[ { "id": 209673, "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": 330, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\nTwo views of internment: Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire by Jean Gittens (Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 1982) and A Yen For My Thoughts by G. A. Leiper, (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong 1982)\n\nHappy coincidence has brought two excellent accounts of war-time internment in Hong Kong onto the bookshelves at the same time. Written from personal experience, they are a poignant testimony to the courage of all who endured hardship and deprivation at Stanley and fill a gap which has long needed filling in our knowledge of conditions during the Japanese occupation.\n\nAs a Eurasian, Jean Gittens need not have been interned, but the chance, however faint, of reunion with either her children in Australia, or her already imprisoned husband led her to enter Stanley voluntarily. The opening chapters of \"Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire\" are a revealing social commentary. She relates how her parents, the late Sir Robert and Lady Clara Hotung, were the first non-Europeans to gain permission to live on the Peak and the resulting snide remarks they had to endure from neighbours and their children. The \"difference\" was brought home with unbelievable callousness when the Eurasian wives and children of government employees, advised to leave Hong Kong prior to the invasion, were turned back on reaching Manila because of Australia's insistence that only those of \"pure British\" descent could be given refuge.\n\nThe same chapters convey the impression of a spoiled little rich girl: \"In spite of the fresh air and exclusiveness, living facilities on the Peak were understandably primitive. Braving these conditions would have tried the spirit of anyone, but for a woman with a large family of young children it needed true courage,\" and again: \"The summers were long and trying and, especially during our early years, Mother would take us away to one of the seaside resorts in the North to escape the heat.”\n\nI am not sure whether the prissiness is deliberate, but it serves to heighten the contrast with the degrading and dehumanising conditions of the camp detailed in the remainder of the book.\n\nPage 330\n\nPage 331", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209674, "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": 331, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n309\n\nJean Gittens' medical background equips her well for the task. She takes us through the trials of the internees in equipping the camp, the gradual adaptation of the Peak dwellers to their uncomfortable surroundings, domestic arrangements and the organising of lectures and drama to the eking out of meagre rations and the gradual mental and physical deterioration of inmates despite both the sterling efforts of medical personnel and the notable courage of friends outside the camp. All described in such a matter-of-fact way that their full horror registers only slowly. For Jean, freedom when it came was to bring another blow; her husband, Billy, had not survived.\n\nAndy Leiper and his wife did not arrive in Hong Kong until mid-1939. He trained with the Volunteers, but, as one of the managers of the Chartered Bank, was required by the authorities to stay at his post to keep the bank running for as long as possible. He recounts in remarkable detail how the bank continued to deal with hordes of depositors right up to the final surrender while, at the same time, coping with refugee families and the occasional bombing raid. By day he was a banker; by night he helped out with the Volunteers, anxious all the while for his brave wife, who had refused to leave Hong Kong, preferring to work with other volunteers in the hospital.\n\nTogether with other bankers, Leiper and his wife were lodged initially in a Wanchai brothel, commandeered by the Japanese, and required to work with the occupying forces in the liquidation of the banks. This continued until June 1943 when they were finally transferred to Stanley: \"The fresh air and the sunshine were an indescribable joy and more than compensated for the shorter rations.\" Then, in January 1944, he was arrested along with several other bankers, and thrown into solitary confinement. There he was subject to constant brutality and intermittent torture at the hands of the Kempetai. Small wonder that, on return to Stanley at the end of the war, the mere sight of a hungry Japanese guard in the doorway of his room was sufficient to send him into screaming delirium.