementary English education were set up between 1905-1906, one being situated at Taipo, about six miles from Sheung Shui. Unlike in urban Hong Kong, response to this new educational provision was not great. The school at Ping Shan fared most badly and was closed in 1907 to be replaced by one set up in Cheung Chau. The average attendance throughout 1905-1912 in these three schools was twenty, out of a total of 224 schools in the whole Territories with an average attendance of sixteen each.15 The Report of the District Officer of 1912 states: “Government schools on a small scale have been opened at centres in the New Territories providing an elementary instruction in English, the fee for these is 50 cents per month. There is not, however, a great demand for this instruction of a more modern type in most of the districts, for the people still cling to the old-fashioned learning.”16 We have no record of village people from Sheung Shui attending the Taipo government English schools before 1913.\n\n1913. The social and economic changes resulting from the change of government were still small and the opportunities for new jobs were still limited, and the jobs were mostly confined to manual labour. New demands had not yet appeared to bring marked changes in popular literacy which remained basically rooted in the traditional and relatively confined village society, but it was perhaps beginning to lose its former hold both as a basic education for the masses and, at a more advanced level, as the avenue to position and wealth.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209973, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 232, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "210\n\nvillage representative recalled it very clearly when I spoke with him on the subject, because his second son died and his seventh son was born in the same year. The disease was, for him, Chue mō pêng characterized by a dry feeling, sore throat and, to quote his exact words \"pig bristles and fish scales were found growing on the body\". There was no vomiting or excretion of blood and it was not cholera or malaria which were known to, and otherwise described by the villagers.\n\nAccording to Peplow, the usual remedy was as described in his account:\n\n\"The patient has a high temperature and certain medicines are taken such as honeysuckle and honey. In addition a kind of paste is prepared from rice, boiled. With this the patient's chest is vigorously rubbed, and during this operation thick bristles about an inch long appear through the skin. After these have been plucked out, the fever subsides”.\n\nIn old Ngau Tau Kok village of East Kowloon, a settlement of Hakka quarry men, where I spoke with old villagers on the subject in the mid 1960s, the local treatment for this disease was quite different. It was to kill a chicken, take off its feathers, wrap them in a newly bought white cloth not previously washed, place it in hot water and then rub over the body excluding the chest. Two reasons for not rubbing the chest were given: that the heart was centred there, and that women should not be rubbed there anyway. If the complaint did turn out to be chu mỏ pêng, pig-like bristles would stick to the cloth. They believed that chu mō pêng was a kind of poison inside the body, resulting in too much heat (r'aaì ít hei) that could lead to death or to mental disorder.\n\nAt Ngau Tau Kok, several remedies were given for excess heat. The first was to buy a wông lo kat (E) for 50 cents, and boil it for two hours. The water had to be carefully measured at the start as no more should be added to it during the boiling, the intention being to reduce six bowls down to two. The remaining liquid was drunk.\n\nAnother method was to take a turnip (löh paûk)蘿蔔, and slice and dry it. It should then be soaked for two hours in water", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209981, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 240, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "218\n\n• There are four in the year, but the principal one falls on the nineteenth day of the second moon.\n\n* See my \"Secular Non-Gentry Leadership of Temple and Shrine Organisations in Urban Hong Kong\" pp 113 to 136 of this Journal.\n\n* See my article \"The Japanese Occupation and the New Territories\", South China Morning Post, 15 December 1967.\n\nA COMMUNITY SHOOTING BUNGALOW NEAR CHINKIANG, KIANGSU, AND ITS LIBRARY ABOUT 1905\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\nThe following extracts are taken from A. H. Rasmussen's China Trader, published by Constable of London in 1954. Mr. Rasmussen was barely twenty when he joined the Chinese Customs Service at Chinkiang, where there was a small, lonely British concession. During his first four years, two of the original thirty-five Europeans died, two went mad, two cut their throats, and he himself was twice nearly murdered by smugglers. At this time, as he relates, he was lucky enough to find relaxation and renewal of spirits brought low by the conditions of life and work in shooting wild pig, and in finding a library and visitors' books in a small shooting bungalow in the countryside near the Chinkiang concession. Let him speak for himself.\n\n\"When the Concession really got me down I 'lifted up mine eyes unto the hills' and got new strength from them. A ride of about eight miles took me to a hill called Wu Chow where for many years there had been a community shooting bungalow for those who were keen on wild boar-shooting.\n\nIt was rather an expensive sport as it required about fifteen beaters at fifty cents (or one shilling) each a day. Moreover, a rifle had to be bought and fortunately I came across an ancient Lee-Metford single-shot carbine used in the Boer War. I bought it for fifteen dollars.\n\nIn view of the daily cost it was important to get shooting companions to share in the beating expenses. No serious shooting had been done out there for several years, and no one in the port seemed to know the ropes. I went out one week-end to investigate and to get away from everybody, most of all from my old bored self.\n\nPage 240\n\nPage 241", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210325, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 296, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "275\n\nA large clump of such \"public\" trees (HAB) exists, for instance, on the north-east slope of Kowloon Peak.\n\n10 See, however, section 2 of this Note. The late Mr. T. S. Woo, MBE (formerly of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department and the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association) stated that local “Hill Tea” was once dealt in by Gibb, Livingston, but that this later died away, probably as a consequence of the great growth in Indian and Ceylonese tea exports in the late nineteenth century (Note by K. C. Iu).\n\nPlate 39.\n\n12 Elsewhere in this journal, D. Faure in \"Notes on the History of Tsuen Wan\" mentions tea growing on Tsing Yi and at Chuen Lung in the earlier part of this century.\n\n11 Section 3 of this Note discusses this \"tea\" more fully.\n\n14\n\nPlate 40.\n\n15\n\nSessional Papers 1907, p. 221.\n\n16 \"A Notice of the Sanon District\" reprinted JHKRRAS, Vol. 7, 1967, p. 122.\n\n17 The Mau Tso Ngam Village Representative, Mr. Cheng Kau-hung, has also spoken to me (PHH) about herb collection. He stressed that knowledge of herb collection was kept as a secret and handed down from father to son, the father going to remote spots on the hillside to point out herbs to his son where prying eyes could not see what was done. Only some of the Mau Tso Ngam village families knew how to collect herbs, and this information was kept even more carefully from villagers from other villages. The prepared herbs were sold to shops in Kowloon City, a few cents being paid before the War for a well-prepared catty of the less frequently found herbs. The herbs were usually not those found in the Standard Pharmacoepia but \"Mountain Drugs\" (山藥), representing local folk remedies. Sellers of “Mountain Drugs\" can still be found in the New Territories Market towns. Mr. Cheng stressed the difference between medicinal herbs the identification and preparation of which was kept secret, and those herbs usable as food in famines, which it was the duty of the elders to ensure every villager could recognise, and know how to prepare, in case the need ever arose (Note PHH).\n\nDr. Chong Siu-cheung, with a group of local herbalists, has prepared a 5 volume book in English and Chinese “Chinese Medicinal Herbs of Hong Kong\" (Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 1978-84) describing and discussing the uses of about 1,100 species of plant with medicinal properties found in Hong Kong. This book, however, does not cover the place collection or preparation played in the village society or economy (Note KCI).\n\nPlate 41.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210378, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 349, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "328\n\nThere are quite a few mistakes in Chinese characters and I assume that there may also be mistakes in Japanese or other words.\n\nTHOMAS H. C. LEE The Chinese University\n\nThe Rural Communities of Hong Kong, Studies and Themes, James Hayes, Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1983, x + 308 pages, 19 plates.\n\nJhat zaak vronq ngraw ngrap daem ghuk\n\nJhat zaak sue ngraw jhat ghaenn vhuk\n\nIf Dr. Hayes had lived in China, as I did, when sycee silver was still used for large, and copper cash for small transactions, he would never have passed the egregious error which occurs on page 184 of this splendid compilation. But since the younger generation of scholars who (as I shall mention) I hope will complete the study of Hong Kong's rural communities while there is yet time have not only not lived in war-lord China, but probably also not been taught mental arithmetic, I had better tell them at once that one tael = 1.19 troy ounce (in this context, of silver) and the formula should read not $1 = 72 tael = 1,000 cash, but $1 = 0.72 tael = 1,000 cash. Quite a difference.\n\n=\n\n=\n\n(When I lived in Canton the rate was of the same order of magnitude. The relative values of copper cash and of the ten-cash copper called \"cents\" vis-a-vis the silver currency varied from day to day and from hour to hour; the rates were displayed in money-changers' and other shops, markets and on buses, and varied around 120 \"cents\" (1,200 cash) = 1 Canton dollar of 5 silver 20c pieces: the Canton dollar itself stood at about $1.40 = 1 Customs tael and $1.30 = 1 Hong Kong dollar.)\n\nWith this single exception I heartily recommend this book, both to the general reader (if the species be still extant) and, more particularly, as a reference manual and vade mecum to any serious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210576, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "164\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nYou one when I get them.45\n\nEdith managed to get away from Taiho twice during the little more than three years she was corresponding with Louese. She described her journey to a nearby station twenty-three miles away.\n\nWe could not get boats all the week and were finally forced to go by wheel-barrow to get there at all. That is the usual mode of travel and very comfortable, but fearfully slow. We put our box on for a back and then our bed, then we sit on it with our feet out over the wheel. These barrowmen are accustomed to pushing between four and five hundred pounds so we count a light-load and all the pay they get is ten cents a day. We always pay for their return trip too, making 20 cents, and a tip if they have pleased us. Wherever we go we take our bed with us, that is a cotton wadding mattress and our bedding and quite understand now the meaning of “take up thy bed and walk.”46\n\nEdith had hoped to go to Wuhu in March 1905 to attend the Provincial Conference, to see the dentist and just to get away from Taiho. It was not clear whether she ever took the trip because \"Mrs. Ferguson wants me to hasten and be back in plenty of time as she expects to be confined in June.”47 Edith had been complaining about her suffering from a very bad cold and general fatigue in this and an earlier letter. So, perhaps, instead of Wuhu, she went on a holiday in Shanghai and Chinkiang instead. As she told Louese when she wrote next, in April 1906:\n\nMy holiday was not the rest it should have been, only consisting of two weeks at Shanghai and Chinkiang. But I was a month on the way down by native boat and a month back.48\n\nShanghai and Chinkiang, and even Wuhu, represented a change from Taiho for Edith. She could be with English-speaking people who were not the Fergusons, and could relish the “custom (of using) tablecloth and knives and forks. . . (of the) extravagant (?) foreigners\" which she had missed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210592, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "180\n\nWEI PEH T'I\n\nvery sticky mushy condition and Chinese shoes are not adapted to that, being only made of cotton cloth. Except we wear the wooden stilts like the men, like this π somewhat like skates.\n\nWe have had a pleasant Christmas, spent it at the next station, twenty-three miles from here, our nearest foreign neighbors. Mr. and Mrs. Barnett have just returned from furlough and they have a beautiful little baby girl one year and a half old. It was a pleasure to see her and hold her and she did look so pretty after the little yellow babies and so clean, which the yellow babies are not.\n\nWe meant to get there before them to get the place in readiness but we could not get boats all the week and were finally forced to go by wheel-barrow to get there at all. That is the usual mode of travel and very comfortable, but fearfully slow. We put our box on for a back and then our bed, then we sit on with our feet out over the wheel. These barrowmen are accustomed to pushing between four and five hundred pounds so we count a light-load and all the pay they get is ten cents a day. We always pay for their return trip too making 20 cents, and a tip if they have pleased us. Wherever we go we take our bed with us, that is a cotton wadding mattress and our bedding and quite understand now the meaning of “take up thy bed and walk”.\n\nI think I told you Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm have been planning for some time to go on furlough and there did not seem to be anyone to send in their place. Now a Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson are coming with three children, the eldest one about six so in three weeks we will be a houseful. This place is very small, just enough room for we three and an occasional visitor and how to take in two grown-ups and three children is a problem. But the Malcolms may be leaving as soon as they arrive. The children will be a great blessing here, always such a help in breaking down prejudices, for the people then think we are more like themselves. They cannot understand single women away from home in a strange place. I am generally accepted as Mrs. Malcolm's inferior wife. I got over feeling badly about it, as it is quite right in their eyes, and much better than for me to be living alone, for then I would have a bad name.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210595, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1985", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "183\n\nmissionary? Can't you spare one of these darlings and consecrate one for Foreign Service? May the Lord bless you in all your guidance of these His little ones as well as yours.\n\nWith much love and please do not say you wish Edith would write so you could read it; but say something nice if you can, and write to me when you have time.\n\nLovingly\n\nEDITH\n\n(6)\n\nTaiho, via Wuhu, China August 24, 1905\n\nDear Louise:\n\nPerhaps I can buy you off from scolding me for not writing all this time to thank you for the photographs by telling you that I have sent a little parcel of dolly shoes for the children. They are exact models of children's shoes as they are worn every day and holidays and I hope they will fit some of the dollies.\n\nI appreciate your letters and very much the photos. They are the next best thing that is possible to me in the way of seeing the children. The letter enclosing them came to me while I was down south on a little holiday. The next letter came after I returned and I meant to write immediately but sickness and one thing and another kept me from letter writing. The last letter had twenty-cents due on it and I sent it back to Wuhu to be reweighed, as according to my scales it was just half an ounce. The letter came back before I had kept my intention and now I am almost ashamed to acknowledge them so late. My conscience is clear that I have done what I could although that may not have been much.\n\nMy holiday was not the rest it should have been, only consisting of two weeks at Shanghai and Chinkiang. But I was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210690, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "24 \n\nWALTER GREENWOOD \n\nHe was himself once a party when he made a complaint against one Wong Ayow who he found cutting grass in his garden. The defendant said he supplied milk to Francis and thought he could take the grass. However he was convicted and fined twenty-five cents. His views about the organisation of the legal profession appear from a letter he wrote to the Daily Press in 1878 in reply to an editorial critical of barristers' fees. Hong Kong originally had a single profession but later adopted a divided one and he wrote \"Now as everybody knows barristers are paid as a rule at a higher rate than attorneys and properly so, as they profess to give and as a rule do give a higher quality of advice and advocacy. Mind, I do not say that all barristers are better advisers and advocates than any attorney. There are attorneys who as advisers and advocates are more skilful and experienced than many barristers. The fact is there ought not to exist in a colony like this a division between the two branches of the profession. It was so here once and ought to be again. The retrograde step was taken through the efforts of a clique as most things are done here”. In 1892 he expressed opposition to making the Attorney General a full time salaried official, saying that there would be a loss of independence and that “no amount of study, no amount of theory will make a lawyer. Nothing but the actual work of the Courts will enable a man to conduct cases. \n\nFrancis held a number of acting judicial appointments from 1878 to 1880. Because of long absences of officials on leave, or through illness, it was necessary to have a system of acting appointments and from time to time civilians were used. His first appointment was as Police Magistrate in September 1878. The reports of his cases indicate that he was positive and in charge of the proceedings but inclined to be impatient. There was a letter of complaint to the press about him for telling a defendant to stop making signs to witnesses and disbelieving him when he said he had St. Vitus's dance. Another letter urged that non-legally qualified magistrates be brought back. However when he sat again as a magistrate in 1880 his sentences were compared favourably with those of Ng Choy who was more lenient, and there was complaint of the termination of his appointment. In April 1879 he was appointed Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court (stigmatised by The Times of 1863 as the greatest nuisance in the East) and in February 1880 he presided over the Criminal Sessions. In one case he sentenced...