\n\nIn dealing with two very personal accounts of such harrowing experiences, comparisons can be invidious, but of the two, I much prefer Leiper's book. For all its wealth of detail, “Stanley:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209675, "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": 332, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "310\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\n\"Behind Barbed Wire\" is a very self-centred account. With Leiper, one senses a greater compassion and a more generous nature. He is unstinting in his praise of the junior bank staff for their courage and determination, right down to the Number One Coolie's ability at organising refugee accommodation. There is the extraordinary loyalty of his domestic servants, one of whom died of starvation, and there is the unhappiness of the Japanese bankers with the brutal treatment meted out by the military. Not all is black or white. Also, where Jean Gittens merely notes the internees' ability to laugh at themselves, Leiper leavens the whole of his account with delightfully humorous anecdotes, which bring the story vividly alive.\n\nAbove all, it is in Leiper's account that the plight of the local population is given due recognition. Perhaps it is because of the greater variety of his experiences and the period spent outside the camp, but the broader impression of conditions in the rest of the colony and the sufferings of the ordinary people of Hong Kong lend to the book a greater balance and perspective: \"Even more distressing than these scenes of brutality was the unforgettable sight which we witnessed daily, of Chinese men, women and children lying on the pavement or huddled in doorways dying gradually of starvation, and looking at passers-by, who were powerless to assist, out of eyes from which all expression had already gone.\" Of the 2,300 interned at Stanley, 130 did not survive, but of Leiper's one hundred Chinese bank staff, fully one fifth could not be accounted for after the war. In the absence of a first-hand account from Chinese sources, Leiper has done much to improve our perspective.\n\nJ. A. MILLER\n\nPan Ling, In Search of Old Shanghai, Joint Publishing Company, Hong Kong, 1982, n.p.\n\nI wish I had known about this admirable historical guide to Shanghai when I made a research trip there last year. (In fact, I am led to believe that the present issue is an English translation of an earlier Chinese edition, although clearly, the author, whilst having the familiarity with the city which can only come through having lived there, is now a British resident.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214524, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 382, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "351\n\nThe China Consuls, PD Coates, pub. Oxford University press, USA, 1988\n\nThistle and Bamboo, Shiona Airlie, pub. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1989\n\nGerman Architecture in China, Torsten Warner, pub. Ernst & Son, Berlin, 1994\n\nFar from Home, Tess Johnston, pub. Old China Hand Press, Hong Kong, 1996\n\nThe Journal of the RAS HK Branch - Volume 32, pub. HKBRAS, Hong Kong, 1996\n\nPrecious Cargo, Susan Leiper, pub. National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1997\n\nNo Dogs and Not Many Chinese, Frances Wood, pub. John Murray, London, 1998\n\nUnequal Treaty, Peter Wesley-Smith, pub. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1998 (revised edition)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216180, "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": 479, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "YET MORE ON TEA AND OPIUM\n\nMARTIN MERZ\n\n413\n\nNotes on tea\n\nIn his article on tea and opium Solomon Bard states that during his fateful embassy to China in the late 18th century Macartney 'was allowed to collect shoots of tea plant. These were later carefully transported to Bengal with samples of soil where they flourished and very likely gave rise to present Indian tea'. In his follow-up notes in Vol. 41 of the RAS Journal David Akers-Jones quotes a passage from Macartney's journal about the acquisition of tea plants with the express purpose of transporting them to Bengal 'where I have no doubt that by the spirit of patriotism of its Government an effective cultivation of this valuable shrub will be undertaken and pursued with success'. The plants were delivered to the East India Company's botanical gardens in Calcutta. Akers-Jones notes that some years later 'indigenous tea plants were discovered in Assam and it is tea from these which seems more like the tea we are now accustomed to drink. Whether there was any hybridisation between the two species I cannot say.'\n\nAlthough tea became hugely popular soon after it was introduced to England in the 17th century details about the tea plant and its manufacture into a beverage remained a mystery for over two hundred years. The price of tea rapidly came down from sixty shillings a pound in 1666 (Leiper p.21) to five shillings a pound in 1750 (Wild p.40), a trend which continued as imports increased dramatically as exorbitant taxes came down and more players entered the field. By 1888 tea imports reached over twenty million pounds a year, 'producing more revenue than the whole of India'. (Wild p.40) There was a desire to unravel the secret of tea and further reduce costs as the beverage evolved from a luxury item of the elite to become the national drink of England. But the merchants who purchased tea in Canton had no opportunity to visit tea plantations and learn about its manufacture; and they seemed to lack any curiosity as long as they could engage in their business. The trade continued as a black box transaction from which the finished product appeared.