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210945, "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": 7, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n277 \n\nTemple and paying respect to Governor-General Chau and Governor Wong, a roast pig is to be prepared, and the sum of 8 silver dollars is to be awarded, in addition to 3 silver dollars for the men and horses. The feast for the day is to be arranged in the manner stated in the previous clause. \n\n16. Should the provincial or metropolitan graduates, imperial students by special selection, or official functionaries, of the literary or military order, be accompanied by masters-of-ceremony, as they pass by the Governor's Temple, the masters-of-ceremony are to be paid 20 cents each. \n\nWe have not been able to discover if these rules were used as stated. Village elders remember the feast, in which scholars sat at the most honoured places, and poetry and rhymed couplets were written. However, we have not come across any concrete reference to the Po Tak Temple as a place for litigation or reception of officials. \n\nThe clauses concerning litigation and entertainment of officials and degree-holders are not found in the regulations of the New Alliance. Its regulations are brief, although one clause, giving the history of the alliance from 1908, is of particular interest. The lack of any reference to the literary competition should also be noted. A translation of the regulations is given below: \n\n1. If money has to be distributed for the public affairs of this tung [] [a group of villages: this use of ... is common in the New Territories] the shan-sz of the heung are to meet to discuss the matter. Money must be distributed to each share as stated in former regulations, and not in this manner (SØER). [It is not at all clear what \"this manner\" refers to.] \n\n2. Under former regulations, the New Alliance [met] on the 1st of the Sixth Month. It was divided into five shares. However, when the land came under British rule, there was insufficient money for annual sacrifices. In the thirty-fourth year of Kuang-hsü [1908], the accounts were closed and cancelled, and sacrifice was to cease from then on. The half share held by Loi Tung Village was scattered and excluded. The shan-sz then met and sought contributions. At that time, San Tin heung", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211198, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "234\n\nIf a building was to be built on the ground, where would the poor have an open space for recreation? Furthermore, the Government had put an objectionable dustbin at one end and a latrine at the other, not a very appropriate setting for receiving Chinese ambassadors and other high officials passing through Hongkong.\n\nThe building for the Chamber of Commerce should be entirely independent of Government. The community had experienced difficulties in the administration of Tung Wah Hospital because it had received contributions from Government. The Government consequently exercised some control over it.\n\nTo avoid Government interference, Ho A-mei believed that the entire sum for the new building should be subscribed by the Chinese only. This would not be too great a task if everyone would participate. Subscriptions would be welcomed from five cents upward.\n\nAfter Ho A-mei had finished, Mr. Leung On, the compradore of Messrs. Gibb, Livingston and Company, called upon any present who might not agree with the scheme to speak out. The managers of the meeting did not wish to fall into the same muddle as the foreigners. They wished to have the scheme accepted only if there was the unanimous and hearty approval of all present.\n\nOnly one speaker replied. He did not oppose the scheme but expressed the hope that when the project was adopted it would be carried through successfully. He recalled a similar plan had been advanced some twenty years before, but nothing had come of it. Recently the papers had been criticising the Chinese community because it had not fulfilled its plan to put up a statue to Governor Macdonnell after having raised money for it.\n\nHo A-mei replied that he had no doubt that the present scheme would be successful. The contributions from every guild and association would be needed, but he was confident they would generously give their support. It was a matter of community pride that the Chinese should have such a hall.\n\n:\n\n!", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211358, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "50\n\nBut Mr. Scholfield stuck to his opinion. \"I would not give a single thought to it. The only thing I would think of was the ten cents I would receive at the end of the day.\"\n\nWhen the resolutions proposed by Mr. Bowley were put to the meeting, only Mr. Scholfield voted against him. He told the meeting that if the suggestions were to be implemented it would mean money **and would depend on the maintenance of the opium revenue**. If that was stopped, what would they do?\" Up to that date Hong Kong had depended upon the income from the opium trade to finance itself, now there was heavy pressure from the Home Government to abolish the traffic in opium.\n\nThe editor of the Daily Press commended the small group of Hong Kong expatriates who were concerned about social problems, though his views were expressed in the colonial attitudes of the day.\n\nFar removed from the centres of civilization and surrounded by people alien to us in manners, customs and ideas, there is a natural tendency to lose that sense of communal responsibility which is steadily developing in the land from which we spring. It is well, therefore, that we have in our midst some whose interests are not limited by sport or commerce to remind us of the thoughts and aspirations of our more progressive fellow countrymen at Home.\n\nProposals of the Sanitary Board 1919\n\nMr. Bowley was a member of the Sanitary Board and used his position to try to get passed some regulations on child labour. He used a back door approach by proposing that the regulations be based on sanitary grounds. As the name of the Board suggests such concerns came within its province.\n\nOn the 19 March 1919 Mr. Bowley had posed the following question, **Does the Medical Officer of Health consider it desirable in the interests of public health of the Colony that the ages, hours and conditions of employment of women and children in factories, workshops and work-places in the Colony should be regulated and controlled?** The Medical", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211364, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "56\n\nthe cause. He sought to bring the attention of the public to the problem by instituting a court action against three women for forcing their children to carry loads likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury.\n\nThe facts of the case were stated before the Magistrate by the Assistant Superintendent of Police:\n\nDr. Aubrey, whilst going down from the Peak... met the defendants with their children carrying baskets filled with lime and earth to the Peak. Two of the boys, one of whom was crying, were eleven and thirteen years. Dr. Aubrey telephoned the police, who arrested the defendants. Enquiries solicited information that the women had been engaged by a coolie sub-contractor on Third Street to carry lime, earth and sand up to the Peak at sixteen cents a picul. The women naturally made their children assist them, as it would increase their earnings. One child was carrying sixty pounds of earth, another two baskets of lime and a third carried thirty-two pounds of lime. He, himself, had tested the weight, and from his own experience thought the loads were too heavy for the children.*\n\nDr. Aubrey told the court he did not bring the case to have a heavy penalty inflicted on the women. His purpose was to bring the practice to public attention and also so that other coolies would realise such practices were not allowed.\n\nThe Magistrate observed that the only way to stop the practice was to have legislation. Dr. Aubrey pointed out that ultimately the contractors ought to bear the responsibility as they were well aware that some children would be carrying the loads. In this case the contractors could not be found. The Assistant Superintendent of Police suggested that if the women were discharged with a caution, the matter would soon be circulated among the other coolies. The Magistrate accordingly discharged the women.\n\nThe case did attract public attention. The Hong Kong Telegraph in an editorial reminded its readers that they had all seen \"the heartless manner in which boys and girls of tender years are forced to carry loads", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211370, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "62\n\nas they can, it shows the need for some laws to help people in spite of themselves\". She realized that “the people one is trying most to help are the ones who will most rebel against it'. \n\nMiss Pitts appealed to Christian principles and the influence she believed they exerted. “I do think we should have a very strong Christian conscience on this matter. What is being done by young Chinese, by students and the younger leaders of the day, is really all the results of Christianity. It is Christianity that makes them see that women and children ought not to be oppressed and that money made at the expense of exploiting human strength is not money one would like exactly to possess.\n\nA columnist in the Hong Kong Telegraph who regularly provided \"Rambling Thoughts on Current Matters\" took exception to Miss Pitts crediting Christianity with all social advance. It was part of a new spirit, he said, which “in spite of wars and the brutality and bestiality attendant on wars, is steadily and ceaselessly at work\". He, however, commended the general remarks of Miss Pitts. He testified that the blunt manner in which she had dealt with the question of child labour had made him uncomfortable. He saw a hard road ahead of those who were advocating change. Something would be done only if they kept on shouting until they got near to being troublesome, for \"the only way to get things done in a place like Hong Kong is to make yourself almost a nuisance”. \n\nReport of the Commission on Child Labour\n\n15\n\nThe report of the Commission on Child Labour was placed before the Legislative Council on 27 September 1921. The Commission had collected evidence from ten factories. This showed that few children worked less than seventy hours a week. Most were on piece work. In a tobacco factory the children were on a time rate of twelve cents for a nine-hour day. There were no rest halls, eating rooms or wash houses.\n\nMr. Li Ping, a member of the committee, was commended for providing a school for small children whose mothers worked at his factory at Sham Shui Po. On the other hand, conditions were particularly bad at a glass factory where boys worked from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. for a dollar a month plus their board and lodging.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211371, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "63\n\n―\n\nThe Commission recommended the following: (1), compulsory registration; (2), prohibition of employment of children under the age of eleven by Chinese reckoning this might mean nine years; (3), weekly hours to be limited to fifty-four with not more than five hours of continuous work and no work between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m.; (4), no employment of children in glass factories and no use of boys in boiler-chipping: (5), no dangerous trade to employ children; (6), employers to be obliged to provide dining and rest halls with suitable material for first aid; and (7), the appointment of factory inspectors.\n\nIn an appendix to the report the Rev. R. H. Wells describes some of the findings of his personal investigation of the problem.\n\nHaving heard that children were carrying loads to the Peak, I made a visit to one of their halts. A number of women and children were sitting down, and my attention was first called to a boy who seemed to be very weak if not ill. He was eating but seemed to have little appetite for it, the time was about 9.30 a.m. His mother was sitting beside him, evidently somewhat anxious about him. I asked his age, and she said about nine or ten (Chinese reckoning). On being asked what burden the boy was carrying, she pointed to many loads and said “that one”, adding, \"There are many more, ask them\".\n\nI looked about and saw a small boy, he was eight years of age (English reckoning say about six and half years). He was with his mother and she said that he must work or he would not have food to eat. The mother was a widow and came to Hong Kong to get work, and finding that the boy could also get work, had set him to earn what he could. He had two loads of twenty-two catties (twenty-nine pounds each). Those loads he took one by one, carrying each a short distance and then returning to the other. Further inquiry elicited information to the effect that he had his breakfast at 5 a.m. and began to carry at a place near the central market on the sea front at 6 a.m. and had got so far. His work would be finished at about 5 p.m. He would earn eight cents for a day's work, carrying fifty-eight pounds (forty-four catties) weight of coal to the Peak. It was stated that he could only", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211372, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "64\n\nwork about ten days a month and that women could only work about twenty days. The child earned eight cents a day or eighty cents a month, but he had to get some lunch and it was said that this might cost three cents a day, so that his clear earnings would only be about fifty cents a month. This sum seems hardly sufficient to pay for medicine for him, if, as seems probable, he should have occasional sickness. It seems a wicked way to use the time and energy of such a child.\n\nA general conversation with men and women was held, and it transpired that they got eighteen cents for a load of one hundred catties (one hundred and thirty-three pounds) and that a man could carry two loads and a woman about 150 catties, the man would earn thirty-six cents a day and a woman in good health about twenty-seven cents.\n\nHe then proposed some changes that might alleviate some of the worst abuses he had observed.\n\nThe problem of formulation of a plan for the protection of these children is a difficult one to solve. It seems as if the small load system might be stopped at the starting point. Contractors and employees should not be allowed to make up child burdens. The lowest load might be fixed at fifty catties, and they might be informed that only strong children of full age should be allowed to carry the materials or goods. Increasingly the system might be attacked gradually, and the weight and age limit be reached by slower steps.\n\nSince they earn so little, better to give them a little schooling, and if possible, some industrial training.\n\nAs representative of the Chinese community Mr. Chow Shouson also appended a statement to the Commission's Report. He gave an assurance that the Chinese would do everything possible to improve the lot of poor children, but the facts had to be faced. One was that the proximity of Kwangtung with its great population reservoir meant that there was a constant flow of Chinese coming to Hong Kong for work. While it was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211434, "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": 150, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "126\n\nlocated off Nuuanu Avenue near the waterfront. A third child, a son, was born three years later. As the Chinese in those days rarely registered the births of their children, especially when they were girls, there are no official records of these births. When Mother was about two years old, the family moved to a larger community known as Wai Jook Yard #1, bordered by Nuuanu Avenue and Pauahi Street, probably named after Ching Wai Jook who operated a store on Nuuanu Avenue. The site became known as 'The Children's Playground' later.\n\nIt was at that time that Grandfather started a shoe-making business, but this was not successful because he had to rely on hired workers.\n\nWhen Mother was three, my grandparents made a trip to Shekki, taking Mother and the infant, but leaving Tin Yau in care of Cousin Chang Gum Chin. It was on this trip that Grandmother bought a young bond servant girl, Chang Chun Moy. After Grandfather left by himself for Honolulu, the infant died unexpectedly. Grandmother, alarmed that she would also lose Mother, again pawned her jewellery and returned with Mother to Hawaii, bringing with them Chun Moy. This was in 1891.\n\nGrandfather insisted on having a business of his own, even if it were as small a venture as just selling peanuts. He did not, however, succeed in any of his undertakings, including a restaurant, a dry goods store, and a farm in Moiliili. He tried selling baby chickens and ducks to local farmers, buying the eggs and hatching them in an incubator heated by charcoal. The eggs that did not hatch were fed to the family, then considered good for one's health. Because of much bickering among the workers, he gave that up. His final attempt at being an independent businessman was to buy ready-made 'dim sum', luncheon pieces, and have Uncle peddle them to native Hawaiians. At that time Uncle was a student at St. Louis School, and Mother was in the 4th grade. The average profit of 25 cents a day had supported the family on two meals a day. Finally, with a saving of $10, enough to buy ingredients and fuel, Grandfather hired a cook to make their own luncheon pieces. The cooking was done in an area in the back of the house, and Grandmother, who was suffering from severe headaches at that time, would sit on the back stairs to watch and to supervise. Uncle had to continue peddling even during school days and learned to speak Hawaiian.\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211442, "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": 158, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "134\n\nEsther Ah Lun EA (9 Jun 1916-) married Raymond Ho (died 1981) Amy Ah Mee (11 Dec 1918-1967)\n\nElla Ah How 55F (10 Sept 1921-) married Holbin Akiona (died 1981) Raymond Gai Sum (5 Nov 1927-) married Nellie Fong\n\nRaymond, the youngest, was a difficult infant as he cried constantly. Uncle felt that his deceased brother, wanting a descendant to provide him with offerings, had been responsible for the baby's behaviour. Therefore, Raymond was given to the brother with appropriate ceremony, and his name was changed from Ah Chai to Gai Sum, the first character of the new name meaning 'adopted'.\n\nI always looked forward to visiting my cousins. When I was older and transportation was easier, I visited them more often. I was treated as a regular member of the family, disciplined by Uncle when needed, eating freely, going on hikes with them to the foot of the mountain, picking wild white and yellow ginger blossoms for leis, sampling guavas, mangoes or mountain apples, or plunging into cold streams after carefully picking our way on bare feet over rough and sometimes thorny terrain. On holiday one summer, I joined my cousins in working for a small pineapple cannery nearby, earning thirteen cents an hour on the night shift. During midnight breaks, the older Hawaiian women would entertain us with ukulele music, hula and song. The atmosphere was relaxed and the work was easy. Although I worked only two weeks, I was very happy to receive my first pay when I was only 15 years old.\n\nMy memories of Uncle and his family are very warm, for the relationship was close. Concern for one another was not verbalized but was shown by what we did for each other. The affection between Mother and Aunt was not demonstrative but genuine, and I have never heard any harsh word between the two. Since telephones were not yet common, Uncle would drop in on us regularly to see that all was well. On the other hand, whenever Uncle or Aunt needed new Chinese dresses, Mother would make them. If there were any business matters to be attended to, Father, and later Mother, would find Uncle whatever help he needed.\n\nUncle was truly the head of the house. He was dominating, quick-tempered but honest and hard-working, never complaining. When he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211446, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "138\n\nin life, he would recount childish pranks. For instance, in order to remember English words, they would use Chinese words of similar sounds, as ga dang MÎ for G.D.... Or, they would sneak out to buy fresh bread. On one occasion, a student had to hurriedly hide a loaf of bread under his shirt when he saw the Rev. Damon approaching, even though it was burning hot. Another time, the boys set up the room of a friend in the old See Dai Doo Building on Smith Street to resemble a wake, with an effigy of a dead man stretched out amidst burning candles and incense. When their friend returned, he was so shocked that he became ill.