\n\nIn 1763 John Bell wrote, 'Both the green and bohea [black tea]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216181, "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": 480, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "414\n\ngrow on the same tree, or rather shrub, called by the Chinese tzay.' (Leiper p.61) This information seems to have been ignored for almost a century. In 1778 Sir Joseph Banks, botanical adviser to the East India Company had recommended importing Chinese bushes. (Goodwin p. 148) Macartney's effort at agricultural espionage fifteen years later was not the first attempt to find the secret. The race to unlock the secret of tea was an international high stakes event; the Swedes and the Dutch were also in the running. (Kit p.27). It was a very slow race.\n\nIn 1823 Major Robert Bruce — a distant relative perhaps of RAS member Phillip Bruce discovered indigenous tea in Assam but the authorities in India did not appreciate its significance at the time. (Kit p.27) In 1834 the East India Company appointed a Tea Committee to look into the possibility of making tea in India. The secret of tea had become an issue of national importance to a country that was drinking the expensive beverage in ever-increasing quantities.\n\nIn his huge 1,079 page two-volume tome with an equally huge title—China Opened; or, a display of the topography, history, customs, manners, arts, manufactures, commerce, literature, religion, jurisprudence, etc. of the Chinese Empire Charles Gutzlaff devoted many pages to descriptions of tea planting and manufacturing he had witnessed. Yet even in 1838 Gutzlaff had not discerned that both green and black tea are made from the same plant. His detailed reports about the growing areas, complete with latitudes and longitudes of tea plantations and descriptions of the manufacture of tea hinted at the secret but it still eluded Gutzlaff. He even provides a chemical analysis of tea (Gutzlaff p.129). He noted that tea leaves were 'carefully manipulated, dried in various ways, and then packed' (Gutzlaff vol. i p. 46) and that 'It has been repeatedly asserted, that green teas could be converted into black, and vice versa, but that the qualities would thereby suffer.' (Gutzlaff vol. ii p.125) While this transmogrification of green and black tea is dubious, the following passage is noteworthy for its accuracy in describing the manufacturing process without realizing its significance:\n\nWhen the green tea leaves have been sufficiently dried, they are three times thatched, picked and rolled, and put into hot baskets, where they are kept, until the time of packing them, when they undergo another roasting. (Gutzlaff vol. ii p.125)\n\nPage 480\n\nPage 481", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216183, "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": 482, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "416\n\nThere is one further chapter to the Assam tea story. In 1907 the Japanese introduced Assam tea to their colony of Taiwan in an effort to protect the Japanese green tea industry. This concern was justified; since the first shipment of oolong from Taiwan to the USA in 1869 Formosa's tea industry grew rapidly. (Zeng interview) Assam tea is still grown in northern Taiwan and consumed in the Chinese manner and has become a connoisseur's item for the modern Taiwanese Epicurean item with Fine Aged Assam Tea from Danshui [Tamshui] fetching high prices. (Ho interview)\n\nREFERENCES\n\nKit Chow and Ione Kramer, All the Tea in China, San Francisco, China Books and Periodicals, 1990. (Excellent reference with bilingual compendiums available at the Flagstaff Tea Museum)\n\nJason Goodwin, The Gunpowder Gardens; Travels through India and China in Search of Tea, Penguin, 2003 (Originally published in 1990 this entertaining and well researched travel book lacks end notes and an index)\n\nHo Chien, Ye Tang Tea Culture Research Institute, interview 8 Sept 03\n\nCharles Gutzlaff, China Opened; or, a display of the topography, history, customs, manners, arts, manufactures, commerce, literature, religion, jurisprudence, etc. of the Chinese Empire, London, Smith, Elder, 1838. (The Reverend Karl Frederick August Gutzlaff, for whom a street is named in Hong Kong, acted as a translator for Jardine's opium transactions up and down the China coast in exchange for being permitted to proselytize after hours.)\n\nSusan Leiper, Precious Cargo. Scots and the China trade, National Museums of Scotland Publishing, Edinburgh, 1997. (A beautifully illustrated panegyric)\n\nAnthony Wild, The East India Company, trade and conquest from 1600, London, HarperCollins illustrated, 1999\n\nZeng Zhixian, author and China Times tea correspondent, interview 8 Sept 03", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]