\n\nWith two boys in private school, Grandfather could not afford to pay their full fees, so Father had to turn to his older brothers for help. In a letter dated 22 February 1897, First Uncle advised Father not to give up his schooling and asked what the tuition was. At that time, First Uncle was working in a bank and had been joined by his wife. Second Uncle had finished middle school and was looking for an office to start his practice in San Francisco. In June of that year, First Uncle was able to send 75 dollars towards Father's tuition, but the amount was not so much as Grandmother had expected. Second Uncle wrote on 29 July 1897 that he could not help, but encouraged Father to continue with his schooling. He felt that Father was more fortunate than he to be able to have help from Grandfather. In the autumn of 1897, Father was admitted to Grade II of the Punahou Preparatory School, located at 73 S. Beretania Street, and was registered as Chan Yin Yip,* after he had passed an entrance examination and was considered of good moral character. The principal was Samuel F. French. Two report cards, signed by F. W. Damon as 'guardian', indicated that in the full term Father had perfect attendance and received A's for Arithmetic, Language, History and Penmanship, with a general average of 94; that in the winter term, he added French and Rhetoric to his schedule but did less well, earning a general average of 90. Three receipts show tuition for the term ending 17 December 1897 to be seven dollars and fifty cents; for the term ending 8 April 1898 to be six dollars and fifty cents; and the term ending 21 July 1898 to be five dollars.\n\n* See Oahu College Pamphlets, 1893-1900, Public Archives, Honolulu.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211451, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "143\n\nThere was great suffering among the Chinese. Unemployment was high because no one could leave the camps to go to work. The Chung Wah Society came to their relief with rice. Because they did not know when the quarantine would be lifted or where they could find living accommodations, the Chinese were worried and depressed. They felt that they had been handled inhumanely with overtones of racial discrimination. Consequently, the Chinese New Year went by quietly. Although 220,000 dollars was later allotted by the government to reimburse victims, only half of all the claims were settled, and my family was never compensated. A number of homeless Chinese were relocated in a government camp off Vineyard Street, between Liliha and River Streets, while others moved to areas around Liliha, Palama, Nuuanu, and Pauoa.\n\nThere was much correspondence between Grandfather and Father, who did not feel comfortable as bookkeeper for Man Sing. When he wanted to give up, Aunt Yim sent word for him to stay on because the Rev. Yee felt Hilo was more favourable for Father's future, and Grandfather explained bookkeeping procedures to him in many of his letters, meanwhile urging him to be patient and to learn more about the business. When Man Sing decided to sell shares, Father became interested and consulted Grandfather, who wanted to know more about it before giving an opinion. It was not until Chee Fong took a trip to Honolulu that Grandfather obtained enough information to advise Father that the investment would not be very profitable. By April, Man Sing was for sale, and Grandfather asked Father in a letter dated 15 April 1900 to be sure to send his new address and details of what he would be doing after leaving Man Sing.\n\nMeanwhile, Grandfather kept Father informed of the progress of the Iwilei Rice Mill, which was expected to begin operation in December 1899. The milled rice would be sold by Wing On Tai. Father and First Uncle thought of doing business together and wondered about importing rice from China by way of San Francisco. At first, Grandfather thought it would not be wise since the prevailing price of local rice was six dollars for a 100-pound bag that had cost his patrons $6.25. They were forced to reduce each bag by 75 cents to one dollar, and even at a loss, 200 bags of the 500 had remained unsold. He figured that people were not eating much rice and did not care for rice from China. However, a week", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211677, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "67\n\nanti-British propaganda, which the facile Eugene Chen* was then addressing to a gullible American press.\n\nSet back from the Bund behind a heavy hand-wrought iron fence of ugly design, the Consulate building was typical of those erected in the 1860s, when the Concession was first opened. The two-storied thick brick walls, shaded all round by wide arched verandahs, in the style affected in India, housed both the office and the residence of the Consul. Upstairs, parts of the verandah had been boarded in to provide bathrooms in accordance with modern practice. From the bedroom windows the view carried across the Yangtze to the flat north shore, a mile away, where the farmers were already cutting down for fuel the tall reeds, which yearly grew along the banks of the river. We would often cross over at this season with our guns and our dogs to beat the pheasant out of the smaller clumps left by the reed-cutters.\n\nHaving completed their inspection, the plotters moved on down the Bund, past the godowns of Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, past the Customs House, past the Roman Catholic Church to the Bund gate, through which they trouped a little self-consciously under the eye of the steel-helmeted gentleman, who stood there with his rifle at the slope, in the blue uniform, the khaki webb equipment, and the spats of the Royal Navy.\n\nTheir plans soon matured. Some afternoons later a political meeting was called on the foreshore outside the Bund gate, which the Navy had left open to avoid any accusation of provocation. By the offer of a ten cents inducement to the loafers and riff-raff of the Chinese city an adequate attendance was ensured. Orators stood on the Bund wall whipping up the temper of the crowd: they shouted slogans in which the words \"Beat down” and “Kill\" echoed frequently. The crowd soon responded and parties began trickling into the Concession. Stones flew through the air. The sentry at the gate discreetly withdrew and sounded the alarm. The British Naval guard turned off: they had strict orders not to fire, but to protect themselves by dropping their rifle butts on the toes of any rioters who pressed them too closely. This method of defence is not very effective against stones. Reinforcements were brought ashore from the meagre crew of the destroyer; they were joined by some dozen\n\n* (Trinidad born journalist. At this time Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kuo Min Tang Revolutionary Government.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211901, "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": 316, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "291\n\nout at church, and would be back before long, as the service began at nine o'clock. They only have one service, and get it over by eleven in time for breakfast. I was much disappointed, but of course it could not be helped.\n\nI took a long walk one afternoon with Mr Phillips, and posted my two letters. He took me through some parts I had never seen before. He had to call on business, so I came home alone. I passed the barracks, where I heard some native music, which to my ears was rather discordant.\n\nIn addition to their horses, the Malays use bullocks for drawing water casks etc. These bullocks are great thick clumsy brutes, with monstrous horns, and a great hump on their back. They have scarcely any hair, and go along at about two miles an hour. There is a strange breed of dogs and cats. There are plenty of snakes; one was shown me about three yards long, but with a very thin body, and covered with beautiful green and yellow marks. The frugivorous bats are very large, and as one walks about under the trees in the dark they almost flap their wings in one's face.\n\nAt last on Wednesday night we came off to the ship and once more took up our abode within its dreary sides. Everything seemed so dull and dreary, but I consoled myself with the thought that a fortnight ought to bring us to our journey's end. I brought with me a stock of pomeloes. They are a species of orange which grow larger than one's head, and are so healthy a fruit that one cannot eat too much of them. I got fourteen for two rupees. I have felt the benefit of eating them freely. In fact, they are such a cure for the bile that I have not been in the least troubled with it since eating them.\n\nI managed to catch two butterflies and a moth, all of them very large, compared with any to be seen in England. There are some very fine ones which seem to be very common there. The birds have the most brilliant plumage, of all colours; one kind of dove, which is wild, naturally keeps up a most curious noise which can be heard a long way off. Its note is rather long, and has a peculiar sound when heard in the stillness of the night. Indeed, Java abounds with everything that is lovely and enchanting. There is a perpetual summer. Everything is always in season, and the excessive fertility is the means of making the natives indolent and careless. They never work unless compelled to do so. Then having got a few cents, they live on it till it is gone, and only work again when they can go no further in debt. They creep about so slowly that one cannot help feeling tempted to help them to a kick. Even a small establishment", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212183, "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": 125, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "102\n\nTo attend one of the Saturday night dinners, organised at this time at the International Club by a genial secretary of the British Embassy, was really an experience in cosmopolitan friendship. In addition to leading Chinese officials, there would be present persons of a great variety of walks in life and of a dozen different nationalities. As many as 50 would seat themselves to a meal, the relish of which would be stimulated by the incorporation of such pre-prandial solvents as were still obtainable. Amongst those present would be many of the newspaper correspondents and newsreel men, who had been attracted to Nanking by the war and who later were to achieve fame in a wider field.\n\nBut the reviving confidence in the capital was rudely shaken when the news came in of the Chinese retreat from Shanghai in November, and especially when the Government instructed its various departments to transfer to other places further inland.\n\nThen there was such a coming and going in all directions of wretched persons seeking safety, but knowing not where to look for it, as to bring home to the onlooker, in a way which all the previous horrors of the bombings had failed to do, the ghastly side of the war. The inhabitants of Nanking had no illusions about the sort of treatment they might expect at the hands of the enemy.\n\nOn the Bund at Hsiakwan, as the river front outside the city was called, an accumulation of baggage, furniture, medical supplies, munitions and stores of war, piled up day after day, waiting for space on the British steamers, which were working at high pressure backwards and forwards between Nanking and Hankow. Fortunately the weather during the weeks following the Government's decision to move was wet and stormy and kept the Japanese bombing planes away. But it increased the difficulties of loading, and the Bund coolies and sampan men reaped a fortune. They were demanding as much as four dollars to carry a package across the Bund on to the steamer, and sampan owners, who normally would cheerfully accept a fare out to a ship for twenty cents, now demanded twenty dollars. It was beyond the strength of the government to control these racketeers, as it was beyond their strength at a later date to enforce impractical regulations for the control of prices.\n\nFor the foreigners the burning question was whether the Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212317, "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": 259, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "236\n\nThe Dairy Farm Ice and Cold Storage Company Limited\n\nThe supply of ice for the preservation of food is obviously important in the tropics. George Wingrove Cooke, correspondent for The Times, in 1857 provided a vivid picture:\n\nIn Hong Kong and Shanghai, a dinner table in the summer season is a melancholy spectacle of spoiled food. The creatures to be eaten were necessarily killed the same day, and the tough tissues are as hard as death stiffened them.”\n\nIn the 1850s, large expatriate households often owned at least one cow, and a block of ice bought from George Duddell prevented the milk from going sour. The selling of ice was one of the earliest trades in Hong Kong, and the first consignment of ice was imported by Jardine's in 1843. The Ice House Company was established in 1845. The price fluctuated depending upon the season and the demand and varied, in 1849, from three to six cents a pound. The ice was stored in a specially constructed building at the corner of Ice House Street at the southern side of Queen's Road. Importers often lost money. Although the Tudor Company imported ice from North America in the early days, by the 1870s ice manufacturing apparatus was shipped into Hong Kong, and, in 1874, the Hong Kong Times reported the ice making establishment at East Point was completed. In 1881, the Hong Kong Ice Company was founded with its headquarters at East Point.\n\nLater the Hong Kong Ice Company was taken over by Jardine's, although Butterfield and Swire was the first company to diversify into selling Australian butter, and, later still, frozen foods including poultry, pigs, and the provisioning of ships. B&S was also the first to sign a contract to supply the armed forces. The frozen food business was taken over from Butterfield and Swire, by Dairy Farm, in 1904.\n\nDairy produce\n\nIn those early days milk was obtained from native buffaloes and a few sickly cows. Then, John Kennedy, a veterinary surgeon who died in 1902, imported cows from Britain, and, in 1880, the dairy (established 1856) stood next to the Horse Repository close to where the Peak Tram is now situated in Garden Road. At a time when expatriates", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212788, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "82\n\nof the Anhui troops made much more. In the Wu-tzu Hunan Army Corps in which Mesny served during the second campaign in Kueichou, twenty battalions were farmed out to their respective chiefs who were each paid monthly two thousand eight hundred and forty taels to find pay and rations for their men. Those chiefs of battalions cleared about one thousand taels a month. The men usually got one tael a month mess money and about thirty catties of rice, for which sixty tael cents was deducted from the men's pay, even when they ate rice that had been obtained by capture from the enemy.\n\nA soldier's uniform consisted of a long shirt worn over his undershirt; a long robe or coat, split before and behind, for riding; a short over coat with a round patch on the breast and shoulders on which was inscribed the name of his division or brigade as well as the name of his regiment and company, also his own name. The riding coat was dark blue with green or red facings, the long coat was grey; he also wore a sash, hat and boots. The price for this outfit was deducted by small instalments from the soldier's regular pay, so that it took one a year or two to get out of debt on the Adjutant's books.\n\nThe Miao Rebels\n\nAccording to Mesny the enemy, during the mid-nineteenth century, consisted of four separate and individual groups.\n\n1. Remnants of the Taiping reformers detached from Shih Ta-kai's Second Army (Hung-ping chün)\n\n2. Two local factions of local rebels\n\nA. Huang-hao The Yellow 'Signals'\n\nB. Pai-hao The White 'Signals'\n\n3. Mohammedan rebels: Hui-fei, called Pai-ch'i- White Flags\n\n4. The Miao-tzu aboriginals Miao-fei (83 different tribes)\n\nThe Szechuan Force had suppressed the first three groups before beginning the campaign to suppress the fourth, the Miao.\n\n83", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213122, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "172\n\nThe guesthouses (), lower down Wang Tau Street from the gambling house, were three-storeyed shop-houses. The ground floor was the residence of the owner; sometimes a small shop was run as well. Above, on the first floor, was a dormitory for villagers and poor travellers staying the night in town. A few large beds stood here - for one or two cents, you could share a bed with whoever else was looking for a place to stay. For the more fastidious and wealthy, small cubicles on the top floor offered privacy and an unshared bed. Military officers visiting the town would stay in these private cubicles. The guesthouses did not serve meals; guests took food at the adjacent noodle restaurant. The 'totally comfortless' guesthouse used by the Basel missionaries in 1859 must have been of this type.\n\nThere was only one full-time opium divan in the market, although opium could be taken in the prostitutes' houses as well. Up until 1917, there had also been several low-class opium divans in sheds in British Sha Tau Kok - these were closed in that year, as part of the agreement to end trade in opium between Hong Kong and China which, it was hoped, would allow the Chinese Government to end all opium imports, and to control the sale of opium in China. The chaos in the border area, however, made it impossible for the trade on the Chinese side of the frontier to be effectively controlled, and the Sha Tau Kok opium divan continued to trade unmolested until 1951. Opium could also be bought for home consumption from the two tobacco shops in the market. These shops were also heavily engaged in smuggling opium into Hong Kong.\n\nNext to the opium divan was the market barber. In 1853 there had only been itinerant barbers in the town. This shop should be seen, to a large degree, as one of the service trades attracted by the opportunities brought about by the new frontier and garrison, like the prostitutes and the gambling house.\n\nBeyond the guesthouses, near the sea, Wang Tau Street was occupied by the fish laans and the Kowloon Customs Station. The Customs Station was rebuilt several times during this period. The Station building in existence in the 1920s was a solidly built, European style, single-storey structure, with a verandah, built of brick and tile. One end was the residence of the Assistant Superintendent. In the middle were the offices, and the barrack quarters for the junior staff were at the further end. The Customs also rented some nearby houses for stores and quarters. After the Station", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213123, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1993", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "173\n\nwas destroyed in the 1937 typhoon, it was rebuilt as an imposing two-storey building. Even in the 1920s, however, it dominated the seafront of the town, facing the sea between the two piers (the public pier to the west, and the Customs pier to the east), separated from the Tin Hau Temple by an irregular strand with two huge banyan trees.\n\nAt the foot of the public pier, between the Customs station and the Tin Hau Temple, was a small kiosk where tickets for the Sha Yue Chung ferry were sold. The Shap Yeuk let the operation of the ferry, and the right to collect the fares, every so often. In the 1930s the fare to Sha Yue Chung was high - 480 per person, plus extra for goods carried. This was because of the difficulties involved in the ferry travelling from Kuomintang to rebel-held territory, and later because the ferry had to travel very close to, or even across, Japanese lines. Much of the freight carried at this date was smuggled kerosene. The other ferries - to Kat O and Kuk Po - collected fares on board the boat.\n\nThe fish laans were just a paved floor, with a tiled roof supported on brick pillars. There were no walls. Each of the fish laans occupied a part of the floor. When the fishing boats arrived in the early morning, the fishermen would carry their catch inland, past the Customs Station, into the laans, to sell to the laan or laans with which they were accustomed to deal. Some of the laans only dealt in the wholesale trade, and only had offices and stores apart from their share of the trading floor. Others also had retail shops in the town.\n\nAs well as the fish faans, there was another wholesale market in the town in the 1920s. This was the grain market. This was, like the fish faans, just a paved floor with a tiled roof supported on brick pillars. It stood beside the sea, just behind the Man Mo Temple. Villagers with grain to sell would carry it here on market days (the 1st, 4th, and 7th days). The grain dealers from the market would come here and buy, and carry it to their stores in the town, either to sell there by retail, or else to arrange to have it carried to Sham Chun. The town weigh-beam was kept here, in a shed next to the market – it was normally only used by people buying or selling grain, who paid a few cents for the use of it.\n\nOpposite the grain market was a row of blacksmiths' shops. These were built here, separated by an alley from the other buildings of the town, for fear of fire.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214876, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 291, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "261\n\nA TORN SCRAP OF PAPER: RELATING TO A MONEY LOAN ASSOCIATION, SMALL LOANS, OR WHAT?\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nThe torn scrap of paper shown at Plate 1 was found between the leaves of a Chinese book bought some time ago from a second-hand dealer in Hong Kong.\n\nMeasuring only 3\" by 2\", it was probably incomplete, yet someone had kept it as a record.\n\nIt contained seven names and seven amounts, but one of the names had been scored out.\n\nReading from the right, a translation of the characters and amounts, as given in the Cantonese rendering which I believe to be appropriate, runs as follows:\n\nYip Tung 10 cents; Yeung Tai 7 cents; Ah Yee 8 cents; Seng Ho 13 cents; Seng Chan 16 cents; Name crossed out 7 cents.\n\nThe currency being used, singly or in combination, for the accounts was the sin, a one-cent coin, and the ho, a ten-cent coin. The first can be found in Rev. W. Lobscheid's An English and Chinese Dictionary, revised and enlarged Japanese edition, Tokio, J. Fujimoto, 16th year of Meiji [1884], p. 220. The second appears on p. 162 of Ernest John Eitel's A Chinese Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect (London, Trubner & Co. and Hongkong, Lane, Crawford & Co., 1877) p. 162. Lobscheid's dictionary was originally published in Hong Kong in 1868, but to date, this author has never seen a copy of the original edition.\n\nFor the sake of clarity, the renderings made in translation are given uniformly in cents, instead of variously in the two different units used in the original.\n\nI believe these coins were Hong Kong currency, but the date of their introduction is not known to me. However, it could not have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214879, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1999", "page_number": 294, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "264\n\nthat it is, per se, the record of a money loan association. He considers that the sums involved are too small to represent the principal plus interest, and suggests that if indeed the list does relate to an association, it may represent outstanding debts on the repayments of principal and interest.\n\n(b) The list is merely a list of debtors made by someone loaning money\n\nAlternatively, Dr. Hase thinks it possible the sums merely represent small amounts loaned by an unknown person, who drew up the list as an aide mémoire to chasing up the defaulters.\n\nThe crossing out of the one name, implying repayment by the person concerned, could fit either of his interpretations.\n\nTo put these amounts into some kind of perspective, it may be helpful to compare them with the daily wages recorded at a particular time. For this purpose, I have taken the year 1900, this being, as Dr. Hase agrees, the mid point of the period 1870-1930, to which the scrap of paper most likely belongs.\n\nIn that year, according to the Hong Kong official Blue Book daily wages for labourers varied between 20 cents and one dollar. Wages for artisans were in the scale 20 to 75 cents, dependent upon trade, but unlike labourers' remunerations, theirs were with board and lodging.\n\nEither way, these figures show that the sums shown on the list were modest, even paltry. Therefore, the chance that they represent small loans is high.\n\nOn the other hand, I still favour the money-loan association option, but with two possibilities regarding the small sums set down in the list. First, there is Dr. Hase's suggestion that they represent outstanding amounts due by certain members on principal plus interest, persons who had repaid most of the loan sum but not yet the whole.\n\nSecond, there is my own further thought that these sums only represent the interest due to be paid by the various parties on the list. This would presuppose that the principal sum was not included, but", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215160, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 256, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "216\n\nA Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong\n\nLion Rock. To give you an idea what it was like in the vicinity of the College: the Wan Chai streets and alleys seemed far more cluttered in those days with numerous bustling stalls and small shops. I could go to a barber's shop in the then narrow Tin Lok Lane, not far from Wood Road, and have a haircut, a shampoo, a shave, and a manicure for $2.70 (all dollars quoted in this paper are Hong Kong dollars). Being a generous chap, I gave a 30 cents tip. The College was quite hemmed in in those days, and the quadrangle, with teaching accommodation all around, only allowed for limited parking. Many teachers did not have cars then.\n\nStudents, however, still played basketball but under restrained conditions. They also played the Chinese game of ‘kicking the shuttlecock’, which I also enjoyed playing.\n\nThe Hong Kong Funeral Parlour was then just around the corner from the College. At various times during the day, brass bands leading funeral processions along the street would strike up tunes such as \"Abide With Me\", \"Polly Wolly Doodle All The Day\", and \"Yes, We Have No Bananas\". There was a small flower market close by. Even when the College moved to Hung Hom, in Kowloon, there was a funeral pavilion next door. This raised a certain amount of consternation regarding our feng shui, as relatives of staff fell sick. We had to rearrange our desks.\n\nAt the old Technical College in Wood Road, there was both a senior and a junior staff room, with about 10 of us teachers in each. Student-teacher contact hours varied from about 21 to 25 (or even more) a week, and our Principal insisted, at one time, that all classes had a short weekly test first thing every Monday morning. When I first arrived by ship on a four-year tour in the mid-1950s, in what was a rather colonial atmosphere, I was impressed by the students' ability in mathematics, science, and draughtsmanship. English was not up to the same standard. Metaphorically, students still did not step on the teacher's shadow.\n\nThere was sometimes talk by Chinese teachers of students being more receptive to Chinese methods of imparting knowledge, such as more dictating of...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215161, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 257, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "217\n\nA Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong\n\nnotes. 'If they write things down they remember them', I was told. Even Professor F S Drake, an Englishman heading the Chinese Department at Hong Kong University who lectured in the medium of Mandarin, sang the praises to me of rote learning in a Chinese environment.\n\nOn a visit to a building site in January 1955 in So Kon Po, to which some of our students were attached for on-the-job training, I found that craftsmen were being paid $5.00 a day and women labourers $1.50. Some of the latter were straightening nails which had been knocked out of dismantled formwork (used for the pouring of concrete) so that the nails could be re-used. This practice stopped a few years later when it became cheaper to buy new nails. While talking of money, our full-time students could expect, on average, a salary of $300.00 a month in the mid 1950s after a three-year, full-time, post-secondary course, when they took up their first jobs.\n\nThere was also a clause written into the Government Public Works Department standard specification saying that if any of our building graduates could not find employment at the end of their course, main contractors were forced to take on two trainees on each major site. Their salary was $150.00 a month.\n\nStill on the subject of money: one evening student used to walk home from the College in Wood Road to Sau Kei Wan, after class, in order to save his 10 cents second-class tram fare. In those days second-class was on the lower deck.\n\nContinuing with another subject: with Hong Kong's population increasing post-World War Two at about one million per decade (in the mid 1950s it stood at around two-and-a-half million), coupled with rising standards of prosperity, impetus was given to the further development of technical education. As early as 1953, the Technical Education Investigating Committee (which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215783, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "15\n\n25 Ibid, Chap 5\n\n26 Ibid, pp 755 - 6; Hansard, 3rd series, vol cxlix, p 989\n\n27 Turnbull, supra p 350\n\n28 Act XVII of 1855, cf. Pridmore, Memoirs of Raffles Museum; Hansard, 3rd series, vol cxlix, pg 988\n\n29 Tan DE, A Portrait of Malaysia and Singapore p 70\n\n**Tumbull, supra, p 207**\n\n31 Tan DE, supra, p 70\n\nBuckley, supra, p 760; Hansard, 3rd series, vol. cxlix, p 990\n\n+\n\n* for example, when an act was passed in 1862 to regulate coinage in India, special provision was made by the Legislative Council for the Straits Settlements, and between 1862 and 1867, copper cents for the first time bore the name 'Straits Settlements' (Turnbull, supra, p 208; Hansard, 3rd series, vol. cxlix, p 990)\n\n34 Ibid. p 760\n\n35 1867 Act to Provide for the Government of the Straits Settlements, para 4\n\n36 Turnbull, supra, p 209\n\n37\n\nBuckley, supra, p 756\n\n38 Mills, supra, p 241\n\n39 Turnbull, supra, p 247\n\n40\n\n41\n\nMills, supra, p 243\n\nCameron J, Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India pp 251 - 2\n\n42 of Treaty of Tientsin Art. LIII; Prussian Treaty Art. XXXIII; Danish Treaty Art.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216095, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 394, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "328\n\nThere was a great deal of respect for Britain in the 1950s and when I bargained with a stall holder to buy a piece of electrical equipment he said to me: “This is not Japanese you know. It's best quality. It's British!' As late as the mid-1960s one of my Chinese staff, teaching surveying, refused to use a theodolite because it was made in Japan. War time memories died hard!\n\nAlmost wherever one went in the colony during the 1954-55 winter one could hear the song, Whatever will be, will be, blaring out over loudspeakers or being hummed or sung. I was told that I should not tip more than 20 cents for odd tasks and, at the end of the month, I should tip my hotel room boy and my waiter each $10. I could go out then and have a haircut, a shave, a shampoo and a manicure for $2.80, and, being a generous sort of chap, I gave the 20 cents change as a tip. As I have said, I did not arrive immediately after the Second World War when people were prepared to work for two bowls of rice a day.\n\nThere was no income tax in Hong Kong until 1939 when a 10 per cent \"war tax\" was levied. This was supposed to come off when the war ended but it never did. When I arrived in the mid-1950s the maximum salaries tax one could pay was 12 per cent. It had been increased from 10 per cent in 1950.\n\n1\n\n2\n\nI started teaching at the old Technical College in Wood Road, Wan Chai. On my first visit a \"big man coolie team\" was grunting and manhandling heavy engineering equipment up the stairs. We did not move to Hung Hom until 1957. With the help of \"academic drift” my old College became the Polytechnic University, on the Hung Hom campus, in 1994.\n\nShortly after I arrived in the colony there was a rumour a leopard was on the prowl in the New Territories. It was probably no more than a rumour but I do believe that there were instances of South China Tigers briefly visiting the New Territories in the 1950s. If you don't believe me you should read The Hong Kong Countryside, by zoologist GAC Herklots (1951).\n\nI was taken the rounds of Hong Kong by a Yorkshire colleague within a few days of my arriving. First we went to the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (as it was known then) where I opened an", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216107, "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": 406, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "340\n\nand the 1967 Riots. The former were sparked by a five-cent increase on the lower deck of the Star Ferry. Nevertheless, the root cause was largely the community's displeasure with social conditions, shortage of schools, housing, and the like. It was reported that in 1966 in the district of Tsz Wan Shan, in Kowloon, with a population then of 70,000, there was not a single telephone. The Kai Fong Association requested that at least a few public phones be installed. Soldiers marched down Nathan Road with fixed bayonets during the 1966 Riots. The protracted 1967 riots were a spill-over from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. Firecrackers were banned from then on. The military kept in the background during the 1967 Riots because of fear that China might react. The riots badly affected community stability and, in 1968, office space in Chung King Mansions, in Tsim Sha Tsui, was advertised at 60 cents a square foot.\n\nThe 1966 and 1967 riots were really a watershed. From then on, the government started to listen to the populace more. Social conditions improved, and Hong Kong started a process of de-colonisation. In 1972, government servants were instructed to use the word 'territory' rather than 'colony', other than in a historical context. The Colonial Cemetery became the Hong Kong Cemetery, and so on. A Hong Kong identity and a larger middle class began to form.\n\nIt is interesting to recall that the sparks which ignited the 1956, the 1966, and the 1967 riots all occurred in Kowloon. Hong Kong Island has generally been a more peaceful place. That was why, when I came to the colony in the mid-1950s and there was talk of building a cross-harbour tunnel or a bridge, some Hong Kong Island residents expressed fear, if this happened, of being 'swamped' by 'hordes' from Kowloon.\n\nCorruption\n\nCorruption had long been a serious concern in Hong Kong, and, as the Territory became richer, the problem became more serious. When a colleague of mine said there was a price for everything, our old boss soon shut him up. That was part of the trouble. Most Europeans did not appreciate the magnitude of the problem. I recall a Chinese girl telling me, in 1955, that her grandfather had been caught by a policeman smoking opium. The old man gave the copper $20, and the whole matter was conveniently forgotten about. Squeeze affected the Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216176, "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": 475, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "By the terms of this Contract dated this \nday of ... 19 77, I, the undersigned coolie recruited by the Wai-Hai-Wei Labour Bureau, hereby declare myself to be a willing labourer under the following conditions, which have been explained and made clear to me by the Wai-Hai-Wei Labour Bureau, viz.:\n\nNature of Employment.\n\nWork on railways, roads, etc., and in factories, mines, dockyards, fields, forests, etc. Not to be employed in military operations.\n\nRules of Pay, etc.:\n\nDaily Abroad.\n\nLabourer ... 1 Dollar\n\nDanger ... ... 6 cents\n\nBonus (on embarkation). 15-20 dollars (additional to pay).\n\nMonthly in China to family, also.\n\nCompensation to Family in case of Accident.\n\nDeath or total disablement ... 150 dollars\n\nPartial Disablement ... up to 75 dollars\n\nAdditional ... ... 10 dollars\n\nFree passage to and from China under all circumstances.\n\nFree food, clothing, housing, fuel, light and medical attendance.\n\nDuration of Employment.\n\nThree years, with liberty for employer to terminate contract at any time after one year on giving six months' notice, or at any time for misconduct or inefficiency on the part of the labourer. Free passage to be given back to Wai-Hai-Wei or Port North of Wusung.\n\nDeductions.\n\nNo daily pay abroad during sickness, but food given. Monthly pay in China continues up to six weeks' sickness.\n\nAfter six weeks' sickness, no monthly pay in China.\n\nNo daily pay abroad for time lost owing to misconduct.\n\nIn cases of offenses involving loss of pay for 28 days or more, deductions of monthly pay in China will be made.\n\nHours of Work.\n\nObligation to work ten hours daily; but a lower or longer period may be fixed by the Labour Control on a daily average basis of ten hours.\n\nLiability to seven days' work a week; consideration will be given to Chinese Festivals, as to which the Labour Control will decide.\n\nNo. of Cooly 24499\n\nName ... Ar Jenny Jus\n\nAge ... 32\n\nProvince ... Ling\n\nDistrict ...\n\nHome address ...\n\nSeal of the Wai-Hai-Wei Labour Employment Office\n\nWai-Hai-Wei Labourer's thumb print ... San", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216222, "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": 521, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "455\n\ncould sometimes hear barking deer calling from Victoria Peak. At the time one could still hire a sedan chair and four coolies to carry one up to Conduit Road. There were half a dozen or so parked regularly in Wyndham Street, in Central, up until the late 1950s. The fare was 30 cents for each 15 minutes with a 30 cents surcharge. The working life of a chair coolie was said to be eight years.\n\nAs with many houses in Conduit Road at the time, 41 Conduit Road had a superb view and, long before the days of cross-harbour tunnels, one of the pastimes of children was counting the number of ferries they could spot. Between the two World Wars an eccentric Englishman who lived in Robinson Road, not far away, did not own a clock. He used a telescope to tell the time from the clock tower then standing in Pedder Street. In the \"good old days,\" more than one British Governor used the activities in the harbour as a barometer of the strength of the economy. We are talking of times, up until the mid 1930s, when a cannon was fired from Blackhead Point, in Tsim Sha Tsui, to let residents know when a typhoon was approaching or, alternatively, the mail ship had arrived. Occasionally, inhabitants were not sure to which of the two events the firing referred!\n\nWhen the FCC vacated the premises the final days had come for the old mansion at 41 Conduit Road. In 1960, it was bought by Cheng Hing Realty and, in 1966, rebought by Court Properties. As with so much of Hong Kong it was a case of 'Hungry for the new forget the old.' The old building was demolished and the site remained empty for some time. The sale price was reputed to have been $13 million. The site was then redeveloped. In the summer of 1970, there were 1,200 applications to purchase the 400 flats at Realty Gardens. My wife and I were successful in the ballot and we took possession of our newly completed flat in Venice Court, for which we paid, in mid 1972, the princely sum of $114,000. Prices were still low after the property slump brought on largely by the drawn-out 1967 riots. My flat has been a splendid investment. We let it for the first four years, unfurnished, at $2,000 a month. We moved in ourselves on 1 March 1976.\n\nAlthough I can see a narrow strip of the harbour and Stonecutters Island (an island no longer) from my bedroom window, my flat at Realty Gardens in fact faces south. It is thus shielded from the cold north-easterly monsoon in the winter and receives the benefits of the cool", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]